Reading recommendations by Combat! fans for Combat! fans

Roll Me Over:
An Infantryman's World War II
by Raymond Gantter

From Normandy to Czechoslovakia, an American infantryman's march through the death throes of the Third Reich

Paperback, list price $6.99
397 pages, ISBN: 0804116059

Recommended Feb 11, 1999 by Dave Pierce and Ann Raymont recommend:

Dave (aka "Bayonet") says: Gantter [the author] warns the reader at the outset that his isn't the story of campaigns, strategy or the theory of war, but rather a history of one man's experience of the war in winter and spring, 1944.  He then goes on to paint a picture of  life on the front in a first-person narrative that's filled with such vivid imagery, it really puts the reader right into the story with him.  Only one of many riveting examples is his description of a Protestant service held in the field "attended" by two dead Germans.  To tell his tale, he draws upon letters he wrote to his wife and notes he managed to scribble along the way as he made his way through Europe.

Ann says: I have to agree, Roll Me Over is, so far, my favorite of all the first-person WWII accounts I've been exploring, thanks to the recommendations on this list. 

Book Description of "Roll Me Over"

When Raymond Gantter arrived in Normandy in the fall of 1944, bodies were still washing up from the invasion. Sobered by that sight, Gantter and his fellow infantrymen moved across northern France and Belgium, taking part in the historic and bloody Battle of the Bulge, before slowly penetrating into and across Germany, fighting all the way to the Czechoslovakian border.

With depth, clarity, and remarkable compassion, Gantter--an enlisted man and college graduate who spoke German--portrays the extraordinary life of the American soldier as he and his comrades lived it while helping to destroy Hitler's Third Reich. From dueling with unseen snipers in ruined villages to fierce battles in which the lightly armed American infantry skirmished against Hitler's panzers, Gantter skillfully captures one infantryman's progress across a continent where guns, fear, and death lay in wait around every bend in the road.

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