The summer sun over Sicily in August 1943 was choked out by black smoke. The town of Troina, a mountain fortress the Germans had sworn to hold at all costs, lay in ruins. For days, the soldiers of the US First Infantry Division—the legendary Big Red One—had clawed their way up jagged ridges under withering … Read more
The telegram arrived at 7:03 AM, and by 7:15, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force was sitting alone in his office at Versailles, staring at a wall, holding in his hands the single most dangerous piece of paper he had received since assuming command of the largest invasion force in human history. The … Read more
OMAHA BEACHHEAD, France — The Third Army’s forward headquarters in Frankfurt was a hive of controlled chaos at dawn on March 28, 1945. The Rhine was behind them, a river crossed six days prior in the dark, in assault boats, without the fanfare of public announcement. Patton had crossed it the way he did everything: … Read more
The fragile unity of the Allied high command, forged in the crucible of the European theater, nearly shattered not on the battlefields of the Ardennes, but in a single, fateful press conference. On a cold January morning in 1945, a statement by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery threatened to tear apart the coalition at the exact … Read more
The summer sun over Sicily in August 1943 was choked out by black smoke. The town of Troina, a mountain fortress that the Germans had sworn to hold at all costs, lay in ruins. For days, the soldiers of the US First Infantry Division, the legendary Big Red One, had clawed their way up jagged … Read more
CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, France — The silence in the Third Army headquarters had a specific texture, one that aides had learned to read like a barometer. It was 8:43 p. m. on September 1st, 1944, and General George S. Patton Jr. was staring at a fuel allocation summary that did not add up. The number before him … Read more
PARIS, FRANCE — At 11:47 p.m. on January 6, 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower sat alone in his candle-lit office at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Versailles, holding a single sheet of paper that could have ended the Anglo-American alliance. The document was a signed relief order removing Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery from command of … Read more
The night I figured it out, I was in my recliner watching the Reds lose by four runs when my phone buzzed with a Facebook notification. A photo post from Glenda, my son-in-law’s mother. I tapped it without thinking. 47 photos. My granddaughter Willa’s kindergarten spring recital at the elementary school on Birch Crossing Road, … Read more
I’m 56 years old and I’ve been cutting and laying stone since I was 19. Fireplaces, garden walls, memorial markers—work that takes patience and doesn’t forgive mistakes. On a Thursday morning in September, I walked out to my front porch and found three gift bags stacked against the door. My handwriting on every card, the … Read more
The air in the Herrlingen villa was thick with the smell of summer and the sterile tang of medicinal dressings, but for Manfred Rommel, the morning of October 14, 1944, held a fragile normalcy. His father, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, was recovering from the grievous head wounds inflicted when Allied aircraft had strafed his staff … Read more