by PaulFussell (Author)
This book is a brilliant antidote to the military romanticism of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or BAND OF BROTHERS. Part memoir, part history, it presents a series of episodes from the arrival of American troops in Britain through to the discovery of the concentration camps in early 1945. The experience of these young (often very young) soldiers was not always unpleasant - he explains why the boys' were so popular with British women (better paid, better dressed, better washed) - but especially after D-Day it usually was. The American Army was involved in 1944-45 in some of the most ferocious fighting of the war, for which it was totally unprepared militarily or psychologically. But after the discovery of the concentration camps, the American soldier no longer had any difficulty in hating the Germans and came to see the war as the Crusade that Eisenhower had believed in from the start.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Edition: First UK Edition
Publisher: Orion
Published: 12 Aug 2004
ISBN 10: 0297646931
ISBN 13: 9780297646938
Book Overview: A series of revelations about the US Army: the cover-up of fiascos, notably in the Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge - devastating examples of friendly fire - the full extent of desertion and self-inflicted wounds - the American Army got worse as the war went on - the hostility between the Americans and the French Author of THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY, one of the best books about the First World War Author fought in this war himself, and was severely wounded and decorated In its unvarnished truth-telling it stands comparison with John Keegan's THE FACE OF BATTLE (the book which made Keegan's name) THE BOYS' CRUSADE is an extraordinarily powerful account that is at once poignant and searing. It is truth-telling of a very high order from one of our finest men of letters. (Rick Atkinson, Pultizer Prize winner)