The longest winter
Subtitle: the Battle of the Bulge and the epic story of WWII's most decorated platoon
By: Alex Kershaw.
Edition: 1st Da Capo Press ed.
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 326
Subjects: United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 394th. Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon; Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945; World War, 1939-1945 -- Regimental histories -- United States; World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German; Prisoners and prisons -- Germany -- History; Prisoners and prisons -- United States -- History
Description: Overview: "It was a cold December morning in 1944, deep in the Ardennes forest of Belgium. Eighteen men of a small intelligence platoon commanded by twenty-year-old lieutenant Lyle Bouck were huddled in their foxholes, desperately trying to keep warm. Suddenly the early morning silence was broken by the roar of a huge artillery bombardment. Hitler had launched his bold and risky offensive against the Allies - his "last gamble" - and the American platoon was facing the main thrust of the entire German assault." "Vastly outnumbered, the platoon repulsed three German assaults in a fierce day-long battle to defend a strategically vital hill. Only when Bouck's men had run out of ammunition did they surrender." "But their long winter was just beginning." As POWs, Bouck's platoon experienced an ordeal far worse than combat - surviving in captivity with trigger-happy German guards, Allied bombing raids, and a starvation diet. While hundreds of other captured Americans in German POW camps were either killed or died of disease, the men of Bouck's platoon miraculously survived - all of them - and returned home after the war. More than thirty years later, when President Carter recognized the unit's "extraordinary heroism" and the U.S. Army approved combat medals for all eighteen men, they became America's most decorated platoon of World War II.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-317) and index.
Table of contents: title: Watch on the Rhine; title: The Battle of Lanzerath; title: War behind wire; title: Last battles.