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The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter

The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter

A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

Simon & Schuster, 2013

(February 14, 2023)  I just re-read, for probably the fifth time because it is so well-written and a real pager-turner, The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter.  Part of the Bob Lee Swagger series, this fiction book transcends that genre, which I’ll address in a moment, and is clearly on my all-time top ten fiction book list.

It would probably not spoil the book, which I have carefully stored in our hide-away in Puerto Rico so that I may read it every year when we are down there, if I mentioned that it is about the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas in 1963.  Kennedy’s picture is on the front dust jacket of the hard cover edition of the Simon & Schuster book (while Lee Harvey Oswald’s picture is on the back dust cover.)  On the front title page is a photograph of the murder weapon, the infamous Mannlicher-Carcano Model 38 carbine with its cheap and poorly attached Japanese-made scope, and on both the front and rear inside of the hard cover are detailed sketches of Dealey Plaza – which probably has no significance for 99% of all Americans except for being the site of JFK’s murder.

The book begins with the hit-and-run death of an author (a “gun-guy” that wrote about snipers and weapons,) which being a writer myself obviously caught my undivided attention.  The man’s widow does not believe it was an accident, so she contacts Bob Lee Swagger, who had been a sniper in Vietnam, who has had additional gun-related escapades in his later years, and whose body has so many old bullet wounds that it makes Swiss cheese look solid.

I will leave the story there and apologize to Mr. Hunter if I have said too much already.

Reviewer Lee Child (Jim Grant, Jack Reacher series) said of the book, “it might even be true,” while noted author Vince Flynn – who died shortly after The Third Bullet was published – opined that the book “answers the question ‘What if?’ in astonishingly plausible detail,” so if my modest writing skills remain unimpressive, at least you know that those two literary heavyweights liked Hunter’s book as well.

From Mark Lane (Rush to Judgment,) almost immediately after the assassination, to tomes published to this day fifty years later, authors have attempted to show that this group or that – with or without Lee Harvey Oswald’s participation – brought off the crime of the century, and some would say the most significant crime in the entire history of the United States.  Most of these books, while they add bits and pieces to the general body of knowledge surrounding the assassination, often fall short in two areas: the technical capabilities of the firearm (maybe more than one, you’ll have to read the book) and bullets in question, and that the route of the presidential motorcade did not become known until a short few days before the event.  Large, complex organizations do many things well, but doing them quickly is usually not a characteristic of the ponderous, as the author shows.

In short, after reading and re-reading Hunter’s work, one quickly concludes that the author truly understands firearms in all their complexity – and sometimes simplicity, such as a tour-de-force description of what the Mannlicher-Carcano was originally designed to do when developed in 1891 – as well as a consummate ability to leave no loose ends in the theory at the heart of the story.

However, there is another level to the novel that I mentioned earlier.  Later in the work, the main character, Bob Lee Swagger, is informed by several literary experts that people who loved to read great literature often develop a sense of how they could insert puzzles and clues in their work (be that writing or espionage, etc.) that some people might find, while others miss them; some of these puzzles – which were key to understanding “who done it” – were in plain sight, while others had multiple layers of detail and nuance; some of them followed a clichéd formula, while others are undramatic and small.

Why is this dialogue important?  Because the discussion is really not a focal point of finding “who done it.”  That revelation is already known in the first third of the book.

No, I believe that Stephen Hunter slid this conversation of literary puzzles into the book intentionally for someone to find much later in reading The Third Bullet – maybe decades from now after Hunter and I and those of us who were living in 1963 are long gone – and conclude:

“This story is not total fiction.  In fact, it is probably 70% true, maybe even more, and the author stumbled across it and promised his source that he would portray the book (‘Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination…’, humma, humma, etc.), as PURE fiction, when it is anything but a work of fiction at its heart.”

Read The Third Bullet yourself and see what you think.  Is it simply a work of fiction that is so well-conceived and adroitly written that Stephen Hunter hit it out of the park, or is it something more?

The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter2023-02-14T18:08:17-06:00

Dying Hard

It won’t be long before I turn in the finished book, Dying Hard, to the editors at Schiffer Publishing, who will work their magic to turn it into something you will love to read.  So what is it all about?  In short, the story is about one tiny American Army infantry company that fought for our country for several years in World War II.  But it’s a lot more than that.

Once upon a time, the forces of evil came within a razor’s edge of plunging the world into a second Dark Age.  Many, many nations answered the call to defend civilization, but only one – the United States of America – could tip the balance of fate to victory for the defenders of what was good and right.  And she did.

America won the war with a huge industrial base.  She won it with a unity of effort seldom seen before and never seen since.  She won it by bringing women and minorities into the war effort.  She won it with magnificent technology.  She won it with a few senior leaders in each military service and in Washington who had the remarkable foresight to comprehend the new character of this war and how it would be conducted.  But most of all she won it with a bunch of boys who stood on God-forsaken battlefields around the world and in their own brazen and cocky manner snarled at their foe: “Not today Tojo; not today Benito; not today Adolf.  Not today, not tomorrow; not ever.  To get to where you want to go, Adolf, you have to go through us.  And that ain’t happening.”

The cost of that victory was monumental – which is why we have so many monuments around the world to remember their sacrifice.  Unlike in many other nations, however, most of America’s monuments are not triumphal arches or palisaded promenades, but rather her military cemeteries, unfortunately filled to the brim with her heroes.  In World War II the United States of America lost 407,316 military dead – enough that almost every city, town, and village lost loved ones.  As to civilian deaths worldwide, the slaughter estimates range from 45 million to 95 million – and the only reason America did not suffer millions of civilian deaths at home is because these same young Americans stopped the enemy before they could get here.

There have been thousands of books written about the war, maybe tens of thousands, based primarily on records and reports, and the accounts of senior officers.  And many are excellent.  But there has always been a problem.  The enlisted men and women of America who fought World War II were notoriously reticent about discussing their experiences.  Called “The Greatest Generation,” they should also have been dubbed “The Silent Generation.”  Not only were they closed-mouthed, many seemed proud that they “wouldn’t talk” to the extent that children and grandchildren, maybe even you, of these soldiers came to the conclusion that even if they waterboarded “Old Gramps” – which they would never do to such a beloved person – he wasn’t talking, so why bother because everyone was just going to get wet.

Maybe it was because my father was so closed mouthed about the war that I wrote this book.  Once in a while, you could get a few grunts and groans out of the old man if you were lucky, but he was of the mind that the war was a chapter of life already finished and better off not to be re-read.  My brother and I would get a hint of his experiences when Dad stormed into our bedrooms each school-day morning, screaming at the top of his lungs in German to get out of bed, turning on every light, throwing back the curtains and, when he was in a particularly charitable mood, opening the windows all the way on frosty-cold mornings to ensure that you got out of bed – quickly.

Dad had spent some “quality time” as a prisoner of war (POW) at some place in Germany called Stalag VI G and obviously wanted his two sons – who had designs on attending West Point – to get used to catching hell like he did every morning there at that camp when a German sergeant did the same thing.

We are going to try to get their story right, in spite of their reluctance in life to talk much about the war.  Of course, each one would insist that we not talk about his own efforts, but remember his buddies instead, saying that they were the real heroes, and what they were able to accomplish together.  All were unique, and it was this individuality that made every other soldier better.

“A soldier can be a hero and a hero can be a legend and a legend can make a superman out of a soldier.”  You will read about all about that; in fact, the intent of Dying Hard is to put you right alongside of the soldiers of Company B, 39th Infantry Regiment – in the same foxhole.  You’ll start your journey at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where the division is formed.  Then its’ off to England in 1942 and then we’re all going to Algeria, Tunisia and Sicily; we’ll see combat in each.  After that it’s Normandy, France, and then we’ll head east to Belgium.  This fighting is tough, but you’ll think the war will be over by Christmas.  It won’t be.  Your next stop is the Hürtgen Forest.  If you survive that, and a lot of us didn’t, it’s on to another miserable place, the Hohes Venn.  Then it’s Merode Castle (see photo above) and then Elsenborn Ridge in the Battle of the Bulge.  The castle, built in 1263, has five-story towers, and a wide moat with 7-foot-deep, cold water.  There is one entrance – a narrow bridge twelve feet wide, covered by machine gun fire.  Getting into that castle, borrowing a phrase from poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, you will be “stormed at with shot and shell.”

In January 1945 we’ll try and get warm and attack the vaunted Siegfried Line, where concrete bunkers have machine guns we call “Hitler’s buzz saws” or “Kraut bone saws” and when you hear them firing, you’ll know why.  Then you’ll see the inside of a German POW camp.  You’ll lose a lot of weight, be infested with fleas and lice, suffer constant diarrhea, get no hot showers, sleep three to a bunk, and see guys drop from typhus – while angry guard dogs try to bite you.

Meanwhile, Company B keeps fighting to the end of the war in Europe.  It is a rough time and casualties continue at an alarming rate right through the end and a lot of our buddies died.  After that, however, everyone did not just pack up their gear and head home.  What would happen with Japan, how long will the occupation of Germany last, what is the system for a soldier to return home?  Finally, there is a Conclusion and Epilogue; save them for last.  Some of the book is sad; but much is funny, which could be offensive to some readers.  But no less an authority than famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle had this to say about humor in war.

“It would be wrong to say that war is all grim; if it were, the human spirit could not survive two and three and four years of it… As some soldier once said, the Army is good for one ridiculous laugh per minute.  Our soldiers are still just as roughly good-humored as they always were, and they laugh easily, although there isn’t as much to laugh about as there used to be.”

At the end of most chapters you will find a total of over fifty special topics under the category of “School of the Soldier,” an old Army term that has to do with teaching a soldier the really important stuff in the Army and how to survive, so you can tell their story when they wouldn’t.

History is the oxygen for storytelling; and storytelling is the essence of humanity.  Once upon a time, your father, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers became part of that history which fueled a legend that should never die – in part because so many of them did.  Your mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers were legends too, sometimes in combat areas – such as the Philippines, where 77 Army nurses, the “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor,” were forced by the enemy on a 68-mile “death march” without food or water in 100-degree temperatures – or back home working in dangerous factory jobs building the Arsenal of Democracy.  Now it is up to you whether that legend is passed down to your children and grandchildren, or whether you let that legend die.  Because legends don’t die with a bang; they die with a whimper.

You might ask: “Why is it up to me to keep their story alive?”  Because you would fit right in with us in Company B.  How do we know?  When something in life knocks you down, and you get back up on your feet, wipe the blood off your nose with your sleeve, and say: “Is that all you’ve got?” you’re in Company B.  If people have told you that you were too small, or too slow or too anything, and you went out and proved them wrong, you’re in Company B.  If you ever saw someone bullied by a group of people bigger than you and you jumped in to help that person, you’re in Company B.

You love dogs?  In 1942, a young soldier found a stray dog in the Aleutian Islands, and took care of him until he was reassigned to the States.  Putting the dog, named Buff, in his duffel bag, the trooper took him on the journey.  Months later the soldier climbed aboard a troopship – Buff hidden again in his duffle bag – and went to Europe and Company B, where Buff served as a mascot and helped pull guard duty.  So if you love dogs, you’re in Company B.  And if you love to read a book about American soldiers, then you’re in Company B, too.  So rise and shine, grab your helmet and follow us.  And make sure your M1 Rifle is loaded because we’re going back to the line.

 

Dying Hard2023-01-22T17:46:48-06:00

Don’t Pull the Switch

I used to be a big believer in the death penalty.  And I still believe that there are some really bad people out there who don’t deserve to live among us.  So in defending yourself, and your loved ones against a murderer who would take your lives, well if he takes his last breath in that attempt that’s just too bad for him.

As for the government using the judicial system to put someone to death, I don’t agree with that anymore.  First, you can’t “undo” the death penalty, if you later find out that the guy you just fried in the electric chair didn’t actually do the crime.  If the accused is convicted and gets a long prison sentence, you can let him out later if you discover he is actually not guilty, and at least try to make amends for the error by paying him and his family an extremely large amount of money; it will never make up for the lengthy incarceration, but at least his later years will not be in poverty.

Juries make mistakes.  Prosecuting attorneys and defense counsels have various degrees of competence and make mistakes too.  Judges’ rulings often later get overturned.  Even the vaunted US Supreme Court frequently has 5-4 decisions – meaning that 44.44% of the justices had the “wrong” legal opinion from the majority.  If 44.44% of our juries convicted the wrong guy and sentenced him to death, we would stop the death penalty immediately.

US Supreme Court

Secondly, law-abiding citizens, whether in the jury, or prison guards, or the few actually involved in the execution process, often suffer terrible mental duress for the remainder of their lives – even concerning executions where there is never any doubt as to the accused’s guilt.  Yes, there are some who will “sleep like a baby” but others won’t.  And that’s not an opinion; I was fortunate enough to be able to review 96 death penalty cases in the US Army in Europe in World War II, when writing The Fifth Field, and numerous military police involved in the executions had terrible emotional issues later – with at least one tough MP sergeant, Richard Mosley, later committing suicide.

Richard Mosley

But most troubling, charging someone with a capital crime – a capital crime is one for which you could possibly receive the death penalty – is often a matter of prosecutorial discretion.  The prosecutor can put the death penalty into the realm of possible punishments, or he can “take it off the table.”  That is a difficult decision for any prosecutor, and some are simply not up to it.  Most alarmingly, we are seeing that more and more prosecutors are using factors of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and even political affiliation in their decisions of whom to charge – or not to charge.  That is bad enough concerning crimes that carry potential incarceration.  But using those factors in such a way for a prosecutor to put his or her thumb on the scales of justice concerning the death penalty is unconscionable.

Do you really think that the current State’s Attorney Office for Cook County, Illinois, doesn’t often have their entire hand on the scales of justice – let alone thumb?  Even the Illinois Prosecutors Bar Association and the National District Attorneys Association ripped into Kim Foxx’s decisions in the Jussie Smollett case.

Ferguson Riots

Do you really think that politics didn’t play a role in determining who should be charged concerning the 2014 disturbances/riots/unrest/uprising in Ferguson, Missouri?  Even the US Department of Justice couldn’t get to the bottom of it, ruling on one hand that Police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in self-defense, while also determining that the Ferguson Police Department had engaged in misconduct against the citizenry of Ferguson by, among other things, discriminating against African Americans and applying racial stereotypes in a “pattern or practice of unlawful conduct.”

Do you really think that politics and political affiliation are currently not playing a factor concerning the participants in the January 6, 2021 incident at the US Capitol?  Congress has talked about treason – a crime that could carry the death penalty.  And according to Time Magazine, some 17 months after the event, 840 people had been arrested.  But only 25% had received criminal sentences, while 75% were still awaiting trials or had not finalized plea agreements.  Only 80 of those arrested had been sentenced to terms of incarceration!  The median prison sentence of those 80, as of June 2022, was – get this – 45 days.  An additional 57 were sentenced to periods of home detention.  That doesn’t sound like death penalty material to me.

World War II Hangings

However, if some politicians and states attorneys have their say, EVERYONE in the Capitol that day would be strung up on nearby light posts.  No one should have that much power.  We need to do away with the death penalty – before people get executed for their political beliefs.

Don’t Pull the Switch2023-01-22T17:42:47-06:00

New Book on Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk 1943 Published !

This man knocked out 77 enemy armored vehicles in World War II as a panzer gunner.  Do you really want to take him on in tank combat?

I always wanted to write about Kursk, and not have “just another” recount of the fight.  Not a rehash of Tiger tanks at Kursk but a whole new treatment of the machines and men at this pivotal battle: Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943 which is published by Schiffer.

They were as hard as Krupp steel and as swift as greyhounds, the men who crewed the Waffen-SS Tiger tanks at the Kursk Offensive in July 1943.  Primarily enlisted men, not only did they fight – and fight well – at one of the largest tank battles in history, they also later formed the nucleus of Tiger operations in key future battles.  Franz Staudegger, Michael Wittmann, Bubi Wendorff and Bobby Woll became household names as the men who rode the Tigers to victory, but over 200 other crewmen had fascinating careers as well.

The SS men who fought in these Tigers were not ten feet tall, although the Russians may have believed that during those few days that the Tigers shook the earth at the attack on Kursk in central Russia.  No, these men were far more ferocious than huge physical goliaths.  These soldiers had no concept of defeat.  This is their story.

At Kursk, often described as the “Greatest Tank Battle in History,” the Wehrmacht fielded a total of just 120 Tiger tanks, including 35 operational Tigers from the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in its powerful Leibstandarte, Das Reich, and Totenkopf divisions.  The Tiger became a legend, but any tank is only as good as its crew.  For the first time, we know the identities of over 220 Waffen-SS Tiger crewmembers at Kursk – not just the few dozen officers, but the enlisted men as well.

Their biographies are stunning: some were veteran panzer men; others were previously in the infantry and a few had just transferred from the Luftwaffe.  Eight would win the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross; others would receive very few medals.  Eighteen would die at Kursk, while thirty-five would be wounded.  And the survivors?  Unfortunately for many an American, British, Russian tank crew, these SS Tiger men in their black uniforms would go on to form the deadly nucleus of the Waffen-SS Heavy Panzer Detachments that fought at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Berlin.

Daily battle maps show the location of each of the three Tiger companies in the 2nd SS Panzer Corps.  Original German Luftwaffe aerial photos show the terrain taken within days that the Tigers rolled over it.  Over 110 photographs of Waffen-SS Tiger tanks, crewmen, award documents, anti-tank ditches, including many from private archives never before published show you what life was like from combat to eating a meal.

Before the offensive, German Colonel General Heinz Guderian, one of the “fathers” of modern armored warfare, who wanted the offensive postponed, dramatically chided the Führer, Adolf Hitler, to his face with this acerbic question: “How many people do you think even know where Kursk is?”

You are about to find out.

Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943

New Book on Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk 1943 Published !2021-05-15T12:26:51-06:00

American Hangman Published!!!

American Hangman

(September 23, 2019)  American Hangman: MSgt. John C. Woods: The United States Army’s Notorious Executioner in World War II and Nürnberg is published and you can start ordering now.  The book is fabulous; the price of $29.99 is an excellent buy considering that it has 108 black and white photos from the period, several of which are from the family with their kind permission, and where he resided that I guarantee you that you have never seen before.  The work is 256 pages, with endnotes and sources that dispel all the myths surrounding this fascinating character.  Most importantly, this is what I call a “one off” book.  Once you read this, you will know everything you would want to know about the “American Hangman.”  There are no other books about him.  There are a few magazine articles, first published in 1946 and continuing occasionally to today, but most of the information in them is extremely inaccurate which you’ll see.

But don’t worry; his actual life is more interesting than the myths about him were.

You will be able to read, from primary official documents, the details of every man for which John Woods was the assistant or primary hangman.  He did not, as magazines claimed, hang 347 men, nor did he hang, as he once claimed, 200 men.  Some were American soldiers; others had been  German or Austrian war criminals.  Then there were the last ten men Woods would ever hang, the top Nazi war criminals that had been condemned to death at the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg.  Only Hermann Göring cheated Woods as he took poison just hours before his schedule execution.  You’ll read about that too and also about how Woods hanged Julius Streicher, one of the ten men, after Streicher had “disrespected” Woods on the scaffold!

But the story goes much deeper and reveals his young days, his short stint in the United States Navy about 1930, almost missing his wedding ceremony just after Prohibition was lifted, his brush with the law bouncing checks, driving a truck for a hearse company, joining the United States Army in 1943 and fighting at the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 as men died in bunches around him.

Did you know that John Woods could smoke a cigarette and blow smoke out of his ears?  Well, his nieces remembered that and a great deal of additional information about a man who adored his wife, loved dogs, liked to make officers uncomfortable, had an affinity for Wild Crow bourbon whiskey, had a storehouse of entertaining stories to tell his friends and who botched more than a few hangings, the reports of which made it back to the War Department in Washington, DC.

After reading this book, you will feel that not only do you know about John C. Woods but that you would have enjoyed having a beer with him.  In fact, one of the characters in this book used to do just that in various pubs at Le Mans, France almost every day for six months in 1945.  He’ll fill you in on details that the US Army never knew about the “American Hangman.”

But beware, it might not stop with a beer; as John might tell you: “I never saw three quarts of whiskey disappear so fast in my life.”  (Said to True: The Man’s Magazine at Fort Dix, New Jersey in November 1946, concerning his team having a few drinks after the Nürnberg hangings.)

An easy read, in deference to my Army Buddies, American Hangman sheds crucial light on the death penalty in the US Army in Europe in World War II, the execution of Nazi war criminals, and the effects of participating in an execution on the part of those ordered to carry it out.  And his mysterious death?  Well you’ll just have to hold off reading that last chapter till you get through the rest of the book!

For much of World War II, history books have described the influence that commissioned officers have had on shaping significant events.  Now it’s time for you to meet the man that went from private to master sergeant in one day and who had officers, from lieutenant to brigadier general, dancing to his tune.

 

 

American Hangman Published!!!2020-10-28T14:10:51-06:00

New Book Distributor for Europe

(March 12, 2014)  Schiffer Publishing has hired Gazelle Book Services to sell and distribute Schiffer publications in Europe.  This will shorten delivery time and reduce postage costs.  The information on this distributor is:

Gazelle Book Services     White Cross Mills      Hightown      Lancaster   Lancashire      LA1 4XS      UK Tel: +44 (0) 1524 68765    Fax: +44 (0) 1524 63232     E-mail: sales@gazellebooks.co.uk

For those readers in Germany or those travelers fortunate enough to be able to visit Munich, Germany, another bookstore can also assist you in finding the books found on this website.  In my 40 years experience, the Christian Schmidt bookstore is one of the best military bookstores in the entire world.  You can spend hours in there browsing!  Ask for Gabi; they speak perfect English.  You can take the U6 U-Bahn from the center of the city in the direction of the Klinikum Grosshadern and get off at Grosshadern, one stop before the end.  It is marked in blue on U-Bahn maps.

Christian Schmidt Buchhandlung
Sauerbruchstrasse 10
D-81377 Muenchen
Germany

Email: info@christian-schmidt.com
Web Page: www.christian-schmidt.com
Phone: (49) 89 703227

 

New Book Distributor for Europe2014-03-12T20:14:52-06:00

US Army Executions World War II in Europe and Africa Data

(March 9, 2014)  Due to numerous requests by readers, we have added a table showing the names, dates of execution and places of execution for all 96 American soldiers executed in World War II in Europe and North Africa, the subject of The Fifth Field.  Included at the top of the table, which is found in the published work section for The Fifth Field, is a photograph of the last face that probably 34 American soldiers ever saw before they were hanged — that of US Army hangman, Master Sergeant John Woods.  Previously published biographical information on Woods has been mostly incorrect, as until two years ago, Woods’ official personnel records had never been released to the public.  The Fifth Field is the first work to incorporate those files and shows that Woods had been in the US Navy in 1930 but had been discharged for psychological reasons.  He also had never been an assistant hangman in Texas and Oklahoma — as he had claimed in 1944 to help secure the position as hangman, which took him out of a combat engineer unit slated for frontline duty, and also elevated him from the rank of private to master sergeant in just one day!

US Army Executions World War II in Europe and Africa Data2014-03-09T19:28:25-06:00

Kudos for Stalingrad

(November 8, 2013)  Distinguished Stalingrad author Jason Mark, who has written such classics as Island of Fire: The Battle for the Barrikady Gun Factory in Stalingrad, Death of the Leaping Horseman: 24. Panzer-Division in Stalingrad, Into Oblivion: The Story of Pionier-Battalion 305, Angriff: The German Attack on Stalingrad in Photos, and An Artilleryman in Stalingrad, now offers Stalingrad: The Death of the German Sixth Army on the Volga, 1942-1943 for purchase on his website (www.leapinghorseman.com).  Jason writes on his site:

“Leaping Horseman Books gives this two-volume set its highest recommendation. The level of detail is astounding.  For every day of the battle there is map and an account of the actions and casualties of every corps and division in 6. Armee, followed by a closer look at an individual soldier who died on that day.”

Check out his website for this book and for many of Jason’s excellent offerings.

Kudos for Stalingrad2013-12-12T17:01:04-06:00

Fifth Field Responses Arriving

(November 6, 2013)  Responses to the publishing of The Fifth Field are starting to arrive.  A Supreme Court Associate Justice, an Army 4-star and Deans of two east coast “Ivy League” Law Schools and one California Law School have written that they each have a copy of the book and look forward to reading it.

Fifth Field Responses Arriving2013-11-07T08:59:30-06:00

The Fifth Field Published

(September 17, 2013) Schiffer Publishing has sent out the author advance copy, which indicates that The Fifth Field has been published and should be available for shipment next month.  The book is fabulous; it came out at 370 pages, with 42 photographs, almost all of which have never been published before.

Five special photographs show moments from the executions of Louis Till, Fred McMurray, Charlie Ervin and Mansfield Spinks at the Peninsular Stockade at Aversa, Italy in 1945.  These unique photographs, which had remained hidden in private hands for 67 years after the war, and unknown to be in existence by the Army, are believed to be the first photos of U.S. Army executions of U.S. personnel since the hanging of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators in 1865.  The book additionally has five photographs of Army hangman Master Sergeant John C. Woods; we feel certain that you have not seen at least three of them before.

Each of the cases is covered in great detail through trial records, witness statements, investigator notes, review findings and execution reports.  For those historians and legal scholars wishing to do additional research you will find 56 pages of endnotes with specific document citations and the archives in which these documents can be found.  There is an additional appendix that provides over 100 short biographies of detention center personnel, hangmen (such as Thomas and Albert Pierrepoint,) key Judge Advocate General — JAG — officers and commanders from Dwight Eisenhower on down who approved General Court-Martial results.

This is a book about the death penalty.  No matter what you believe your opinion to be on this important subject, you need to read this book before making up your mind for the final time.  The information within these pages has never truly been considered before as we address this significant national issue.  But do not worry.  This is not a legal text; it is written by a regular Army officer, using standard English, not “legalese.”  Having said that, there is a section where a trained lawyer, with over 50 years experience and who has participated in death penalty cases, examines several of these courts-martial and analyzes them from his own perspective.

For historians of the Second World War, this is the first definitive account of every capital case ending in death for an American soldier in Europe and North Africa during the conflict.  For past, present and future Judge Advocate General officers, non-commissioned officers and civilian personnel, this is a history of your Corps during its most significant hour.

 

The Fifth Field Published2013-10-06T19:53:23-06:00
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