DWD's Reviews

Originally published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 1998. Read by Cotter Smith. Duration: 4 hours, 20 minutes. Abridged. General Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (1890-1969) I don't know how many books historian Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) wrote about the D-Day Invasion, but they all a little different and they are all quite enjoyable to read. Ambrose is perhaps most famous for writing the history that inspired HBO's excellent  Band of Brothers , which was also based on the same theme. Ambrose had a gift for writing histories that were informative, entertaining and, at times, quite moving and this one was no exception. The focus was on the D-Day invasion, the immediate aftermath, the Battle of the Bulge and the final push into Germany. There is no discussion of how the war started and little of how it ended, but almost everyone who would read this book knows all of that anyway. The audiobook was read by Cotter Smith who did a nice job. I rate this audiobook 4 ...

George Patton (1885-1945) Published in November of 2015 by Blackstone Audio, Inc. Read by Robertson Dean Duration: 16 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged George Marshall (1880-1959) Winston Groom, forever associated with his iconic character Forrest Gump, has written an interesting and solid history of three equally iconic World War II generals: George Patton, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall.  Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) Groom's triple biography format works quite well as all three of these men's life stories were on parallel tracks once they entered World War I and they all knew one another and had worked with one another in one capacity or another through the years (the story of Patton and MacArthur meeting up and working together on the front lines of World War I is a great one). The histories of these men during peacetime only served to reinforce my impression that both of these men were eccentric, sometimes to the point of being bizarre - especiall...

Published in 2011 by Regnery History Regnery Publishing's newest imprint, Regnery History has found something new to tell about one of the most written-about parts of World War II: D-Day. You may ask yourself, what else can be said about D-Day that hasn't been said? We have had powerful, visceral movies like Saving Private Ryan , The Longest Day and Patton and the famed HBO series Band of Brothers . Article after article and book after book have been written about D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and the final days of Nazi Germany but somehow we have failed to have had a serious biography of one of the invasion's central planners and one of the men who engineered the entire campaign from the beaches of Normandy until the defeat of Germany: American 5 star general Omar Bradley. The problem with Omar Bradley and historians is that he is not Patton. Patton is brash, daring and iconic. Bradley did not chase headlines and did not wear fancy pistols. He was daring, but not a...

Gives a solid background on one of America's iconic generals There have been thousands of generals that have served in the United States Military. Very few officers ever get "name" recognition. Washington, Grant, Pershing, MacArthur, Eisenhower. Patton stands right there with them, unique in the group of generals that I named because he was the only one that was always a subordinate officer, meaning that he was never in charge of an entire theater of war. But, Patton inspires images of a general of action - impulsive, moving, always pushing, leading from the field. Modern tank warfare may have been perfected by Patton in the sense that he truly understood the need to coordinate air, naval, armor and GI's. He did more than understand it in theory - he actually did it on the ground in real life. Patton: The Pursuit of Destiny is an attempt to dig behind the image to find out a little about the real Patton - a romantic family man (also a philanderer), the little...