A Ramble Through My War

Charles Marshall, a Columbia University graduate and ardent opponent of U.S. involvement in World War II, entered the army in 1942 and was assigned to intelligence on the sheer happenstance that he was fluent in German. On many occasions to come, Marshall would marvel that so fortuitous an edge spared him from infantry combat - and led him into the most important chapter of his life. In A Ramble through My War, he records that passage, drawing from an extensive daily diary he kept clandestinely at the time. Sent to Italy in 1944, Marshall participated in the vicious battle of the Anzio beachhead and in the Allied advance into Rome and other areas of Italy. He assisted the invasion of southern France and the push through Alsace, across the Rhine, and through the heart of Germany into Austria. His responsibilities were to examine captured documents and maps, check translations, interrogate prisoners, become an expert on German forces, weaponry, and equipment - and, when his talent for light, humorous writing became known, to contribute a daily column to the Beachhead News. The nature of intelligence work proved tedious yet engrossing, and at times even exhilarating. Marshall interviewed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's widow at length and took possession of the general's personal papers, ultimately breaking the story of the legendary commander's murder. He had many conversations with high-ranking German officers - including Field Marshals von Weichs, von Leeb, and List. General Hans Speidel, Rommel's chief of staff in Normandy, proved a fount of information.

המשפט הראשון: On a cloudy afternoon in June 1946, I sat on the deck below the bridge of the SS Sea Flier as it plowed its way across the Atlantic with a load of returning World War II troops.

שנה

1998

שפה

English

הוצאה

Louisiana State University Press

מהדורות

1

עמודים

312

ISBN

9780807126363

מקור הנתונים: Wikidata