How a young 18 year old soldier just out of Basic training faced the brutal reality of frontline duty in...

A love for history | The Eighteen-Year-Old Replacement: Facing Combat in Patton's Third Army | R. Richard Kingsbury

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	• The Eighteen-Year-Old Replacement: Facing Combat in Patton's Third Army R. Richard Kingsbury University of Missouri Press, 2008 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Outstanding World War II memoir

I've read many memoirs by World War II veterans. I doubt if any memoir will ever top "With the Old Breed," by E.B. Sledge, but this one certainly ranks in the top tier. With humor and a remarkable degree of candor, Kingsbury tells what it was like to be 18 years old and find yourself in front-line combat, among men you had barely met. There's no padding here, no lengthy passages of background information about the big strategic picture--just a straightforward, well-told, well-edited story that paints a remarkable portrait not just of one young man but of the entire generation of reluctant citizen-soldier draftees who fought and won World War II. Highly recommended.

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How a young 18 year old soldier just out of Basic training faced the brutal reality of frontline duty in World War II

This book provides a fascinating look at the reality of being drafted just out of high school in 1944, and immediately facing active combat duty at the front-lines during world War II. Excerpts from the many letters written between Kingsbury and his girl friend (later to become his wife) provide a romantic thread throughout the book, as well as supplying detail of how life was during the 1940's. The stories ring true, and reading this book gives you a real appreciation of the sacrifices made by our fathers and grandfathers to preserve our freedoms. I strongly recommend this book.

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A love for history

My grandfather wrote this book so I am a bit biased. I have bought several copies for friends and read it twice myself. I have never been interested in history or autobiographies of any kind. At least until now. This book inspired me and I have since read dozens of biographys. It is short, to the point, interesting and funny.

So many of us have grandfathers or fathers who were in the war and once they came home they never spoke about it. Many of those stories have been lost as our WWII vets dwindle down. This book is a good way to learn a little about what your loved ones faced in one of the most trying times in our history.

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Interesting reading

This book takes you back to World War II in great detail. You could almost feel their emotions as the soldiers slept in foxholes and fought the battles. I loved reading the story of their courtship as their love grew while Richard was fighting for his country. It made you aware of what those young 18 year old men went through defending our country.

When the U.S. entered World War II, eighteen-year-old enlistees were routinely assigned temporary duties and not sent into battle until they turned nineteen, but America was eventually forced to draft younger men into combat to replace wounded troops. Kingsbury was drafted six weeks after D-Day and rushed to the Siegfried Line to bolster Patton's 94th Infantry Division. He recounts his experiences as a rifleman during the final bloody battles in Germany, giving readers a real feel for what combat was like for a raw recruit. More poignantly, he shares his anxieties over killing--as well as the distinct possibility of being killed. Interspersed with the accounts of battle are letters that capture Kingsbury's blossoming romance with a girl back home.

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