No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II-Jeff Shaara

No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II
Jeff Shaara
Ballantine, Jun 1 2010, $16.00
ISBN: 9780345497932

With the great success of the Normandy invasion, Allied Commanders all the way up to Five Star General Eisenhower feels strongly that the European theatre of Operation would soon be over. The German army battered is in full retreat.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt knows the war is over unless they can somehow turn around the blitzkrieg allies who are racing across France into Germany from the west and the Russians from the east. He decides to draw the last line in the icy mountainous Ardennes where he plans to isolate the Americans and from there seize Antwerp. If this Hail Mary desperation fails, the Field Marshal knows it is a short matter of time before Berlin goes Russian as the Eastern front is collapsing also.

This is a terrific action-packed WWII fictional account of the end of the European part of the war starting with the last German counteroffensive at the Battle of the Bulge; for the earlier parts of the war see The Steel Wave and The Rising Tide. Ironically real life persona like Ike never comes across as breathing especially in his case since the audience never learns how he felt knowing he sent so many to die at D Day and more to follow in the Ardennes even with a just cause. Military fiction readers will enjoy the fall of the Third Reich, but this tale is limited mostly to the western front as if the Russians were not coming.

Harriet Klausner