Rating: 
Summary: The Bitter Opinion
Review: COL Eisenhower initially wrote this book to be an analysis of American commanders in a moment of crisis. However, in writing the book, COL Eisenhower gradually changed the book from the analysis of leadership to that of telling the story of the Battle of the Bulge.
The book opens by telling the background of the players and the events leading up to the battle. COL Eisenhower brought up some interesting items (like how poor the US Intelligence arm was during the 1930's) and his opinion on some of the leaders. Unfortunately, while I consider his opinion to be a valid opinion, I found it very prejudice against different leaders, particularly General's Eisenhower (he found no fault with Ike's leadership or handling of the Bulge situation), Bradley (I felt his opinion of Bradley was that of a loyal lap dog), Hodges (very complementary toward him, seemed to feel he was the best Army level general we had), and Patton (his comments about Patton being a weak leader when dealing with a static situation was very interesting). COL Eisenhower follows this with a very good breakdown of what Hitler and his generals did to prepare for the upcoming battle.
COL Eisenhower then told the story of the battle. This was done different that most books I've read on the subject. Initially, he described the entire situation along the front, with the different breakthrough attempts by the Germans (a traditional telling shall we say), working north to south. Unfortunately, the subsequent chapters didn't follow the traditional tell what happened on that day. Instead, focused on telling one situation and how the leaders handled the situation. While good for an analysis of leadership, it makes for telling story of the battle a little harder on the reader (ok, it's December 21st, St. Vith is crumbling, what's the situation down south...). Something that I was very interested in, was how COL Eisenhower felt sorry for General Jones (commander of the 106th ID). This is something that I've never really seen before from other writers on this subject.
Part of the books description says that the book looks at leadership at all levels during the battle. This was something that I felt was done weakly at the lower-to-mid levels (squad to battalion). While COL Eisenhower does describe some of the actions different battlefield leaders made, most of the focus is on the higher leadership. I conceder this to be a weakness in the book.
Rating wise, this has been very difficult. Some parts of the book are very good and thought provoking, while others just lay there. On an Amazon rating of 1-5 stars, I have to give it 3 stars, mainly because it failed it's initial mission (providing a meaningful analysis of American leadership during a crisis) and it's secondary role (telling the story of the Battle of the Bulge) isn't as strong as other books on the subject (Battle by John Toland for example).
Rating: 
Summary: VERY DETAILED ACCOUNT OF BULGE
Review: Eisenhower has a way of bringing you right into the fight. He covers in great detail the extreme conditions the American GI faced in winter battle. I have read over 25 books on WWII and this is a good one. My one complaint is the book uses so much military jargon that it can be overwhelming for a non military person. He should at least explain in the beginning some of the military terms used. For example, how many men in a platoon, division, etc...(I have the same complaint about most WWII history books). Overall this is a good read for anyone interested in WWII.
Rating: 
Summary: Purchased a 2nd copy
Review: I first read this book in a hardcover used edition about 15 years ago and enjoyed it. I finally found this reprint edition several years ago and rediscovered this fine book.
Beginning with background information on the major participants in this battle from both sides and continuing on through the battle; both sides story is well represented. This book will give you a great understanding of this pivotal battle.
I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Very detailed
Review: I first read this book in a hardcover used edition about 15 years ago and enjoyed it. I finally found this reprint edition several years ago and rediscovered this fine book.
Beginning with background information on the major participants in this battle from both sides and continuing on through the battle; both sides story is well represented. This book will give you a great understanding of this pivotal battle.
I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Indeed the Woods were bitter
Review: I have read Col John Eisenhower's book and found it rather interesting. He seems to borrow some items from Toland and McDonald, but is rather factual in it's content and is a very well written book. As always most historians spend most of their ink writing about armies, Corps and divisions. The small units tend to fall through the cracks.
Rating:
Summary: Purchased a 2nd copy
Review: I have read this book several times and each time find something I missed the previous times. Both sides of the battle are fairly presented and the background prior to the battle is quite complete. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: People in glass houses should not throw stones.
Review: I haven't read this book, but I wanted to comment on the review placed by "A reader from USA" (below).Said person compains about this book's excessive misspelled words, then he (or she) proceeds to butcher the English language. For the record, the proper spellings you were grasping for are "sentences," "accuracy" and "extremely."
Rating:
Summary: A well written account of an interesting battle.
Review: I've read this book more times than I can count. To me, that's the highest praise I can give. Eisenhower (the author) writes as an historian ought to, with no axes to grind in describing Montgomery's actions, etc. His firsthand knowledge of Army ways and wherefores holds him in good stead: the reader is being shepherded through the material by one in the know who always provides a down-to-earth rational perspective. The story he tells stands on its own as, alternately, a mystery, an excellent character study of the participants (particularly the commanders), and an exciting tale of an event that represented, in my mind, the climatic event of World War II in the European Theater.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating account of Hitler's last gamble in the West....
Review: The Bitter Woods, historian John S. D. Eisenhower's insightful account of the Ardennes Counteroffensive in the winter of 1944, is one of the best books yet written about the Battle of the Bulge. Along with John Toland's 1959 classic Battle: The Story of the Bulge and the late Charles B. MacDonald's A Time for Trumpets, this volume is a must-read for World War II buffs. The Ardennes Counteroffensive was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler himself. Even as Soviet forces raced toward Berlin from the east and the Western Allies advanced steadily toward the Rhine in the west, the Fuhrer squirreled away hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces plus thousands of soldiers -- some of them either old men over the age of 50 or young boys no older than 16 -- and planned a daring stroke reminiscent of the Third Reich's triumphs in 1939 and 1940. Three entire armies would strike the Allies in the "quiet" Ardennes forest region of Belgium and Luxembourg and drive to the crucial port of Antwerp. Hitler hoped to drive a wedge between the Anglo-Canadian armies in the north and the American armies in the south and cause inter-Allied political strife. At the very least, the seizure of Antwerp would slow the Allied advance just enough so Nazi Germany could develop "wonder weapons" and rain V-1 and V-2 missiles on London and other Allied cities. At the very best, the Grand Alliance would fall apart and Hitler might be able to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. But even though Hitler's offensive caught the Allies by surprise on Dec. 16, 1944 and created much havoc and confusion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces, remained relatively calm. The Germans did penetrate the thinly held front and created a salient or "bulge" in the Allied lines, but Eisenhower and his field commanders (Bradley, Hodges, Patton and the various corps and divisional commanders) soon recovered and took decisive measures to contain the German assault. But generals and colonels, no matter how skilled or determined, can't win battles alone. The Bitter Woods contains many accounts of brave GIs and junior officers who fought tooth and nail to slow and stop Hitler's last desperate gamble in the West. Readers who are just beginning to read about World War II will be in awe of the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division who helped hold the surrounded city of Bastogne, whose capture by the Germans was deemed by Hitler as a principal objective if his plan were to succeed. (Bastogne is where Brig. Gen Tony McAuliffe replied to the Germans' demand for surrender with the pithy one-word refusal, "Nuts!") The author, who graduated from West Point in June 1944 and is the Supreme Commander's son, writes about the stand of St. Vith's defenders, the combat engineers who blew bridges in front of the advancing panzer units, the ill-advised massacre of American POWs at Baugnez (the misnamed Malmedy Massacre) by SS troops and the harrowing baptism by fire of the green 106th Infantry Division, which lost two of its regiments in the largest American surrender since Bataan in 1942. Eisenhower also writes extensively about the campaign in Northwest Europe both before and after the Battle of the Bulge, allowing both the new reader and long-time buff to place this, the largest single battle in U.S. Army history (there were, by January of 1945, over 600,000 soldiers involved), in the context of the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny. Because the book was originally written in 1969, five years before the revelation of the Ultra secret, the account of the Allies' intelligence failure is not as well-explained as in the 1985 book by Charles MacDonald, but aside from that, The Bitter Woods still stands as one of the finest "case studies" of a major battle of World War II.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating account of Hitler's last gamble in the West....
Review: The Bitter Woods, historian John S. D. Eisenhower's insightful account of the Ardennes Counteroffensive in the winter of 1944, is one of the best books yet written about the Battle of the Bulge. Along with John Toland's 1959 classic Battle: The Story of the Bulge and the late Charles B. MacDonald's A Time for Trumpets, this volume is a must-read for World War II buffs. The Ardennes Counteroffensive was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler himself. Even as Soviet forces raced toward Berlin from the east and the Western Allies advanced steadily toward the Rhine in the west, the Fuhrer squirreled away hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces plus thousands of soldiers -- some of them either old men over the age of 50 or young boys no older than 16 -- and planned a daring stroke reminiscent of the Third Reich's triumphs in 1939 and 1940. Three entire armies would strike the Allies in the "quiet" Ardennes forest region of Belgium and Luxembourg and drive to the crucial port of Antwerp. Hitler hoped to drive a wedge between the Anglo-Canadian armies in the north and the American armies in the south and cause inter-Allied political strife. At the very least, the seizure of Antwerp would slow the Allied advance just enough so Nazi Germany could develop "wonder weapons" and rain V-1 and V-2 missiles on London and other Allied cities. At the very best, the Grand Alliance would fall apart and Hitler might be able to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. But even though Hitler's offensive caught the Allies by surprise on Dec. 16, 1944 and created much havoc and confusion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces, remained relatively calm. The Germans did penetrate the thinly held front and created a salient or "bulge" in the Allied lines, but Eisenhower and his field commanders (Bradley, Hodges, Patton and the various corps and divisional commanders) soon recovered and took decisive measures to contain the German assault. But generals and colonels, no matter how skilled or determined, can't win battles alone. The Bitter Woods contains many accounts of brave GIs and junior officers who fought tooth and nail to slow and stop Hitler's last desperate gamble in the West. Readers who are just beginning to read about World War II will be in awe of the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division who helped hold the surrounded city of Bastogne, whose capture by the Germans was deemed by Hitler as a principal objective if his plan were to succeed. (Bastogne is where Brig. Gen Tony McAuliffe replied to the Germans' demand for surrender with the pithy one-word refusal, "Nuts!") The author, who graduated from West Point in June 1944 and is the Supreme Commander's son, writes about the stand of St. Vith's defenders, the combat engineers who blew bridges in front of the advancing panzer units, the ill-advised massacre of American POWs at Baugnez (the misnamed Malmedy Massacre) by SS troops and the harrowing baptism by fire of the green 106th Infantry Division, which lost two of its regiments in the largest American surrender since Bataan in 1942. Eisenhower also writes extensively about the campaign in Northwest Europe both before and after the Battle of the Bulge, allowing both the new reader and long-time buff to place this, the largest single battle in U.S. Army history (there were, by January of 1945, over 600,000 soldiers involved), in the context of the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny. Because the book was originally written in 1969, five years before the revelation of the Ultra secret, the account of the Allies' intelligence failure is not as well-explained as in the 1985 book by Charles MacDonald, but aside from that, The Bitter Woods still stands as one of the finest "case studies" of a major battle of World War II.
|
