To The Fire Of Normandy And Beyond

Frank Kozol "Paul Kramer," who served in the U.S. Army during WWII is the eyes and ears for the reader on what it was like to leave home and go off to War. While he's changed the names of the people he served with, everything he writes about is true. As he takes the reader on his journey to serve his country from leaving his family and neighborhood for Registration to returning as an honorably discharged WWII veteran, the author describes his day to day adventures which lead to unexpected service for the US Army behind enemy lines, embedded with the French Resistance. He describes his friendships, his day to day activities as an army medic and working with the French Resistance, during the war. Kozol must draw upon his patriotism, loyalty, character, and apply the values he was taught as a child to the challenging circumstances of war in order to survive. This book conveys a captivating true story, by one of the many heroic soldiers protecting our country during WWII from a perspective that has rarely been seen or told. This is the adventure of one man's war-time journey to The Fire of Normandy and Beyond.

Expanded edition with a new chapter on the final battles of the Normandy campaign.

“Tells the tales left untold by Stephen Ambrose, whose Band of Brothers was the inspiration for the HBO miniseries...laced with Winters’s soldierly exaltations of pride in his comrades’ bravery.”—Publishers Weekly They were called Easy Company—but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered 150% casualties while liberating Europe—an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, Dick Winters was their legendary commander. This is his story—told in his own words for the first time. On D-Day, Winters assumed leadership of the Band of Brothers when its commander was killed and led them through the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany—by which time each member had been wounded. Based on Winters’s wartime diary, Beyond Band of Brothers also includes his comrades’ untold stories. Virtually none of this material appeared in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. Neither a protest against nor a glamorization of war, this is a moving memoir by the man who earned the love and respect of the men of Easy Company—and who is a hero to new generations worldwide. Includes photos

"Slaughter vividly conveys the reality of combat during World War II in his book with sweeping passages that literally place his reader on the battlefield beside him." Belvoir Eagle Before D-Day, regular army soldiers called the National Guardsmen of Virginia's 116th Infantry Regiment "Home Nannies" and "Weekend Warriors" and worse. On June 6, 1944, on Omaha Beach, however, these proud Virginians who carried the legacy of the famed Stonewall Brigade showed the regular army and the world what true valor really was. In this moving World War II memoir, the author captures the life of GI Joe from pre-Pearl Harbor days through training, deployment overseas, and more training. All leads up to D-Day and Normandy on June 6, 1944, when Sergeant Bob Slaughter came across Omaha Beach with Company D of the 116th Infantry and the Bedford Boys.

An important rethinking of the Normandy war narrative Beyond the Beach examines the Allied air war against France in 1944. During this period, General Dwight David Eisenhower, as Supreme Allied Commander, took control of all American, British, and Canadian air units and employed them for tactical and operational purposes over France rather than as a strategic force to attack targets deep in Germany. Using bombers as his long-range artillery, he directed the destruction of bridges, rail centers, ports, military installations, and even French towns with the intent of preventing German reinforcements from interfering with Operation Neptune, the Allied landings on the Normandy beaches. Ultimately, this air offensive resulted in the death of over 60,000 French civilians and an immense amount of damage to towns, churches, buildings, and works of art. This intense bombing operation, conducted against a friendly occupied state, resulted in a swath of physical and human destruction across northwest France that is rarely discussed as part of the D-Day landings. This book explores the relationship between ground and air operations and its effects on the French population. It examines the three broad groups that the air operations involved, the doctrine and equipment used by Allied air force leaders to implement Eisenhower’s plans, and each of the eight major operations, called lines of effort, that coordinated the employment of the thousands of fighters, medium bombers, and heavy bombers that prowled the French skies that spring and summer of 1944. Each of these sections discusses the operation's purpose, conduct, and effects upon both the military and the civilian targets. Finally, the book explores the short and long-term effects of these operations and argues that this ignored narrative should be part of any history of the D-Day landings.

By 1945, the US Army had sixty-eight infantry divisions, forty-two of which fought in the great campaign in northwest Europe that began with the amphibious landings on D-Day and ended eleven months later with Germany's surrender. Beyond the Beachhead examines the experience of one infantry division, the 29th, during forty-five days of combat from Omaha Beach on D-Day to the liberation of St. Lt. Using interviews, official records, and unit histories and supplementing his narrative with meticulously detailed maps, Balkoski follows the 29th from the bloody landings at Omaha through the hedgerows of Normandy, illustrating the brutal realities of life on the front line. Expanded edition includes a new chapter on the final battles of the Normandy campaign.

“For both students of the German Army in World War II as well as those interested in the late 1944 campaign, this is a must-read” (The NYMAS Review). As the Allies were approaching the German frontier at the beginning of September 1944, the German Armed Forces attempted to regain the strategic initiative. While the “wonder weapons,” such as the V-1 flying bomb, the V-2 missile, and the Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter, are widely recognized as being the most prominent of these initiatives upon which Germany pinned so much hope, the Volks-Grenadier Divisions (VGDs) are practically unknown. Often confused with the Volkssturm, the Home Guard militia, VGDs have suffered an undeserved reputation as second-rate formations filled with young boys and old men suited to serve only as cannon fodder. This groundbreaking book, now in a new edition, shows that VGDs were actually conceived as a new, elite corps loyal to the National Socialist Party composed of men from all branches of Hitler’s Wehrmacht and equipped with the finest ground combat weapons available. Whether fighting from defensive positions or spearheading offensives such as the Battle of the Bulge, VGDs initially gave a good account of themselves in battle. Using previously unpublished unit records, Allied intelligence and interrogation reports, and, above all, interviews with survivors, the author has crafted an in-depth look at a late-war German infantry company, including many photographs from the veterans themselves. In this book we follow along with the men of the 272nd VGD’s Fusilier Company from their first battles in the Hürtgen Forest to their final defeat in the Harz Mountains. Along the way, we learn the enormous potential of VGDs—and feel their soldiers’ heartbreak at their failure.

Previous books have promised to describe the combat experience of the World War II GI, but there has never been a book like Patrick O'Donnell's Beyond Valor. Here is the first combat history of the war in Europe in the words of the men themselves, and perhaps the most honest and brutal account of combat possible on the printed page. For more than fifty years the individual stories that make up this narrative -- shockingly frank reflections of sacrifice and courage -- have been bottled up, buried, or circulated privately. Now, nearing the ends of their lives, our WWII soldiers have at last unburdened themselves. Beyond Valor recaptures their hidden history. A pioneering oral historian, Patrick O'Donnell used his award-winning website, The Drop Zone, to solicit oral- and "e-histories" from individual soldiers. Gradually, working from within the community, O'Donnell convinced some of the war's most battle-hardened soldiers to tell their stories. The result is WWII seen through the eyes of the men who saw the most intense of its action. O'Donnell focuses on the elite units of the war -- the Rangers, Airborne, and 1st Special Service Force -- troops that spearheaded the most dangerous operations and often made the difference between victory and defeat. From more than 650 interviews O'Donnell has chosen oral- and e-histories that form a seamless story line, a pointillistic history of the war in Europe from the first parachute drops in North Africa through the final battles in Germany and the long trip home. It is the story of the war not discussed in polite company. O'Donnell presents the wreckage of entire battalions nearly annihilated, invisible personal scars, and haunting revelations of wartime atrocities. But more important are the men who recount lives risked without hesitation for comrades and cause, and those who did not return: the friends who died in their arms. Their stories remind all of us that victory came only at the highest price. Remembering the infamous cliffs at Pointe-du-Hoc, bloody Omaha Beach, the bitter fighting at the Battle of the Bulge, and Hill 400 in the Hürtgen Forest, the soldiers reveal war as seen, heard, and smelled by the GIs on the front line. Also included is the unique story of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, and the trailblazing African-American "Experimental" Test Platoon that had to fight its own battle behind the lines. Beyond Valor captures the truths that exist among soldiers. It is one of the most inspiring accounts of the war ever produced.