Nuts! A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne

Nuts! A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne PDF Author: Vincent J. Speranza
Publisher: Vincent J. Speranza
ISBN: 9781941165515
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
On 22 December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, with the Germans surrounding the Belgian town of Bastogne, a German messenger brought a message from his commander to Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, demanding his surrender. McAuliffe's response was simply, "Nuts!"Manning a foxhole on the perimeter around Bastogne was nineteen-year-old Army private Vince Speranza, a machine gunner with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. This is Vince's story of the Battle of the Bulge and his life before and after the battle.Vince shares his memories from early childhood through his service in World War II and his life up until now as he stands on the verge of turning 90--a story you will long remember. Vince will be in Bastogne, at his original foxhole, on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, drinking Airborne Beer, which his actions many years ago inspired.

Nuts! A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne

Nuts! A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne PDF Author: Vincent J. Speranza
Publisher: Vincent J. Speranza
ISBN: 9781941165515
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
On 22 December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, with the Germans surrounding the Belgian town of Bastogne, a German messenger brought a message from his commander to Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, demanding his surrender. McAuliffe's response was simply, "Nuts!"Manning a foxhole on the perimeter around Bastogne was nineteen-year-old Army private Vince Speranza, a machine gunner with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. This is Vince's story of the Battle of the Bulge and his life before and after the battle.Vince shares his memories from early childhood through his service in World War II and his life up until now as he stands on the verge of turning 90--a story you will long remember. Vince will be in Bastogne, at his original foxhole, on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, drinking Airborne Beer, which his actions many years ago inspired.

101st Airborne

101st Airborne PDF Author: Mark Bando
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 1610602560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A minute-by-minute and day-by-day account of the elite 101st Airborne’s daring parachute landing behind enemy lines at Normandy is accompanied by firsthand accounts from Airborne veterans and forty incredible, previously unknown (let alone published) color photos of the “Screaming Eagles” at Normandy and in Great Britain prior to the invasion. Accompanying these remarkable D-Day color Kodachromes—which were unearthed in the attic of an Army doctor’s daughter—are more than two hundred black-and-white photographs from 101st survivors and the author’s own private collection. This is an unprecedented look at an elite fighting force during one of the last century’s most crucial moments.

The Rifle

The Rifle PDF Author: Andrew Biggio
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684511399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
It all started because of a rifle. The Rifle is an inspirational story and hero’s journey of a 28-year-old U.S. Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all -- WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a U.S. Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last-living WWII veterans. Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. 96 signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished PDF Author: Muriel Engelman
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595602088
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A former World War II army nurse shares her extraordinary life stories visualized from her earliest childhood memories over eighty years ago, to the present. Muriel Engelman begins her fascinating narrative by detailing her journey through childhood during the Great Depression and then transitioning into her structured life as a student nurse. Caring for polio patients in a city hospital she becomes skilled in dealing with difficult patients. Upon graduation she was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and sailed with her hospital unit in late 1943 for England, serving there for six months. Her unit arrived in Normandy, France after D Day, followed the advancing army and eventually operated a 1,000 bed tent hospital in Liege, Belgium. Lighter off-duty moments balanced out the threat of capture and continuous buzz bombs, all while caring for wounded American soldiers. This is all described in excerpts from actual letters penned to her family often by the dim light of a kerosene lantern or flashlight, knowing as she wrote that survival was not a guaranteed possibility. Engelman shares vivid descriptions of the people, settings and memories in a timeless style that will transport anyone back to an era when the future of the world was uncertain, and the bravery of those who sacrificed everything to protect America was not forgotten.

The Ardennes

The Ardennes PDF Author: Hugh Marshall Cole
Publisher: U.S. Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 762

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Book Description


Vanguard of the Crusade

Vanguard of the Crusade PDF Author: Mark Bando
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 9782840483380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Mark Bando has dedicated this work to this famous American airborne division engaged in the Normandy and Ardennes battles. He relays in dramatic detail the histories recounted by hundreds of veterans, making this work a necessary addition to the enthusiast's library. Mark Bando is the well-known author of three previous books about the 101st Airborne Division in WWII and of Breakout at Normandy: The 2d Armored Division in the Land of the Dead. Expanding on his previous works, Vanguard of the Crusade is comprehensive, addressing the entire WWII record of the 101st. The author was born and raised on the west side of Detroit, MI, attended Cass Technical High School and later Wayne State University, as a history major. HE served 25 years as a uniformed Detroit Police patrol officer, working in five different precincts and spending six years in the citywide Tactical Section, during which he heard many shots fired in anger. Bando began interviewing WWII veterans of the 101st in 1968 and has continued to the present, with a running total of over 1,025 interviews. This lifelong pursuit grew out of a recognition of the superior battlefield performance of the WWII 101st and their resulting legendary historical status. His quest has been not only the record their exceptional experiences for posterity, but also ti study the combat paratroopers to discover the reasons for their great successes in battle. Uniquely, Bando has focused almost exclusively on the 101st for four decades, providing his books an abundance of rich, untold stories and a depth of detail which other researchers simply cannot match.

Captured at the Battle of the Bulge

Captured at the Battle of the Bulge PDF Author: E. Russell Lang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998361901
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In December of 1944, Russ Lang and the rest of the 106th Infantry Division had just arrived at the front lines in Europe when the Germans launched the all-out counter-attack we call The Battle of the Bulge. Surrounded, his regiment fought until their ammunition and supplies were exhausted. Lang spent the rest of the war in as a German P.O.W.--and he kept a diary! Here the tale of a young man caught in the drama of World War II.

The Dakota Hunter

The Dakota Hunter PDF Author: Hans Wiesman
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612002595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A tale of a lifelong passion for a WWII aircraft that changed the author’s life: “It is almost like an adventure novel except it is true” (Air Classics). This book tells the story of a Dutch boy who grew up during the 1950s in postwar Borneo, where he had frequent encounters with an airplane, the Douglas DC-3, a.k.a. the C-47 Skytrain or Dakota, of World War II fame. For a young boy living in a remote jungle community, the aircraft reached the proportions of a romantic icon as the essential lifeline to a bigger world for him, the beginning of a special bond. In 1957, his family left the island and all its residual wreckage of World War II, and he attended college in The Hague. After graduation, he started a career as a corporate executive—and met the aircraft again during business trips to the Americas. His childhood passion for the Dakota flared up anew, and the fascination pulled like a magnet. As if predestined, or maybe just looking for an excuse to come closer, he began a business to salvage and convert Dakota parts, which meant first of all finding them. As the demand for these war relic parts and cockpits soared, he began to travel the world to track down surplus, crashed, or derelict Dakotas. He ventured deeper and deeper into remote mountains, jungles, savannas, and the seas where the planes are found, usually as ghostly wrecks but sometimes still in full commercial operation. In hunting the mythical Dakota, he often encountered intimidating or dicey situations in countries plagued by wars or revolts, others by arms and narcotics trafficking, warlords, and conmen. The stories of these expeditions take the reader to some of the remotest spots in the world, but once there, one is often greeted by the comfort of what was once the West’s apex in transportation—however now haunted by the courageous airmen of the past.

The Last Folk Hero

The Last Folk Hero PDF Author: Jeff Pearlman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358438713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 774

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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller • The ultimate gift for sports lovers By the author of Showtime—the source for HBO’s Winning Time—the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson. “A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." —Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America’s most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth. Then, almost overnight, he was gone. He was Bo Jackson. Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University’s transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous “Bo Knows” Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or … maybe.) Bo Jackson isn’t Jim Thorpe. He’s not Deion Sanders, either. No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan. The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only “master storyteller” (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.

General Toothpick... WW II Memiors of 1st Sgt Donald L. Deam

General Toothpick... WW II Memiors of 1st Sgt Donald L. Deam PDF Author: Donald Deam
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781493616541
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
THE GUNS ARE SILENT NOW. Nature is slowly healing the brutal scars that marred Normandy, Holland, and Bastogne. The men who struggled in many of the greatest battles in human history are dwindling in number. One day perhaps all traces of the epic tragedy of World War II will be gone. And that is why this personal account by Donald Deam, who fought in all three battles, is so precious. As he wrote shortly before his death: "This is the story of a one hundred and twelve pound nineteen year old who became a First Sergeant in the 501st Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division. Many years have now passed. My memory often fades and then resurfaces in vivid fashion. I still relive many episodes of the war. I miss the comradeship that existed, something I have never experienced in peacetime. I don't recall many of their faces. Now these memories often bring back a few smiles, but also bring many tears. Too many of these men did not come back." All proceeds from this book will be donated to the 101st Airborne Division in honor of First Sgt. Donald L. Deam.