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The author of The Battered Bastards of Bastogne does a “superb job of telling the history the 101st Airborne Division during Operation Market Garden” (Kepler’s Book Reviews). Hell’s Highway is a history, most of which has never before been written. It is adventure recorded by those who lived it and put into context by an author who was also there. It is human drama on an enormous scale, told through the personal stories of 612 contributors of written and oral accounts of the Screaming Eagles’ part in the attempt to liberate the Netherlands. Koskimaki is an expert in weaving together individual recollections to make a compelling and uniquely first-hand account of the bravery and deprivations suffered by the troops, and their hopes, fears, triumphs, and tragedies, as well as those of Dutch civilians caught up in the action. There have been many books published on Operation Market Garden and there will surely be more. This book, however, gets to the heart of the action. The “big picture,” which most histories paint, here is just the context for the real history on the ground.
A member of the 101st Airborne’s Glider Infantry recalls WWII, from the horror of D-Day to the despair of Nazi captivity, in this compelling memoir. As World War II broke out, Robert Bowen was drafted into Company C, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Soon afterwards, he found himself storming Utah Beach amid the chaos of D-Day, through unfamiliar terrain littered with minefields and hidden snipers. Bowen was wounded during the Normandy campaign but went on to fight in Holland and the Ardennes, where he was captured. That’s when his “trip through hell” truly began. In each of Bowen’s campaigns, the 101st “Screaming Eagles” spearheaded the Allied effort against the Nazi occupation of Europe. At Bastogne, they stood nearly alone against the onslaught of enemy panzers and grenadiers. His insights into life behind enemy lines after his capture provide as much fascination as his exploits on the battlefield. Written shortly after the war, Bowen’s narrative is immediate and compelling. An introduction by the world’s foremost historian of the 101st Airborne, George Koskimaki, further enhances this classic work.
A collection of eyewitness accounts of the Normandy landings that “gives you the [feeling] that you are there during the frenzied first hours of the invasion” (Kepler’s Military History Book Reviews). Many professional historians have recorded the actions of D-Day but here is an account of the airborne actions as described by the actual men themselves, in eyewitness detail. Participants range from division command personnel to regimental, battalion, company, and battery commanders, to chaplains, surgeons, enlisted medics, platoon sergeants, squad leaders and the rough, tough troopers who adapted quickly to fighting in mixed, unfamiliar groups after a badly scattered drop. And yet they managed to gain the objectives set for them in the hedgerow country of Normandy. This book is primary source material. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in the Normandy landings, the 101st Airborne Division, and World War II in general. Hearing the soldiers speak is an entirely different experience from reading about the action in a narrative history.
The fateful days and weeks surrounding 6 June 1944 have been extensively documented in histories of the Second World War, but less attention has been paid to the tremendous impact of these events on the populations nearby. The Lost Paratroopers of Normandy tells the inspiring yet heartbreaking story of ordinary people who did extraordinary things in defense of liberty and freedom. On D-Day, when transport planes dropped paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions hopelessly off-target into marshy waters in northwestern France, the 900 villagers of Graignes welcomed them with open arms. These villagers – predominantly women – provided food, gathered intelligence, and navigated the floods to retrieve the paratroopers' equipment at great risk to themselves. When the attack by German forces on 11 June forced the overwhelmed paratroopers to withdraw, many made it to safety thanks to the help and resistance of the villagers. In this moving book, historian Stephen G. Rabe, son of one of the paratroopers, meticulously documents the forgotten lives of those who participated in this integral part of D-Day history.
This unique account of D-Day history provides an unusual look into the US Armys preparation of a new type of World War II warfare, that of airborne operations. The book describes, using personal interviews with the veterans involved, how young men who had never even flown in an airplane before the war were trained to fly into combat, or to parachute into the dark of night. The narrative personalizes the events of D-Day for a small group of men of the 77th Troop Carrier Squadron and G Company of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. Most, including the authors uncle, did not survive to see the dawn on D-Day morning. The story then moves forward more than half a century, when research to find out what happened to his uncle led the author to meet some of the survivors of that night, resulting in what is believed to be the first reunion of a D-Day pilot with the men he dropped on that fateful morning, 56 years earlier. Many children of the next generation are making efforts to find out what happened to their fathers and uncles in World War II. This story is a classic example of the joy and heartbreak that can result from the success of such a search.
The true story of the 101st Airborne Division’s most notorious squad of combat paratroopers—the inspiration for the classic WWII film, The Dirty Dozen. Since World War II, the American public has learned of the exploits of the 101st Airborne Division, the paratroopers who led the Allied invasions into Nazi-held Europe. But within the ranks of the 101st, one unit attained truly legendary status. Known as the Filthy Thirteen, they were the real-life inspiration for The Dirty Dozen. Primarily products of the Dustbowl and the Depression, the Filthy Thirteen became notorious within the elite Screaming Eagles for their hard drinking and savage fighting skills. From D-Day until the end of the w...
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On Christmas morning, 1944, there was little reason to celebrate.… As the Battle of the Bulge raged, a small force of American solders—including the famed 101st Airborne division, tank destroyer crews, engineers, and artillerymen—was completely surrounded by Hitler’s armies in the Belgian town of Bastogne. Taking the town was imperative to Hitler’s desperate plan to drive back the Allies and turn the tide of the war. The attack would come just before dawn. As the outnumbered, undersupplied Americans gathered in church for services or shivered in their snow-covered foxholes on the fringes of the front lines, freshly reinforced German forces of men and tanks attacked. The battle was ...