April 27, 2012
The riveting true story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War, following the battlefield odyssey of a U.S. Army officer and his infantry unit as they fought from the invasion of Italy to the liberation of Dachau.
From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared — roughly 500 days — no regiment saw more action — and no single platoon endured worse — than the one commanded by Felix Sparks, a greenhorn second lieutenant. Kershaw vividly portrays the courage of Sparks and his men as they fought terrifying engagements against Hitler’s troops in Sicily and Salerno and as they endured multiple attacks on the beaches of Anzio (with Sparks miraculously emerging as his 200-man company’s sole survivor). In the bloody battle for southern France, Sparks led his reconstituted unit into action against superbly equipped SS troops and demonstrated how the difference between defeat and victory would be a matter of character, not tactics or hardware. Finally, Sparks and his men were ordered to liberate Dachau, the Nazis’ first concentration camp. It would be their greatest challenge, a soul-searing test of their humanity.
From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared — roughly 500 days — no regiment saw more action — and no single platoon endured worse — than the one commanded by Felix Sparks, a greenhorn second lieutenant. Kershaw vividly portrays the courage of Sparks and his men as they fought terrifying engagements against Hitler’s troops in Sicily and Salerno and as they endured multiple attacks on the beaches of Anzio (with Sparks miraculously emerging as his 200-man company’s sole survivor). In the bloody battle for southern France, Sparks led his reconstituted unit into action against superbly equipped SS troops and demonstrated how the difference between defeat and victory would be a matter of character, not tactics or hardware. Finally, Sparks and his men were ordered to liberate Dachau, the Nazis’ first concentration camp. It would be their greatest challenge, a soul-searing test of their humanity.
