Whitlock, Flint. The Rock of Anzio: From Sicily to Dachau: A History of the 45th Infantry Division. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998

ISBN 0-8133-3399-7
479 pages

Acknowledgments; Introduction; photos; maps; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Flint Whitlock's new book is simultaneously promising, frustrating, disappointing, and partly redeeming.

Promising because Whitlock sets out to tell the story of the US 45th Infantry Division from its days as a pre-war National Guard unit all the way to its return to the States following a long, bloody, and victorious path across Sicily, up the leg of Italy from Salerno, at Anzio, in France, and through Germany to Dachau and Munich. This he attempts to do partly through his own narrative but also in large measure by quoting the simple, direct words gained in interviews with dozens of aging Thunderbird Division veterans.

Frustrating because too often those stories lend a disjointedness to the book, almost as though the author felt compelled to use all his hard-won quotes even when they added little information and failed to fit neatly into his flow of paragraphs. Similarly, too often the quotes lapse into hearsay along the lines of "I heard that some other guys...", "Later we got the word what happened was...", "My buddy told me he saw...". When Whitlock fails to clarify or confirm these kinds of secondhand reports, the book suffers accordingly.

Disappointing because Whitlock's own narrative tends toward hyperbole and sensationalism with "withering fire", "hot lead flying", and "blood flowing" at every turn. For much of the book he simply fails to exhibit a strong sense of craftsmanship, and his pop-flavored, unsophisticated writing tends to settle into the easy cliches and generalities of pulp magazines. He writes much but reveals little.

Partly redeeming because the weakest work comes in roughly the first third of the book when the 45th is training and then fighting in Sicily, at Salerno, and northward toward Cassino. The writing improves for the lengthy section on Anzio, both in terms of Whitlock's narrative and the veterans who contribute their voices. Even so, this remains very much rooted in the "bayonet-clenched-in-his-teeth" school of military writing.

The Rock of Anzio, despite the voices of the 45th's veterans, doesn't convey the same sense of authentic, serving-in-the-unit flavor as, for example, when Greg Urwin in Facing Fearful Odds writes about what fighting men have told him. Nor does it achieve the same level of astute academic analysis and insight as John Sloan Brown's Draftee Division. And it doesn't offer the same level of broad operational and strategic comprehension as Carlo D'Este's Bitter Victory and Fatal Decision.

Nevertheless, Whitlock offers enough mud, blood, sweat, and machine gun fire to satisfy readers who seek a view of war from a front-line foxhole. Whitlock's descriptions and those of the vets make for page after page of dramatic men-under-fire vignettes illustrating the suffering and sacrifices of the Thunderbirds of the 45th Division.

The reality consists of scenes of soldiers battling each other with knives, bayonets, entrenching tools, and bare hands; thirst-crazed soldiers drinking from streams flowing red with blood; men roasting to death in burning tanks; pigs devouring corpses; soldiers being torn to pieces or decapitated by the bursting of shells, leaving no earthly trace that they had ever existed. In the hell of Anzio, grizzled veterans and frightened teenagers -- each one someone's son, father, husband, lover, brother, nephew, or uncle -- died together, their torn bodies intermingled in death and mixed with the mud churned up by unceasing artillery duels, or crushed flat and beyond recognition by armored vehicles.

Not the strongest book reviewed here this year, but The Rock of Anzio is probably finding success among fans of the withering fire and hot lead genre.

Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Westview.

Thanks to Westview for providing this review copy.