Portrait of the Author as a 19 year old Rifleman

books:


	• Before Their Time: A Memoir Robert Kotlowitz Anchor, 1999 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

An Excellent and Effective ASTP Memoir

"Before Their Time" by Robert Kotlowitz. Subtitled: "A Memoir".
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. New York, 1997.

In 1943, Robert Kotlowitz was in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) at the University of Maine when mounting casualties in the European Theater of Operation (ETO) required fresh men for the war. General George Marshall ordered the termination of ASTP program so as to release some 175,000 young soldiers to the battlefields of Europe. So, this young man from Baltimore found himself on the liner, "Argentina", at the city of Cherbourg, "...the old Norman city" in France. The soldiers of the 26th division, the old Yankee Division, had to climb down rope ladders, hanging on the hull of the ship, into Higgins boats below. The details of this relatively unimportant event... i.e. disembarkation, fill many pages in this small book of memories written many years after the war. In this small section, the recounts how his contemporaries reacted to the requirement of climbing down rope cargo nets into the boats below, and by so writing, analyzes those young men of the Yankee Division.

The author not only analyzes the men but also the 26th Division.
On page 8, he writes ...
"By 1944 there were no longer many true Yankees in the Yankee division. (O)ther ethnic and national groups had begun to infiltrate the roster:,, Italians, ... Armenians, Greeks" ... and so on. Then, Kotlowitz notes that there was "... a substantial cluster of despised WASPs, who didn't yet know that they were a symptom of the future, as well as a handful of isolated Jews, who were also despised; but the unlike the WASPs, the Jews were quite used to it".

The writing continues in this analytical tone until the day when his regiment, the 104th, was ordered to advance against the German lines. Almost everyone was killed or wounded. Kotlowitz was one of the few physically unharmed survivors; he spent the entire day under the sights of the Germans. He did not move and played dead. This affected his outlook on the war and on the army and on his future life. After this single day of terrible combat, where so many casualties were caused by incompetence, Private Kotlowitz was assigned to rear-echelon job. Safe for the duration. So, unlike many World War II memoirs, this book is not a bang-bang, shoot `em story. Rather, it is a sensitive and subtle analysis of the experiences of one American soldier.

for more information click here

a depressing memoir

***POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT***

I thought this book was going to be similar to Paul Fussell's books on World War II ... witty and cynical ... I was wrong.

Fortunately, for us, the generation that fought World War II was full of so many people who chose to write about their experiences ... and write well. Kotlowitz' recollection of his World War II experience represents the nameless/faceless hundreds of thousands who probably shared the same or a similar experience. In his book, Kotlowitz' recounts his war experience from boot camp to old age ... it is a story of young, mostly innocent men/boys, hastily trained before being thrown into combat, only to have the journey violently end as soon as it begins.

In vivid detail, he introduces us to the men (boys) who he will be forced to depend on in combat ... then, as you begin to get comfortable in knowing who these boys are, something terrible happens and they are all dead. It is such a depressing memoir, I actually envisioned his experiences in black and white.

I finished the book realizing how quickly death came to so many in World War II and the survivor's guilt that probably plagued so many young men who returned home. I feel as though the book was a cathartic experience for Kotlowitz and it saddened me that it took over 50 years before he could finally achieve closure ... when he finally got together with the other survivor.

for more information click here

Not Popular But His Story

For those of you considering this book, look past several of the one star ratings that others gave. I have been studying World War Two, with an emphasis on the European Theatre for well over 25 years. I have read tons of books written on the strategic and tactical level. I have read biographies and memoirs as well. Studs Turkell called this war "The Good War" and a book that he penned several years ago bears this same title, excellent book but not a good war by any stretch of the imagination.

As one of the victors of this global conflict we as Americans are so used to reading stories about a country gearing up for war, overcoming the odds and defeating the Axis powers and beating them back to within the borders of their own dark fascist countries. In the process of doing this, against popular belief, things did not always go well. Of the thousands of books available describing the chess game of men and machines that this war became, not many get deep into the platoon and squad levels or reveal the personalities and idiosyncrasies that existed. These subjects are often glossed over in favor of the "big picture". In the describing of strategic and tactical maneuverings of armies and equipment to achieve a planned objective the human element is usually absent.

What many readers don't understand is that the story that Robert Kotlowtiz describes to us is the experience that many a soldier had, especially replacement troops that were new to a theatre of operations. They went through training, landed on the continent and depending on which Division, Corps or Army they were to be attached to may have been slowly incorporated into the war. Many did not last long in combat when they did arrive. They were either killed, wounded or captured on their first day or week in action.

Unlike Dick Winters of the famed E Co., 506th P.I.R., 101st Airborne, Kotlowitz did not fight in Normandy or drop into Holland or endure the Ardennes or the Eagles Nest. He was in a green replacement division with no experience, and on his very first combat mission the world as he knew it came to an end. This story may seem tragic and unheard of and maybe a bit disappointing from a reader's point of view. But unless veterans like Robert Kotlowtiz tell their stories, we will never know what it was actually like. The official army "Green Back" histories although packed with detail and combat history writing do not describe the human emotion or personal mind-set of the individual combat soldier and the life that he had to endure.

I personally found the book riveting and could not put it down. Sure, since Kotlowitz eventually became a writer it reads well and in some areas may be a bit over some reader's heads. But these stories need to be told even if it's not to the sound of trumpets or victory parades. It's still a tale of personal victory.

for more information click here

Portrait of the Author as a 19 year old Rifleman

This is a strange book. The author later went on to write novels so it isn't too surprising that this book is not really a memoir but a psychoanalytic, stream of conciousness paean to the life shattering memory of the author's one and only day in combat. The last 50 pages or so describe his slow re-discovery of himself after the trauma. Do not expect a literal description of Army life or battle. While there are some stunningly concrete details in this book they are almost always used to anchor a mental state or emotion the author says he was feeling. I am somewhat skeptical of the ability to remember how one would have felt a half a century ago but then again I didn't live through World War Two. This book falls in the camp of "Crossing the Sauer" and "Roll Me Over'. A work for meditation and introspection on memory. loss and World War II.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

in this memoir of his experiences as a teenage infantryman in the US Third Army during World War II, Kotlowitz brings to life the harrowing story of the massacre of his platoon in northeastern France, in which he--by playing dead--was the only one to survive. 208 pp. 15,000 print.

From the Hardcover edition.