G Company's War: Two Personal Accounts of the Campaigns in Europe, 1944-1945 - Hardcover

Egger, Bruce E.; Otts, Lee Macmillan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817305661 ISBN 13: 9780817305666

Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr, 1992

Synopsis

This unique account of combat in World War II provides parallel day-to-day records of the same events as seen by two men in the same company, one an enlisted man, one an officer.  

G Company's War is the story of a World War II rifle company in Patton's Third Army as detailed in the journals of S/Sgt. Bruce Egger and Lt. Lee M. Otts, both of G Company, 328th Regiment, 26th infantry Division. 

Bruce Egger arrived in France in October 1944, and Lee Otts arrived in November. Both fought for G Company through the remainder of the war. Otts was wounded seriously in March 1945 and experienced an extended hospitalization in England and the United States. Both men kept diaries during the time they were in the service, and both expanded the diaries into full-fledged journals shortly after the war. 

These are the voices of ordinary soldiers--the men who did the fighting--not the generals and statesmen who viewed events from a distance. Most striking is how the two distinctly different personalities recorded the combat experience. For the serious-minded Egger, the war was a grim ordeal; for Otts, with his sunny disposition, the war was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, sometimes even fun. Each account is accurate in its own right, but the combination of the two into a single, interwoven story provides a broader understanding of war and the men caught up in it. 

Historian Paul Roley has interspersed throughout the text helpful overviews and summaries that place G Company's activities in the larger context of overall military operations in Europe. In addition, Roley notes what happened to each soldier mentioned as wounded in action or otherwise removed from the company and provides an appendix summarizing the losses suffered by G Company. The total impact of the work is to describe the reality of war in a frontline infantry company. 

About this title

About the Author:

Bruce E. Egger is a retired forester who lives in Prineville, Oregon.
Lee MacMillan Otts is an attorney in Brewton, Alabama.
Paul Roley is Professor of History Emeritus at Western Washington University.

Review:

"The fiftieth anniversaries of D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the crossing of the Rhine, and V-E Day brought forth a flood of books by veterans about their own experiences, their squads, their companies. Among the best of these are Bruce Egger and Lee Otts, G Company's War: Two Personal Accounts of the Campaigns in Europe, 1944-1945 . . ."—Stephen E. Ambrose, from Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0817305661
• ISBN 13: 9780817305666
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312