In 2007 Atkinson covered the Iraq War for The Washington Post.

‘With some 8 million in the Army and 16 million total in uniform in World War II, nearly every family in America had a “blood interest” in the military. That’s certainly not the case today. I think that changes the emotional dynamic between the country and its military’

What led you from journalism to military history?
I wrote The Long Gray Line almost exactly 20 years ago, so fairly early in my career, I already had a foot in both newspapers and books. And having experienced the pleasure of both, I eventually came to the conclusion that if I was able to make a living at writing long-form narrative nonfiction, that’s what I’d do, because I find it more gratifying.

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What was the genesis of the Liberation Trilogy?
I was an Army brat, born in Munich, and I grew up on Army posts at a time when World War II was still very much part of the landscape. My father had come into the Army in 1943 and was a career officer. And I was in Berlin for The Washington Post in the 1990s, and I was there for the endless succession of 50th anniversary commemorations of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge and the end of the war, and I think that rekindled my interest in the war.

World War II didn’t start on Omaha Beach, and I recognized at some point there was a triptych to American involvement in the liberation of Europe. The first panel was North Africa, the second was Sicily and Italy, and the third and final panel was the decisive campaign in Central Europe. I also realized the story of World War II is bottomless, and we’ll never run out of things to write about. So I started thinking about the trilogy concept in 1995 and working on it full-time in 1999.

Why the focus on Europe rather than the Pacific?
Part of the reason is that when I first started thinking about the project, I was in Europe, and part of it is that you might say I’ve had a Europe orientation literally since birth. And I think the war in Europe just grabs my imagination in a different way. Plenty of people have done, and will continue to do, good books about the Pacific Theater, but the European Theater works for me in terms of finding the narrative, and the lyricism that comes from exploring a topic that really works on your imagination on a variety of levels, and for me that’s Europe.

What struck you about North Africa and Italy?
The events that unfolded beginning with Operation Torch in North Africa in 1942 and Operation Husky in Sicily in 1943 inform what happened in Normandy and beyond. North Africa, Sicily and Italy were absolutely essential to the Army’s development as an institution and to the development of the individuals I write about. For example, Eisenhower wouldn’t have been Eisenhower had he not gone through North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Both he and the American Army needed those experiences. I strongly feel we can’t understand what happened from D-Day on if we don’t have a good grounding in the formative experiences that came before.

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