[.ca] The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern ... (ISBN 0679640886)

unoriginal and arrogant:
I understand Fussell's aim: to disabuse us of the notion that World War II was a "good war," that combat is somehow romantic. In the end, the goal of WWII was noble, but the war was as base and destructive as any other; no war can be civilized, however justified it may be. I understand and believe that. We absolutely need these warts-and-all histories, but Fussell isn't the first to make the point, and he won't be the last. I respect and admire Fussell; his book on World War I (The Great War and Modern Memory) is a true classic, one that will surely endure for years and years to come. But this book is not all that original and is marred by intellectual arrogance. From the get-go, Fussell explains that he will not--that he refuses to--use what he calls "cuteisms": nicknames such as "The Big Red One" or "deuce-and-a-half." He believes such phrases "adolescent." But isn't that the point: that this war was fought by boys, by adolescents? Did not the boys--except, apparently, Lieutenant Fussell--use such euphemisms, was that not their reality? I like Fussell's discussions of the war as a crusade, especially how discovering the slave labor and concentration camps was a turning point in making it a moral crusade. But such sparks of insight do little to redeem the book as a whole.

Story doesn't match the Title or cover:
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.

Rehashed WWII History:
I'm sorry but this book is simply not worth the price. As a fan of Fussell's writing I was eagerly looking forward to more of his unsentimental, realistic insight as a counterpoint to pop-WWII history. Unfortunately this is a slim, scant volume with much blank space between short chapters. The main problem, however, is that the vast majority of the work is rehashed writing of well-known events. Those of us who've read any WWII history know what happened during Operation Cobra, in the Huertgen Forest, the Ardennes and when "the camps" were liberated. There's simply very little new or enlightening material here. When I finished the book I asked myself what I had learned and, other than a couple of anecdotes that I found interesting, the answer was nothing. The subjects the author addresses are summed up in "chapters" (more like short essays) that span maybe 1 1/2 to 3 pages. If Fussell had gone into more detail (more than his previous books) about his own experiences, further light would have been shed on the American infantry's experience in Northwest Europe in 1944-45. An example of this is "Sixty Days in Combat" by Dean Joy. As a slightly bitter former ASTP student/soldier, who's time at the Univ. of Idaho was cut short by cancellation and consignment to an infantry division, Dean's account gives an excellent picture of what it was like in a green unit during the last three months of the war. To make matters worse, the book quotes liberally from far more touching, shocking and true-to-life memoirs, specifically "The Medic" by Leo Litwak and "Before Their Time" by Robert Kotlowitz. The latter is probably the finest account I've ever read by a WWII infantryman in the European Theater. His story epitomizes everything Fussell is trying to say so you'd be better off just reading Kotlowitz's book. Fussell's main point in "The Boys' Crusade" seems to be that the "boys" of America didn't deserve what happened to them in WWII. He frequently refers to "boys" and "youth" and even cherry-picks a photo of a highlighted baby-faced soldier to use on the cover of his book (which may have been solely the publisher's action). When one looks closer at this well-known Normandy invasion photo, however, it is revealed that the GIs surrounding the boy look plenty old enough to be in the infantry, appearing to me to be well into their 20s and maybe even early 30s. I bring this up because, despite Fussell's assertion, the average age of the Army's GI in WWII (including frontline troops) was 25, in stark contrast to the Marines' average of 19. I know of one citizen, married with kids, who was drafted and ended up in combat at the age of 43! I do agree with and welcome Fussell's thesis that by 1944-45 the US Army should have gotten a lot more right. They'd had a couple of years of combat experience to practice. There was no excuse, for example, for Bradley opting to ship bullets and not winter clothes to the troops just in case the popular assertion that "the war would be over by Christmas" didn't pan out. I also like to see some sober reality injected into the current genre of flag waving WWII nostalgia and don't fault the author for that. His exercise in "Boys' Crusade," however, could have been summed up with an essay published in a history magazine. I hate to be so disparaging of this well-known and admired professor but I found the price charged and the skimpy volume of this rehashed history a rip-off.

READ BOY'S CRUSADE WITH THE FOLLOWING CAUTION::
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.'

Compendium of Generalsý Mistakes.:
"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.