Fighting with the Screaming Eagles : With the 101st Airborne Division from Normandy to Bastogne

by Bowen, Robert M.; Anderson, Christopher J.

• ISBN13: 9781853675799
• ISBN10: 1853675792
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Motorbooks Intl

Summary

Robert Bowen found himself drafted into Company C, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, as World War II broke out, and had his first experience of war as he stormed ashore on to the Normandy beaches. He was wounded during the Normandy campaign but went on to fight in Holland and the Ardennes before being captured v and mistreated v and finishing the war as a POW. Written shortly after the war, Bowen's narrative is immediate, direct and compelling. His account, one of the few by a member of a glider regiment, is a brutal insight into the battlefields of World War II and a vivid recreation of just what life was like in an elite unit. From the horror of D-Day and the despair of captivity, to the taste of C Rations and the fear of soldiers under fire, this memoir tells the full story of one man's total war.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	6	(1)
List of Maps	7	(1)
Foreword by George E. Koskimaki	8	(3)
Introduction	11	(2)
CHAPTER 1 You're in the Army Now	13	(6)
CHAPTER 2 Marking Time	19	(8)
CHAPTER 3 The Reluctant Transport	27	(6)
CHAPTER 4 Atlantic Convoy	33	(3)
CHAPTER 5 No Milk or Honey	36	(8)
CHAPTER 6 The Calm Before the Storm	44	(7)
CHAPTER 7 D-Day: Operation Overlord	51	(17)
CHAPTER 8 Evacuated as a Casualty	68	(10)
CHAPTER 9 Windmills and Wooden Shoes	78	(35)
CHAPTER 10 The Fight for Veghel	113	(10)
CHAPTER 11 The Island	123	(20)
CHAPTER 12 Debilitation	143	(13)
CHAPTER 13 Bitter December	156	(42)
CHAPTER 14 Into the Frying Pan	198	(17)
CHAPTER 15 Siegburg to Hoffenstahl	215	(8)
CHAPTER 16 The Bottom of the Pit	223	(6)
CHAPTER 17 Hell Train	229	(5)
CHAPTER 18 Bremervörde: Stalag 10B	234	(14)
AFTERWORD And Yet So Far	248	(4)
Bibliography	252	(2)
Roll of Honor	254