Beyond Valor: World War II's Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat [Hardcover]

Patrick K. O'Donnell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2001

Previous books have promised to describe the combat experience of the World War II GI, but there has never been a book like Patrick O'Donnell's "Beyond Valor." Here is the first combat history of the war in Europe in the words of the men themselves, and perhaps the most honest and brutal account of combat possible on the printed page. For more than fifty years the individual stories that make up this narrative -- shockingly frank reflections of sacrifice and courage -- have been bottled up, buried, or circulated privately. Now, nearing the ends of their lives, our WWII soldiers have at last unburdened themselves.

"Beyond Valor" recaptures their hidden history. A pioneering oral historian, Patrick O'Donnell used his award-winning website, The Drop Zone, to solicit oral- and "e-histories" from individual soldiers. Gradually, working from within the community, O'Donnell convinced some of the war's most battle-hardened soldiers to tell their stories. The result is WWII seen through the eyes of the men who saw the most intense of its action. O'Donnell focuses on the elite units of the war -- the Rangers, Airborne, and 1st Special Service Force -- troops that spearheaded the most dangerous operations and often made the difference between victory and defeat.

From more than 650 interviews O'Donnell has chosen oral- and e-histories that form a seamless story line, a pointillistic history of the war in Europe from the first parachute drops in North Africa through the final battles in Germany and the long trip home. It is the story of the war not discussed in polite company. O'Donnell presents the wreckage of entire battalions nearly annihilated, invisible personal scars, and hauntingrevelations of wartime atrocities. But more important are the men who recount lives risked without hesitation for comrades and cause, and those who did not return: the friends who died in their arms. Their stories remind all of us that victory came only at the highest price.

Remembering the infamous cliffs at Pointe-du-Hoc, bloody Omaha Beach, the bitter fighting at the Battle of the Bulge, and Hill 400 in the Hurtgen Forest, the soldiers reveal war as seen, heard, and smelled by the GIs on the front line. Also included is the unique story of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, and the trailblazing African-American "Experimental" Test Platoon that had to fight its own battle behind the lines.

"Beyond Valor" captures the truths that exist among soldiers. It is one of the most inspiring accounts of the war ever produced.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The success of Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation has sparked a renewed interest in books about World War II and the people who fought in it. Patrick K. O'Donnell maintains, however, that behind those official histories and carefully crafted memoirs lies a "hidden war"--"a bottled up, buried version shielded even from family members because many of the memories are too painful to discuss." In Beyond Valor, O'Donnell brings this hidden war to the surface, allowing men from the elite forces to tell their own stories, thus creating a fascinating combat history of WWII.

O'Donnell introduces readers to some of the greatest of the greatest generation--men such as Robert Kinney of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, wounded by a mortar at Anzio ("it tore my fanny open, took a big chunk of meat out of there--I could afford that"). While in the hospital, wounded members of the regiment were asked by one of their officers to return to the front:

We all went down, about forty of us in casts, bandages, arms in slings and everything. He said, "Your buddies up there are catching hell and we've got to go back if we can. You don't have to, we're not going to order you, but we're looking for volunteers." We said, "Hell, we'll go." We had just the best-spirited bunch of scrappers you ever saw.

There are also stories about compassion in the midst of carnage. Albert Hassenzahl of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment was seriously injured on a drop during the Normandy invasion. While waiting to be rescued, the wind blew his blanket off him. A man on an adjacent stretcher reached over and carefully tucked the blanket in around Hassenzahl. The other man was a German POW. "I didn't say a word to him, but I was able to move my head a little and looked over at him ... neither of us said a word, but mentally I might have said 'thank you' with my eyes and he might have said 'you're welcome' with his."

Though it will certainly appeal to them, O'Donnell insists that Beyond Valor is not aimed at war buffs--it's for the soldiers themselves. "My work has been one of preservation, done in gratitude for a generation that sacrificed so much." By sharing these stories, O'Donnell has helped to preserve and honor their memory. --Sunny Delaney

From Publishers Weekly

Over a hundred individual veterans' vignettes are drawn from oral histories and electronically transmitted memoirs ("e-histories") in this assemblage of firsthand accounts of the WWII American Airborne, Ranger and other special units. Instrumental to the collection of these stories was O'Donnell's special-interest Web site, The Drop Zone (www.thedropzone.org), which functions as a "virtual museum" of vet experience. The book itself, after a brief introduction sketching the origins of the special units, is comprised of chapters devoted to a dozen operations in the European theater, from initial forays at Dieppe and North Africa, through Italy and Normandy, to final months in Holland and Germany. One chapter covers the home front experiences of African-American troops in the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. O'Donnell furnishes a cogent introductory overview of each operation, after which a number of veterans describe their memories of the action. Most of these remembrances are work-a-day, telegraphic run-downs of key situations beach landings and marches to lines, a night in the cargo hold of a destroyer, a diversionary attack on a fortified town that leave a lot of emotional baggage under the surface, in favor of often mortal logistics (some of which involves atrocities on both sides). Most fail to make their situations vivid or compelling to the uninitiated. (Mar. 12) Forecast: While this title is a Main Selection of the Military History Book Club, it assumes a fair amount of interest in and familiarity with its subjects, and won't get much beyond the buff market. Nevertheless, scholars will find it a font of well-documented primary source material and developers might comb it for film or TV-worthy vignettes. Meanwhile, the Drop Zone, which has gotten press mentions in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other papers, may generate further sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st ptg. edition (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684873842
• ISBN-13: 978-0684873848
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,253,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Combat historian Patrick K. O'Donnell has authored seven critically acclaimed books which recount the epic stories of America's troops in World War II, the Korean War, and the current conflict in Iraq. His bestseller Beyond Valor, which tells the gripping tales of U.S. WWII Ranger and Airborne veterans, won the William E. Colby Award for Outstanding Military History. His other books include Into the Rising Sun; Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs; We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder With the Marines Who Took Fallujah; The Brenner Assignment: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Spy Mission of WWII; They Dared Return; and Give Me Tomorrow: The Korean War's Greatest Untold Story - The Epic Stand Of The Marines Of George Company, which is his most recent work.

Reviewers from media outlets as diverse as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Jerusalem Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, C-SPAN, and National Public Radio (NPR) have hailed his publications. In addition, his books have been Main or Alternate selections of the Book-of-the-Month, History, and Military History Book-Clubs.

O'Donnell has appeared as a guest on countless television and radio shows on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and other networks. He served as a war correspondent for Men's Journal and Fox News, reporting on the conflict in Iraq from the perspective of the Marines on the ground. He has also written for Military History Quarterly (MHQ) and WWII Magazine and is a frequent contributor to a variety of nationally recognized blogs.

An expert on WWII espionage, special operations, and counter-insurgency on the modern battlefield, the historian has helped with production or writing for numerous documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Fox News.

He also provided historical consulting for DreamWorks' award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers, as well as for the billion-dollar Medal of Honor game franchise.

His skills have even been tapped by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). For the agency, the historian worked on modern weapons systems for urban warfare, looked at historical counter-insurgency, and researched and analyzed German technology from WWII and how it can be applied to the modern battlefield.

Dedicated to preserving the stories of combat veterans for generations to come, O'Donnell founded the Drop Zone (www.thedropzone.org). The award-winning web site contains many of the 4,000 oral history interviews O'Donnell has personally conducted over the past twenty years with American combat veterans and their adversaries.

O'Donnell not only writes about combat--he's experienced it firsthand. He served as the only civilian combat historian to spend three months in Iraq documenting the experiences of troops in battle. He literally fought with a Marine rifle platoon in Fallujah, surviving several ambushes and once dragging a mortally wounded Marine from battle (www.wewereone.com).

Because he believes in experiencing the places and people he writes about firsthand, O'Donnell has travelled to nearly all of the battlefields of North America and many of the WWII battlefields in Northern Europe. In addition, each one of his books contains scores, if not hundreds, of oral history interviews he has personally conducted, combined with years of archival research (The Brenner Assignment, for instance, took 10,000 documents to produce.)

His websites include:

www.patrickkodonnell.com
www.givemetomorrowbook.com
www.theydaredreturn.com
www.thedropzone.org
www.brennerassignment.com
www.wewereone.com
www.facebook.com/patrickkodonnell

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read Book, February 21, 2001

By 

Aleister Crowley (Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Valor: World War II's Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat (Hardcover)

Beyond Valor is a watershed in the reporting of World War II oral histories -- i.e., the actual participants of history describe the events they participated in in their own words, free from editorial embellishment and hindsight analysis. Mr. O'Donnell diligently interviewed hundreds of American paratrooper and Ranger veterans from the European Theater of Operations in World War II. What he has assembled in Beyond Valor is a collection of personal vignettes from young Americans that describe what hell was like during the bloodiest war ever. These men take us through training, North Africa, Sicily and Italy, Normandy and Southern France, Holland and Belgium, Germany, and going back home. Unlike other war books that use only selected quotes from veterans, embellish their words and otherwise bog you down with information and details that reveal nothing new, Mr. O'Donnell lets each veteran tell his full story. In some cases, veterans for the first time ever release emotions and bitter memories that have been bottled up inside their hearts and minds for 60 years. Many of the stories are powerful and moving, even emotionally overwhelming -- like the Rangers that describe the helpless feeling of seeing their buddies get cut down by machine gun fire right next to them as they rush up to attack a German bunker. In the vein of Stephen Ambrose, Patrick O'Donnell has put together an easy-to-read book with helpful maps that goes deep into the heart of combat as seen from America's living heroes. This book -- a tribute to the greatest generation -- is a definite keeper.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Valor captures WWII like never before, February 26, 2001

By 

Eric Minkoff (Gaithersburg, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Valor: World War II's Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat (Hardcover)

Pat O'Donnell's unique way of capturing the heartfelt and poignant views of the Rangers and Airborne of WWII makes for an unbelievable book. These vets put their battle-line experiences in their own words and after keeping them perhaps bottled up inside for 50+ years they come out in such a passionate and unforgettable way. Mr. O'Donnell strings their stories together in a manner that only punctuates events which if not told by the soldiers who actually experienced them, the reader would not believe actually occurred. The stories of how the young men faced death and overcame it will forever change my outlook on the war. This book provides an amazing historical context to the war and reveals events that likely would not have been told if left up to interpretation by those not actually at the Battle of the Bulge, Salerno, Southern France or at the liberation of the camps. What is so unique about this book is that it is not a second hand account as told to an author but the actual words of the soldiers. Mr. O'Donnell's use of "e-histories" is to be commended. This book is as important to documenting the history of World War II as any I've read. The terror and triumph these men experienced played on my emotions as I read chapter after chapter of this book. Mr. O'Donnell serves as the curator of amazing works of history in his web site TheDropZone.org and I am forever grateful that he decided to share some of his masterpieces with the world.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book., February 27, 2001

By 

Victor Groen (Miami, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Valor: World War II's Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat (Hardcover)

Excellent book, I definitely recommend it. Most rewarding of all, is that exactly as the author states in his introduction, the narrative, in the veteran's own words, takes the reader to the middle of the action, whether it be tragic or heroic. How the author tracked down these veterans and coaxed them into sharing their personal histories, some for the first time in sixty years, is beyond me, and an achievement in itself; the book and what it represents in terms of historical value and human interest is invaluable. I do wish that the maps had been larger, but that might have been a function of the publisher and not the author. In fact the maps are exceptional in that they are quite detailed, and extremely accurate. The author, Mr. O'Donnell, has succeded in striking a very effective balance between his own narrative and that of the veteran's oral histories. Very well done. I'll be looking forward to future books from this author.