Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assult into Fortress by Ed Ruggero PDF

By Ed Ruggero

ISBN-10: 0786755393

ISBN-13: 9780786755394

The hair-raising, frontline account of the 1st American airborne invasion of global struggle II and of the younger paratroopers who risked their lives for freedom. via 1943, the warfare in Europe had reached a turning aspect. normal Dwight Eisenhower was once given orders to invade Sicily and head north. to accomplish this, Ike had a brand new weapon: U.S. paratroopers. Their challenge used to be to grab the ways to the invasion shores and to carry off German attacks.

Combat Jump tells the little-known tale of those paratroopers and the way they replaced the yankee manner of battle. It takes readers on their trip from civilians to citizen infantrymen, via education within the usa and later in North Africa, after which exhibits their bold leap into the darkness over enemy-held Sicily.

By daybreak on D-day, July 10, 1943, it appeared as though the undertaking may fail. green pilots, misplaced or blown off target, dropped eighty percentage of the soldiers from one to sixty-five miles from their pursuits. the yank commander, James Gavin, landed to this point from his goal that he was once no longer even certain he used to be in Sicily. Arthur Gorham, commanding 500 males of the 1st Battalion, encountered surprises while the sunlight got here up. He and simply over a hundred of his males have been the single GIs -- out of 3,400 dropped -- close to their goal. He additionally came across that the Germans in Sicily had tanks. The calmly armed paratroopers, with their rifles and hand grenades, weren't outfitted to tackle the forty-ton panzers. yet opposed to all odds, they did. The expensive classes they realized formed the struggle in Europe, for with out Sicily, there could have been no airborne invasion of France in June 1944.

Combat Jump recounts the extreme contributions those younger males made whilst their nation referred to as them to struggle, and it tells a vintage story of army motion and memorable courage.

Well-written and flowing like a great novel, this booklet is extremely recommended.
Library Journal

A winner…Ruggero's thorough resarch, together with interviewswith many survivors, and ideal writing earns this ebook an enduring position in any WWII collection.
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Additional resources for Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assult into Fortress Europe, July 1943

Sample text

Great drafts of men arrived nearly every day: they had to be housed and fed and trained, issued weapons and uniforms and hundreds of items of individual equipment, from shoe polish and toothbrushes to steel helmets and GI socks. The citizen soldiers had to learn Army discipline and customs—everything from how to wear a uniform and render a salute, to how to negotiate the chow line. The Army had to find doctors and dentists and truck drivers and railroad men; it had to train surveyors and military police, photographers and mechanics, cryptographers and radio operators.

They created their own field uniform, with extra oversized pockets (the troopers had started out wearing mechanics overalls, but the pockets were all sealed shut by the parachute harness). ” But perhaps the most distinctive uniform item was the jump boot. Originally, the troops had been issued a boot developed for artillerymen. It had high sides, to help prevent twisted ankles, but it also had a strap and buckle that crossed the instep. Since a jumper’s feet sometimes wound up above his head in an airplane’s slipstream, there was a danger that the buckle could become entangled in the parachute shrouds.

Deana was not a serious girlfriend; the two had met in grade school and had gone out a few times; also, Sayre believed that it wasn’t the right time to make long-range plans. Sayre didn’t like the movie much, but Deana did, and Ed enjoyed spending time in the company of a young woman, instead of with hundreds of men. When the two emerged blinking in the sunlight after the dark of the theater, they could tell something had changed. There were more people on the street, talking in excited tones, speaking with strangers in small groups.

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Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assult into Fortress Europe, July 1943 by Ed Ruggero


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