Forgotten battles : Italy's war of liberation, 1943-1945 /

This vigorously argued and impressively researched study focuses on the part played by regular Italian armed forces in the Allied campaign to liberate Italy from German and Fascist control during the final 18 months of WW II. O'Reilly, a wartime interpreter among the Italian POWs in the US who volunteered as rear echelon "co-operators" for the Allies (e.g., training pack mule companies to help supply combat units), tellingly critiques the Anglo-American failure to mobilize more of these former enemy troops to fight the Axis occupiers of their country. The author demonstrates that the 90,000 Italian royal soldiers, sailors, and airmen who did actively serve in frontline formations along with tens of thousands of others among the Partisans, and another half-million or so in various support roles, appreciably contributed to victory with fewer casualties in Italy. But their participation did not shorten the campaign as he implies. However, like James Sadkovich and a few other recent scholars, O'Reilly makes a compelling case for greater empathy among English-speaking audiences for Italy's military performance and wider knowledge of its extensive historiography. The text, alas, contains too many typographical and grammatical slips. General and academic collections. L. D. Stokes emerita, Dalhousie University