Lightning War: Blitzkrieg in the West, 1940

This is an excellent book - extremely well researched and well written. I have read numerous books covering this aspect of World War 2 but in this I found a great deal of new information. Well done.

I'm only just getting into WWII History so don't have too many other books to compare this one by, but from the moment I picked up this book I couldn't put it down. It kept me hooked all the way through. The Author makes it very clear as to the reasons why France's defense failed - for example the reserve forces being sent to Belgium and the French High Command refusing to believe the attack would come through the Ardennes. The first part of the battle where the 70 or so German gliders took a Fortress of over 700 soldiers was unbelievable as was the story of when during the Meuse crossing, after several boats were shot up, one team managed to get across and silence the opposing French guns all on their own. I've given it five stars, but have one small complaint. You follow the story of the Panzer divisions all the way through the book until you get to the (excellently written) chapter on the Dunkirk evacuation and then Hitler gives the halt demand. After the Dunkirk section you get a very small section on the Germans breaking through the Somme forces and taking Paris. A further chapter after Dunkirk describing the Luftwaffe and Panzer assault on the Somme forces and then onto Paris in more detail would have been the icing on the cake. Furthermore a quick section on how life changed after the occupation for Parisians would have been nice. [...]

"Lightning War" by Ronald E. Powaski. Sub-titled:" Blitzkrieg In The West, 1940" John Wiley & Sons, 2003. The author, Ronald E. Powaski, has produced a 388 paged book, rich in details about the May 1940 invasion of western countries by the Third Reich. He covers the usual facts: e.g. the adoption of the Schlieffen Plan, the delay of the actual invasion until May 10 1940, and the rapid disintegration of the allied forces. France surrendered in June 1940. All of these historical facts are well enough known, but Powaski provides more details than most books about this period. For example, he describes in detail the two German officers who crashed their aircraft in Belgium (at the time, 1939, neutral) while they were carrying the German plans for the invasion through Belgium. This, of course, resulted in the need to change the invasion plans which, in turn, evolved into the genesis of the Schlieffen plan. Besides describing and naming the German officers (details missed in most history books), the author also tells us that the two men spent the entire war in a POW camp in Canada. Interesting. But, more ironically, as punishment for the incident, their wives were also imprisoned inside the Third Reich. Duplicity of Churchill: I found, in my humble opinion, that the author tends to emphasize the duplicity of the British Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill, during the time when the allied forces were engaging the German enemy and just prior to the actual surrender of France. Powaski pictures Churchill as waving his right hand and promising RAF squadrons to aid the French , while with his left hand (behind his back), he is motioning the BEF Commanding General, Lord John Gort, to get the British troops down to the sea and across the channel back home. Of course, after the German break through, evacuation at Dunkirk was all that was left to save the bulk of the British army. The chapter on the evacuation of the troops (Chapter Nine, "Operation Dynamo"), is one of the more interesting chapters in the book. Powaski records that many French soldiers were evacuated along with the British. When the French soldiers landed in England, they were immediately loaded on trains and sent to other ports (e.g. Plymouth) to be shipped back to France. These French troops arrived back in France in time for the defeat and in time to surrender to the Germans. This is an interesting detail you will not find in general history books. All in all, I found this to be a well written book.

This is a very solid book on the May 1940 German invasion of Belgium, Holland, and France and the subsequent Allied evacuation of troops from Dunkirk. The casual reader (I'm including myself, here) may be a bit put off by the first half of the book, which details the German thrust through the Ardennes forest into Belgium. I found this section to be overly technical, with the chessboard maneuverings of troops on both sides gone into in great detail. It also didn't help that the maps are few and far between, and are too general. For all the detail that the author goes into he really needed more maps, with each one covering a smaller area. (The maps were not created for this book, by the way. They are all borrowed from William Shirer's "Collapse Of The Third Republic.") So, that's on the downside. But here's the good news: the book really picks up in the second half, with a much better balance of technical description with human interest. I don't think you will find a better-written account of the Dunkirk evacuation, with many first-person accounts of the action- and the behind the scenes political action in London, Paris, and Brussels, as well. The author is very even-handed in his account and, in my opinion, he draws the proper conclusions from the evidence presented. The British intentionally delayed, almost to the last moment, telling the French that the retreat to Dunkirk was only the prelude to the British intention of evacuating all troops from the Continent. They wanted the French to fight on to "cover" the evacuation, so the French were allowed to believe that Dunkirk was going to be turned into a gathering point from which to launch a counterattack. British claims that the French soldiers "threw in the towel" were erroneous. The author shows that the common soldiers fought well and bravely. They were let down by the political and military leadership. The officer corps was too old and stuck in the past. They were still thinking in terms of WWI, with tanks in support of infantry. They didn't understand mechanized warfare. If they did, they would have realized that the Ardennes forest was definitely a possible invasion route, and they wouldn't have diverted so many men and so much equipment to the North. The Germans concentrated their tank forces for maximum effectiveness. The French and Belgians spread their tanks out and used them piecemeal. The Germans also used air support, which the French and Belgians didn't. The German commanders were right at the front, and were allowed to think independently and show initiative. Allied commanders were expected to stick to the "game plan" devised by generals who stayed back from the front- and who, therefore, didn't know what was going on. The lessons from the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland were there for all to see- but the lessons weren't learned. The evacuation from Dunkirk, however, was a remarkable achievement. It is ironic that Hitler, who was bold enough to approve the thrust through the Ardennes

Ronald Powaski is my grandfather. He writes very great books. Him and my grandmother went to many countries to do research for this book. I love how he tells the story through the eyes of generals, politicians and servicemen who witnessed and forever shaped history. Great book. Read it!!