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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
EAN num: 9780966638912
ISBN number: 0966638913
Label: The Aberjona Press
Manufacturer: The Aberjona Press
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: 1999-05
Publishing house: The Aberjona Press
Sale Popularity Level: 468641
Studio: The Aberjona Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A multi-faceted book built around an intensely personal and vivid memoir of infantry combat in the last brutal winter of WWII. The author combines these carefully-verified recollections with an insightful description and analysis of the social dynamics within an incompletely-trained infantry platoon thrown into combat unexpectedly and prematurely in the face of Operation NORDWIND, the last German offensive on the Western Front in WWII. Framed by a comprehensive and detailed account of the US Seventh Army's tenacious struggle to halt a combined German force including Tiger tanks, Luftwaffe paratroopers, previously-undefeated SS mountain infantry, and the last of Germany's manpower reserves, The Final Crisis provides credit to the American infantrymen and tankers who halted the last threat to the Western Alliance. Long overshadowed by the Ardennes Offensive, the so-called 'Battle of the Bulge,' which barely preceded it, the struggle to halt the NORDWIND offensive comes to life at every level from foxhole to field army.
8.5' x 11' format; 25 original maps; 20 original pen and ink drawings, rendered by Colonel (then-Lieutenant) Ted MacKechnie, 42d Infantry Division, WWII; index
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Rated by buyers 
-
Dear Sir or Madam:
The only thing that keeps this book from being a 5 star is that it is softcover and does not include photos. The U.S Army combat cameraman nor Colonel Bonn can be blamed for this because the U.S 7th Army's combat cameramen 163rd Signal Photo Company records for January state that they indeed took photos and film of the nightmarish and terrifying "Battle of Rittershoffen and Hatten"(ofcourse "The Battle of 'Rittershoffen'" meaning in German "The Battle of 'Knight's Hope'."
These and other Battles like the Saar Gap, Vosges Mountains at Wingen and Reipertswiller, Herrlisheim and Gambsheim, and the Moder River were heavily filmed and photograped by the 163rd Signal Photo Company combat cameramen are now missing in action at the National Archives.
Gratefully, the 100th Infantry division now recognizes that it was the 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron on their eastern flank, an independent unit, just attached to Task Force Hudelson, that bugged out without confirming even radio contact to the U.S 14th Armored Division's 94th Cavalry Reconaissance Squadron in the center, before the 117th Cav Recon Sqdrn took off "without orders" and ended up in Saverne!
Also, soldiers must understand mathematically from the U.S Army Statistical Branch Studies that an Infantry Division has to have twice as many casualties as an Armored Division to have the same average casualties per rifle company. In other words, there are no Infantry Divisions that fought along the Upper Rhine during Operation Northwind that have double the number of casualties of neither the 12th or 14th Armored Divisions (see appendix "U.S 7th Army History").
Yes, they had 25% of their casualties in tank companies. But they only had 9 armored infantry companies per armored division which would take 65% of the casualties in each armored division (see U.S Army Statistical Branch Studies of casualties in Armored Divisions verses Infantry Divisions.
Finally, the only error the Editor and Legend Colonel Keith Bonn made is that he failed to connect the 2nd phase of "Operation Northwind" along the Upper Rhine against the U.S 6th Corps (of Anzio fame) and its 12th and 14th Armored Divisions, the legendary 36th,42nd (Task Force Linden),45th,70th (Task Force Herren),79th, and 103rd Divisions; against the re-equipped 10th SS Panzer, 21st Panzer, 25th Panzer Grenadier Divisions along with the 7th Parachute Division, the 6th SS Mountain Division and 2 German Infantry Divisions and its real purpose to destroy American forces North of Strasbourg on the Upper Rhine which the German High Command thought Eisenhower was going to cross as early as late November 1944! Nothing to do with the Ardennes, the German were pulling out on January 8th, 1945 while the 3 entire German Corps challenged the VI Corps from January 5-26th, 1945. See "Riviera to the Rhine" by Dr.Clarke 'A Dubious Decision' and the 400 pages of records captured by Soviet Forces south of Berlin at Potsdam where the World War II German Military Records were archived. The are now stored at the open Russian Central Military Archives in Podolsk south of Moscow.
Dan Kneeland
Sincerely,
Dan Kneeland
Rated by buyers -
One of the best memoirs/battle accounts of any book on WWII. Meticulously researched, compellingly told, it will satisfy both the avid WWII reader and the scholar. Engler includes plenty of footnotes at the end of each chapter which demonstrates an unparalled research effort, one done with most care and then crafted into a wonderful narrative.
This little-known but critical battle finally gets its due. Engler masterfully recounts the infantryman's-eye view of battle, all the while integrating the street-to-street and house-to-house fighting into the larger context of the American effort in WWII in 1944-1945. Engler elaborates on the condition of the American Army post-Normandy breakout. Everyone expected the war to be in its final stages. But behind the "greatest generation" was a desperate effort to keep America motivated, and an even more desperate effort to scrape whatever barrels remained of soldier manpower. Engler's research convincingly demonstrates the faults of America's technology over manpower approach which stacked logistics and the machine arms while shortchanging the infantry. It is a conclusion in short supply, but one that sheds light on the battle and the war.
The only minor quibble is that the book is physically too large--the pages are 8.5 x 11, and the text can be hard on the eyes. But that is not enough to detract even 1/2 of a star from its top rating.
Rated by buyers -
Though I have read many, many books on WWII, I never understood the significance of the campaign in Southern France, and the Vosges, until I read this book. I never knew how close the Allies actually came to having serious problems!
Engler covers a lot of ground in this book. The readers gets several different ways of looking at what happened. These range all the way from the strategic decisions, all the way down to looking over a GI's rifle sights.
The book is well researched, and well written. I found it very informative, and I'm sure anyone else will, also.
Rated by buyers -
The best aspect of "The Final Crisis", apart from its detailed and powerful memior of combat, is Richard Engler's inclusion of descriptions of the U.S. home front as Army infantrymen pass through training and the voyage to Europe to reach the battefield.
Engler descibes the process and circumstances by which many young men who had joined up expecting to take slots in Army aviation or officers' programs, instead found themselves issued rifles and sent into the forests and mountains of the Rhineland. Although Americans generally wanted to be leaders in the war effort and not rank-and-file soldiers, the brutal reality of battle losses swept away many well-laid personal "war plans".
Rated by buyers -
The late Dick Engler's The Final Crisis is an essential read.
A first-in-print, moving account of major force engagements late in the WWII European Theater, this work recounts savage West Front fighting long overshadowed by the larger fabric of final war months.
In winter 1945, what must be assessed as the last of some of the most powerful engagements, Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Waffen-SS units locked horns with Allied forces in the varied terrain of Lower Alsace in eastern France -- from the Vosges Mountains to the river plain of the Rhine -- and, ultimately, lost the initiative.
The Gemman "Operation Nordwind" intended to cut through combined Allied-French lines that had been overextended to support the Battle of the Bulge.
Crack SS Panzer units "Frundsberg," Goetz von Berlichingen," 21st and 25th Panzergrenadier divisions, and the SS 6th "Mountain Division 'Nord'" as well as Luftwaffe airborne and German Army ground forces and Volksgrenadier units worked in company to join battle. Ensuing combat was sustained and bloody. Soldiers of the US Seventh Army absorbed horrific enemy blows but held their ground, ultimately blunting the German attack.
The author who participated in the fight, shows detailed research and understanding of this part of the war in Europe. He did extensive research at the National Archives and at the US Military History Institute. Mr. Engler's understanding of this often overlooked part of WWII translates into a stunning account that is worthy of historians' high praise.
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