Engineering the Victory: The Battle of the Bulge: A History by David Pergrin

Engineering the Victory: The Battle of the Bulge: A History

Features

Cover Type: Hard Cover with 448 pages

Published by: Schiffer Publishing January 1, 2000

Written in: English

ISBN 10 Number: 0764301632

ISBN 13 Number: 978-0764301636

Book Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches

Weighs: 2.8 pounds

Book Description
The Battle Of the Bulge, in December 1944, was Hitler and the Wehrmacht's last great battle of World War II in the West. After losing the war for the beaches and hedgerows of Normandy, and barely escaping with huge losses from the Falaise pocket, the German Army fell back to just West of the Rhine and the German border. Hitler and his Generals planned a massive counter stroke and marshaled the forces to make it work. Striking in surprise on December 16, 1944 in the weakly defended Ardennes, German thrusts moved quickly to put Allied forces on the defensive. The Battle of the Bulge was that ensuing great battle. In this book Colonel David Pergrin reaches out for the other stories of that battle. Assisted by the Army Engineer Association, he has gathered numerous battlefield stories, anecdotes, and experiences told by those who were there and who lived them. With his own battlefield experience providing an understanding of people in war, he has crafted an interesting book that tells those stories of engineers in battle. Many of the participants in that great battle have never been recognized for their exploits. The stories Dave Pergrin has collected in this book bring attention to engineer soldiers in combat and construction units who fought and died with their comrades of infantry, tankers, artillery, and the others - units that have not before been accorded their due. Weaving these stories and vignettes together into the framework of the overall battle, this book honors the many engineer soldiers, their companies and battalions, that contributed greatly to the allied to the allied defeat of the Germans.

Reader Reviews
As the title states, this book is about the exploits of combat engineers in the Ardennes and, in part, in the Heurtgen Forest during the period November to January, 1944. It is somewhat unique in that it focuses on the contributions that engineers made toward stopping two German panzer divisions and one army division during the December attack in the Belgium-Luxembourg area. It is a story that needs to be told and Col. Pergrin does a good job of doing it. He had his headquarters in Malmedy, and he was in a very good position to critique the exploits along the northern shoulder. (At one point, the Colonel identifies not only a northern and southern shoulder, but an eastern and western one as well!) However, the importance of this book is marred by a distinct lack of editing and proof reading. Spelling errors are myriad. For example, the same place name is spelled in different ways. Photographs are repeated for no particular reason with different captions. Some sentences make no sense. H.M. Cole's maps from the US Army in WWII, "Ardennes" book are reprinted, so small that the information is unusable, and no citation is given for the source. (Lack of citations for sources is another shortcoming of the book) On the other hand, there are a few unit action maps that are very useful in interpreting the actions of engineers at Trois Ponts, Stavelot, and Malmedy. Col. Pergrin has made a valuable contribution in this work. If he had had a good editor to smooth out the repeats of general Battle of the Bulge history, bring the chapters together as a cohesive unit and eliminate extraneous side trips, we would have a 5-star book. Note: My thanks to "Horrido" who did such a constructive job in reviewing my review. I have made a couple of corrections which I hope will soothe his sensibilites. It sounds like with the help of his uncle, he now knows the truth about WWII. Comment (1) | | (Report this)

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Updated on 6-4-2008.