A gripping narrative of a forgotten but crucial battle

books:

	• Battle for Mortain: The 30th Infantry Division Saves the Breakout, August 7-12, 1944 Alwyn Featherston Presidio Press, 1998 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Informative fast paced read

As a current member of the 30th Mechanized Brigade I found this book to be an extremely interesting look into the roots and history of a forgotten Division. The author provided a great deal of insight into this critical battle through the personal experiences and recollections of the actual soldiers who fought against some of the best German troops at that time. This book was very informative and details a battle that very few people had heard of, which is a shame considering what these everyday soldiers accomplished under such exteme conditions. I would highly recommend.

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A Classic Account of a Forgotten Battle...

What a superb book. Featherston, a journalist by trade, made himself into a first rate military historian with this, his first published work. He even outdoes the mighty Stephen Ambrose here. His focus is the 30th Infantry Division's lone stand at Mortain, as it bore the brunt of the German last great Panzer assault in France.
Much has been written about Mortain, how the Germans threw away their last bit of armored strength in this hopeless, Hitler ordered counterattack (Operation 'Luttich', the German word for Liege, a city in Belgium) and its subsequent repulse. Far too much credit has been given the Allied air forces in this battle and not enough to the infantrymen who faced the onslaught on the ground.
That fact was, that despite air support, the Old Hickory Division met the Germans head on, and this was some of the best German military units, the Waffen SS in addition to other Panzer divisions, and it beat them cold.
Featherston, interviews the veterans and they tell their story with pride, as I think they should. They took on the best Hitler had, and stopped the vaunted German Panzer force dead in its tracks.

This is a must have for any ETO fan.

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Two stories under one cover.

Great book. I personally liked to read divisional histories, and this is in my top five. The writer takes you throught he divisions pre war history, European deployemnt, and combat history. The reader gets two stoies here, one is a history of a Army National Guard unit going to war, and the other is the Battle of Moritain, a pivital conflict in the conquest of France. I read it in a weekend, you will find it hard to put down as well.

Rings True To Someone Who Was There...

My father landed on Utah Beach in the second wave on June 7, 1944 (D-Day +1). His unit was attached temporarily to the 28th Division, as reinforcements. Later they rejoined their real unit, the 1st Platoon, 2d Battalion, 120th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division.

After having defended Hill 314 for four days, out of ammunition and food, my father and three comrades were captured by German SS forces at Mortain on August 11, 1944. He spent the next 11 months in a German POW camp.

Yes, I'm proud of his service. However, I recounted all of this to establish his authority to comment on this book.

A man of few words, he shared that accounts of the aspects of the battle of which he had first-hand knowledge were very accurate. This book enabled my father to finally understand the full scope and nature of the battle, and reinforced for him (and his wife and five children) how amazing it is that he survived the experience.

We continue to pass this book from one family member to the next. We have all found the book to be an excellent read.

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A gripping narrative of a forgotten but crucial battle

Mr Featherston has done an excellent job recreating the terrific battle of Mortain which ensured the Allied victory in France and the destruction of 19 German division in the Falaise Pocket. The book starts with a short history of the "Old Hickory" 30th US Infantry Division until it reached the Mortain area on August 5, 1944. The battle is analysed in detail and the author overturns many myths surrounding that episode. The Panzer divisions were indeed stopped before the Allied airpower intervened in the noon of August 7 and the Typhoon attacks were not so succesful as the British sources said at that time. Above all, it was the bravery and the stamina of the individual American soldiers that turned the tide of the battle, causing massive damage to the attacking German divisions and holding crucial ground. The same trends would be repeated in the Ardennes in December 1944 on a grander scale. There is also a synopsis of the 30th ID's history after Mortain and the explanation why the Germans regarded it as "Roosevelt's SS troops" and why the US leaders considered it to be the best division in the European Theater of Operations. There are many black & white maps and some good photos, and the only drawback of the book is the persistent misspelling of certain German names, like "Liebstandarte" etc.

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From its very first page, the American infantryman is the hero of this magnificent account of men at war.

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