Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
Webster was definitely not your average GI. An English major at Harvard, he could have spent World War II as an officer or in a combat support branch. Instead, he volunteered to serve as a combat infantryman in the new U.S. Army airborne forces. His desire to fight the Nazis was more than fulfilled through combat jumps on D-Day and later behind German lines. Himself wounded, Webster buried more than a few of his close friends. Although all personal narratives of combat possess common themes and follow predictable paths, they invariably draw the reader into their world of common suffering, shared joy, collective terror, and appalling inhumanity. Webster brings this world alive for the reader. A useful supplement to Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers (LJ 5/15/92), which told the story of Webster's parachute unit. For comprehensive World War II collections in academic and public libraries. [See also World War II: 50 Years After D-Day, LJ 4/ 1/94, p. 110-11.]-John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.--John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.