Book Review: The Flawed Genius of World War II

Lincoln Journal-Star

The 65th anniversary of D-Day was observed on June 6 in the compressed space between the Normandy beaches and the sprawling cemetery just behind them, crosses row on row. National leaders saluted the heroism and sacrifices of those who began the bloody effort to purge western Europe of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi evil.

But the combined U.S., British, French, Canadian and other units really did not "win" that war, starting on D-Day, as so many believe today, decades later.

Christopher Catherwood rightly ascribes the primary destruction of German armies to the Soviet Union.

Russia was a land that sustained 20 million deaths in beating back Hitler's quest, suffering something like 10 times the human losses of the Allies.

The historian author of this fascinating new book advances a most thoughtful argument: If Churchill had not refused to accept the strategy of U.S. General George Marshall to invade northern France in the spring of 1943 rather than June 1944, several million European lives that were forfeited might have been saved.

All that happened subsequently could have been quite different. The brave British prime minister was too much wedded to clinging to India in the early 1940s and to a Mediterranean campaign.

Hence, it was not until later did he slowly realize that the global political power permanently had shifted from London to Washington.

Given the complicated story of World War II, close reading of this valuable history seems a capital idea.

It's worth it.

Dick Herman is a retired Lincoln Journal Star editorial page editor.