The Fighting Bunch
The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution
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4.8 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution, New York Times bestselling author Chris DeRose reveals the true, never-before-told story of the men who brought their overseas combat experience to wage war against a corrupt political machine in their hometown.
Bill White and the young men of McMinn County answered their nation's call after Pearl Harbor. They won the freedom of the world and returned to find that they had lost it at home.
A corrupt political machine was in charge, protected by violent deputies, funded by racketeering, and kept in place by stolen elections - the worst allegations of voter fraud ever reported to the Department of Justice, according to the U.S. Attorney General.
To restore free government, McMinn's veterans formed the nonpartisan GI ticket to oppose the machine at the next election.
On Election Day, August 1, 1946, the GIs and their supporters found themselves outgunned, assaulted, arrested, and intimidated. Deputies seized ballot boxes and brought them back to the jail. White and a group of GIs - "The Fighting Bunch" - men who fought and survived Guadalcanal, the Bulge, and Normandy, armed themselves and demanded a fair count. When they were refused the most basic rights they had fought for, the men, all of whom believed they had seen the end of war, returned to the battlefield and risked their lives one last time.
For the past seven decades, the participants of the "Battle of Ballots and Bullets" and their families kept silent about that conflict. Now in The Fighting Bunch, after years of research, including exclusive interviews with the remaining witnesses, archival radio broadcast and interview tapes, scrapbooks, letters, and diaries, Chris DeRose has reconstructed one of the great untold stories in American history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this dramatic account, historian DeRose (Star Spangled Scandal) details how corrupt officials who had seized and held power in McMinn County, Tenn., from 1936 until 1946 were overthrown by a group of WWII veterans. Drawing on press accounts, private letters, and interviews with descendants of those involved, DeRose vividly describes ballot boxes stuffed with fraudulent votes, poll watchers forced out of precincts at gunpoint, and armed deputies intimidating voters. Orchestrated by sheriff and state senator Paul Cantrell, these voter suppression techniques ensured that his network of judges, deputies, and county officials won reelection year after year. In 1946, Navy veteran and lawyer Ralph Duggan led an effort to replace Cantrell and his cronies with a "GI ticket" split between Democrats and Republicans who had served in the military. When Cantrell's men confiscated ballot boxes on election day and took them to a jail in Athens, Tenn., a group of armed veterans laid siege to the building and a gunfight broke out. Cantrell's cronies were eventually forced to flee town, and every candidate on the GI ticket won. Doggedly researched and briskly narrated, this rousing chronicle testifies to the importance of free and fair elections.
Customer Reviews
Great Read
Just another display of the kind of patriotism and courage the men of my grandfathers’ generation had. This is the kind of testicular fortitude many men today seem to lack when it comes to voting irregularities!
GREAT BOOK!!
One of the most gripping books I’ve ever read. Once I started I couldn’t put it down. This book will have you so furious that you’ll want to go find a democrat to shoot. It’s amazing how much this resembles the democrats of today in the way that they are still so corrupted, lie, cheat and steal.
Fighting Bunch
A great read. Tough to put down once you get started. Five stars.