Book Description
In the hell that was World War II, the Eastern Front was its heart of fire and ice. Gottlob Bidermann served in that lethal theater from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years vividly recaptures his grueling experiences with an army marching on the road to ruin.
A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail never before available in English.
Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war trapped in the Courland Pocket. He shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape. He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range. In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags.
Bidermann's account also debunks the myth of a highly mechanized German army that rolled over weaker opponents with impunity. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving.
Translator Derek Zumbro has rendered Bidermann's memoir into a compelling narrative that retains the author's powerful style. This English-language edition of Bidermann's dynamic story is based upon a privately published memoir entitled Krim-Kurland Mit Der 132 Infanterie Division. Zumbro has also added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers.
Customer Reviews:
anti-tank gun.......2007-08-19
awsome read! this guy went through hell and lived . i found how he described abandoning his PAK ( life-saver many times ) very moving.he always gave a damn about his troops ( which doesn't happen nowadays ).i highly recommend this read to anyone who wants to know how the heer ( not the ss or nazis etc. ) made it through this war of extreme depravity. excellent in my books!
first hand account of Herr soldier on the eastern front.......2007-08-08
I found this first hand account of fighting on the eastern front behind a Pak (anti-tank gun) interesting. The narrative could get monotonous at times, which reflected down time at the front. I got a better idea of what fighting was like in the southern and Crimean fronts and what Germans' experienced in the Soviet POW camps after the war.
That there was no index was a letdown since I like to look up many of the persons and events for future reference.
I sensed that Bidermann was a soldier doing his duty, not a Nazi. He was caught up in the turmoil of the times and was just trying to survive.
I was about to throw this book away................2007-05-19
I never bought this book but got it as a book club promotion. I had it at home and never bothered to read it. The cover is pretty dull which is a mistake by the publishers because it may cost them sales in my opinion. I was having a clear out one day and thought to myself that I must get rid of this amongst other unwanted books. I thought about putting it on e-bay but decided to throw it away instead. Something stopped me. I'm glad I kept it because it is a totally unputdownable memoir of a German soldier on the Eastern Front. I was totally engrossed in the book and really glad about the 'something' that kept me from chucking it out.
No-Nonsense Gritty account of day to day life in the Russian Front.......2007-03-18
Biddermann's memoir captures his gradual transformation into a battle hardened veteran as he and his comrades experience the changing fortunes of the German army in the Russian campaign. As the troops advance quickly through the Ukraine and the Crimea the Soviet resistance and intensity of the fighting increase and Bidderman relates in great detail both the mundane day to day details of the soldier's life with gripping descriptions of the actual combat. The feelings associated with being far from home, in a strange country and losing friends and comrades along the way are expressed in plain language.
AS you read this you cannot help but admire the troops from both the German and Russian side who endured this difficult phase of the War. This is a combat memoir that ranks among the finest and should not be missed by those with an interest in history and the second world war.
In Deadly Combat.......2007-01-02
This book is the "real thing" a startling account of a dedicated professional German soldier and his real life experiences on the Eastern Front. What makes this book interesting is, it's factual, historically accurate, and does not bog down into irrelevant viewpoints - there is no filler - it's all action. The book exclusively describes the day-to-day life and death events of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. It also provides the reader with an unbelievable insight into what it was like to fight the Russians day-after-day, under horrible conditions, without adequate supplies and man power. The author provides a factual view into the daily life of the German solider on the battlefield. What I found interesting about this book is the author literally takes a back seat when he is telling his story. He praises his men and focuses very little on the fact he was a "hero" in his own right - the sign of a professional officer. Lastly, the author brings to light the brutal way the Russian's treated the unarmed German prisoners of war. The atrocities, forced labor, starvation, punishment, and beatings come to the surface in a brief description of life in the Russian POW camps.
Book Description
Some warriors are drawn to the thrill of combat and find it the defining moment of their lives. Others fall victim to fear, exhaustion, impaired reasoning, and despair. This was certainly true for twentieth-century American ground troops. Whether embracing or being demoralized by war, these men risked their lives for causes larger than themselves with no promise of safe return.
This book is the first to synthesize the wartime experiences of American combat soldiers, from the doughboys of World War I to the grunts of Vietnam. Focusing on both soldiers and marines, it draws on histories and memoirs, oral histories, psychological and sociological studies, and even fiction to show that their experiences remain fundamentally the same regardless of the enemy, terrain, training, or weaponry.
Peter Kindsvatter gets inside the minds of American soldiers to reveal what motivated them to serve and how they were turned into soldiers. He recreates the physical and emotional aspects of war to tell how fighting men dealt with danger and hardship, and he explores the roles of comradeship, leadership, and the sustaining beliefs in cause and country. He also illuminates soldiers' attitudes toward the enemy, toward the rear echelon, and toward the home front. And he tells why some broke down under fire while others excelled.
Here are the first tastes of battle, as when a green recruit reported that "for the first time I realized that the people over the ridge wanted to kill me," while another was befuddled by the unfamiliar sound of bullets whizzing overhead. Here are soldiers struggling to cope with war's stress by seeking solace from local women or simply smoking cigarettes. And here are tales of combat avoidance and fraggings not unique to Vietnam, of soldiers in Korea disgruntled over home-front indifference, and of the unique experiences of African American soldiers in the Jim Crow army.
By capturing the core "band of brothers" experience across several generations of warfare, Kindsvatter celebrates the American soldier while helping us to better understand war's lethal reality--and why soldiers persevere in the face of its horrors.
This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
Customer Reviews:
Terrific Exploration of Combat's Effects On Individuals!.......2004-01-09
Wow! It isn't often that I actually feel a little shaken by virtue of what I have read, but if anything can conjure up for one an unforgettable yet eminently non-fictional picture of the modern battlefield in the post-WWII era, then this book by retired U. S. Army historian Peter Kindsvatter does so. What the author offer is literally a phenomenological exploration into the heart of darkness of modern combat, one into which young soldiers have been sucked into the vortex of the experience with wildly inaccurate and romanticized notions regarding their own fallacious expectations of the experience. As the dust jacket appropriately remarks, this is a journey into the hearts and minds of the average soldier, in Korea, Vietnam and since, and shows how popular "John Wayne" colorized fictions set our kids up for a fateful slam into the brick wall of a much more horrible reality. Thus, beginning with such unrealistic ideas of what to expect, Kindsvatter argues quite forcefully that such inaccurate conceptualizations aided the solders in creating what he refers to as a "fictionalized" set of images of war.
Therefore, despite the relatively intensive military training the young recruits received, the author contends nothing could succeed in disabusing them of these fallacious notions or completely prepare them for the horror of actual combat. The nature of that combat, with its extreme emotional stress, physical hardships, and bloodthirsty graphics, spawned a kind of emotional syndrome that the author argues progresses fairly predictably from initial shock and disbelief through a period of confusion toward a perpetual state of much more hyperawareness, a state in which their immediate performance becomes maximal while the effects on their long-term mental health becomes progressively more dangerous. Critical to the success of this progression of this 'pilgrim's progress' from disbelief through confusion and into a battle-weary hyper-vigilance was the camaraderie of their fellow soldiers, their belief systems, and each soldier's individual will to survive. Obviously, Kindsvatter observes, in situations such as Vietnam, where the belief systems came into serious question both within the ranks and in the culture back home, successful maintenance of this state of combat readiness was more and more imperiled.
What the author contends is that once such belief systems are destroyed, few things can repair or sustain them. For some, the excitement of battle turns them into "combat junkies", and it is these guys who may succeed in surviving only to find readjustment to civil society later is extremely hazardous. For the majority, it was integration into the unit and the friendships within it that sustained them, and allowed them to continue under some of the most extreme continuing conditions modern humans can experience. Yet eventually, for most soldiers the ability to function slowly eroded, to the point that many casualties occurred for "burned out" grunts who had more than enough savvy to protect themselves, but who has lost the kind of emotional edge they needed to continue. In these cases, many of them suffered emotional breakdowns and/or total physical exhaustion. This is an important book, and one that anyone with either a friend or relative in the military would do well to read. I hope it gains wider readership, as it is a serious, enlightened, and worthwhile entry into the field of military history. Enjoy!
Book Description
Terry de la Mesa Allen was one of the most remarkable soldiers in American military history. He failed out of West Point twice, yet ended up as a fearless battalion commander during World War I— personally leading patrols into no-man’s-land.
During World War II, following hard and successful combat in North Africa and Sicily, Major General Allen was “fired” by Gen. Omar Bradley from command of the army’s 1st Infantry Division for lax personal and unit discipline. Within a year, he was back in combat in command of the crack 104th Division Timberwolves, the first unit to reach the Elbe River and link up with the Soviet Union’s Red Army—an event that marked the practical end of the war in the Europe. Loved by his soldiers and barely tolerated by the high command, Allen compiled one of the most successful combat records of any American general in any war.
Customer Reviews:
Decent Biography of a True Fighting General.......2006-12-11
Gerald Astor's "Terrible Terry Allen" is a good but uneven treatment of one of the most enigmatic American commanders of World War II. Because Terry Allen never rose higher than a division commander, in one way it is unusual that a biography was written about him; but after reading this book, you'll understand why this man (who commanded two separate divisions in the European Theater and was a true fighting general) deserves a biography.
Astor tells the story of Terry Allen's life, from a brief introduction with his parents' background (his father was also an Army officer), briefly discusses his childhood, and then focuses on Terry Allen's military career - which included service during the Mexican incursion and truly heroic service as a battalion commander in World War I. Of course the majority of the book discusses Allen's World War II service. In World War II, Allen served as the commander of the First Infantry Division (from which he was relieved during the Sicily campaign, a move that has been discussed at length but never fully explained) and then the commander of the 104th Infantry Division during its train-up in the United States and its campaign in Europe.
Astor sometimes tells this story by quoting from letters that Allen wrote him while at war. At other times he is notably silent on what Allen was thinking or feeling. Sometimes, the book is more of a chronicle of the units that Allen was leading than of his actions. This is of course is the result of writing about someone who was only a division commander: his papers were not preserved like others were; his aides and staff did not keep their own detailed memoirs; and he was not a prolific letter writer and diarist the way some commanders (such as Eisenhower and Patton) were.
Also of note: this book had a good collection of maps (very important in any military history work) but the paperback binding was beginning to separate during just one reading.
Despite these drawbacks - many outside of the author's control and a natural product of writing on someone without a large body of documentary evidence -- there isn't another good resource on the life of Terry Allen. For this reason, I recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II.
Missing in action.......2004-10-18
First, full disclosure. Had my father been home when I was born, I'd likely have been named Terry Allen Aubrey. But my father was fighting with the 104th (Timberwolves) at the time. The first platoon sergeant he'd had was wounded and home in time to name his son Terry Allen Hodges. There is a Viet Nam memorial in Ionia, Michigan, carrying, among others, the name of Terry Allen Towne.
Astor does not tell us why men would name their sons after their division commander.
The reality is that the Timberwolves knew what fighting was, and they knew the cost they paid, and they knew how much worse it was in the other divisions. Terry Allen saved their lives.
Part of it was night fighting. Night fighting, particularly before the development of night vision devices, is not like daylight fighting but in the dark. When I was at Ft. Benning, the introduction to the extensive block of instruction on night fighting was a lengthy reading from the Timberwolves' after-action reports. During a break, I told the instructor that I didn't need to be sold. I'd learned it at my father's knee.
The instructor told me that there's always somebody in each course who tells him that. The Timberpups' fathers can tell their sons.
But Astor doesn't tell his readers. Generals can worry themselves sick about casualties, but Terry Allen did something nobody else did and got enormous results. The connection is, I think, inadequately made.
At one point, Allen, dismissing his prospects for promotion to something above division level, says he was jumped past well over a hundred more senior officers to get the First Division and, implicitly, has that many enemies. Logically, that means he's at the end of his career.
What Astor misses completely is what caused the highest levels of the Army to reach past well over a hundred senior officers, all of them well qualified, and pick Allen.
In the small, interwar club of the old professional Army, everybody knew everybody. Talents, weaknesses, vices, and baggage were all common knowledge. Astor tells us that Allen was occasionally reprimanded for sloppy personal appearance. That is practically inexcusable. Turning out immaculately in the prescribed uniform is reflexive in any private, and doubly so in officers who've passed through the demanding, detail-oriented, infuriating inspections of various commissioning schools. Not looking "right" is almost unimaginable.
Allen was known to have a drinking problem. In the Army, this is not as bad as having a hangover problem. A company commander I had once remarked that there used to be "twenty-seven day" sergeants, but then (1970) no officer could afford to indulge a three-day drunk following payday. Allen, for whatever spectacle he might have made of himself, apparently showed up for work.
During the interwar period, Allen spent some time in the Southwest in the cavalry, and some time at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning.
Like many of his colleagues, he was loth to see the end of horse cavalry, and even drew up a table of organization and equipment for modern cavalry. He specified light automatic weapons not then existing. I have no idea how this was received by those to whom he showed it. They may have seen it as an exercise in nostalgia (and perhaps shared a laugh or two), or they could have thought Allen was hopeless. Due to an imprudent investment, Allen was trailed by a debt problem which he did not completely pay off for many years. Taking care of this was a constant worry in an era where bouncing a check could get an officer dismissed from the service.
Commanding a peacetime unit of any size offers the officer in question a great opportunity. He may--must--let his subordinates do the work. "Work them hard but let them work," is a piece of advice that goes back a very long way. He must keep track of results, keep track of details, but keep a distance from the day-to-day work. With the time freed from the grind, he must, if he is to progress, look at a bigger picture. How can he improve his unit? What other ideas can he put into useful form and "sell" to his commanders? What contingencies can he foresee and plan for?
Allen had that opportunity and apparently made the most of it. For later on, Marshall and others reached past scores of more senior officers, officers who did not worry about debt, who did not drink to excess, who were impeccable in their dress, who were also well qualified, and picked Allen. But we have no idea how Allen showed himself superior in potential to so many colleagues, or how much better he had to be to overcome his faults.
As an idea of the scale, the Timberwolves were the 104th Infantry division. There were a few more, possibly up to about 110. There were a dozen armored divisions, and with everything, possibly almost two hundred division-equivalent formations, not counting the Air Corps.
So Allen jumped over a number of officers sufficient to command more than half the two-star commands available.
WHY? WHY?
HOW did he impress Marshall and company?
We have no clue.
I find that the biggest disappointment in the book.
However, Astor gives us a glimpse of what it means to be a professional officer when he relates Allen's WW II burdens. It might be thought that commanding an Infantry division in combat is enough. But Allen still had his occasional ventures with booze and his debt. His wife, not surprisingly, was more and more concerned for him, like millions of others, and needed reassurance. His son needed encouraging letters. His sister, an Army nurse, was undergoing a slow nervous breakdown and Allen was trying by letters to manage as best he could her situation.
That Allen could be a superb division commander during this time is testament to the hard, almost brutal, mental and emotional control a professional officer must have over himself.
As another reviewer noted, general officers whose highest command was a division in World War II are rarely the subjects of biography. What set Allen apart is not shown.
Yes, Allen was a good commander, according to Astor. Why men would name their sons after him is left to those men and their sons. Those not in that privileged group are not enlightened by Astor's book.
Having said this, I must say that it is an excellent book about the career of a fine officer, a good look at part of our history, and a lesson that personalities matter, even in the structured climate of the military. Men, as one of Heinlein's characters remarks, are not potatoes. They are not interchangeable. And which one of them happens to be at a particular nexus of events makes a huge difference.
In this, Astor is crystal clear.
Terrible Terry Alan: Underdog.......2004-05-31
I'm actually surprised Terry Allen was promoted to general. He didn't graduate from West Point, his discipline of his troops was lax in comparison to other generals, and he obviously wasn't in the club with Bradley, Ike, and Patton. While Patton did stand up for him in the invasion of Sicily, Ike wanting to can him, Patton insisted he remain in command of his Big Red One. Patton would do things like pee into Gen Allen's slit trench in front of Allen's men, effectively calling him a coward in not so many words. Two of Allen's men took their tommy guns off of safe into fire mode with an audible click at which point Patton left. I would recommend this book to any WW II buff.
Best U.S. Combat Commander of W.W.II.......2003-08-14
"The Greatest Soldier of World War Two" - This is one of the many accolades said of Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen by other Generals who knew him. He has also been credited with being the best U.S. combat commander of WWII. There are quite a few similarities between General George S. Patton and Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen in that they both:
· trained at West Point (Allen did not graduate, but finished his education at the Catholic University),
· served in the U.S. Cavalry during World War I as officers,
· became generals during World War II,
· were aggressive in their campaigns and always attacked,
· lost commands for "political" reasons,
· and both were very controversial.
There were also definite differences between the two:
Whereas Patton loved the limelight, and never missed an opportunity to distinguish himself, Allen was very low key, shied from publicity, and who liked his liquor.
Patton graduated from West Point, Allen flunked out twice.
Known as aggressive fighters, Patton was not terribly concerned with casualties but Allen was continually looking to keep the casualty rate as low as possible.
While Patton and Allen were both outspoken, Patton tried to play the "Army" game...Allen did not play the game, which irritated his superiors.
Allen was loved and respected by the average "G.I." in both Army Divisions. He was considered the enlisted man's General. Terry Allen was the only American WWII general to train and lead into combat two Army Divisions:
The 1st Division (a.k.a. the famous "Big Red One"), and the 104th Infantry Division ("The Timberwolves"). Under his command, the 1st Division helped conquer Sicily. Later, the 104th Division, led by Terry Allen was the first Army Division to make contact with the Russian Army (they met somewhere between the Mulde and Elbe Rivers).
The 104th Division under Terry Allen, set a record of 195 days of consecutive combat contact against the German Army.
While Gerald Astor has corrected a historical oversight by writing Terry Allen's biography, he definitely fell short of the excellent mark of a great book. I found the book to be slow moving during the first few chapters of "Terrible Terry Allen", and dwelled too much on minute details (such as the letters to his wife), while completely skipping over very important events in his life. While it is still a good book in that it describes a very controversial and brilliant military man, it comes up short describing "the total man". I would normally rate it at 3 stars, but give it a 4th only because it is the only book of its kind on Terry Allen.
Terrible Book about Terry Allen.......2003-08-05
It should not be surprising that a book written by someone who is trained neither as a soldier nor a historian, about a consummate warrior like Major General Terry Allen, disappoints. It is most unfortunate, however, as Allen was one of the real characters among the US Army leadership in World War II and his life must have been a fascinating one.
This book reads like a first draft --one that cries out for a firm, knowledgeable editor who will cut the extraneous material and force the author to answer all the questions that could make this a great book. As only one example, before World War I Allen was sent as a new 2nd Lieutenant to the 14th Cavalry Regiment on the Mexican border. What was a cavalry regiment in 1914? How was it organized, trained,equipped and led? What was life in the 14th like? Where did the 14th Cavalry go and what did it do in the years Allen was with it? There is plenty of secondary material out there to answer these questions but scarcely a word in this book.
Allen claimed he participated in the last mounted charge with sabers by the US cavalry. This is a STORY. What happened? When? Where? Why? How? The author makes a silly try at connecting Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa's attack on US troops in Columbus, New Mexico, with inflated body-counts in Vietnam but the writer passes up another STORY and one relevant to Allen's development as a combat leader. Was Allen at Columbus? What happened there? What did Allen do?
Throughout we get page after tiresome page of Allen's letters to his wife, but little context. Why? What is the point? Before taking over the legendary 1st Infantry Division, The Big Red One, in the early days of World War II Allen commanded the all-black Second Cavalry Division which included 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments -- the famous "Buffalo Soldiers." What effect did Allen have on the 2nd Cavalry Division? What effect did the division with its strong cadre of long-service, regular Army, African-American troopers and NCOs have on Allen? We are never told. Finally, for reasons that elude this reviewer, we get the full story of Allen's son's defeat by the Viet Cong as a battalion commander in the 1st Division in Vietnam. This in a book that gives us little of the important detail of when, where and how The Big Red One fought across North Africa and Sicily under General Allen. Why? Where is that editor?
We are left with a pradox: a polo-playing, loud-mouthed, combative drunk, who did not study his profession in peacetime, and refused to instill and demand discipline in war. Yet this officer trained and led into battle two of the best US Army combat divisions in World War II? How could that be? Sadly, we get few insights from this book.
Book Description
At Summit Springs, Colorado on July 11, 1869, Maj Eugene A. Carr led the Fifth United States Cavalry and a force of Pawnee scouts in an attack on Chief Tall Bull's Cheyenne Dog Soldier village. Also prominent in the fight was chief of scouts, William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. When the day's fighting was over, fifty-two Cheyenne Dog Soldiers lay dead. On that day, too, a soldier picked up what appeared to be a plain army ledgerbook. When opened, the book revealed page upon page of colored drawings - all rendered by Cheyenne warrior-artists. The book came to the Colorado Historical Society in 1903, and there it remained for nearly one hundred years, largely unknown or forgotten. Until now. Working in close association with Cheyenne people, the authors have produced an unprecedented look at the Dog Soldiers, treating these ledger drawings as historical documents - as the history of the Dog Soldiers by the warrior-artists themselves. Using Cheyenne sources - both past and present - as well as U.S. military records, legal depositions, diaries, and contemporary newspaper accounts, the authors analyze drawings, identifying the warriors and describing the actions depicted. With more than one hundred beautifully reproduced color drawings, this volume presents not only a groundbreaking departure from standard ledgerbook interpretation but also a riveting story of the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers making a last stand for their existence as a free people.
Customer Reviews:
CHEYENNE DOG SOLDIERS.......2005-08-26
A GREAT BOOK ON A GREAT PART OF NA HISTORY OF A PROUD NATION
An absolute must have for students of Plains Indian warfare.......1999-04-17
On September 17, 1868, Eugene Carr's Fifth United States cavalry guided by "Buffalo Bill" Cody, surprised and attacked Tall Bull's village of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers at Summit Springs, Colorado Territory. In one of the hastily abandonded lodges, a ledger book was found which had been initially captured by the Cheyenne during their retalitory raids following the Sand Creek massacre four years earlier. In the book were drawings of events of great valor done by Cheyenne warrior/artists.
The authors have reproduced the pages of the original ledgerbook in their original size and have added very detailed explainations of the drawings.
This book is very well researched and produced. David F. Halaas is the Colorado State Historian and Andrew Masich is a past president of that organization.
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Hero or Coward: Pressures Facing the Soldier in Battle
Elmar Dinter
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0714632309 |
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This book addresses the difficult question of why some men fight well in war and others do not. The influences on a man in battle come from within and from without. With this in mind Dinter examines military history, anecdotal evidence, the psychology and sociology that affects men and women confronted with the daily prospect of death. He draws some fascinating conclusions, involving recommendations for new methods of personnel selection and new tactics, training and military education. This book, an insight into timeless human strengths and weaknesses, is of great value to all military leaders and staff officers. However it is also of importance to all who are interested in the behaviour of small groups and individuals under extreme pressures.
Book Description
Letters form an important source of knowledge about the great events in the life of our nation. They are unique because they capture what was being experienced and felt at the time of the crisis. There are no filters through which later thinking is passed. This book consists of the letters of one American soldier who served in World War II, Frank P. Sherwood. They cover the whole of his life in the U.S. Army from September 1943 to September 1946. They are unique because of Sherwood's range of experiences in that period. He was drafted and served more than a year as a private in the infantry, including a stint with the 10th Mountain Division in Camp Hale, Colorado. After being commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant of Infantry at Fort Benning, Georgia, he departed for Europe. There he served as Liaison Control officer for the 99th Infantry division and was awarded two battle stars for this service. Later European assignments included Entertainment Officer of XV Corps and Public Safety Officer with Military Government. These letters were written to Sherwood's mother, whom he asked to save them. They seek to capture the various events, important and not so important, in three tumultuous years. He believed letters of this type would have historical interest, and he particularly took advantage of his close relationship with his mother to provide as full and objective report of his experiences as he possibly could.
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Life As a Combat Soldier (World at War, World War II)
Brian Williams
Manufacturer: Heinemann
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ASIN: 1403461961 |
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Mastering Soldiers: Conflict, Emotions, and the Enemy in an Israeli Military Unit (New Directions in Anthropology , V. 10)
Eyal Ben-Ari
Manufacturer: Berghahn Books
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ASIN: 1571811451 |
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Terrible Terry Allen: Combat General of WWII - The Life of an American Soldier
Gerald Astor
Manufacturer: RH Audio Roads
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ASIN: 073931033X
Release Date: 2004-03-30 |
Book Description
Terry de la Mesa Allen’s mother was the daughter of a Spanish officer, and his father was a career U.S. Army officer. Despite this impressive martial heritage, success in the military seemed unlikely for Allen as he failed out of West Point—twice—ultimately gaining his commission through Catholic University’s R.O.T.C. program. In World War I, the young officer commanded an infantry battalion and distinguished himself as a fearless combat leader, personally leading patrols into no-man’s-land.
In 1940, with another world war looming, newly appointed army chief of staff Gen. George C. Marshall reached down through the ranks and, ahead of almost a thousand more senior colonels, promoted Patton, Eisenhower, Allen, and other younger officers to brigadier general.
For Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, Allen, now a two-star general, commanded the Big Red One, the First Infantry Division, spearheading the American attack against the Nazis. Despite a stellar combat record, however, Major General Allen found himself in hot water with the big brass. Allen and his troops had become notorious for their lack of discipline off the battlefield. When Seventh Army commander George Patton was pressed by his deputy Omar Bradley to replace “Terrible Terry” before the invasion of Sicily, he demurred, favoring Allen’s success in combat. At the end of the Sicily campaign, with Allen’s protector Patton out of the way (relieved for slapping a soldier), Omar Bradley fired Allen and sent him packing back to the States, seemingly in terminal disgrace.
Once again, however, George Marshall reached down and in October 1944, Terrible Terry was given command of another infantry division, the 104th Timberwolves and took it into heavy combat in Belgium. Hard fighting continued as Allen’s division spearheaded the U.S. First Army’s advance across Germany. On 26 April 1945, Terrible Terry Allen’s hard-charging Timberwolves became the first American outfit to link up with the Soviet Union’s Red Army.
Terrible Terry Allen was one of the most remarkable American soldiers of World War II or any war. Hard bitten, profane, and combative, Allen disdained the “book,” but he knew how to wage war. He was a master of strategy, tactics, weaponry, and, most importantly, soldiers in combat.
From the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Infantry Magazine, published by U.S. Army Infantry School on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 484 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Terrible Terry Allen: Combat General of World War II--The Life of an American Soldier.
Author: Harold E., Jr. Raugh
Publication:
Infantry Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: U.S. Army Infantry School
Volume: 94
Issue: 2
Page: 53(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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