Surviving Three Shermans: With the 3rd Armored Division into the Battle of the Bulge
What I Didn’t Tell Mother About My War
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
"A WWII soldier’s rosy letters home are juxtaposed with his recollections of combat’s harrowing on-the-ground reality in this immersive debut memoir...With its unique vantage point, this is a noteworthy addition to the literature of WWII." — Publishers Weekly
In 1943, eighteen-year-old Walter Stitt enlisted in the U.S. Army, ready to serve his country. From his time in basic training at Fort Polk in Louisiana, throughout his time as a tank gunner in the 33rd Armored Regiment, to his post-injury service in England, he wrote home to the family he had left at home.
Unbeknown to him, his mother carefully numbered and saved the letters, treasuring them until her death. This book brings together the very different two versions of Walter’s war: the version that a teenage soldier could reveal to his parents and younger siblings without scaring them or invoking the censor’s pen, and the full and often terrifying details of serving as a tank loader and gunner in France, Belgium and Germany, remembered so clearly eighty years later. Walter explains the forced omissions and partial truths his teenage self offered to comfort his family while he survived the destruction of three Sherman tanks, the death of three crew members, and two wounds.
Coming from West Virginia, Walter’s Appalachian roots and values are apparent through the memories he held dear as a soldier and the values he clung to while fighting in one of the darkest periods of human history. His memoir recounts his experiences of serving during World War II while honoring those who served and made the ultimate sacrifice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A WWII soldier's rosy letters home are juxtaposed with his recollections of combat's harrowing on-the-ground reality in this immersive debut memoir. Stitt, who joined the Army at 18 and served as a tank gunner in the 3rd Armored Division, follows up each letter to his parents and sister in West Virginia with a commentary explaining what he omitted out of personal reticence or to avoid the censor's red pen. What begin as minor elisions of mishaps during basic training (like not mentioning how often he was assigned for kitchen duty because he couldn't work up the energy to shave in the morning), coupled with requests for cookies and candy, quickly morph into much wider gulfs between the written reports and reality, as well as into far more ominous requests, once he enters the European theater in May 1944. "I have been kind of busy," he writes after narrowly escaping from a tank destroyed by German shelling and receiving a shrapnel wound to the leg. In the same letter, he tells his loved ones, "there isn't anything I need real bad except a New Testament, mine was destroyed," not mentioning that his Bible was lost along with his tank and the rest of its crew. With its unique vantage point, this is a noteworthy addition to the literature of WWII.
