I have always been interested in WWII books that tell the true story of so many of our military exploits from that war. I think this book by Alex Kershaw is told better than any book I have read on the subject. He knows how to write about his subject by using words and phrases that make the reader thoroughly understand what they are reading and finds the story getting better as it goes. The European zone in which our gallant military fought contains so much information told in a great way. Felix Sparks was born and raised in Miami, Arizona, an area that suffered the ravages of the great depression as much as the rest of the nation. Felix hunted, ran traps, and got food any way he could. When he wasn't hunting he was studying. His military training started in the Citizens Military Training Program where he learned how to march and drill in very high heat environment. He wanted to go to college and he loved the military-anything that was military. He ventured away from the area and found himself being asked by an army recruiter if he wanted to join the army. He figured "why not" and joined, a decision that forged his life forever.
Felix Sparks, now married with a baby, prepared to shove off on a troop transport that ended up in Europe prepared as well as possible for fighting a war. While on the ship General George Patton announced that from that point and time they would be a part of the 7th United States Army and they were going ashore to attack Sicily, Italy in small troop transport boats. None of the men knew what they were in for. Sparks was a part of the National Guard Thunderbirds, all green recruits. The book describes several of the generals associated with army leading and planning duties, Patton, Marshall, Eisenhower, Mark Clark, and others and how they made their battle plans, some with and some without arguments. Sparks at this time had no idea he would move up in the ranks to eventually become a general too, and that was far from his mind at this time. He just wanted to defeat the Germans and Italians. The many battles he and his group fought were tough and brutal while killing and wounding many men. Their drives would advance one day and lose ground the next. The Germans were tough while the Italians were not since they were not sure if they were staying in this war or not. The Thunderbirds along with the rest of their groups moved up the boot of Italy towards Rome. The Germans fought back for every inch of ground in Italy with both sides killing and wounding thousands of men along the way. New raw recruits kept coming up the pipeline adjusting to war as they had never imagined it to be.
The description of the battles is beyond imagination. The men would dig a small foxhole if none was available, they would jump into any hole large enough to cover as much of them as possible. The sounds of shells coming from both the enemy and their own units as they sailed over their heads or landed very close to them was such a caustic and nerve wracking and body shaking experience. To have a man sharing a foxhole one minute and killed the next is incomprehensible to those that were never in battle. Sometimes friendly fire fell short of its mark and hit our own men. When they tried to advance, they had to carry such huge heavy packs on their backs containing survival gear as well as ammunition, grenades, shovels, military packed food including good old Spam that was a real war ration. When the chance came to take a break, they would move away to a nearby town and relax as much as possible with wine, women, and song. They danced, they had sex even though they were all pre-warned about the disease that was so prevalent in the entire area due to the women being both lonely with most of their men at war, and the demands the German soldiers made of the women.
Sometimes the men would find some great caches of wine and they really enjoyed that. But the many grievous losses of men from so many battles were so enormous that it was hard to wrap their minds around that and keep going. Blood flowing from wounded and/or killed men on both sides were everywhere. Some of the rivers and canals flowed red. As the men went through towns that they were taking back from the Germans, the citizens went wild with chants of thanks and food and drink coming out of the cellars and caves. All through this time, Sparks led his troops while taking battlefield rank promotions. His men loved him because he cared about them and would be there with them as much as possible. As they progressed through Italy and into France and Germany, they came to one of the concentration camps, Dachau, where they found the most disturbing sights they had seen during the entire war. The description of bodies just thrown on top of other bodies, the ovens that still had some in them that had been burned, the piles of clothes that the prisoners had to dispose of, and so much more that makes the reader gets chills. One of the last battles of this group was the march to Hitler's own compound but by the time they had gotten there Hitler had committed suicide.
I know this review is long but to write telling less doesn't give the reader a real idea of what all is contained in this super book. You must read it. You will get an idea of what the foot soldier went through during WWII. How the ones that survived made it through mentally is beyond my imagination. Praise to these men for their help in giving us the freedoms we take for granted. Believe me, they are not free-freedoms.
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