Odin & Aesop

William Manchester served in the Marine Corps during the Second World War.  He was wounded during the Battle of Okinawa.  After the war, Manchester established himself as a journalist in Baltimore, an adjunct professor at Wesleyan University, and an author.  In 1978, he returned to the Pacific and visited various places connected either with his service or the Pacific campaign.  That trip forms the basis of this book, “Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War.”

Bill Peters was commissioned in the Marine Corps via Officer Candidate School.  After completing the Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, he was assigned to Vietnam as a platoon commander in First Force Reconnaissance Company in 1969.  Peters conducted twenty-three long-range patrols in enemy-controlled territory, was wounded, and decorated for bravery. He tells the story in “First Force Recon Company: Sunrise at Midnight.”

The Algerian War of Independence lasted from 1954 to 1962.  It carried heavy costs for both sides.  Estimates vary but upwards of a million Muslim Algerians died; roughly a million Pied Noir (settlers of European descent) were driven into exile; and France was driven to the brink of civil war.  Alistair Horne tells the story in “A Savage War of Peace.” 

Siegfried Knappe served in the German Army from 1936 until 1949.  He was a member of the German General Staff.  Knappe was wounded multiple times and saw action in France as well as the Eastern and Italian fronts.  He ended the war in and out of Hitler’s bunker during the Battle of Berlin before spending several years in Soviet captivity.  This book provides candid insight into the German Army from the inside out.      

The United States entered World War One on April 6th, 1917. Going to war in Europe meant the United States had to greatly expand its Army.  It had enlist, train, organize, equip, and deploy hundreds of thousands of young men.  One of the units that was part of this expansion was the 79th Infantry Division which was activated in August 1917.  Many of the soldiers in the 79th Infantry Division were draftees from Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia.  By the time they were deactivated less than two years later, 6,874 of their Division comrades had been killed or wounded.  Gene Fax tells the story of the 79th Infantry Division focusing on its involvement in the final yet bloody months of World War One’s Western Front. 

Company E, 506th Regiment was part of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.  It was formed in 1942 and comprised of young volunteers that were generally new to the army.  Company E received its baptism by fire in June 1944 when it jumped into NAZI occupied France.  It went on to jump into Holland as part of Operation Market-Garden; helped blunt the German advance by holding the town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge; and then drove across Germany to secure Hitler’s final defeat.  During its advance across Europe, Company E sustained 150% casualties.  Stephen Ambrose tells Easy Company’s story through the words of the men who served in it. 

Sierra Leone’s civil war lasted from 1991 until 2002.  It was marked by exceptional levels of cruelty and suffering.  During this civil war the United Nations, neighboring West African states, and the United Kingdom launched military interventions into Sierra Leone.  The United Kingdom’s intervention was called Operation Palliser.  In September 2000 eleven British soldiers participating in Operation Palliser were captured by a militia gang known as the West Side Boys.  When it became clear negotiating with the West Side Boys was proving futile, the British decided to take military action to free their soldiers.  William Fowler’s “Operation Barras” tells the story of what happened.

On November 20th, 1953 thousands of French paratroopers dropped into a place called Dien Bien Phu.  Dien Bien Phu is a small valley in the northern part of Vietnam close to Laos.  The French plan was to establish a base at Dien Bien Phu, keep it resupplied by air, and then use it as a place to launch operations against the Viet Minh.  The French underestimated the scale of the force the Viet Minh would concentrate around Dien Bien Phu.  Before long, the French were besieged and doomed to defeat.  This battle ended French rule in Indochina.  Bernard Fall explains what happened at Dien Bien Phu and why in “Hell in a Very Small Place”.  

The First Allied Airborne Army launched an attack into the German occupied Netherlands on September 17, 1944.  Eventually over the 41,000 troops went in by parachute and glider.  The idea was for this huge airborne force to seize nine bridges stretched across 64 miles of the Netherlands.  Seizing these bridges would allow the British Army’s XXX Corps to advance rapidly across the rivers and into Germany.  It was a bold plan that ultimately failed.  Cornelius Ryan explains why in “A Bridge Too Far”.  

On June 1942, Germany’s Army Group South started an offensive called Case Blue or Plan Blue.  The idea was to sprint out off eastern Ukraine, across the Russian steppe, and into the Caucasus to capture the oil fields there.  As part of this big effort, the German Sixth Army attempted to capture the city of Stalingrad on the Volga River.  The Sixth Army reached Stalingrad in August.  The fighting was ferocious.  In November the Soviets launched offensives of their own north and south of Stalingrad.  Those two pincers linked up and trapped the Germans in a cauldron.  Fighting continued in Stalingrad but now winter was closing in.  Starvation and the cold exacted a toll as harsh as the Soviets.  Despite Hitler’s attempts to resupply the Sixth Army by air and his exhortations to fight to the last, what was left of the German Sixth Army surrendered in late January 1943.  There was no way for Hitler and his propagandists to spin this crushing defeat.  Antony Beevor tells the story of history’s largest land battle and arguably the turning point of World War Two in “Stalingrad.”