This book is #144 in their "Elite" series. As you know, the Allies had to use external assault as a method to regain much of the lost territory in Europe and the Mediterranean. This is something the Axis powers never really had to use as all of their territorial gains were from within Europe or North Africa. The Amphibious assault was pretty much a US/British thing in the west.

Now this wasn't something for which pre-war armies had trained and much of what was learned was done through actual assault. Sure, there was some practice done beforehand, but the need for amphibious assaults in the Med in particular was sooner than later.

Several things impeded these initial assaults, the biggest being that the Army and Navy really didn't get along that well. Each had their ideas of how things should be done and they didn't always mesh well. Though smoothed out in the coming years, the differences never really went away. Not at all like in the Pacific where such operations were pretty much a Navy show.

The author has written several books on the subject of assault operations during WWII and so is able to bring his research to this book.

It is divided into several sections: Amphibious Doctrine, Amphibious Forces, Landing Forces, Landing ships and craft, Command, control and Organization and finally, a section that looks at specific landings (though not Normandy as there have already been several books on that specific subject). These sections are filled with superb period photos and further enhanced by the excellent drawings of Peter Dennis

I have to tell you that I found a lot of new information in this book. It also showed me that an amphibious assault took a great deal of planning and coordination to pull off, so it is pretty amazing that they all worked out. It is a book that I know you'll enjoy and recommend it without hesitation.

December 2006

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