Product Description
For the soldier on the front lines of World War II, a lifetime of terror and suffering could be crammed into a few horrific hours of combat. This was especially true for members of the 99th Infantry Division who repelled the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and engaged in some of the most dramatic, hard-fought actions of the war.
Once Upon a Time in War presents a stirring view of combat from the perspective of the common soldier. Author Robert E. Humphrey personally retraced the path of the 99th through Belgium and Germany and conducted extensive interviews with more than three hundred surviving veterans.
When Humphrey discovered that many 99ers had gone to their graves without telling their stories, he set about to honor their service and coax recollections from survivors. The memories recounted here, many of them painful and long repressed, are remarkable for their clarity. These narratives, seamlessly woven to create a collective biography, offer a gritty reenactment of World War II from the enlisted man's point of view.
Although focused on a single division, Once Upon a Time in War captures the experiences of all American GIs who fought in Europe. For readers captivated by Band of Brothers, this book offers an often tragic, sometimes heartwarming, but always compelling read.
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From the Publisher
"An absorbing social history of the common soldiers of the Checkerboard Division and their role in the Great Crusade in Europe during World War II. Genuine and credible - a captivating story told mainly in the words of the GIs themselves." Peter R. Mansoor author of The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945
"Robert Humphrey portrays the common GI with a raw honesty missing from too many accounts of humanity's largest and most hideous war." Gregory J. W. Urwin author of Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island
"...From Herodotus through to the present time, there is a large literature about war, but nothing of the interiority of men at war...The interviews are pieced together to form an incomparable mosaic of the fears, thoughts, feelings and moods of men who of necessity, are forced to search their inner most selfs. Their narratives have a directness and immediacy that brings them into a personal relationship with the reader. This book is an outstanding achievement, a one of a kind contribution to the literature on warfare." Ernest McDaniel, Fox Company, 393rd Regiment
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