Seven Roads to Hell: A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne 
asked by versed on November 9, 2006 10:47 AM
The Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division (fictional Private Ryan's unit) were ready for some well earned rest and recuperation. Following their combat in the Normandy Invasion, the division had been mauled during Field Marshal Montgomery's ill-fated Operation Market Garden, the campaign for the "bridge too far" immoratalized by Cornelius Ryan.
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The real story of how a few ill equipped, but determined Allies held the line and were victorious over one of the greatest war machines ever assembled. This truly was the "Greatest Generation"!
reviewed by mullers on November 28, 2006 6:32 AM
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"Seven Roads to Hell" is paratrooper Donald Burgett's memoire of the defense of Bastogne by elements of the 101st Airborne and 9th Armor Divisions during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. Burgett, a member of A Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, has captured the foxhole-level details of the heroic defense of that key Belgian crossroads.
Burgett picks up the story as his unit goes into a rest area after the fierce fighting of Operation Market-Garden in Holland. His unit has been decimated by weeks of combat, and desperately needs rest and refit; instead, the tired and poorly equiped paratroopers are rushed to the front in the Ardennes to help stem a sudden German offensive. The paratroopers lack winter clothing, food, water, and ammunition, but with the elan of the airborne, undertake the defense of Bastogne against German tank and infantry units.
Burgett has provided some commentary on the larger picture, but sticks largely to telling the story as it was visible to him. Burgett is nothing if not honest in his telling and graphic in his details. He and his fellow paratroopers freeze, starve, fight, and strive to make sense of the chaos that is ground-level combat. Burgett's prose is straightforward and he has a terrific eye for details. There is no sense here of the false heroic; Burgett and his mates are fighting for each other.
This book, like Burgett's earlier book on D-Day, is highly recommended to the reader with an interest in the Second World War and especially in infantry combat. Those present and former members of the 506th Infantry may find it an especially inspiring piece of regimental history.
Burgett picks up the story as his unit goes into a rest area after the fierce fighting of Operation Market-Garden in Holland. His unit has been decimated by weeks of combat, and desperately needs rest and refit; instead, the tired and poorly equiped paratroopers are rushed to the front in the Ardennes to help stem a sudden German offensive. The paratroopers lack winter clothing, food, water, and ammunition, but with the elan of the airborne, undertake the defense of Bastogne against German tank and infantry units.
Burgett has provided some commentary on the larger picture, but sticks largely to telling the story as it was visible to him. Burgett is nothing if not honest in his telling and graphic in his details. He and his fellow paratroopers freeze, starve, fight, and strive to make sense of the chaos that is ground-level combat. Burgett's prose is straightforward and he has a terrific eye for details. There is no sense here of the false heroic; Burgett and his mates are fighting for each other.
This book, like Burgett's earlier book on D-Day, is highly recommended to the reader with an interest in the Second World War and especially in infantry combat. Those present and former members of the 506th Infantry may find it an especially inspiring piece of regimental history.
reviewed by vicky123 on November 28, 2006 3:59 PM
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This is the finest account of paratroopers in the Bulge that I have ever read, barring none, including Ambrose. That is not to say that Burgett is a better writer - Burgett does a fine job for a former free-lance roofer - but Don's story in Seven Roads to Hell is so utterly captivating, so riveting that I found myself unable to stop reading and read the entire book in a single night.
Burgett will help you feel the overwhelming futility of brave men, who after the Battle of Noville, after their unspeakable losses, being told just two days later that they must go into action again. Burgett will stab you with the lonely bitternes of exhausted men, scrambling for a hot meal over a small cooking fire, being ordered out to clear the Bois Jaques Woods of a battalion of Germans and then returning the same day, with more losses of heroic men - the dead men's un-claimed mess kits by the cold fire.
Surely these are some of the most touching imaes ever laid to paper.
I should add, that if you have never read an account of the battle of Noville and Bois Jaques Woods, you must buy this book. Buy it for this reason alone, and love it for so many others.
The personal heroism of the American paratrooper looms into full focus in these pages, framing the phrase, "The greatest generation" like nothing else can.
The sacrifice of these great Americans is more carefully and painfully detailed here than in any other book I have read.
We all indebted to Don Burgett. And not just for his fine book.
Burgett will help you feel the overwhelming futility of brave men, who after the Battle of Noville, after their unspeakable losses, being told just two days later that they must go into action again. Burgett will stab you with the lonely bitternes of exhausted men, scrambling for a hot meal over a small cooking fire, being ordered out to clear the Bois Jaques Woods of a battalion of Germans and then returning the same day, with more losses of heroic men - the dead men's un-claimed mess kits by the cold fire.
Surely these are some of the most touching imaes ever laid to paper.
I should add, that if you have never read an account of the battle of Noville and Bois Jaques Woods, you must buy this book. Buy it for this reason alone, and love it for so many others.
The personal heroism of the American paratrooper looms into full focus in these pages, framing the phrase, "The greatest generation" like nothing else can.
The sacrifice of these great Americans is more carefully and painfully detailed here than in any other book I have read.
We all indebted to Don Burgett. And not just for his fine book.
reviewed by literary on November 29, 2006 1:59 AM