Engineers Of Victory By F. Kennedy: Chapter Analysis
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The focal points throughout the book “Engineers of Victory” is to show the issues that had been faced by the Allied and Axis power. Kennedy focuses mainly on the period of 1943 to 1944 because these years would come to be a pivotal turning point for the Allies. He then breaks down these issues and illustrates the strategies that were used and perhaps modified in response to unsuccessfulness. The vague thesis suggests that the cause of success of the Second World War can be attributed to the profound inventions of certain officers and allied members. The main topics examined included: How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic, How to Win Command of the Air, How to Stop a Blitzkrieg, How to Seize an Enemy-Held Shore, and How to Defeat the “Tyranny of Distance” (Kennedy, 2013). Kennedy relates each one of these chapters to the technological, tactical and intelligent elements used to gain victory over the Axis powers.
The author has treated each chapter in a chronological matter. Kennedy begins the topic of each chapter with its standing at the beginning of year 1943 and chronologically maps its progress up until 1944.
The first chapter details the Allies effort to clear the North Atlantic of German submarines. At the time of the Casablanca conference in January 1943, the Germans had been more successful at sinking allied merchant boats than…show more content… These factors included devices such as mine detectors, anti-tank mines, and the skillfully engineered pontoon bridges. In this chapter it states that by the end of the war the Allies had 184 engineering battalions and 68 bridge building battalions. A great feat for the allies was their ability to quickly and steadily traverse across land and even water. They were able to construct a bridge across the Volga which at some points can reach up to a mile wide. This was recorded to have taken 3-5 hours which is an astonishing amount of