How to Lose WWII: Bad Mistakes of the Good War - Paperback

by Bill Fawcett (Author)

How to Lose WWII is an engrossing, fact-filled collection from Bill Fawcett that sheds light on the biggest, and dumbest, screw-ups of the Great War. In the vein of his other phenomenal compendiums of amazing battlefield blunders, How to Lose a Battle and How to Lose a War, Fawcett focuses on some amazing catastrophic missteps of Axis and Allies alike.

This compelling history of the WWII European Theater uncovers the pivotal blunders that shaped the conflict:

• Hitler's Blunders: From the inexplicable halt order at Dunkirk to declaring war on the United States, discover the series of miscalculations that doomed the Third Reich.
• Allied Errors: Learn why American troops were nearly annihilated at Kasserine Pass and how intelligence failures led to the shocking surprise of the Battle of the Bulge.
• Costly Campaigns: Uncover the stories behind disastrous operations, including the Battle of Britain's shifting strategy and the bloody, unnecessary fight for the Huertgen Forest.
• Technological Missteps: Examine how Germany's revolutionary Me-262 jet fighter was squandered and how the Luftwaffe's pilot training program collapsed under pressure.

Front Jacket

An engrossing and fact-filled collection of the great screwups of the Great War

Never had there been a war on the scale of World War II--a global conflict so widespread and involving so many different military organizations from such a diverse pool of combatant countries that the consequences of every decision, both the brilliant and the bad, were multiplied one hundredfold. Bill Fawcett, popular chronicler of monumental military mistakes and truly boneheaded battlefield blunders now looks closely at the historic errors that ultimately determined the course of post-WWII history.

A cornucopia of catastrophic missteps, including:

• An unprepared Poland is caught napping as the Nazis storm in virtually unopposed
• Germany misses a golden opportunity to take Britain out of the war at Dunkirk
• Russia plays Goliath to Finland's David
• Four valuable months are wasted as Allied forces sit trapped on the beaches of Anzio
• Germany squanders its costly development of jet power
• The secret 1942 battle Marshal Zhukov lost, along with half a million soldiers
• Battles lost that should have been won, including Moscow, Stalingrad, and D-Day

Back Jacket

An engrossing and fact-filled collection of the great screwups of the Great War

Never had there been a war on the scale of World War II--a global conflict so widespread and involving so many different military organizations from such a diverse pool of combatant countries that the consequences of every decision, both the brilliant and the bad, were multiplied one hundredfold. Bill Fawcett, popular chronicler of monumental military mistakes and truly boneheaded battlefield blunders now looks closely at the historic errors that ultimately determined the course of post-WWII history.

A cornucopia of catastrophic missteps, including:

• An unprepared Poland is caught napping as the Nazis storm in virtually unopposed
• Germany misses a golden opportunity to take Britain out of the war at Dunkirk
• Russia plays Goliath to Finland's David
• Four valuable months are wasted as Allied forces sit trapped on the beaches of Anzio
• Germany squanders its costly development of jet power
• The secret 1942 battle Marshal Zhukov lost, along with half a million soldiers
• Battles lost that should have been won, including Moscow, Stalingrad, and D-Day