By September 1944, the Allied advance across France and Belgium had turned into attrition along the German frontier. Standing between the Allies and the Third Reich's industrial heartland was the city of Aachen, once the ancient seat of Charlemagne's empire and now firmly entrenched within Germany's Siegfried Line fortifications. The city was on the verge of capitulating until Hitler forbade surrender.
<li>Dramatic story of the American battle for Aachen, the first city on German soil to fall to the Allies in World War II.</li>
<li>Chronicles the six weeks of hard combat for the city, culminating in eight days of fighting in the streets</li>
<li>Details the involvement of some of the U.S. Army's finest units, including the 1st Infantry Division ("Big Red One"), the 30th Infantry Division ("Roosevelt's SS"), and the 2nd Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels")</li>

Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II

History

Baumer, Robert W.

Military

Stackpole Books

The best U.S. division at war, from Normandy to the Bulge and beyond The 30th Infantry Division, drawn from the hill country of Tennessee and the Carolinas, was regarded during World War II as the cream of the crop of U.S. fighting units. The Germans agreed, calling the division “Roosevelt’s SS” for its tenacity and skill. The 30th fought in Normandy, along the Siegfried Line (where it conducted “the perfect infantry attack”), at the Battle of the Bulge, and in the final operations inside Germany. Baumer relies on primary sources to tell the story of this remarkable unit and its men in what is sure to become a classic World War II division history.

Old Hickory: The 30th Division: The Top-Rated American Infantry Division in Europe in World War II

From the invasions of Algeria, Sicily, and Normandy, to bursting open the very gates of the Reich at Aachen and in the gloomy and bloody Hürtgen Forest, to halting the great German offensive in the Ardennes, and to sealing the fate of the German Army in the Ruhr Pocket, the soldiers of the 18th Infantry Regiment established a battle record that is, in many ways, a microcosm of the American Army’s experiences in World War II. After bloody setbacks in their first actions in North Africa, the Regiment persevered and overcame every conceivable obstacle placed in their path by their enemies, to include Panzers, elite paratroopers, and tenacious garrisons of concrete and steel stretching from Sicily to the Westwall. Not only did they uphold the honor of their regimental forebears, but they set the standard for their successors who have fought in Vietnam, the Gulf War of 1991, and the current war in Iraq, where the Regiment’s 1st Battalion serves at the time of this book’s publication. 
American Iliad is, however, more than an especially complete and comprehensive regimental history. By combining information carefully culled from wartime reports with first-hand accounts provided by the riflemen and machinegunners to battalion commanders and regimental staff officers, the authors have created an exceptionally clear picture of an American infantry regiment’s tactical operations. Hundreds of actions, chronicled and analyzed at every level from squad through regiment, are woven together to create a brilliant mosaic that illustrates exactly how the 18th Infantry Regiment of the famed 1st Infantry Division—the "Big Red One"—defeated its Vichy French, Italian, and German adversaries from Algeria to the Harz Mountains. 
American Iliad is assured an important place in the burgeoning literature that documents the US Army’s WWII combat record in an analytical, factual fashion. Unlike most of the regimental and division histories published shortly after the war which were intended to be mementos of soldiers’ service and necessarily are often sentimental accounts based on unclassified information, American Iliad is an objective history based on reports not available to authors of unit histories in the immediately post-war era. The authors have artfully combined intelligence reports, captured operational documents, personal accounts by enemy participants, and myriad other facts relating to other American and Allied units to ensure the accuracy and integrity of this work. 
Most importantly, American Iliad makes a highly significant contribution to the long-running controversy about the quality of American combat units in WWII. In Citizen Soldiers, the late Stephen Ambrose argued that the Army which entered the European continent in Normandy was good, but by the end of the war, it had achieved excellence; in The GI Offensive in Europe, Pete Mansoor documented the generally superior combat effectiveness of American infantry divisions in the ETO; in When the Odds Were Even, Keith E. Bonn proved that even when the US Seventh Army did not enjoy numerical, air, or armor superiority, its soldiers succeeded due to superior cohesion, organization, and training; and in Draftee Division, John Sloan Brown illustrated the decisive strengths of the 88th Infantry Division, the first American division to see action that was overwhelmingly of conscripts. More recently, in Hell in Hürtgen Forest, Robert Rush has chronicled how the extraordinary tenacity of a regiment of the 4th Infantry Division enabled it to overcome every conceivable obstacle and prevail against an enemy enjoying innumerable advantages. 
Now, Bob Baumer and Mark Reardon show exactly how an infantry regiment achieved victory after victory against three different armies on two continents. Combining Baumer’s years of meticulous research with the professional and historical expertise that Reardon, a serving US Army officer, has previously exhibited in his book Victory at Mortain, American Iliad documents how the leaders of the 18th Infantry Regiment crafted combined arms teams and used effective, sometimes brilliant, maneuver to win battle after battle over 2 1/2 years of combat. The initiative, flexibility, and creativity these officers displayed is made abundantly evident, yet their failures and mistakes are also examined as well. Carefully crafted missions affording subordinate leaders maximum latitude were clearly the norm, and combined armor, artillery, engineer, and infantry combat teams, supported by air power (when available) were consistently preferred, in accordance with the American tactical precepts of the time. However, the authors make clear that when the tanks bogged down or were knocked out by the enemy, when the fighter bombers were grounded by bad weather or reallocated to higher priority targets, and when the artillery couldn’t shoot for lack of observation or because targets were "danger close," the 18th Infantry Regiment was always prepared to whatever it took to accomplish the mission. 
From the foxhole to the regimental command post, through firefights in dense forests and forbidding hedgerows, in desperate assaults up rocky desert heights and tenaciously defended beaches, American Iliad takes the reader through the epic journey in which 1,513 American soldiers lost their lives…and a regiment gained immortality. 
424 pages; 17 original maps; 45 photos; endnotes; index.

American Iliad: The 18th Infantry Regiment in World War II

Reardon, Mark J.

The Aberjona Press

Bob, a happy-go-lucky kid from Connecticut, voluntarily enlists in the Army at age nineteen, a full year before Pearl Harbor is bombed.\nAfter training Stateside with the famous First Division, Bob is sent to England in the summer of 1942, and soon sees combat in North Africa. He faces Rommel’s best and stops his Panzers near the Kasserine Pass before his regiment destroys yet another Panzer division at El Guettar, giving General George Patton his first victory as an Army Corps commander.\nBob’s battalion plays a key role during the final push in North Africa, and when Sicily is invaded his regiment stops a vicious German counterattack on the beachhead. After breaking the German hold on Troina – key to the Sicilian campaign – it isn’t long before well-liked Bob finds himself back in England preparing for the Normandy Invasion.\nLanding on Omaha Beach during the morning of D-Day, Bob’s battalion forms the wedge that allows others to get off the beach in force. He makes history that day. Then, three days later the worst happens.\nThis is Pfc. Robert Arthur Baummer’s moving World War II story. It’s also about the friendships he forms, his family’s anguish while he is overseas and his sad journey home. It is told by Bob’s best friends, his company captain, and others he served with in the Big Red One – and how the author, his nephew, found all of them, making Bob’s war possible to write about in gripping and often emotional detail.

The Journey of the Purple Heart: A First Infantry Division Soldier’s Story from Stateside to North Africa, Sicily and Normandy during World War II

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

L&R Publishing, LLC

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Books by Baumer, Robert W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baumer, Robert W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II

Old Hickory: The 30th Division: The Top-Rated American Infantry Division in Europe in World War II

American Iliad: The 18th Infantry Regiment in World War II

The Journey of the Purple Heart: A First Infantry Division Soldier’s Story from Stateside to North Africa, Sicily and Normandy during World War II