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volume xv, issue i, summer 2024
D-Day with the Screaming Eagles

D-Day with the Screaming Eagles

by George Koskimaki

Imprint: Casemate

384 Pages, 6 x 9 in, b/w photos

Paperback
9781612000725
December 2011
In Stock

$32.95

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

Many professional historians have recorded the actions of D-Day but here is an account of the airborne actions as described by the actual men themselves in eyewitness detail.

Participants range from division command personnel to regimental, battalion, company and battery commanders to chaplains, surgeons, enlisted medics, platoon sergeants, squad leaders and the rough, tough troopers who adapted quickly to fighting in mixed, unfamiliar groups after a badly scattered drop - and yet managed to gain the objectives set for them in the hedgerow country of Normandy.

This book is primary source material. It is a "must read" for anyone interested in the Normandy landings, the 101st Airborne Division and World War ll in general. Hearing the soldiers speak is an entirely different experience from reading about the action in a narrative history.

Foreword by Gerald J. Higgins, Major General, U.S. Army, Ret.
Introduction

1. The Marshaling Area
2. The Pathfinders Lead the Way
3. The Flight Across
4. Bill Lee — Geronimo — Let’s Go!
5. Out of the Night Sky
6. Into the Midst of the Enemy
7. Early Encounters
8. Assembly
9. Johnson’s Regiment — The 501st
10. So Few Led By So Many
11. The Five–O–Deuce
12. The Scattered Artillerymen
13. The 506th Regiment
14. Hold Those Bridges!
15. The Glider Lifts
16. Angels of Mercy
17. At Day’s End
18. The French Were Waiting

Notes
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Bibliography

George Koskimaki was born in Michigan in 1922. While still in college, he enlisted in the Army and joined the famous 101st Airborne Division, The Screaming Eagles as a paratrooper and radio operator. After retiring, Koskimaki served as the Executive Secretary of the 101st Airborne Division Association.

He was a, teacher, military historian and author of multiple books on United States military operations in the European Theater of World War II, particularly operations carried out by the 101st Airborne Division.

He passed in 2016 at the age of 93.

“…thoroughly engrossing and readable account…. I couldn't put it down… an account of the events of the day from the men that were actually there…. The extraordinary actions, the sadness, the humor, the loss....and what they gained as a result of being there. Highly recommended.” ~Model Armour

“…gives you the feel that you are there during the frenzied first hours of the invasion. Detailed accounts of the activities of the pathfinders were enthralling…The coverage of the glider units landing later during the D-day is information rarely covered in other books. Familiar stories like Lt Dick Winters lading troops taking out guns on Normandy are shared with a freshness that predates band of Brothers by twenty five years.” ~Kepler’s Military History

“…descriptions of the experiences and actions of the actual participants, and that’s what is really most valuable about this book. The men themselves essentially wrote it for each other and their posterity. ..anyone with interest in World War II, D-Day, the 101st, airborne operations, or military history in general would do well to read this book, and it is highly recommended…with this reviewer’s grateful thanks to the author for this first hand look into part of one of the more storied combat operations of WWII.” ~The Journal of America’s Military Past