Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 to May 7, 1945

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
"Stephen Ambrose has again demonstrated his absolute mastery of military history. His brilliant narrative puts you on the field of battle.... An extraordinary book and worthy companion to D-Day."—General Colin Powell (Retired)

"What a wonderful book.... His arsenal is imposing and effective; Ambrose's pen is a machine gun: detached, hot, and devastating."—Ken Burns

About the Books America's preeminent military historian, Stephen E. Ambrose brings us two gripping books on World War II combat — told from the perspective of the noble men and women who fought the battles. Citizen Soldiers, a New York Times bestseller now available in paperback, follows the individual characters of this brutal war from the high command down to the ordinary soldier. The Victors traces the war from D-Day to the end, 11 months later, and includes stories of bloody battles, raids, and acts of courage and suffering.

In Citizen Soldiers, Ambrose — who was a consultant for Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" — takes to the World War II battlefields of western Europe to track a year in the life of U.S. GIs as they fought their way off the beaches of Normandy and across the Rhine into Germany. The author's uncanny ability to tell a compelling story without compromising the facts or his critical eye comes through as strong as ever.

Citizen Soldiers weaves several stories together: There is the large, strategic plan to defeat Germany; the story of the leaders who planned the advancementandbattles; the tales of the units who spent months in the coldest winter in 40 years; and the personal tales of individual soldiers whose commitment and bravery, according to Ambrose, were the deciding factor in the war. Although the canvas is broad, the focus is on the GIs in the trenches and the stunning hardships they endured. To make his narrative more personal, he draws on extensive interviews with veterans from both sides of the battles that saw the Allied troops push the Germans back to Germany and ultimately force them to surrender. As always, Ambrose's history is not bland hagiography but a critical and thoughtful narrative.

The Victors, a one-volume history of World War II from D-Day to Berlin, draws from Ambrose's bestselling accounts Eisenhower, Pegasus Bridge (the first engagement of D-Day), Band Of Brothers (about E Company, from Normandy to Germany), D-Day, and Citizen Soldiers. As always, Ambrose's attention is on the ordinary men who fought, endured, and won.

The Victors begins with the preparation and training of the Allied armies and moves on to describe Eisenhower's decision to cross the English Channel to capture the Normandy beaches on D-Day, and the men who pulled it off. It covers the bitter winter of 1944 and the horrible battles on the drive to conquer Germany. At the center of this epic drama are the citizen soldiers, the boys who became men as they fought and proved eventually unbeatable. The Victors displays Ambrose's scholarship and authority, his readability, and his powerful love and admiration for these young men, all of the qualities that make his books so popular.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this riveting account, historian Stephen Ambrose continues where he left off in his #1 bestseller D-Day. Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war, from the high command down to the ordinary soldier, drawing on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it.

SYNOPSIS

The stories of the ordinary men who served in World War II in Europe are told by the bestselling author of Undaunted Courage, based on hundred of interviews with people from both sides of the war.

FROM THE CRITICS

R. Z. Sheppard

Citizen Soldiers [is] a high point in Ambrose's long fascination with the nature of leaders and followers. --Time Magazine

Publishers Weekly

The story of the front-line American combatants who took WWII to the Germans from Normandy to the Elbe River makes, in Ambrose's expert hands, for an outstanding sequel to his D-Day. These men are frequently dismissed as winning victories by firepower rather than acknowledged for their individual fighting power. Using interviews and other personal accounts by both German and American participants, Ambrose tells instead the story of enlisted men and junior officers who not only mastered the battlefield but developed emotional resources that endured and transcended the shocks of modern combat. Ambrose's accounts of the fighting in Normandy, the breakout and the bitter autumn struggles for Aachen and the battles in the Huertgen Forest and around Metz depict an army depending not on generalship but on the courage, skill and adaptability of small-unit commanders and their men. The 1945 offensive into Germany was a triumph of a citizen army, but the price was high. One infantry company landed in Normandy on August 8 with 187 men and six officers. By V-E Day, 625 men had served in its ranks. Fifty-one had been killed, 183 wounded and 167 suffered frostbite or trench foot. Nor do statistics tell the whole story. Ambrose's reconstruction of "a night on the line" is a brilliant evocation of physical hardship and emotional isolation that left no foxhole veteran unscarred. It is good to be reminded of brave men's brave deeds with the eloquence and insight that the author brings to this splendid, generously illustrated and moving history.

AudioFile - Robin F. Whitten

Stephen Ambrose has studied WWII in Europe through D-Day and his biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ambrose begins this account on the Normandy beaches on June 7, 1944, and follows the war through the Battle of the Bulge, concluding on May 7, 1945, with the surrender of Germany. A portrait of the war, and the US Army from privates to generals, is drawn from letters, interviews, recollections and written accounts. Cotter Smith presents these stories of individual soldiers the acts of heroism, bursts of ingenuity, moments of despair that describe, not just the events, but the spirit of the fighting men and women. Smith￯﾿ﾽs style is quiet and restrained, sometimes not putting enough energy into the recollections. While made up of many incidents, Citizen Soldiers follows a cohesive narrative. Ambrose￯﾿ﾽs sparse, unadorned style allows his snapshots to vividly define the conflict, to honor the participants and to present a humanistic view for future generations. R.F.W. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Carlo D'Este

...[A]n unforgettable testament to the World War II generation. -- The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

A worthy sequel to Ambrose's 1994 D-Day. Bestselling historian Ambrose (Undaunted Courage) uses firsthand recollections of combat veterans on both sides to flesh out his well-researched narrative. He picks up the epic drama by following, almost step by step, various individuals and outfits among the tens of thousands of young Allied soldiers who broke away from the deadly beaches of Normandy and swept across France to the Ardennes, fought the Battle of the Bulge, captured the famed bridge at Remagen, and crossed the wide Rhine to final victory in Europe. Ambrose observes that the US broke the Nazi war machine with massive aerial bombing, artillery, and the great mobility of attacking tanks and infantry. But, he argues, it was not technology but the valor and character of the young GIs and their European counterparts that ultimately proved too much for the vaunted German forces. While generally approving of Allied military leadership, Ambrose faults Eisenhower and Bradley as too conservative and believes the great human and materiel cost of victory could have been reduced by adopting Patton's more innovative and bolder knockout movements. He deplores the sending of inadequately trained 18-year-olds as replacements on the front lines, where they suffered much higher casualty rates than the foxhole-wise GI veterans. The troops fought under the worst possible conditions in the Ardennes, during the worst winter in 40 years; Ambrose describes the long, freezing snowy nights; the wounds, frostbite, and trench foot; and the fatigue and the tensions of facing sudden death or maiming. The troops rallied to drive the enemy back to the Rhine and into Germany, but took some 80,000casualties. With remarkable immediacy and clarity, as though he had trained a telescopic lens on the battlefields, Ambrose offers a stirring portrayal of the terror and courage experienced by men at war.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

What a wonderful book, an emotionally powerful arugment for our wonderful, flawed system and its home grown heroics. Ambrose's pen is a machine gun: detached, hot, and devestating.  — Ken Burns

Just about the most gripping account of the Second World War that I have ever read. -- Author of Catch 22 — Joseph Heller