Book Description
A memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, Jünger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict but—more importantly—as a unique personal struggle. Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, Jünger kept testing himself, braced for the death that will mark his failure.
Published shortly after the war's end, Storm of Steel was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.
Customer Reviews:
Surpisingly incredible book.......2007-10-20
I just read this book, and I must say I'm amazed at it.
I'll critique the book mainly by comparison. The most familiar WW1 work is of course "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Remarque. There are others that are similar such as "Under Fire", a noted work by Henri Barbusse from the French side, "Goodbye to All That" by Robert Graves (Englishman), and "Company K" by William March (US Marine Corps). I believe these books represent the dominant WW1 genre. With the exception of "Storm of Steel", they all tend to more-or-less follow a genre started first perhaps by Stephen Crane's novel "The Red Badge of Courage" about the American Civil War. Interestingly, Crane was never in war - a fact often unknown to readers. Many veterans reading Crane's novel were incredibly moved by its 'accuracy' and depth of feeling, which I'll come back to.
The immediately obvious difference about "Storm of Steel" is two things:
1) It was written from Junger's diary, and 2) he started the book very soon after the war's end. In other words, it is not watered down by time.
All the other novels were written some 10 yrs after the war, in melancholy-ish, "what happened to us?" sort of vein - i.e. the Lost Generation. This is significant both to the level of detail (accuracy and remembrance) and to the mood of the writing.
There are other points - Junger served throughout the war. American author March only served a part of the American involvement, obviously (but he can be forgiven in that the last half of the war was surely its worst, with the industrialization and de-humanization of warfare at its peak). Along a similar line, Remarque ("All's Quiet") served only a very short time; a point not at all obvious from his book which is presumed to be autobiographical. There have been challenges to Remarque's war service (many of it unfounded) and some feel he was something of a fantasist about his service, which was only a few weeks at the front. He was indeed wounded - but it is almost impossible he experienced everything he wrote about in "All's Quiet". Junger, on the other hand, had ample experience in the war, was wounded multiple times, and was highly decorated (one of the youngest to recieve the 'Pour le Merite', the Blue Max).
Junger's reputation is tainted by some possible associations with German nationalism after the war. But assertions that he was pro-Nazi are completely untrue. In fact, he lost his son to the Nazi regime. He may have even been on the fringes of the July 20th plot to kill Hitler.
Sure, he supported his country, but that does not make him a Nazi. Unfortunately, his supposed politics affected the reception of his writing (and by default, "Storm of Steel") in the rest of the world in more recent times. In my opinion this is a loss to the literature from the WW1 period...
On to the book: The book is written in a very matter-of-fact way. This may surprise some readers, given that so many other books (as mentioned above) are of the "war is hell" theme. Junger pulls no punches - he was trying to do his part to win, and he states it this way. I honestly do not see anything in the book that leads me to think he is some sort of war monger or "pre-Nazi Nazi". Junger has a deep sense of adventure and the ability to keep a cool head. He strikes me as a man trying to do a job, and he writes thusly. He shows sympathy for his men and NCOs, and writes from a 'team perspective'. "All's Quiet" protagonist Paul Baumer on the other hand, goes into depth of feeling about the individual soldier (read: Privates) and his sense of futility, hopelessness, camraderie (only with certain others) and concern over survival versus victory (perhaps justified).
Once you read Junger, and contrast him to Remarque, you see the differences: Remarque was a kid, with little overall sense of what was going on beyond his day to day survival and a certain dreaminess. Junger, on the other hand, was clearly a Type-A personality who directly involved himself in the efforts to win.
I unfortunately found that a reading of Junger tends to denigrate (for lack of a better word) the efforts of a Remarque who writes about feelings and hope (or hopelessness, as it were). And vice-versa. You have to juxtapose the two to get a feel for the war in its entirety.
I'm uneasy with it, but I get the feeling Junger was a stronger person than the other WW1 writers - he had a healthy sense of life, and moved on after the war to live a full life. Maybe his selection to be an Officer after a year is part of that. He wa also an adventurer, who joined the French Foreign Legion before the war.
Regardless of all this, Junger's book should be better known than it is. It is great for its historical context if nothing else.
Good but not as good as all the hype.......2007-07-24
This book is well written, well translated and flows well on the memoirs of a german private at the start of WW1 and officer by the end, but for all the hype that I had heard about this book it is no where near as good as Rommel's ATTACK and his experience of WW1 that book was full on action.
Storm of Steel does give graphic details of life in and out of the front line including some major battles he took part in, still overrated
A Differnt Perspective of World War I.......2007-07-17
History is written by the victors. What makes Storm of Steel so unique is that this autobiographical account of the Great War was written by one of the losers. It is interesting to read about why this young German soldier fights but also of the respect he has for his opponents on the other side of No Man's Land. Ernst Junger does not shy away from the graphic truth about the horrors of war. Every recollection of battle is filled with descriptions of the grisly deaths of fellow soldiers and the horrid conditions of life in the trenches. This eye opening account of the horrors of war is a must read for any student of history.
"The Europe of today appeared here for the first time on the field of battle".......2007-05-14
Jünger's book Storm of Steel is an exceptionally well written and almost romantic (not in the sense of romance novel but rather a piece which illicits an emotive response much like painting of the 19th century) It is one individual's reaction to life in Europe before, during and after WWI. Many of the statements of the text had several implications. Such as his assertion that "the Europe of today appeared here for the first time on the field of battle?" When read in context with the previous paragraphs the statement seemed to be remarking on the damaging will imposed on the European landscape. He spoke of machinery and how before the use of contemporary weaponry the most harm inflicted was the burning of towns and villages. Now because of new `scientific war' or a war of machines not man, nature was impacted. To burn a village was to bruise culture, but not destroy it. Culture could be rebuilt. To create craters and desert out of a once pristine landscape was to demolish it. The author seems to suggest that the damage inflicted by machine was irreparable. Furthermore, describing the war as scientific or a war of machines removed all traces of humanity. The exile of humanness can also be seen in his remarks that chivalry and basic politeness ("all fine and personal feeling") succumb to machinery. Machinery becomes the all invading. In his text, man becomes machine when he "wore the steel helmet." Steel and flesh, man and machine melt into one. The Europe of today was one of cold technology devoid of humanity and nature. Jünger suggested that man had to adapt to machine not machine to man when he discussed the change of fighting strategy. He ended this excerpt with his assessment that everything that was great about the German race or even Europe as a whole drowned during WWI "in a sea of mud and blood."
Journey through the Valley..........2007-02-13
Storm of Steel is one of those rare birds of literature, the war diary that doesn`t condemn war. Ernst Junger`s diary of his officer years in the Imperial German army during that slaughter that ironically came to be known as the Great War, stands alone among `war books.` Unlike Remarque, Graves or even Hemingway, Junger refuses to beat his reader over the head with an overtly edifying message. Ironically, Junger exposes the repellent nature of war by seeming to embrace its proported `virtue-building` properties.
Those looking for a pacifist tract or probing expose into man as killer, would best look elsewhere. Storm of Steel is one man`s existential journey through the unimaginable maelstorm of 1914--1918. Junger begins his story at the very beginning of that awful conflict when his proud unit---67th Hanoverian Fusiliers---marches across the fields of Champagne to meet the French during the autumn of 1914. Here, Junger`s diary gives the impression of boys off to a rugby match. Junger`s high-spirited warrior-athletes soon learn otherwise. Junger deftly and piercingly chronicles the devolution of the assumed football match` into the Boschian reality that would last for the next four years: trench warfare.
In deceptively simple descriptive sentences, Junger manages to paint a vibrant canvas of the world about him. Each chapter jockeys back and forth between brazen dawn attacks across no-man`s land, midnight reconnaissance forays into enemy trenches and the daily and nightly lot of the soldier`s worst nightmare: the artillery barrage. Most of SOS`s richest passages center around such barrages. Rightly so, as Junger`s diary records what was heard, seen, and felt by the Great War grunt. And constant shelling was the mainstay of trench life.
Shrapnel shells burst overhead spitting out their steely balls of destruction, high-explosive shells churn up the Artois farmland into sometimes geysers, sometimes volcanos. The world around Junger is in a constant state of upheaveal and change. Mother Earth violated by the hour, contorts herself around the bloodied figures who dive from crater to crater in search of momentary respite from fate. Junger seems to view the shells and whizzing bullets as messages from another world. Everybody is sentenced to one, it`s all a matter of when it will hit and what it`ll contain, instant death or a few more minutes, hours, days of life.
SOS covers the range of major Western front offensives, the Somme, Cambrai, the final German offensive of 1918, and ends with the Allied breakthrough of the summer of 1918. And through it all, Lieutenant Junger comes across as a man of daring, courage and noblesse oblige, a leader beloved by his underlings and one alternately ruthless and merciful towards his French and British opponents. Junger rarely reflects for long on his actions. As the sole voice of the book, Junger carries you from page to page as a man of action. Here leading a grenade attack across and through an enemy trench, there regrouping his dazed and decimated platoon after an especially virile bombardment. Moments of emotional or even mental interaction with the chaos that surrounds is minimal. SOS captures the moments in which one either lives or dies, kills or is killed. And Junger is supremely faithful to that experience. Post-experience editorializing is all but absent from SOS.
Yet, it is the lack of such emotional contact with the action that separates SOS from that other grand tome of war, the Iliad. When Achilles weeps over Patroclus` mangled body, we also weep, when Achilles stops his rage-driven chariot with Hector`s body tied to it, we, like Achilles, reflect on the bestial power of our anger. Storms of Steel has few such moments. When a dear friend is gunned down moments after sharing words with each other, Junger`s response appears prosaic. `That news floored me. A friend of mine with noble qualities, with whom I had shared joy, sorrow and danger for years now, who only a few moments ago had called out some pleasantry to me, taken from life by a tiny piece of lead!` Yet, here like everywhere in SOS, Junger painstakingly documents. This isn`t war as Achilles and Hector knew it, face to face with one`s opponent. Here, death came from an invisible shell splinter or the yellow muzzle flash, a mile away. You rarely saw he you killed or who killed you. This conflict was altogether different. A war where the human took a back seat to steel. An eerie premonition hovers over SOS. Killing has now become more efficient and quicker, euphemisms soon to be used in the battlefields and death camps to come. Junger kills with similar detachment. Throwing a grenade into a British dugout, he describes the results as, `rough, but satisfactory.` Occasionally though, Junger also records the human element that can`t help but burst through the storm. His unit the recipient of a direct shell hit, Junger drops an innocuous sentence that rings with understatement. `One baby-faced fellow, who was mocked a few days ago by his comrades, and on exercises had wept under the weight of the big munitions boxes, was now loyally carrying them on our heavy way, having picked them up unasked in the crater. Seeing that did it for me. I threw myself to the ground, and sobbed hysterically...`
After killing a young British soldier, Junger makes an enlightening confession. `He lay there, looking quite relaxed...I often thought back on him; and more with the passing of the years. The state, which relieves us of the responsibility, cannot take away our remorse; and we must exercise it.` Profound words as timely today as then.
Junger sweeps his reader across experiences that most readers will never taste. And in a langauge stripped of all moral posturing, preaching or correcting, Storm at times glances the heavy topics with a beauty approaching the poetic. Junger`s matter of fact and stolid Lower Saxon can surprise us with its unexpected layers. Junger describes his final wounding with such words. `As I fell, I saw the smooth, white pebbles in the muddy road; their arrangement made sense, it was as necessary as that of the stars, and certainly great wisdom was hidden in it.` And then the telling next sentence. `That concerned me, and mattered more than the slaughter that was going on all round me.` Such philosophical detachment from the human and moral swamp that surrounds him, separates Junger from other writers of war.
Reaching the final page, I felt as if I had been privy to something quite special. A peep show into another`s man`s harrowing experience. An experience I hope never to have. While Junger`s cavalier and sportsmanlike attitude to war left a bitter taste in my mouth, his struggle to portray war, warts and all, only strengthened my resolve to avoid and condemn it. Therein lays the grand irony of Storm of Steel; the least overtly moralizing of war texts makes the strongest plea for peace, that imaginary place about which the horribly wounded Junger muses,`Where I was going, there was neither war nor enmity.`
Book Description
An excellent firsthand account of the Civil War from a soldier's point of view. It is a masterful description of war's grim reality.--VFW Magazine
Customer Reviews:
Soldiering.......2007-03-04
This books provides us with the knowledge of day to day survival in the union army. He, Rice C. Bull, was severely wounded and captured by the Confederate Army. He describes the conditions surrounding him while he lay unable to move. It's not a pretty picture and many died that could have been saved. He seems to have been a gentleman of high moral standing. There didn't seem to be any bitterness or hate in him. He was simply doing what he felt to be his duty to the best of his ability.
It's in reading these diaries that contain little parts of the war that we can piece together a more accurate complete picture. Read it and find out what was thought of the food and how marching became a way of like.
The privates tale gives a valuable insight to life during the Civil War.
A great adventure written by a first rate story teller........2001-05-22
For those readers who are interested in a good first account of life as a Yankee soldier during the American Civil War, this is the book. I found the account written by Elijah Hunt Rhodes to be quite bland. Full of patriotic sentiment that sheds little light on his vulnerability. Rhodes' may have been a great soldier but he is an amateur storyteller. Rice Bull on the other hand, is a natural born writer. I found this book hard to put down. The pictures Bull paints are startling, amazing, hilarious and terrifying. This book's depiction of war lives in an entirely different universe than, John Wayne, Turner Classics, or any of the tedious accounts written by the Civil War Generals attempting to clear their name. Full of fantastic insight and ironies this book is right up there with "Catch 22" and "Journey to the End of the Night".
Soldiering : The Civil War Diary of Rice C. Bull.......2001-02-03
This is an excellent book to get an understanding in the daily life of a Northern soldier. The R.C. Bull's journal is an "easy" read and allows the reader to grasp what it was like to be in the infantry during the Civil War. R.C. Bull writes about the types of rations they were issued, their living conditions, and the marches they had to endure. He writes about trading goods with the Confederate "rebs" and his treatment as wounded prisoner. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the life of an enlist man during the Civil War.
Very Good Account of the Civil War.......1998-11-13
After reading three diaries (Diary of Daniel Chisholm, Three Years in Co. K, and this book) I place this one at the top (for now.) The description of Bull's experience following Chancellorsville, wounded in the hip and face, lying in the mud, while men are dying all around him, is particularly moving. I'm a novice Civil War buff, and would recommend this title to someone who has more than a passing interest in the daily life of a Northern soldier.
Customer Reviews:
Recounts the manifold hardships the troops and their officers endured.......2005-11-13
Edited and annotated by Charles M. Robinson (history instructor at South Texas Community College and a fellow of the Texas State Historical Association), The Diaries Of John Gregory Bourke: Volume Two: July 29, 1876-April 7, 1878 is the next published installment of the personal journals of John Gregory Bourke who served as cavalry lieutenant in Arizona from 1872 up to the evening before his death in 1896. A noted ethnologist who wrote extensive descriptions of Native American tribal life and customs that he observed first hand, he illustrated his diaries with both sketches and photographs. This second published volume opens as General Crook prepares for the expedition that would lead to his infamous and devastating Horse Meat March. The diary faithfully recounts the manifold hardships the troops and their officers endured. The diary then continues with the story of the Powder River Expedition and culminates in Bourke's eyewitness description of Colonel Ranald MacKenzie's destruction of the main Cheyenne camp in what become known as the Dull Knife Fight. With the main hostile chiefs either surrendering or forced into exile in Canada, field operations came to a close and Bourke finishes this second volume of his memoirs with a retrospective of his service in Tucson, Arizona. Enhanced for the modern reader with extensive annotations and a biographical appendix on Indians, civilians, and military personnel named in the diaries, this outstanding series continues to be a seminal and strongly recommended contribution to American Frontier History and Native American Studies reference collections and supplementary reading lists.
Book Description
This is one of the first books published that was written by a Camp Lejeune Marine who fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In this first hand graphic account, GySgt Jason K. Doran, a Silver Star recipient, shares his experiences of his tour of duty during the Iraqi War. The book covers the journey of 1st Battalion, 2nd Regiment, a part of Task Force Tarawa, from the ship ride over through the Suez Canal, to the bloody battle for the bridges at An Nasiriyah and then home again. This book allows the reader to share in the day-to-day experiences and personal account of a Marine's tour of duty. This is the real thing. Gunny Sergeant Doran was there.
Customer Reviews:
Not very good.......2006-02-12
The author is a real hero, but this is a mediocre book. Not reccomended.
SIMPLY THE TRUTH, UNEDITED.......2005-12-31
I wasn't even into the first chapter before I had tears in my eyes. This Gunny has it all right. He sees the military exactly as it is, and explains it perfectly. He has seen so much in his short 41 years, and it has effected him greatly in his personal life - yet he continued to ask for the tough assignments. ALL MILITARY MEMBERS WILL LAUGH at his picture perfect descriptions of military life. ALL CIVILIANS NEED TO READ this book to truly understand the War in Iraq.
Jason tells the sometimes gory truth, but it is a truth that more people should know. He paints a blow-by-blow, gunshot-by-gunshot picture of the war without losing the reader. It is captivating from the Foreward through to the last page. He is a Marine's Marine. One rough, tough, Texan who is still a caring, loving man and father. Buy the book.
Simple but Clean and Crisp.......2005-09-20
Writing was not the best but I enjoyed this story by a fellow Marine and praise him fr sitting down and knocking out this story of combat, something I hope to do in the future. Nice job mixing intr-unit relations with external threats.
Amazing.......2005-09-15
Why more out there don't know of this book is beyond me. Far surpasses even "Generation Kill" and, dare I say, "The March Up" simply on the fact that is a Gunny who knows where his heart, his head, and his loyalty is, without question. Inspiring and motivating, this is a book that I've given to my fellow Marines and that I continue to recommend at all times. Lets you know what it was, and is, really like...something even different than those of us who went over in 1991 saw. Get this, and realize that what you are seeing on your CNN and even your FOX, and reading about in your newspapers and magazines, is largely a ruse. I just can't recommend this enough and truly can't put into words the measure of this book (or for that matter, this Gunny). Semper Fi brothers.
Awesome.......2005-09-09
This was an awesome book! Very difficult to put down. Author writes as he speaks - unedited for profanity. When reading a book on the lastest war written by an Active Duty member you shouldn't expect sensorship and there is none in this book. If your delicate eyes can't handle profanity from someone getting shot at, don't read it!
Book Description
“We tried to live with 120 percent intensity, rather than waiting for death. We read and read, trying to understand why we had to die in our early twenties. We felt the clock ticking away towards our death, every sound of the clock shortening our lives.” So wrote Irokawa Daikichi, one of the many kamikaze pilots, or tokkotai, who faced almost certain death in the futile military operations conducted by Japan at the end of World War II.
This moving history presents diaries and correspondence left by members of the tokkotai and other Japanese student soldiers who perished during the war. Outside of Japan, these kamikaze pilots were considered unbridled fanatics who willingly sacrificed their lives for the emperor. But the writings explored here by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney clearly and eloquently speak otherwise. A significant number of the kamikaze were university students who were drafted and forced to volunteer, and in their diaries and correspondence they often wrote heartbreaking soliloquies in which they poured out their anguish and fear and expressed profound ambivalence toward the war as well as opposition to their nation’s imperialism.
A salutary correction to the many caricatures of the kamikaze, this poignant work will be essential to anyone interested in the history of Japan and World War II.
“Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney’s book is designed to challenge Western perceptions of the kamikaze generation. By assembling brief biographies of some of the young Japanese who perished on suicide missions, and by quoting extensively from their wartime diaries and poetry, she portrays a group of literate, thoughtful people, most of whom hated the war and were reluctant to die.”— Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Customer Reviews:
Death for those with so much to live for.......2007-08-11
This is a very intellectual study of tokkotai pilots. The long introduction details the high level of academic learning these young men had and their philosophical beliefs. The chosen diaries are filled with questioning and rationalizations of this honorable duty to their country and with poetic longings to live and to love. If you can wade through the academic language you will discover a new and sad perspective of these brilliant young men whose lives were wasted in an effort to win a war that was already lost.
A welcome, but limited perspective.......2007-07-08
I found this to be a somewhat disappointing book.
The book title refers to the author's presentation of the personal reflections of 5 Japanese tokkôtai (i.e., kamikaze), as revealed in their diaries. The author does an excellent job of describing the historical and cultural context of the tokkôtai in the first part of the introduction. However, the latter half of introduction (pages 17-33) is less useful as it moves away from the primary focus of the book to discuss tangential issues. For example, the section of the book entitled "A long road to the point of no return" focuses on Japanese nationalism, with minimal attention to the tokkôtai.
More important, the author's actual presentation of the pilot diaries is weak. Quotations from the diaries are limited, in some places being only 1 or 2 sentences. In comparison, the author's analyses and inferences take as much space as the actual quotations themselves. Thus, the pilots' personalities and thoughts are not allowed to speak for themselves; instead, they are obscured by the author's analyses.
I will note, as a minor point, that the author uses the word tokkôtai as referring to the Japanese "special attack force." It is not until page 174 in the book, that the author notes that tokkôtai is actually an abbreviation for "tokubetsu kôgekitai," which is the full term for "special attack force."
The book provides a useful and welcome alternate perspective on the kamikaze. Recognize, however, that you will have to wade through a lot of tangents and academic analyses, rather than directly hearing what the tokkôtai have to say for themselves.
A deeper perspective.......2007-03-14
The book covers a lot of the same ground (identical content in some places) as the author's "Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms". The discussion of how Japan's leaders appropriated the cherry blossom iconography for military indoctrination is highly stimulating, though at times the author pushes her theme beyond its the capacity to explain certain aspects of Japanese fanaticism. In part, the problem is that the reader has to accept the diaries and other writings of a small number of highly educated young men as "representative" of the kamikaze (the author avoids the word in her text because she says it has become a synonym for "mindlessness") when, of course, they were a minority. Nevertheless, taken together with other first-hand sources (diaries, letters, memoires, etc.) increasingly becoming available in translation, this collection makes a valuable contribution to deepening our understanding of the human dimenson of wartime Japan.
Kamikaze pilot.......2006-11-03
This should be read by all the young people today. The book is a diary of a young university student who was drafted and forced to become a Kamikaze pilot against his will like many others in ca 1945. They had no other choice then. I could not read this book without a box of tissues. Because I lived in their generation and in the same country.
Average customer rating:
- I dont know what to title this
- I dont know what to title this
- Scott Pendleton Collins
- Yep...it's a keeper
- The Journal of Scott Pendleton
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The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins: A World War II Soldier, Normandy, France, 1944 (My Name is America: A Dear America Book)
Walter Dean Myers
Manufacturer: Scholastic Inc.
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ASIN: 0439050138 |
Customer Reviews:
I dont know what to title this.......2006-12-18
i read The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins,a world war two soldier.i really liked this book,i give it a 5 star rating, its an interesting historical fiction book,if you are gonna do a historical fiction book report i recommend this book. I only recommend this book to those who like reading about wars or reading about journals.when i picked this book i thought it was going to be another boring old book but it wasn't I just wanted to keep on reading this book, just to see what would happen to scott and all of the people in the war. In this book Scott tells of all his troubles while he is serving in the war. This book has some sad parts that make you want to cry and some happy parts that make you feal happy that he is alive.
I dont know what to title this.......2006-12-18
i read The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins,a world war two soldier.in this book Scott Collins goes through some tough times like seeing people die, being scared of dying and bomb shells and all those terible things that go on in war.When I picked this book I thought it was going to be another boring old book, but it wasn't. It was actually quite interesting.I usually dont like reading journals, because to me they are boring, but this book is far beyond boring(in my opinion.) some things they mentions in this book are interesting to do reaserch on, like battle of the bulge and when they mention D-day i was thinking what the heck is d-day so i did some reaserch on it and found out what it was, im not gonna tell you because you should do your own reaserch on it.I give this book a 5star rating because i liked this book. If you like reading journals and/or reading war stories then this is the book for you , if you dont like reading books on war and journals then i dont recommend this book for you.
Scott Pendleton Collins.......2006-12-12
The book was a great book and I wish Walter Dean Myers would make more books about war. My friend and I really like war books and it would great books like this. I have read The Journal of James Edmond Pease and The Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty and they both are great books.
Yep...it's a keeper.......2006-11-21
I finally had to break down and buy this book when my 10 year-old son kept renewing it at the library at his school. He would mysteriously "forget" to take it on library day...he must have had that book for 6 straight weeks. He absolutely loved it...I will buy more in this series.
The Journal of Scott Pendleton.......2006-04-24
I read the book The Journal of Scott Pendleton. This book is depressing.Scott has to expierience death. The book is depressing because how the way the Germans treat people. Also
how the Nazis treat people.
I learned some interesting facts. I learned that Hitler was part of the Nazis. I also learned that mine fields are bombs. At the end I learned that the Nazis commited suicide on April,1945.
I would recommend this book for three reasons. First it tells you about World War II. Also the book tells you about the Germans. Finally the book teaches you about the Nazis. The Journal of Scott Pendleton is an exciting book.
Average customer rating:
- Wonderful History - man in nursing home
- A truly accurate account
- Real War
- One of a Kind
- Best War Memoir Ever.
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Roll Me Over: An Infantryman's World War II
Raymond Gantter
Manufacturer: Presidio Press
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Similar Items:
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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
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Seven Roads to Hell: A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne
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Foot Soldier: A Combat Infantryman's War in Europe
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Visions From a Foxhole: A Rifleman in Patton's Ghost Corps
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Beyond the Rhine: A Screaming Eagle in Germany
ASIN: 0804116059
Release Date: 1997-05-28 |
Book Description
OVER THERE
When Raymond Gantter arrived in Normandy in the fall of 1944, bodies were still washing up from the invasion. Sobered by that sight, Gantter and his fellow infantrymen moved across northern France and Belgium, taking part in the historic and bloody Battle of the Bulge, before slowly penetrating into and across Germany, fighting all the way to the Czechoslovakian border.
With depth, clarity, and remarkable compassion, Gantter--an enlisted man and college graduate who spoke German--portrays the extraordinary life of the American soldier as he and his comrades lived it while helping to destroy Hitler's Third Reich. From dueling with unseen snipers in ruined villages to fierce battles in which the lightly armed American infantry skirmished against Hitler's panzers, Gantter skillfully captures one infantryman's progress across a continent where guns, fear, and death lay in wait around every bend in the road.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful History - man in nursing home.......2007-07-13
I was asked to purchase this book for a gentleman in our nursing home. He requested this book because he was the character in the book named Shorty and he was there in 1944 and knows the author.
He is thrilled to have this book.
Thank you.
A truly accurate account.......2007-07-07
I know the villages of Waimes and Faymonville very well as my mother's family came from that area. Gantter obviously took notice of what he saw and experienced there. He mentions people by name who actually existed and tells the readers exactly what these people did at the time. A well written and accurate account.
Real War.......2006-11-14
Mr. Gantter really brings out what the war was like in the European theater of operations. This is the best I have ever read. I highly
recommend it and it should be required reading in all US history classes
One of a Kind.......2006-07-19
Possibly the finest combat memoir ever written, "Roll Me Over" easily ranks alongside the works of veterans who went on to become professional writers, such as William Manchester's "Goodbye, Darkness", or David Kenyon Webster's "Parachute Infantry." Mr. Gantter's work has a remarkable day-by-day continuity to its narrative that is not found in other works, most memoirs are as confused and disjointed as only a battlefield can be. Sometimes an absolute gem awaits discovery in the bargain bin!
Best War Memoir Ever........2006-05-15
Roll Me Over: An Infantryman's World War II, is among the best and certainly among the most unusual combat memoirs to emerge from the Second World War. Its value lies in Gantter's unique and honest perspective; its peculiarity in his eclectic style.
Raymond Gantter's story is his own. He makes no claim to typicality and does not fit the profile of the average American soldier. When he was drafted he was thirty years old, married with two children, the college educated programming director of a radio station in Syracuse, New York. He was considered for officer training but passed over because of his eyeglasses. He writes as an educated, mature, and intellectually active man.
For the junior officer, the most important distinction of Gantter's experience is that he went into combat as a private and ended the war as a lieutenant. This is not to say that the book is a guide to early promotion. Instead it illustrates, better than could a book that only told one side of the story, some of the things that officers may forget about enlisted men, most importantly that they are men, no less than an officer and not particularly different, and how little enlisted often know about the demands placed on an officer from above. In recounting the self-inflicted wounding of a long-serving veteran as a result of battle fatigue, Gantter rails bitterly against his platoon leader for not knowing or caring enough about his condition to send him to the rear before he broke. He then reexamines the incident from a later perspective and concludes from his own hard experience as a platoon leader that the officer may very well have known and cared deeply about him but, due to a surplus of missions and a shortage of replacements, had no choice but to keep him in the line. He devotes his last chapter to a scathing discussion of the Army caste system as it operated in Europe during and immediately after the war, illustrating his points with outrageous and sometimes hilarious examples from his own experience.
Gantter discusses many subjects in the course of Roll Me Over, jumping from music to politics, religion, the Big Picture or whatever comes to mind in lengthy digressions that can at first be disorienting. Another quirk of his style is that, as the book is an amalgam of journal entries, letters home, narrative written after the war, and even a short story, he may at any given point write in the first, second (in all of his letters and many of his journal entries he seems to be addressing is wife), or third person. This is not from lack of skill; his writing is excellent. It seems instead to have been part of the mid-century fad for breaking the rules, like Gertrude Stein never using punctuation. Again, this can at first be disorienting but quickly becomes an enjoyable and engaging way of bringing the reader into Gantter's frame of mind at the time of writing (which, depending on the passage, may be at the front or in the rear, during or after the war). This engagement is important, as one of Gantter's favorite topics is the great physical discomfort and strain of combat. His accounts of days without sleep, dysentery, digging foxholes at night in the pouring rain, scavenging food, killing and being shot at are among the most vivid I have read.
Book Description
All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, who enlisted into the Union Army as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a 23-year-old lieutenant colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox. Anyone who heard these diaries excerpted on the PBS-TV series The Civil War will recognize his accounts of those campaigns, which remain outstanding for their clarity and detail. Most of all, Rhodes's words reveal the motivation of a common Yankee foot soldier, an otherwise ordinary young man who endured the rigors of combat and exhausting marches, short rations, fear, and homesickness for a salary of $13 a month and the satisfaction of giving "all for the union."
Customer Reviews:
A must read for Civil War buffs.......2007-10-18
Anyone who is interested in the Civil War has to read this book. All for the Union is the diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes and covers the four years that he spent in the Union army. Entry by entry, the reader can watch Rhodes go from an enthusiastic young man, to hard, weary soldier. Appalled by the death and destruction early in the book, by the end, laying down to sleep between the dead and dying barely justifies a comment. A wonderful read.
Only A Boy.......2007-03-01
If you are interested in more than big names and big battles this book is well worth reading. Elisha Hunt Rhodes shares his experiences from his enlistment as a boy having never been away from home until his mustering out as a man having earned the rank of Col. He writes in an honest straight forward manner about every aspect of daily life. His strong belief in duty, sense of right and wrong and his ever important sense of humor show in everything he writes. He's an optimist that made it through the war with all these attributes intact. Thankfully for us he kept this diary so that we can understand a little more about life during the Civil War.
Following the footsteps.......2004-11-25
It isn't easy to find quality diaries written so well from the Civil War sometimes; although this book will rank with in the top 10. Popularized and quoted often in Ken Burn's Civil War series on PBS, Rhodes' book about his life as a soldier come to life. Rhodes brings the excitement and patriotic fervor of being a new recruit in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry early in the war. This patriotic spirit never dies through out his writing. Many times he writes about the daily hardships such as bad weather, sickness and death while always falling back on the duty to ones country and the saving of the union. Rhodes' duty carries him many engagements where death lingers around every corner. Battles such as Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg are just a few that this man witnessed and wrote about firsthand. Rhodes' was really an ideal soldier and loved the life. He started the war as a private and by the end of it was a colonel. Many people would benefit from reading this book be it a historian or beginner looking to further understand soldier life in the Civil War.
Excellent diary of a Civil War Soldier.......2004-07-01
This is a very well written diary of a Civil War Soldier that enlisted as a private and ended the war as a Col. He does not go into great detail about battles but, he does go into detail about the daily life of a soldier. E.H. Rhodes writes a very easy to follow text. I highly recommend this book!!!!
One of the best.......2004-06-09
I have an extensive Civil War Library,and, once in a while, read a book that stands out alone. I postponed things I needed to do in order to finish this as close to one setting as possible.
Elisha Hunt Rhodes was a 'soldier's soldier, and a patriot's patriot. His diary will take you through the hum drum of camp life and the heat of battle. It takes you through the good times as well as the bad times. Your emotions will swing with his. Through all, Rhodes was "All for the Union."
As I finished this book, I realized this must be the best eye witness account ever written.
Customer Reviews:
Authentic and gripping.......2003-05-15
The best part of this book comes not from the letters of Daniel Chisholm, but from Sgt. Samuel Clear, who was in the same Company as the Chisholm brothers were. His day to day entries during 1864-65 are the real deal. Pragmatic, prosaic and utterly without pretension, Sgt. Clear comes across as a decent and likable soldier.
Think of this book as a 19th-century weblog followed by 19th-century emails and you'll see how life as a soldier hasn't changed much emotionally. Modern-day soldiers will nod their heads sympathetically reading these flashes from history.
Books:
- Team of Rivals
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- Team of Rivals
- The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7-12, 1864
- The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
- The Borgia Bride: A Novel
- The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, And African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle
- The Course of Mexican History
- The Culture of the Cold War (The American Moment)
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