The Final Crisis: Combat on Northern Alsace, January 1945 - Softcover

Engler, Richard E., Jr.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966638913 ISBN 13: 9780966638912

Publisher: The Aberjona Press, 2001

Synopsis

A multi-faceted book built around an intensely personal and vivid memoir of infantry combat in the last brutal winter of WWII. The author combines these carefully-verified recollections with an insightful description and analysis of the social dynamics within an incompletely-trained infantry platoon thrown into combat unexpectedly and prematurely in the face of Operation NORDWIND, the last German offensive on the Western Front in WWII. Framed by a comprehensive and detailed account of the US Seventh Army's tenacious struggle to halt a combined German force including Tiger tanks, Luftwaffe paratroopers, previously-undefeated SS mountain infantry, and the last of Germany's manpower reserves, The Final Crisis provides credit to the American infantrymen and tankers who halted the last threat to the Western Alliance. Long overshadowed by the Ardennes Offensive, the so-called "Battle of the Bulge," which barely preceded it, the struggle to halt the NORDWIND offensive comes to life at every level from foxhole to field army.

8.5" x 11" format; 25 original maps; 20 original pen and ink drawings, rendered by Colonel (then-Lieutenant) Ted MacKechnie, 42d Infantry Division, WWII; index

About this title

From the Publisher:

The Final Crisis is the most comprehensive and complete tactical account of Operation NORDWIND yet published. The parts played by the following units are covered in significant detail.

German Divisions

21st Panzer Division 10th SS-Panzer Division "Frundsberg" 17th SS-Panzer Grenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" 25th Panzer Grenadier Division 6th SS-Mountain Division NORD 7th Parachute Division 19th Volks-Grenadier Division 36th Volks-Grenadier Division 47th Volks-Grenadier Division 256th Volks-Grenadier Division 257rd Volks-Grenadier Division 361st Volks-Grenadier Division 553rd Volks-Grenadier Division 559th Volks-Grenadier Division

US Army Divisions

12th Armored Division 14th Armored Division 36th Infantry Division 42nd Infantry Division (Task Force Linden) 44th Infantry Division 45th Infantry Division 63rd Infantry Division (Task Force Harris) 70th Infantry Division (Task Force Herren) 79th Infantry Division

100th Infantry Division 103rd Infantry Division

Free French Army

2nd Armored Division

About the Author:

Richard Engler served as an automatic rifleman in the 42nd "Rainbow" Division throughout the period covered by the book. Earning his undergraduate degree at UCLA following the war, he reenlisted during the Korean War and again served as a combat infantryman in the 40th Infantry Division during the last year of that conflict. After his second honorable discharge, Engler earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Southern California, and embarked on a career as a private consultant to disadvantaged and small businesses in the Washington, D.C. area. Making extensive use of primary source material from the nearby National Archives, the author completed The Final Crisis over a nearly 10-year period in the 1980s and early 1990s. He passed away in 1995.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Aberjona Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0966638913
• ISBN 13: 9780966638912
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368