Some time ago, Frank Lavin asked me to review the manuscript for a future book based on letters written by his father, Carl, a veteran of the 84th Infantry Division in World War II. Frank has served as a US ambassador, White House aide, banker, and trade negotiator. He currently works in business in China. [...]
As an author of books on World War II and the Battle of the Bulge who has been based in Sydney, Australia, for the past thirteen years, I pay regular visits to Europe’s battlefields for reality checks on the challenging conditions there. On the left is my favorite picture of a visit this January to [...]
In my book ‘Those Who Hold Bastogne’ I tell the hair-raising story of how, on Tuesday, 19 December 1944, a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne and 10th Armored Divisions managed to hold on to Noville, a village just north of Bastogne, despite ferocious attacks by German armor: “Some tanks managed to push [...]
In 2008 a dog tag was unearthed in northern Germany by a man who worked for an explosive ordnance disposal team. He had been looking for unexploded bombs near a former World War II airfield at Bad Zwischenahn to make sure that the area was safe for new construction. The dog tag had belonged to [...]
And wishing all those displaced by war across the globe more peaceful times. In the picture below, civilians in La Gleize are among the lucky survivors of the Battle of the Bulge. They pensively look into the camera after American forces halted the merciless Waffen SS force of Kampfgruppe Peiper in a battle that razed [...]
