War and Peace

FDR's Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943–1945

Nigel Hamilton

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780358299226
• eBook ISBN:
  9780544868540
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The "gripping and powerfully argued" final volume in the acclaimed 3-part biography of FDR at war—proving that he was the key strategist of WWII ( New York Times Book Review).
Nigel Hamilton's celebrated trilogy culminates with a story of triumph and tragedy. In the spring of 1944, FDR oversaw the historic success of the D-day landings he had championed, just as he was found to be mortally ill. Yet even in the face of his own mortality, Roosevelt was the architect of a victorious peace that he would not live to witness.
Using hitherto unpublished documents and interviews, Hamilton rewrites the famous account of World War II strategy given by Winston Churchill in his memoirs. Seventy-five years after the D-day landings we finally get to see, close-up and in dramatic detail, who was responsible for rescuing, and insisting upon, the great American-led invasion of France in June 1944, and why the invasion was led by Eisenhower.
As FDR's D-day triumph turns to personal tragedy, we watch the course of the disease, and how the dying president attempted—at Hawaii, Quebec, and Yalta—to prepare the United Nations for an American-backed postwar world order. Now we know: even on his deathbed, FDR was the war's great visionary.
"A first-class, lens-changing work." —James N. Mattis, former US secretary of defense

Index

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

Aegean strategy

Churchill’s, 20–27, 50, 59–60, 88, 105

as dead end, 59, 60, 90

Eisenhower refuses to assist, 58–59

FDR and, 41, 60

Leahy on, 59

threatens Normandy invasion, 103–4

air power

air crew casualties, 239

American air bases in Soviet Union, 436

and civilian morale, 162–63

German use of, 273

against Germany, 38–39, 162–63, 543n7

Iowa’s antiaircraft defense, 33–34

against Japan, 274, 307, 463, 478

Akamuhou, Bill, 325

Aleutians: FDR’s visit to, 327–29

Alexander, Sir Harold (general)

battlefield report from Italy, 28–29, 48, 509n4

and Battle of Anzio, 197, 198, 199

Churchill and capture of Rome, 195

Churchill’s admiration for, 51, 59

as Churchill’s stooge, 72

in Churchill’s Vienna strategy, 352–53, 355, 357

in Italian campaign, 352–53, 355, 356, 418, 509n3

and secret German offers to surrender, 481, 482

at Yalta Conference, 417

Allied Control Commission, 452

America First movement, 309–10, 377

Andaman Islands. See Burma

Antonov (Soviet general), 423, 424

Anzio, Battle of (1944)

casualties, 204

as catastrophe, 204–6

Churchill plans, 195–205, 271

diverts landing craft from Normandy invasion, 198–99, 202, 203

Goebbels reacts to, 234

Hitler reacts to, 231–32

launch date, 203, 204

Wehrmacht surprised by, 205

Argentia Conference (1941), 13–14, 505n2

Arnold, Henry “Hap” (general)

at Cairo Conference, 88, 92

concerns about morale, 239

and FDR’s global strategy, 56

and FDR’s Sicily visit, 165, 167

and FDR’s viewing of B-29 bomber, 204

health probl...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Maps
• Prologue
• Book One
• Going to See Stalin
• A Trip to the Mediterranean
• The Meeting Is On
• Maximum Secrecy
• Setting Sail
• Sheer Madness
• Churchill’s Improper Act
• Torpedo!
• A Pretty Serious Set-to
• Marshall: Commander in Chief Against Germany
• A Witches’ Brew
• Fullest Guidance
• On Board the Iowa
• In the Footsteps of Scipio and Hannibal
• Two Pieces in a Chess Game
• Stonewall Roosevelt
• Airy Visions
• The American Sphinx
• Churchill’s “Indictment”
• Showdown
• Triumph in Tehran
• A Vision of the Postwar World
• In the Russian Compound
• The Grand Debate
• A Real Scare
• Impasse
• Pricking Churchill’s Bubble
• War and Peace
• Who Will Command Overlord?
• A Commander for Overlord
• A Momentous Decision
• A Bad Telegram
• Perfidious Albion Redux
• In the Field with Eisenhower
• A Flap at Malta
• Homeward Bound!
• The Odyssey Is Over
• In Sickness and in Health
• Churchill’s Resurrection
• In the Pink at Hyde Park
• Sick
• Photos I
• Anzio
• The President’s Unpleasant Attitude
• Crimes Against Humanity
• Late Love
• In the Last Stages of Consumption
• D-day
• “This Attack Will Decide the War”
• Simplicity of Purpose
• The Hobcaw Barony
• A Dual-Purpose Plan
• D-day
• The Deciding Dice of War
• Architect of Victory
• To Be, or Not to Be
• Book Two
• The July Plot
• A Soldier of Mankind
• Missouri Compromise
• The July Plot
• Hawaii
• War in the Pacific
• Deus ex Machina
• Slow Torture
• In the Examination Room
• A Terrible Mistake
• Quebec
• A Redundant Conference
• The Complete Setting for a Novel
• Two Sick Men
• Churchill’s Imperial Wars
• A Stab in the Armpit
• The Morgenthau Plan
• Beyond the Dreams of Avarice
• The President Is Gaga
• Yalta
• Outward Bound
• Light of the President’s Fading Life
• Photos II
• Aboard the USS Quincy
• Hardly in This World
• “A Pretty Extraordinary Achievement”
• One Ultimate Goal
• In the Land of the Czars
• The Atom Bomb
• Riviera of Hades
• Russian Military Cooperation
• Making History
• A Silent President
• Kennan’s Warning
• A World Security Organization
• Poland
• Pulsus Alternans
• The Prime Minister Goes Ballistic
• The Yalta Communiqué
• The End of Hitler’s Dreams
• Warm Springs
• King Odysseus
• In the Well of Congress
• Appeasers Become Warmongers
• Mackenzie King’s Last Visit
• Operation Sunrise
• No More Barbarossas!
• The End
• Acknowledgments
• Photo Credits
• Notes
• Index
• Read More from Nigel Hamilton
• About the Author
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