ROAN
Specialist
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2007
- Messages
- 302
This now out-of-print book(copyright1994)by T. Michael Booth(a former paratrooper)and Duncan Spencer is well worth searching for online or in used book stores.
The book is inspirational because Gavin’s life is inspirational. For those not familiar with his background Gavin had a very difficult youth-a youth that might have broken a weaker individual.
He never knew his real parents-probably born illegitimate to a poor Irish immigrant woman(as an adult he spent much time and money trying to locate her)Gavin was raised by foster parents in a Pennsylvania coal town. He and his foster mother shared a mutual hatred and his defiance of her and the life she expected him to follow(coal mining)was one of the early experiences that forged his character-for the better.
His escape from her and the coal town was the Army. He took to it like a duck to water. Stationed in Panama, he stood out, was noticed and was appreciated; he made corporal at age 17(he lied about his age to get into the Army). One of his superiors encouraged him try for West Point, he did so and was admitted in 1925(again fibbing about his age to cover his lack of a high school diploma), graduating in 1929.
Gavin’s rise in the Army, his role as an Airborne pioneer and subsequent actions in the ETO for which he is famous for is chronicled by the authors in superb narrative historical writing-if you enjoy and appreciate Rick Atkinson’s writing, you will really enjoy this book also.
The authors never lose sight of what a truly remarkable and unique individual Gavin was: a warrior general, a maverick, outspoken and abrasive toward a rigid military establishment, a man that struggled to find his place and calling in a peacetime Army(sound familiar?)and somewhat surprisingly, an early critic of the Vietnam War.
Here is an excerpt from the chapter dealing with Gavin and the 82nd’s role in the Ardennes Offensive(p. 286):
"When the two divisions, the 101st and the 82nd had first been deployed……A spur-of-the-moment decision had sent the 101st to Bastogne and there, cut off and encircled, the Screaming Eagles became immortalized by the press…..while the 82nd’s desperate duel with three panzer divisions to hold the northern shoulder of the Bulge had gone unnoticed.
The surrounded 101st became America’s heroes for its energetic defense….and for the war’s most famous messages: “Nuts!” Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe’s answer when asked to surrender the city…..If the Bastogne story needed any more glamour, that was supplied by the attack from the south by the flamboyant Patton and his legendary drive to reinforce the defenders.
Yet, many students of the battle conclude that it was the tough and unglamorous action of units like the 82nd at the shoulders of the break that destroyed the German plan.
Time and the maps of the battle, which show the Bulge reaching its greatest extent to the south, have caused many to forget that the Germans were trying to push north. It was their failure to crack the northern shoulder that caused the Germans to fail in their thrust for the Meuse bridges and Antwerp, forcing them southward.
The significance of the part played by the 82nd was that Gavin’s force, in an emergency, was thrown into a role for which it was in no way trained or equipped, with no armor, no effective tank defenses except captured Panzerfausts, and little artillery.
Yet the 82nd had dramatically outfought the enemy. They had withstood the assault of four of von Rundstedt’s best remaining divisions and wrecked the northernmost and quickest German route to Antwerp".
Gavin’s grave marker at West Point(photo taken by me in 2010):
The book is inspirational because Gavin’s life is inspirational. For those not familiar with his background Gavin had a very difficult youth-a youth that might have broken a weaker individual.
He never knew his real parents-probably born illegitimate to a poor Irish immigrant woman(as an adult he spent much time and money trying to locate her)Gavin was raised by foster parents in a Pennsylvania coal town. He and his foster mother shared a mutual hatred and his defiance of her and the life she expected him to follow(coal mining)was one of the early experiences that forged his character-for the better.
His escape from her and the coal town was the Army. He took to it like a duck to water. Stationed in Panama, he stood out, was noticed and was appreciated; he made corporal at age 17(he lied about his age to get into the Army). One of his superiors encouraged him try for West Point, he did so and was admitted in 1925(again fibbing about his age to cover his lack of a high school diploma), graduating in 1929.
Gavin’s rise in the Army, his role as an Airborne pioneer and subsequent actions in the ETO for which he is famous for is chronicled by the authors in superb narrative historical writing-if you enjoy and appreciate Rick Atkinson’s writing, you will really enjoy this book also.
The authors never lose sight of what a truly remarkable and unique individual Gavin was: a warrior general, a maverick, outspoken and abrasive toward a rigid military establishment, a man that struggled to find his place and calling in a peacetime Army(sound familiar?)and somewhat surprisingly, an early critic of the Vietnam War.
Here is an excerpt from the chapter dealing with Gavin and the 82nd’s role in the Ardennes Offensive(p. 286):
"When the two divisions, the 101st and the 82nd had first been deployed……A spur-of-the-moment decision had sent the 101st to Bastogne and there, cut off and encircled, the Screaming Eagles became immortalized by the press…..while the 82nd’s desperate duel with three panzer divisions to hold the northern shoulder of the Bulge had gone unnoticed.
The surrounded 101st became America’s heroes for its energetic defense….and for the war’s most famous messages: “Nuts!” Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe’s answer when asked to surrender the city…..If the Bastogne story needed any more glamour, that was supplied by the attack from the south by the flamboyant Patton and his legendary drive to reinforce the defenders.
Yet, many students of the battle conclude that it was the tough and unglamorous action of units like the 82nd at the shoulders of the break that destroyed the German plan.
Time and the maps of the battle, which show the Bulge reaching its greatest extent to the south, have caused many to forget that the Germans were trying to push north. It was their failure to crack the northern shoulder that caused the Germans to fail in their thrust for the Meuse bridges and Antwerp, forcing them southward.
The significance of the part played by the 82nd was that Gavin’s force, in an emergency, was thrown into a role for which it was in no way trained or equipped, with no armor, no effective tank defenses except captured Panzerfausts, and little artillery.
Yet the 82nd had dramatically outfought the enemy. They had withstood the assault of four of von Rundstedt’s best remaining divisions and wrecked the northernmost and quickest German route to Antwerp".
Gavin’s grave marker at West Point(photo taken by me in 2010):
