Rating: 
Summary: Compendium of Generals? Mistakes.
Review: "The Boys' Crusade" by Paul Fussell. Sub-titled, " the American Infantry In Northwestern Europe, 1944-1945." The Modern Library, New York 2003. The Picture on the dust jacket tells it all: there is a very young face, topped by a helmet, in the center of the page. He is looking directly at you, and, hauntingly, you wonder if he survived. Paul Fussell has written subjects as diverse as "English Augustan Poetry" and travelogues, but his main contribution has been books on modern war. In this, his latest work, he emphasizes the youth of the Americans thrown into the "Second Front" with the June 6th 1944 Normandy invasion. The author's emphasis, however, is not on the bravery and achievements of the American Army in the European Theater of Operations, but rather, on the mistakes made. For example, the author deals with the bloody full frontal assault on Omaha Beach, the horrors in the Huertgen Forest and the incorrect bombing in Operation Cobra. All of these operations killed the young Americans pouring into Hitler's Fortress. He devotes an entire chapter to the replacement system, which resulted in
"... infantry divisions with sterling histories ... become lamentable caricatures of what they once were and (are now) ... populated by the inadequately trained and the largely unwilling." (page 27). In summary, if you ever take a course on World War II, and the professor asks you to list the major mistakes of the American commanding officers in Europe from 1944 to 1945, all you have to do, is cite this book's title and the name of the author, Paul Fussell.
Rating:
Summary: Compendium of Generals¿ Mistakes.
Review: "The Boys' Crusade" by Paul Fussell. Sub-titled, " the American Infantry In Northwestern Europe, 1944-1945." The Modern Library, New York 2003. The Picture on the dust jacket tells it all: there is a very young face, topped by a helmet, in the center of the page. He is looking directly at you, and, hauntingly, you wonder if he survived. Paul Fussell has written subjects as diverse as "English Augustan Poetry" and travelogues, but his main contribution has been books on modern war. In this, his latest work, he emphasizes the youth of the Americans thrown into the "Second Front" with the June 6th 1944 Normandy invasion. The author's emphasis, however, is not on the bravery and achievements of the American Army in the European Theater of Operations, but rather, on the mistakes made. For example, the author deals with the bloody full frontal assault on Omaha Beach, the horrors in the Huertgen Forest and the incorrect bombing in Operation Cobra. All of these operations killed the young Americans pouring into Hitler's Fortress. He devotes an entire chapter to the replacement system, which resulted in
"... infantry divisions with sterling histories ... become lamentable caricatures of what they once were and (are now) ... populated by the inadequately trained and the largely unwilling." (page 27). In summary, if you ever take a course on World War II, and the professor asks you to list the major mistakes of the American commanding officers in Europe from 1944 to 1945, all you have to do, is cite this book's title and the name of the author, Paul Fussell.
Rating: 
Summary: The Power of "Less is More"
Review: "The Boys' Crusade" is a slim volume made all the more powerful and engaging by an almost poetic economy of words. Author Paul Fussell--himself a combat-wounded veteran of World War II and a renowned academician--paints graphic word-pictures that bring to life the external and internal realities of America's youthful soldiers. For those who are looking for a romanticized view of military service in Europe in 1944 and 1945, they will have to examine other writings. Instead, Fussell presents forthright, open-eyed views of combat from ground level--where fear and stench are palpable and ever-present, and where honor and valor and high moral cause are concepts for popular consumption and glorified military histories. Highly recommended. Robert S. Frey, Editor/Publisher
BRIDGES: An Interdisciplinary Journal
www.bridges23.com
Rating:
Summary: The Power of "Less is More"
Review: "The Boys' Crusade" is a slim volume made all the more powerful and engaging by an almost poetic economy of words. Author Paul Fussell--himself a combat-wounded veteran of World War II and a renowned academician--paints graphic word-pictures that bring to life the external and internal realities of America's youthful soldiers. For those who are looking for a romanticized view of military service in Europe in 1944 and 1945, they will have to examine other writings. Instead, Fussell presents forthright, open-eyed views of combat from ground level--where fear and stench are palpable and ever-present, and where honor and valor and high moral cause are concepts for popular consumption and glorified military histories. Highly recommended. Robert S. Frey, Editor/Publisher
BRIDGES: An Interdisciplinary Journal
www.bridges23.com
Rating: 
Summary: Story doesn't match the Title or cover
Review: As a Georgetown ASTP cadet that transferred to the 35th Div. I looked forward to the book as something different, the story of the 18 to 20 year olds in the Infantry in Europe in 1944-45.
Thats not what the book is about.
It is a general review of the war in Europe that has litle new information, almost no specific stories of young G I's.
Fussell must have written it on a week end and pulled general information from the WEB.
To be fair the mismanagement by Gen Hodges in throwing Division after Division into the Hurtgen Forest with massive casualities is clearly spelled out. Hodges should have been removed from command. He failed to lead properly in the Hedgerows of Normandy. Hurtgen Forrest and in the Bulge.That would havwe made a better book.
My favorite book on the Infantry is Visions from a foxhole, a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensable & Scarifying
Review: Books about the men who fought World War II tend to romanticize their subject, sometimes more than a little, especially recently. This book should be read as soon as possible by anyone who thinks that war was (or present and future ones can be) noble, uplifting, or even fun. It wasn't, as Fussell demonstrates in clear and unambiguous prose. He points out that the army in Western Europe was made up chiefly of 17-, 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds who had no notion of what would confront them on the beaches of Normandy or in its hedgerows or in the slave-labor camps inside Nazi Germany itself, and he tells the reader plainly what actually did confront them. The book is not for the weak-stomached, but it's a much-needed corrective for those of us who've subscribed uncritically to the "Greatest Generation" view. As Fussell makes clear, that generation "included among the troops and their officers plenty of criminals, psychopaths, cowards, and dolts." It is a superb little book of only 165 pages of text.
Rating:
Summary: Food for Powder
Review: By Bill Marsano. This book comes along just in time: Already I've been getting invitations from French tourism folks inviting me to learn all about their plans for next year's 60th anniversary of D-Day. (Do they actually give a damn any more, or are they just trying to revive their critically wounded tourist trade?) Think of it--sixty years. Soon enough there'll be no one left alive to tell the tale, and then the whole shebang--World War II from front to back--will be deeded over to Ken Burns for a series of sincere and oh-so-tasteful documentaries for his caramel-centered fans to lap up on PBS. It's probably all that "good war" and "greatest generation" stuff that drove Fussell to write this book; he doesn't have much truck with gooey backward glances, and that will probably make some readers mad. Well, you don't come to Fussell--author of, among other things, "Thank God for the Atom Bomb, and Other Essays"--for good times. You come to Fussell for the hard stuff. And here it is his contention that behind and beneath all that "greatest generation" nonsense was the Boys' Crusade--that last year of the war in Europe when too many things went wrong too often. The generals who'd convinced themselves that this war would not be a war of attrition--i.e., human slaughter--like the last one found they'd guessed wrong. Casualties were horrifyingly high and so huge numbers of children--kids 17-19 years--old were flung into combat. And they were, with the help of the generals, ill-trained, ill-clothed and ill-equipped. They were also faceless ciphers. As Fussell points out, the US Army's policy was to break up training units by sending individual replacements up to the line piecemeal--one at a time--so they often arrived as strangers among strangers, often addressed merely as "Soldier" because no one knew their names. The result was too many instances of cowardice--both under fire and behind the lines--too many self-inflicted wounds to escape combat. Too many disgraces of every kind because the Army's system, Fussell says, destroyed the most important factor in the fighting morale of the "poor bloody infantry"--the shame and fear of turning chicken in front of your comrades. Many of these boys--and Fussell is properly insistent on the word boys--funked because they had no comradeship to value. This is not in the least a personal journal. Fussell was serriously wounded as a young second lieutenant; he was also decorated. But he wisely leaves himself out of this narrative. There's no special pleading here, no showing of the wounds on Crispin's Day. Instead this is a passionate but straightforward report on what that last year was like for the poor bloody infantry--those foot soldiers, those dogfaces, those 14 percent of the troops who took more than 70 percent of the casualties. And yet there were those who stood the gaff, who survived "carnage up to and including bodies literally torn to pieces, of intestines hung on trees like Christ,mas festoons," and managed not to dishonor themselves. They weren't heroes, Fussell says, just men who earned the Combat Infantryman's Badge, which was the only honor they respected. In a brief but moving passage, he explains why: It said they'd been there, been through it, and toughed it out. This is a very short book. It's only 160 or so pages of text and they are small, paperback-sized pages. Nevertheless this book is an object lesson in writing that hits home like a blow to the solar plexus, that can double you over in pain and shock. I don't know a professional writer who wouldn't be proud to have written it.--Bill Marsano is a writer and editor with a long-time interest in military writing.
Rating:
Summary: Slim but powerful intro to WWII fighting experience
Review: By tying together a series of short essays on various incidents in the post D-Day European theatre, Fussell paints a picture of the WWII experience for American fighting boys in all its degradation and horror. His main goal is not to preach pacifism but to counter the popular view that war can be an uplifting or soul-enhancing experience for those who actually do the fighting. Readers interested in this topic should check out Wartime, in which Fussell examines the experience of American infantrymen in WWII in greater detail and with broader themes than found in this short volume.
Rating: 
Summary: READ BOY'S CRUSADE WITH THE FOLLOWING CAUTION:
Review: D.B.Prell WWII Combat 2nd. Lt.
READ BOY'S CRUSADE WITH THE FOLLOWING CAUTION:
Up until Paul Fussell wrote "The Boy's Crusade" his work has always been scholarly and well researched. Unfortunately in this, his most recent effort, he has let down his audience. In his effort to "tear away the veil of mythology that so often obscures and sanitizes war's brutal essence" he sometimes presents his opinion as if it were fact, when the actual facts do not support what he has written. Examples include his presentation of COBRA as a " disaster" and a "fiasco." Although the initial air strikes did cause many U.S. servicemen their lives, in the final analysis COBRA save thousands of GI's lives, and cost thousands of German troops their lives. In the view of most military historians COBRA was a major turning point in the war. Then in describing the Battle of the Bulge, Fussell relied on the much-discredited early work of Charles Whiting, instead of using Whiting's later book, in which he corrected most of his earlier misstatements. I wrote Fussell about using Whiting and he replied as follows: Jan 26, '04 Dear D.B.P., I shouldn't have used Whiting at all, I now see. You are good to write, & I send Best wishes, Paul Fussell. But Fussell's disparaging remarks about the men of the 106th Division are still in print, giving a spurious impression of the men who actually have been given credit for making a substantial contribution to delaying Manteuffel's goal of capturing St. Vith (which in turn sealed the fate of the German attack)." Only a reprint of the book will serve to correct what Fussell has written. Taken as a whole, the book does accomplish the author's objective, that of presenting war as it truly is, "with all its intimate horror, death, and sorrow; and as a warning for the future." A shame he was in such a rush to publish that he didn't take the time for a 'second opinion.'
Rating:
Summary: nothing new but beautifully written
Review: I have read all of Fussell's work on World War 2, and enjoyed much of it. But I detect a bitterness beneath the elegant prose - honest and refreshing when compared to the likes of Ambrose etc. - but annoying when it leads to generalizations and statements that just don't stand up if one does proper research.
There was nothing new in this book - much of it has been far better presented in other books - but as an exquisite, bitter-sweet appetizer, it deserves a star in any Michelin World War 2 guide. Had another writer, say someone who is unknown, written this, it would probably not have been published. Nevertheless, if all you've ever read is ultra-jingoist Ambrose and the strangely PC and weepy Bradley, then this will get your juices flowing. I then suggest reading the first person accounts of veterans that have rightly become classics. There are many, all of them far more revealing than Fussell because they are less academically and stylistcially self-conscious. Try The Medic, A Screaming Eagle, Company Commander, If I Survive. Then Fussell sounds like a whinger, however beautiful his prose style.
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