On to Berlin; Battles of an Airborne Commander, 1943-1946

New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, 1981. Third Printing [stated]. Mass market paperback. Very good. xv, [3], 376, [6] pages.Some cover and edge soiling. Footnotes. Includes 22 black and white maps; a Foreword, an Introduction, and an Index; and chapters on 1942, Sicily; Italy; Normandy; Holland; The Winter War; Spring of 1945; and Berlin in Retrospect. An odyssey, beginning in Casablanca, the 82nd Airborne's journey follows the road to Berlin, via Sicily, Italy, Normandy, Holland, the Ardennes, crossing the Elbe and the final Allied victory parade up Unter Den Linden in the heart of Berlin. the shock, the confusion and violence of battle from the level of the fighting man to the strategic controversy over the taking of Berlin before the Russians. This is the heroic saga of the 82nd Airborne Division. Led by their fighting general, James M. Gavin, the men of the famous 82nd parachuted into the deadly skies over Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, and Nijmegen in the ill-fated "Bridge Too Far" encounter. Gavin and his men were among the infantry that fought the bloody Winter War of the Bulge and marched victoriously across Germany to meet the Russians in Berlin. Now this unforgettable chapter in the story of World War II is told by Gavin himself, a heroic general who believed that to lead, one must be up front, in the heart of the action. And he was. James Maurice "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin (March 22, 1907 - February 23, 1990) was a senior United States Army Officer, with the rank of lieutenant general, who was the third Commanding General (CG) of the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II. During the war, he was often referred to as "The Jumping General" because of his practice of taking part in combat jumps with the paratroopers under his command; he was the only American general officer to make four combat jumps in the war. Gavin was the youngest major general to command an American division in World War II, being only 37 upon promotion, and the youngest lieutenant general after the war, in March 1955. He was awarded two Distinguished Service Crosses and several other decorations for his service in the war. During combat, he was known for his habit of carrying an M1 Garand rifle typically carried by enlisted U.S. infantry soldiers, as opposed to the M1 carbine rifles traditionally carried by officers besides the Colt Model M1911, .45 caliber pistols. Gavin was part of Mission Boston on D-Day. This was a parachute combat assault conducted at night by the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division on June 6, 1944, as part of the American airborne landings in Normandy. Gavin assumed command of the 82nd Airborne Division on August 8, 1944, and was promoted to major general in October. For the first time, Gavin would lead the 82nd Airborne into combat. On Sunday, September 17, Operation Market Garden took off. Gavin also led the 82nd during its fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and January 1945. Derived from a Kirkus review: A reappraisal of the military triumphs and policy mistakes of the closing phase of World War II in Europe, as seen from both the parachute exit and the Allied command councils. Gavin organized the aggressive, individualistic paratroop units and learned on the job how to deploy them, starting with the 1943 jump into Sicily and the Italian campaigns--good practice for the D-day airborne landing in Normandy, he writes, but a bruising introduction to British condescension on the one hand, and Eisenhower's failure to make key decisions on the other. Gavin's gruff but intricate accounts of small-detachment battles build to the familiar judgments that if the Americans had sidestepped the slow, "conservative" Montgomery, and let Patton sweep all the way to the northern French coast--or if the British had moved as hard as the Americans in Holland--the war could have ended in 1944. And in 1945, after victory was finally in sight, Gavin thinks Eisenhower should have convinced Washington and the Combined Chiefs of Staff to drive for Berlin and head off Soviet occupation--a thumping complaint ramified here, however, with exceptional conscientiousness in reviewing options and counterarguments. The author of several earlier historical and topical books, Gavin writes with practiced simplicity and bounce; beyond this, there is an organic connection between the tactical narratives and the overall evaluations, as the US forces' courage mountingly contrasts with the downright lassitude of the British command and the hesitancy of American decisionmakers.