War Letters Armed Forces Edition by Andrew Carroll

Author:Andrew Carroll [Carroll, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: United States, Military, History
ISBN: 9780743453110
Google: _6wmnwEACAAJ
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 2001-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Pfc. Richard Cowan, Just Before the Battle of the Bulge, Writes a Profound Letter to His Mother About Ethics and Morality & Pfc. DeWitt “Chick” Gephart Informs His Parents He Has Been Seriously Wounded in the Battle But, Nevertheless, Is in Very Good Spirits & Warrant Officer Frank J. Conwell, Having Survived the Battle of the Bulge, Sends His Family a Poetic Reflection on War and What He Has Seen

“Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance,” remarked Gen. George S. “Old Blood and Guts” Patton Jr. as he drove past the battle-scarred fields of France. “God, how I love it.” By August 1944 Patton was commanding the Third Army as it barreled through France toward Berlin. Allied troops had punched through St.-Lô and Caen in July and liberated Paris in late August. Hammered by the Allies in the west and the Russians in the east, German forces were disintegrating and their high command was corroding from within. (On July 20 Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by his own officers, who had planted a bomb in his East Prussian headquarters. Hitler, partially paralyzed and deafened in the blast, had 5,000 suspected co-conspirators, including Erwin Rommel, executed.) So depleted was the German army, sixteen—and even fifteen-year-old boys were being thrown into combat. In October the Allies captured their first German city, Aachen, and total victory seemed imminent. No one was expecting a massive German counter-offensive. But in a last, desperate attempt to inflict catastrophic losses on the Allies, Hitler ordered 250,000 troops to strike the thin line of Allied forces stretching from Belgium to Luxembourg. It would prove to be the largest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army. Eleven days before the German blitz, Pfc. Richard Cowan, in Belgium with the Second Division, was celebrating his twenty-second birthday. Finding himself in a pensive mood, Cowan responded to a letter his mother, back in Wichita, Kansas, had recently sent him about the importance of adhering to certain values in life. (“Chas.” is his brother Charles.)

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