I’ve been kinda bad about posting since I retired, but forgive me, I’ve been busy creating books. So now I’m announcing my latest book, Across The Rhine: The Things Our Fathers Saw—The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation-Volume VII. It actually made its first appearance on the shelves around Veterans Day, and I am happy to share it with you here now. At 360 pages and including over a dozen veterans, it is my longest book to date in the regular series and one that my editor calls her favorite.
The book is another example of these brave men and women who saved the world not so long ago, and I think it is important that these lessons not be lost to history, now that they have passed. People seem to like it; I know it was a bit emotional for me connecting with these veterans, spending hours upon hours dissecting their stories, researching and contextualizing their personal experiences, which is something I always trained my advanced course students to do. It is quite a journey to navigate, and I think I did these guys right, in the end.
Some I met and interviewed on several occasions; others, I got to know by returning again and again to their recorded testimony, which they willingly shared for posterity. The backbone of the book turned out to be the story of a Mohawk Nation paratrooper in the 504th PIR of the 82nd Airborne, who jumped into Market Garden, then into the nightmare of the Battle of the Bulge, and thence ‘across the Rhine’. Just an amazing story or survival, resilience, and at his essence, humility and humanity.
One guy I knew well enough to interview several times was one of the first men into Dachau, with the 42nd Rainbow Division, a natural-born jokester who was utterly shocked to his core.
The next day, his I&R unit was tasked with searching Hitler’s Munich apartment and found his English housekeeper, as well as Hitler’s top hat, which sat in the bottom of his service duffel for 50 years before he fished it out to tell his story to the high school age kids, always finishing with how, as a 19-yr old Jewish kid from Brooklyn, he fantasized about Hitler seeing him try it on, and then blowing his brains out in the Führerbunker that day, April 30, 1945, back in Berlin.
I have guys who were itching to come home after the war ended, only to find they did not have enough ‘points’, and became eyewitnesses to history as guards at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg after the war- the war crimes trials. One later returned to the scene of judgment with his daughter, and became moved to tell his story of interacting with some of the most notorious villains of the 20th century.
You can preview the newest book at the links above. For now, here are some of the early reviews. If you did get a chance to read it, please consider leaving feedback at my website or at Amazon, above.
BLURB
In ‘Across The Rhine’, you will begin to liberate a continent with our veterans as they scale the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc overlooking Omaha Beach.
You will jump with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment to capture bridgeheads in the Netherlands, and re-group to slug it out in the freezing Ardennes Forest in the winter of 1944-45.
The mission will then push you over the Siegfried Line and all the way to Germany’s most formidable western natural defense, the swift and swollen quarter-mile wide Rhine River.
As spring 1945 arrives, you will be with our GIs as they arrive at the gates of Dachau and have their very souls shaken as they become eyewitnesses to the greatest crime in the history of the world—the Holocaust; the Nuremberg War Crimes trials will then bring you face to face with the architects of terror, the most notorious war criminals of the twentieth century.
[Front Cover: “Crossing the Rhine under enemy fire at St. Goar, March, 1945. 89th Infantry Division.” US Army, Office of War Information. Public Domain Photographs, National Archives.]
EARLY REVIEWS
During my military service (1972 to 1998)I had the honor of serving in Berlin. During that time Rudolf Hess was still being held in prison. It was interesting to read about the Nurnberg trials and the testimonies of those soldiers who stood guard through the procedures. Highly recommend all books in this series. Time well invested.
The book was the result of face to face interviews with the men who fought in WWII. It, and all the rest of the series are well done and should be given to our children to read for the history of the war. Excellent resources.
Another fantastic read. I thought “The Bulge and Beyond “ was the best of this series but this book tops them all. It’s a fantastic read and I highly recommend it.
I own all 7 volumes of The Things Our Fathers Saw. I found each one to be a book that I could not put down until I had finished it. I am very grateful that you had the foresight to capture these stories while WWII veterans were still with us. So many are gone–my Dad has been gone 10 years. I only know one locally and he is 94. Thanks for saving this history.
I’m so excited for my dad to read this. He absolutely loves this author and the way the books are written. I hope he makes a volume VIII!
Rest assured, I started Volume 8, On To Tokyo, last month and have about 1/4 of it done, with a Fathers Day deadline. It is going to be another amazing journey.
Teaching History Matters 