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North Africa & World War II
With Rick Atkinson
Author
Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2002; 2 p.m. ET

In "An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943," the first volume of his "Liberation Trilogy," author Rick Atkinson delves in detail into the intense fighting in that region to show how the conflicts affected the war in Europe, the generals who fought them and the everyday soldiers' view of the enemy.

Atkinson was online to discuss his book, the battles in North Africa during World War II and the great leaders who emerged from them.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Rick Atkinson: Hi, friends and readers. This is Rick Atkinson. I very much appreciate your interest in AN ARMY AT DAWN, and I'm looking forward to our conversation this afternoon.

Lyme, Ct.: World War II veterans are getting old, and their stories are being lost. Are there places that are collecting and accepting the remembrances of these veterans?

Rick Atkinson: Yes, that's a good question and it's an important issue. The U.S. Army's Military History Institute, which is located at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA, has been gathering thousands of individual reminiscences from World War II veterans for more than a decade now. The other services, as well as the Library of Congress, have similar programs, though not as ambitious.

Harrisburg, Pa.: Are there lessons from fighting in North Africa in World War II that should be noted in preparing to fight in Iraq today?

Rick Atkinson: I think there are a number of lessons germaine to both today's military and to today's confrontation with Iraq. President Roosevelt's most important ambition a year after Pearl Harbor was to maintain the best coalition possible, because he recognized that in modern war, the best "team" wins. In his private New Year's Eve toast at the White House on Dec. 31, 1942, Roosevelt lifted a glass of champagne first "to the United States of America," and then to "the united nations," meaning the 26 countries that then comprised the Allies.

Alexandria, Va.: I have a question about your book about a West Point class from the 1960s, "The Long Gray Line." It seems to me that you gave most of your coverage to graduates who left the military after only a few years. Don't you think it would have been more appropriate to have at least half the graduates you dealt with in detail have been those who made the service a career, rather than those who were strictly speaking by West Point standards, "failures?"

Rick Atkinson: Well, there were three main characters in THE LONG GRAY LINE, two of whom got out of the Army after their five-year obligation had expired and one, George Crocker, who stayed in until retiring at the rank of lieutenant general. Certainly West Point would not define those who got out of the Army as having failed. The academy's avowed mission is to develop leaders of character for the nation, and it has long been recognized that leaders of character can serve both in uniform and out of uniform. Thanks for the question.

Laurel, Md.: The Russians held it against the Western powers that there was no significant "second front" from 1941 until D-Day, because they did not think the North African campaign was a serious one.

Did the African campaign draw off significant Axis military resources that otherwise could have conquered Russia? Did the Allies seriously believe the campaign could lead to a southern invasion of Europe before Italy's defection?

Rick Atkinson: You're right that Stalin resented the absence of a serious second front at a time when he was fighting scores and scores of German divisions. The invasion of North Africa ended up drawing substantial German aircraft assets into the Mediterranean from the Eastern Front, but not significant ground forces. When the Americans and British went into North Africa, they didn't really know where it would lead; not until the Casablanca conference, in Jan. 1943, did they agree to take the next, small step, by invading Sicily once the Tunisian campaign was over. The British were always more optimistic than the Americans that operations in the Mediterranean would open up a meaningful avenue into the heart of the German Fatherland. George Marshall and most other American commanders believed that a cross-Channel attack aimed at Berlin was imperative....

Wheaton, Md.: In North Africa, were the local Arabs supportive of the Allies or were they pro-Nazi?

Rick Atkinson: The Arabs tended to be pro-German because they saw Berlin as offering them opportunities for self-rule that certainly were not forthcoming from the French, who of course controlled Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The Germans made the most of this Arab inclination by redistributing some land and other property in Tunisia, and by suggesting that the Allies were pro-Zionist. The American and British antipathy toward the Arabs grew quite serious in 1942-1943, and there were a number of isolated cases of harsh and even repulsive treatment of the Arabs. Allied soldiers also came to think of the Arabs as being thieves, because there was a great deal of pilfering during the campaign.

Herndon, Va.: Could you tell us how General Patton ended up getting the command in North Africa that "made" him as a combat leader?

Rick Atkinson: George Patton commanded the task force that invaded Morocco on November 8, 1942, after sailing from Norfolk and other ports in the eastern United States. [In my book, AN ARMY AT DAWN, there are a sequence of scenes in which we see Patton secretly meeting President Roosevelt at the White House before the convoy sails, and then we see him at the gathering of the ships at Hampton Roads.] Patton remained in Morocco as the putative viceroy until March 1943 when the senior American ground forces commander, Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall was relieved following the debacle at Kasserine Pass, when American troops were knocked back 80 miles and suffered 7,500 casualties at the hands of Generals Rommel and von Arnim. Patton was then summoned by Eisenhower to command that American II Corps, which he did for about 45 days before returning to the planning for Operation HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily. His successor in Tunisia was another up-and-comer named Omar Bradley.

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.: What are your thoughts on the movie Patton? Were the N. Africa segments accurate?

Rick Atkinson: It's a wonderful movie in terms of projecting a larger-than-life character who is among the most compelling figures in American military history. But Patton's tenure as the senior American ground commander in Tunisia in 1943 is actually pretty checkered. He had one significant success--the defeat of the German 10th Panzer Division at El Guettar--but a series of deadlocks and disappointments. He certainly left Tunisia with his thirst for glory unslaked. The early scenes in the movie, in which Patton is surveying a battlefield littered with dead Americans, is not historically accurate; I also must say that the complexities of Patton's command and the chinks in his character, including his willingness to falsify body counts and his atrocious treatment of some of his senior subordinates, doesn't come through very well.

Vienna, Va.: My reading of WWII started with Allied operations in Sicily and forward, a generally successful story. I understand, however, that the U.S. Army was not fully prepared for combat in North Africa and the experience and Kasserine Pass was a disaster. Was it a disaster and what changes did the Army make in response to it? Who was in command at Kasserine, and were they removed?

Rick Atkinson: Kasserine Pass was certainly a disaster--it's hard to be driven back 80 miles, more than the subsequent repulse at the Bulge in the winter of 1944-1945--and suffer more than 7,000 casualties without considering it a very serious setback. However, it quickly became apparent that the sequence of Kasserine Pass battles, which began at Sidi bou Zid on Feb. 14, 1943 and ended at Thala, near the Algerian border, 11 days later, was a tactical rather than a strategic defeat. The Germans lacked the muscle to carry out Rommel's ambition, which was to demolish the huge logistics base at Tebessa and/or encircle the Allied army completely by driving north to the Mediterranean; they also lacked the muscle to hold the ground he had seized, and within a couple weeks the battle lines were pretty much back to where they had been before February 14.
There were a number of changes made in the Allied ranks after Kasserine Pass, most notably the senior American ground commander, Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall, who was sent home (with a promotion) and Eisenhower's British intelligence officer, Brigadier Mockler-Ferryman, who was also sent home. Patton replaced Fredendall, and another British brigadier, Strong, replaced Mockler-Ferryman.

Somewhere, USA: Thank you for coming online. What do you hope to accomplish with your "Liberation Trilogy" that other World War II histories do not?

Rick Atkinson: First, I think every 21st century historian owes an incalculable debt to those of the 20th century, and I gratefully acknowledge mine. I hope to accomplish a number of things: first, I believe that most Americans fundamentally consider World War II in Europe to consist of Normandy and the subsequent 11 months leading to V-E Day. But I believe you can't understand what happened on June 6, 1944 and beyond without understanding what came earlier. Those armies that came ashore at Normandy had a cumulative history, as did the men who filled the ranks and command positions of those armies, and it started in North Africa.
Second, I think the liberation of Europe is such a sweeping story, of such grandeur, that it deserves the lyrical treatment and big canvas that Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton brought to the Civil War with their trilogies. I wish I had their talent, but I'm doing my best to make this history into the astonishing saga that it is.
John Updike once observed that World War Ii was the 20th century's central myth, "a vast imagining of a primal time when good and evil contended for the planet, a tale of Troy whose angles are infinite and whose central figures never fail to amaze us with their size, their theatricality, their sweep." That's well said....

Brooklyn, N.Y.: Could your further describe Patton's personality, temperament? What did you think of George C. Scott's portrayal in the movie. What's your theory as to the circumstances of his death? Thanks.

Rick Atkinson: I think he died in a freak car accident, and that there was nothing more to it than that. It has always been hard for some people to accept that such a prosaic death could befall this very flamboyant man, and Patton himself would have been appalled at such an unheroic demise.....As for his temperament: he was a paradox and will always remain one, a great tangle of calculated mannerisms and raw, uncalculated emotion. He was well-rad, fluent in French, and the wealthy child of privilege. he could also be crude, rude and plain foolish. He had reduced his extensive study of history and military art to a five-word manifesto: "violent attacks everywhere with everything." His name by 1945 would evoke the dash and brio of a cavalry charge. The New York Times obituary observed: "He was not a man of peace." True enough....There's a scene in AN ARMY AT DAWN in which, at Maknassy in Tunisia, when an attack is going badly, he responds to news that no American officers were killed on one particular day by ordering a division commander to get more officers killed because it was inspiring to the enlisted men. He then ordered that division commander, Orlando Ward, to personally lead the attack himself, which he did, with a carbine. The attack failed, Ward was slightly wounded, and was subsequently releived of command....Patton was a hard task master.

Virginia: Which is harder, writing or getting it published?

Rick Atkinson: Ha! Well, if you've had the good fortune to write a book or two that have done well--my earlier books are THE LONG GRAY LINE, a narrative history of the West Point class of 1966, and CRUSADE, a history of the Persian Gulf War--then getting published is relatively easy. Getting that first book published in 1989 wasn't too difficult because I had a good idea. So I'd have to say that writing, which is the hardest work I've ever done simply because it's so consuming, is the harder task. Interesting question...

Washington, D.C.: "The Rommel Papers" was most fascinating. What role did the Desert Fox's personal correspondance play in your research?

Rick Atkinson: Yes, THE ROMMEL PAPERS are fascinating and I consulted them extensively in trying to figure out this very complex man. When he comes onto the stage in our story, in January 1943, he is very nearly a broken man, having slugged it out with the British for the better part of two years across North Africa and having retreated across the entire North African littoral following his defeat at El Alamein in Egypt in early November 1942. He rouses himself from the depression and physical ills plaguing him for a final African adventure by attacking the Americans in the battles of Kasserine Pass.....One of the things I found most interesting was to compare Rommel's letters to his young son, Manfred, who later becames mayor of Stuttgart, to Eisenhower's letters to his son, John, who was then a cadet at West Point. There's a sequence in AN ARMY AT DAWN in which the two fathers are writing at virtually the same moment to their sons, and you learn a lot about the two of them and their respective plights.

Long Beach, Calif.: How would you describe the behavior of the French in North Africa during WWII?

Rick Atkinson: I think the French in North Africa were caught in a horrible moral dilemma. For those who don't know, when the Germans conquered France in 1940, Hitler devised a clever armistice under which the French retained control of the bottom one-third of the country, with a new capital at the spa town of Vichy; they also retained control over their colonies, including North Africa, with the proviso that they would repel any invaders, particularly the British. Two million French soldiers were taken to German prison camps to seal the deal. Most French military officers swore an oath of allegiance to the Vichy commander, the World War I hero, Marshal Philippe Petain, and that oath bound them at the time of the Operation TORCH invasion of North AFrica by the British and Americans on November 8, 1942. Some Frenchmen, notably an obscure brigadier general named Charles de Gaulle, refused to truck with the Germans, and took refuge in exile--London in de Gaulle's case, where, with extensive British support, he urged all Frenchmen everywhere to resist.
Having said all that, it sticks in my craw that hundreds of American and British soldiers were killed and wounded by the French during three days of bloody fighting in November 1942, while not a single German soldier suffered a scratch after Hitler sent his troops into Tunisia to counter the Allied landings. The moral dilemma for Frenchmen was very real, but few rose to show a greatness of soul in this anguished chapter of French history.
As a postscript, it's important to remember that the French--eventually correcting their moral derangement--became an important military and political partner of the Allies, and fought gallantly in Italy and western Europe.

Virginia: What's your next project?

Rick Atkinson: Ahh, well, I'm fully engaged at this point in researching volume two of the Liberation Trilogy. Volume one, AN ARMY AT DAWN, ends with the Allied victory parade through the streets of Tunis on May 20, 1943. Volume two will begin on the eve of the invasion of Sicily, which occurred July 10, 1943, and carry through the capture of Rome, on June 4, 1944. This book will be published three or four years from now, and I've been researching it full time for about six months; it's as wonderful a story, and as heartbreaking, as that told in AN ARMY AT DAWN. The third and final volume, to be published in my dotage no doubt, will begin on the eve of Normandy in June 1944 and carry through the fall of Berlin.

Suitland, Md.: How was the relationship between Montgomery and Patton? Were their temperments so similar that they found it difficult to co-exist as allies?

Rick Atkinson: Montgomery, who was a very difficult man to like and was probably most controversial among his British peers, held a commanders' conference after his victory at El Alamein to discuss lessons learned. Patton was the only senior American commander to show up (Montgomery was miffed, but in fairness many of the others were occupied with the German offensive at Kasserine Pass.) The two men got along okay in that encounter, but their rivalry grew intense in Sicily, where they were the senior ground commanders of their respective national forces. Their temperaments weren't really that similar in the sense that Montgomery was a teetotaling fussbudget, who would open a conference by prohibiting not only smoking but also coughing. Patton was a profane, occasionally bibulous extrovert. They were both very egocentric, and in this similiarity there was certainly trouble.

Rick Atkinson: Friends, I again appreciate your interest and your excellent questions. If you have a chance, take a look at anarmyatdawn.com or liberationtrilogy.com. There's a fascinating interactive map and a great deal of other information about the campaign in North Africa and AN ARMY AT DAWN. Thanks again.
Rick Atkinson

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