The garden has returned!

The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

by Alex Kershaw

Beautifully written, neither too much nor too little. This is the war story of Felix Sparks and the 45th infantry division--The Thunderbirds--during World War II and a little after.  The author included a bit of Sparks life after the war so we wouldn't be left hanging, and I really appreciated that.

From the disastrous beach landing on Sicily, to the blind hand-to-hand combat of the Vosges forest, to the liberation of Nuremberg,  Sparks was in the thick of the bloodiest battles of the whole bloody war. Near the end, he ended up at Dachau in time to stop some of his men from enraged execution of SS troops left behind when the real killers departed.  In my book that makes him a true war hero--not one who kills, but one who prevents killing.  Killing seems to be the real reason for war. We says it's for territory or control or even to enforce peace, but somehow it all comes down to killing the people who disagree with you.  There are better ways to enforce peace...if only we can seek them.

Anyway, this is one of the best histories I've ever read.  Right up there with A Bridge Too Far or some of Catton's Civil War novels.