Sons and Soldiers: The Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned for Retribution - Hardcover

Bruce Henderson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0008180474 ISBN 13: 9780008180478

Publisher: William Collins, 2017

Synopsis

The story of young German Jews who escaped the Nazis, most often without their families, only to return a few years later to war-torn Europe as members of an elite secret U.S. Army unit.

The young men who would become known as “The Ritchie Boys” arrived in America as “enemy aliens,” and although they were allowed to enlist in the U.S. military, they were distrusted by everyone. So, in effect, they became outsiders all over again. Until one day in 1942, when the Pentagon woke up to the incredible asset they had on their hands. These men knew the language, culture and psychology of the enemy better than any Americans and had the greatest motivation to fight Hitler’s anti-Semitic regime. The Pentagon came up with a top-secret plan to harness their expertise by training them in the art of prisoner interrogation. And so off they were sent, back into the belly of the beast, Jews returning to Nazi Germany to occupy the very front lines of battlefields across Europe. Many of them re-entered Europe on D-Day. Their mission, to extract vital intel from freshly-captured POWs about troop movements and command structures and so on, was hugely successful and provided key information that led to victory by the Allied forces.

Meanwhile, few of these men knew what had happened to the families they left behind in Germany, families who had sacrificed to send them on to the safety of America. As the intelligence they gathered revealed increasingly horrific details about the Holocaust (most of which was only then beginning to come to light), they came to fear – and, in many cases, discovered – that the worst had befallen their own fathers and mothers and siblings.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

They were young Jewish boys who escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe and resettled in America. After the U. S. entered the war, they returned to fight for their adopted homeland and for the families they had left behind.

Sons and Soldiers begins during the menacing rise of Hitler’s Nazi party, as Jewish families tried desperately to get out of Europe. Bestselling author Bruce Henderson captures the heart-breaking stories of parents saving their young sons by sending them to America, perhaps never to see them again. As these boys became young men, they were determined to join the fight in Europe, where their mastery of the enemy’s language and psychology made them ideally suited to be special interrogators of German POWs. Known as the Ritchie Boys, they knew what might happen to them if they were captured, yet they went anyway. A postwar Army report credited them with collecting nearly sixty percent of the credible intelligence gathered in Europe.

Sons and Soldiers is an epic story of heroism, courage, and patriotism that will not soon be forgotten.

About the Author:

Bruce Henderson is the author and coauthor of many nonfiction books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller And the Sea Will Tell. A former newspaper reporter, magazine editor, private investigator, and field producer for television news, Bruce has taught reporting and writing courses at Stanford University and USC School of Journalism. He is a member of the Authors Guild, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Press Club. He lives in northern California.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Collins
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0008180474
• ISBN 13: 9780008180478
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448