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If You Survive: From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War
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If You Survive: From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War II, One American Officer's Riveting True Story Mass market paperbound - 1987

by George Wilson

In the tradition of Company Commander, an intense memoir of the blood-drenched small-unit combat of World War II--by a man who lived it--and survived. For the first time, George Wilson tells what it was like--the blood, the horror, the death and the glory, all brought vividly to life in the most amazing combat memoir of recent years.


Summary

first hand account of platoon leader with 4th infantry division from normandy to the siegfried line during last 9 months of the war. describes almost continuous combat from the infantryman's perspective. considered one of the best of its type. prose is unusually excellent for the genre. no false heroics. extremely realistic, holding back no details of the gore and misery of combat.

From the publisher

"If you survive your first day, I'll promote you." So promised George Wilson's World War II commanding officer in the hedgerows of Normandy -- and it was to be a promise dramatically fulfilled. From July, 1944, to the closing days of the war, from the first penetration of the Siegfried Line to the Nazis' last desperate charge in the Battle of the Bulge, Wilson fought in the thickest of the action, helping take the small towns of northern France and Belgium building by building. Of all the men and officers who started out in Company F of the 4th Infantry Division with him, Wilson was the only one who finished. In the end, he felt not like a conqueror or a victor, but an exhausted survivor, left with nothing but his life -- and his emotions. If You Survive One of the great first-person accounts of the making of a combat veteran, in the last, most violent months of World War II.

First line

Even though America was heavily engage in World War II in the fall of 1942, I felt safe in enrolling in college because the Marines and the Navy had turned me down.

From the jacket flap

"If you survive your first day, I'll promote you."
So promised George Wilson's World War II commanding officer in the hedgerows of Normandy -- and it was to be a promise dramatically fulfilled. From July, 1944, to the closing days of the war, from the first penetration of the Siegfried Line to the Nazis' last desperate charge in the Battle of the Bulge, Wilson fought in the thickest of the action, helping take the small towns of northern France and Belgium building by building. Of all the men and officers who started out in Company F of the 4th Infantry Division with him, Wilson was the only one who finished. In the end, he felt not like a conqueror or a victor, but an exhausted survivor, left with nothing but his life -- and his emotions.
If You Survive One of the great first-person accounts of the making of a combat veteran, in the last, most violent months of World War II.

Details

  • Title If You Survive: From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War II, One American Officer's Riveting True Story
  • Author George Wilson
  • Binding Mass Market Paperbound
  • Edition First Thus
  • Pages 288
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Ballantine Books, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.
  • Date May 12, 1987
  • ISBN 9780804100038 / 0804100039
  • Weight 0.3 lbs (0.14 kg)
  • Dimensions 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 in (17.02 x 10.41 x 2.54 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 20th Century
    • Chronological Period: 1851-1899
    • Topical: Civil War
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 86091844
  • Dewey Decimal Code 940.54

About the author

George Wilson (1921-2005) was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II. He wrote about that experience in his book If You Survive, which is now required reading at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
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If You Survive: From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War II, One American Officer's Riveting True Story

by George Wilson

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