Currahee! (Hardcover)

by Donald R. Burgett (Author), Donald, R. Burgett (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A fascinating tale of personal combat...portrays the courage, endurance, initiative and fighting qualities of an American soldier on a European battlefield of World War II."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I have read a lot of books on the experience of combat from both World Wars, and this is by a longshot the best. Without qualification."
-- Stephen E. Ambrose (from the Foreword)

A Military Book Club Selection

"Without false heroics, everything is here, man's cruelty and kindness under stress, fear and courage, hope and despair."
-- Life

Also By
Donald R.Burgett Seven Roads To Hell
A screaming eagle at Bastogne "A marvelous book."
-- Stephen E. Ambrose

"A stirring combat memoir."
-- Kirkus Reviews

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Black May
The Epic Story Of The Allies' Defeat Of
The German U-Boats In May 1943
By Michael Gannon

Panzer Commander
The Memoirs Of Colonel Hans Von Luck
By Hans Von Luck

A Blood-Dimmed Tide
The Battle Of The Bulge By The Men Who Fought It
By Gerald Astor

Raid!
The Untold Story Of Patton's Secret Mission
By Richard Baron, Major Abe Baum, And Richard Goldhurst -- Review --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Review
"A fascinating tale of personal combat...portrays the courage, endurance, initiative and fighting qualities of an American soldier on a European battlefield of World War II."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I have read a lot of books on the experience of combat from both World Wars, and this is by a longshot the best. Without qualification."
-- Stephen E. Ambrose (from the Foreword)

A Military Book Club Selection

"Without false heroics, everything is here, man's cruelty and kindness under stress, fear and courage, hope and despair."
-- Life

Also By
Donald R.Burgett Seven Roads To Hell
A screaming eagle at Bastogne "A marvelous book."
-- Stephen E. Ambrose

"A stirring combat memoir."
-- Kirkus Reviews

Other related titles from Dell
Black May
The Epic Story Of The Allies' Defeat Of
The German U-Boats In May 1943
By Michael Gannon

Panzer Commander
The Memoirs Of Colonel Hans Von Luck
By Hans Von Luck

A Blood-Dimmed Tide
The Battle Of The Bulge By The Men Who Fought It
By Gerald Astor

Raid!
The Untold Story Of Patton's Secret Mission
By Richard Baron, Major Abe Baum, And Richard Goldhurst --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Presidio Press (August 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891416811
• ISBN-13: 978-0891416814
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #382,902 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting first-hand account of paratroopers in Normandy, October 21, 2001

By	mirope "mirope" (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Currahee!: A Screaming Eagle at Normandy (Mass Market Paperback)

Donald Burgett served as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division and gifts us with this remarkable account of his experience during the Allied invasion of Normandy. The first part of the book about the formation of the paratroopers and their early training will be familiar to those who have read Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" or watched the HBO miniseries. From D-Day forward, however, the stories are very different. In comparison to "Currahee!", BoB appears to be an almost sanatized version of the invasion and fighting in Normandy. In "Currahee!" Burgett does not hesitate to vividly describe the horrors of war - excrutiating wounds, rotting corpses, moments of incredible fear and agony. Even if you think that you are prepared to face these grim realities, you will still find Burgett's frankness disturbing. However, I encourage you not to let this put you off reading this book. Burgett's experience in Normandy was extraordinary, and he does a masterful job of conveying all the terror, exhilaration and grief he experienced. Since this is just one man's story, it necessarily captures only one perspective about a limited part of the invasion, but Burgett's skillful storytelling successfully conveys what many of the troops must have been thinking and feeling during those remarkable days.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Combat Memoir, November 27, 2003

By	Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Currahee!: A Screaming Eagle at Normandy (Mass Market Paperback)

So we've all seen Private Ryan now and think we know something about the horrors of war, but I would suggest that there is no way that anybody who was not there can truly understand it. This great book, written by an American paratrooper about his experiences leading up to and then at D-Day, makes us realize that the visceral horror of war is something that probably can not be conveyed.

It is a rather short read and is in three parts: the first is at training camp in Georgia; the second in England preparatory to the assault; and the third is the terrifying jump into France, and the grim, terrible battle which followed. To say the least, it makes for very compelling reading.

The training aspect was remarkable for its undisguised brutality. The men were told in no uncertain terms that the paratroopers did not want them; they were going to try to make them quit. The first day, for example, several men collapsed during the morning's six mile run. They were left by the side of the road, to crawl back as they could, with one of them not arriving until after midnight. He quit. Treatment, as well as being harsh, was also intentionally unfair. The narrator, after his first night jump, broke his ankle. He was left out there as well, in the darkness, to crawl back to the barracks as best as he could. "If I knew how to cry," he said. "I would have." The men were told that their likelihood of surviving combat was very poor, and that they should expect to die. The men accepted this. Most died.

Their mission was to jump behind enemy lines the morning of D-Day. Each company was given specific tasks to accomplish, but one gets the sense that all it was really hoped they would do was to create as much chaos as possible. This is exactly what happened after the chaotic, haphazard way in which they were dropped. Nobody was dropped where they should have been. Entire planeloads of men were actually dropped at sea, where they drowned. The author witnessed one cowardly pilot, fearful of anti-aircraft fire, drop the men from an altitude of 100 feet. Every one of them was killed before his chute could open.

The battle scenes are horrific, almost beyond comprehension. The way one killed one's enemy was by creating situations in which there were large amounts of flying metal in the enemy's area. This was done with bombs dropped from planes or fired from cannons and mortars, tanks, bazookas, grenades, machine guns, rifles and pistols. With such firepower on both sides, one realizes that getting killed was likely not a matter of if, but when. The author, diving into a hole, finds two German soldiers apparently hit by a bomb. Their faces, hands and feet are all blasted away but incredibly, they are still alive. The author shoots them, and prays that if the same were to happen to him, the Germans would show the same mercy.

After a time the Americans are able to establish some order. The author is sent behind with communications, and retreats through fields of dead. For a quarter of a mile, they litter the ground so thickly that he is literally able to step from body to body. Finally coming to the end of this, he describes the experience as of coming from some hideous darkness, back into light.

Eventually the author is wounded, first surviving a grenade blast which deafens him, then a piece of shrapnel which rips away the muscle of his forearm, exposing four inches of naked bone. He is sent behind to recover only so that he can come back and fight again.

The narrative is written in a candid, matter-of-fact way, remarkable for its lack of sentimentality. This, we realize, is the way he was supposed to be. This is how he was trained. Gentility, kindness, thoughtfulness, and feelings were emotions wiped clean from the consciousness of these young men, trained as they were to kill and to die. This fine book is a sobering reminder of the sacrifice made by them, most of whom met a gruesome end at an age when Americans today are graduating from high school or going to the martini bar to meet girls. They instead lie in cold graves dug hastily for them in the north of France.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Personal Combat Account I Have Ever Read!, December 23, 2000

By	Gerald K. Snead (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was an outstanding book! The author tells his story with almost a "dry-biscuit matter of factness" about his experience starting with jump school in Georgia, training in the British Isles, Combat in Normandy and finally back in England recuperating from his combat wounds.

Just reading this book makes you feel like you are actually with him in combat, although of course you are not, seeing the horror of combat first hand. It goes without saying that no book or movie can ever truly describe the reality of combat but this book goes far enough to make the reader realize that combat is probably the most horrific thing a human can experience.

The book is loaded with very vivid descriptions throughout and a number of them stick in my mind: In the early morning of D-Day the author had just landed in his parachute and was on his back getting himself organized when another C-47 flew over at a very low altitude and he saw every single paratrooper jump to their deaths before their chutes even had a chance to unfurl. "They sounded like ripe pumpkins hitting the ground and bounced" quite horrifying! Another C-47 dropped all of its troopers into the English Channel. The first man out landed in waist deep water and was the only one out of his plane that lived. All of the others drowned (the paratroopers carried around 100lbs of equipment with them which no doubt took them straight to the bottom of the sea.) In another place the author describes how they saw some Germans who had just butchered a cow and put some steaks on a makeshift grill. The author and his comrades promptly killed all of them and then finished cooking the steaks and ate them themselves.

The battlefield descriptions are straight to the point and are not for the faint of heart. The author describes with brutal honesty throughout the book his entire experience.

I would recommend this book to everyone. It is an excellent read and very fast paced (I read it in a few hours cover to cover). Five stars most definently!