Lieutenant Colonel James Megellas,
USA (ret.) “was the most decorated officer of the 82nd Airborne Division and saw more action during the war than most.”
He tells the story of his World War Two service in All the Way to Berlin: A Paratrooper at War in Europe.
The MOAA remarked about the book “this is more than “Maggie’s” World War II memoir. Throughout
his narrative, he skillfully interweaves stories of the other paratroopers of H Company, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
The result is a remarkable account of men at war.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of All
the Way to Berlin: A Paratrooper at War in Europe, “What World War II Lieutenant Megellas's memoir
lacks in narrative force and elegance it makes up for in its unvarnished contribution to the historical record. Megellas was
a senior at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis. during the Pearl Harbor attack; barely six months later, he had reported for duty
and soon was enlisted in the storied 82nd Airborne Division. Landing in Italy on the eve of the Anzio invasion in the fall
of 1943 and fighting his way through the mountainous Italian terrain, Megellas was wounded and then hospitalized ("I'm
very fortunate to be alive," he wrote in a letter home. "I'm not certain as to how many Germans I killed but
in my mind the minimum is at least 10"). In September 1944, Megellas's unit parachuted into Holland to take part
in the bloody Operation Market Garden, in which the Allies lost more men than they would during the Normandy invasion. Megellas's
description of his unit crossing the Waal River in rowboats under point-blank German fire is harrowing; that the soldiers
reached the far shore and took the German positions is nothing short of a miracle. From there, Megellas and his men proceeded
into the thick of the Battle of the Bulge and onward to the Rhine, fighting as they made their way toward Germany. Just as
revealing as the battle accounts are Megellas's stories of the numbing boredom that soldiers in rear positions waiting
for orders to the next engagement experienced, as well as the countless small acts of bravery and the daily hardships. Foregoing
the romanticized hero-worship of some wartime accounts, Megellas recalls his two years of duty in the 20th century's deadliest
war with admirable restraint.”
|
|
|
|