Customer Reviews

D Day With The Screaming Eagles

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This book gives detailed information on each regiment and battalion of the 101st and its operations on d day. The storyteling is strictly informational, but keeps you excited. Some info and maps are very helpful, this book finally helped me to recreate the famous "jeep ride of Col. Sink", as it gives detailed maps of most important events of the 101st.
If your interested in the 101st or D day or in WWII in general, buy it, it is packed with information.

As a member of the 101st who participated in the invasion of Normandy, George Koskimaki's insights are incredibly insightful--but George goes even further and collects first person accounts from dozens of participants in this crucial action. This is history by those who made it, and lived it. I agree with those who feel that a full understanding of the actions of the 101st cannot be realized without reading Koskimai's books!

The author was a T/5 (Technician 5th Grade) of the 502nd PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) when he jumped as the 5th man in the 16-men stick in the lead plane of his serial on D-Day in Normandy serving as a radioman to Brigadier General Maxwell D. Taylor, the C.O. (commanding officer) of the 101st Airborne Division. A total of 518 former paratroopers and glidermen have told their firsthand accounts to the author, today aged of 85 and living in Northville, Michican.

About the book from the backcover:

"A TRULY AMAZING COMPENDIUM." - Gerald J. Higgins, major general, U.S. Army (ret.), from the Foreword

"In the predawn darkness of D-day, an elite fighting force struck the first blows against Hitler's Fortress Europe. Braving a hail of enemy gunfire and mortars, bold invaders from the sky descended into the hedgerow country and swarmed the meadows of Normandy. Some would live, some would die, but all would fight with the guts and determination that made them the most famous U.S. Army division in World War II: the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles."

George Koskimaki was part of the 101st Airborne's daring parachute landing into occupied France that day. Now, drawing on more than five hundred firsthand accounts - including the never-before-published experience of the trailblazing pathfinders and glidermen - Koskimaki re-creates those critical hours in all ferocity and terror.
Told by those who ultimated prevailed - ordinary Americans who faced an extraordinary challenge - "D-Day with the Screaming Eagles" is the real history of that climactic struggle beyond the beachhead."

George is my father's uncle. He began writing this book a LONG time ago, and the results are impeccable. Without editorial content, without color or shade, tells the stories in a matter of fact voice. Yet, the book is gripping, and the stories themselves will all but overwhelm you with the reality of what happened that day and the days following.

I now understand why my father refused to let me read the book when I was young. He never wanted the young and impressionable me to see the horrors he saw, and didn't want those images in my mind.

However, the facts of history must be preserved and known to benefit us. Kudos to George Koskimaki for writing, preserving, and ultimately enriching the future for having so carefully preserving the knowledge of the past, knowledge that is so often colored or misrepresented or simply glorified.

If you wish to know how it was and what happened, then this book is invaluable. If you're looking for a tale, written to entertain, this is not it.

All three of George Koskimaki's books are first rate historical tributes to the brave men of the 101st AB during World War II. I believe one has to understand these books were written by a paratrooper for his brother paratroopers that lived, ate, slept, fought and died with him during that time...just as much as they were written for future generations and military history readers. In saying this, you will not receive a book written in novel format by a military historian. This is oral history by the author and his fellow paratroopers, specifically on their experiences and the actions of their division. This is not a thorough history of all actions by all army groups during D-Day, Operation Market Garden ( Holland Drop ) and the Bulge ( Bastogne ).
If your a WWII paratrooper enthusiast, or for anyone interested in more detail on the 101st combat actions during WWII, these books are a great addition to your library. The historical importance of first hand accounts is worth the price of the book alone.
As for those that are interested in memoirs by a 101st paratrooper during WWII....The best would be Donald Burgett's 4 books. These are written with a novel flair and can be easily read through in 1 or 2 days. They provide a good perspective from one who was in Able company, 1/506...For those interested in the 506th regiment, they are a great read. Parachute Infantry by David Kenyon Webster is also of interest. Mainly because of Webster's educated backround and writing skills, he provides a different perspective on war in general. I will say this, David Kenyon Webster was the true definition of a paratrooper "citizen soldier" during WWII. He did not enjoy war and stated much. But all account by his brother troopers in Easy company 2/506 state he never stood down from combat and was always there where he needed to be and did his job well.
Four Stars of Hell by Laurence Critchell, while an older book, will provide some interesting details on the 501st regiment and their commander up through the Holland drop, Col Howard "Jumpy" Johnson. It must be said that the 501st contained some great officers that would play later roles in the Vietnam War.
Fighting With The Screaming Eagles by Robert Bowen provides a great look at combat actions by the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment that would play significant roles with the 101st, especially during the Siege of Bastogne. It also provides a look at D-Day and the Holland Drop.
There are others, but hope the above will provide some reading pleasure for those interested.

George Koskimaki provides a great account of what the troopers experienced during the great invasion of France. It's a detailed account of action for the 101ST Airborne. Amust read for History buffs, and reenactors.

Amazing history written by a man who was there. George Koskimaki served with the Screaming Eagles through out WWII. He has interviewed hundreds of other Screaming Eagles to assemble a series of books chronicling the history of the 101st in Europe during WWII. Buy the book. It's a great book. George is a wonderful writer and takes you there on a dark night in France 6 June 1944.
'Private Louis W. Cione remembered, "Our pilot surely thought he was flying a P-47 fighter plane. We really became scattered because of the speed at which we were dropped......The German anti-aircraft fire had been deadly accurate. Lieutenant Harry F. Welsh dropped from a plane that had been hit several times in the vicinity of Ste, Mere Eglise. The green light was given long before the plane reached the proper drop zone. Welsh recalled "I came down over a burning plane that had crashed previously. The heat made my chute go up and away from the flames and tangled in the hedgerow. I fell alongside the hedgerow and this probably saved my life. The field was infested with with machine gunners and completely strung with overhead barbwire on poles."'

Just to let people know that the folks in this book are leaving us. Today (August 10, 2010) Leo Bogus passed away. Read this book, find a surviving hero, and give them the thanks and recognition they deserve.

George Koskimaki spent the war serving as a tech sergeant who handled Gen. Maxwell Taylor's radio during the campaigns in Normandy, Holland, and the Ardennes. Many years later he wrote three books chronicling his own experiences, and those of his fellow soldiers in the 101st Airborne, which Taylor commanded throughout that period. The result is three worm's-eye views of the airborne battles America fought 1944-45 in Europe, full of detail but short on strategy and overview.

The 101st Airborne had a bad drop in Normandy. The division was scattered across most of the Cotentin peninsula, with individual troopers dropping on the outskirts of Cherbourg and some distance inland. As a result, the account of the day of their drop and the fighting that occurred then is rather fragmented and confused. Only one or two of the divisions battalions dropped with enough cohesion to actually fulfill missions as planned. Most of the rest grouped whatever soldiers were nearby, from other units in the 101st and strays from the neighboring 82nd Airborne, and then went and tried to capture the nearest bridge or village. Enough confusion was sown by this activity that in spite of the failure to capture some objectives, the main strategic objective of the drop (to protect the landings on Utah Beach) went as planned.

As oral histories go, this is a very good book. There's a lot of material here, and it's intelligently arranged. If I have a criticism, it's that this is *all* the book is, an oral history. There's little in the way of overview, and no analysis of what occurred. If you're willing to live with that shortcoming this book is an essential source for first-hand accounts of what happened to the 101st Airborne in Normandy.

This book attempts to pull info from oral histories, letters, and diaries into a coherant whole and does a great job of it. While it'd be an overstatement to say this book is encyclopedic, it is nearly so and the scope of the book is impressive and you will get a great description of the landings and how all elements of the 101st assembled (or failed to) and what they did. All this is great history, and it is all told through the eyes of individual soldiers and a fantastic book.

The best thing about the book is the sheer number of personal perspectives it offers. While there are plenty of great books about the 101st and D-Day, this is unique is how it offers the reader vivid descriptions of so many soldiers' experiences. You truly get a sense of what a crapshoot D-Day was. And since, I suspect, most readers put themselves in the shoes of these soldiers, the stories of soldiers getting killed or captured upon landing or misdropped many miles away from other units will leave a lasting impression.

Also impressive are the stories of medics and glider troops, both things that aren't usually covered in much detail. The chapter on medics in particular is very illuminating and downright awe-inspring.

Another thing -- this book was written well before the 101st stories had been retold and popularized. Reading this narrative truly feels like you are hearing it from soldiers' mouths before the overarching narratives emerged that have since been turned into now familiar movies and videogames. And you will probably be amazed by how many incredible stories in this book have not yet gotten the Hollywood treatment. There were a lot of heroes who dropped from the sky that day. Awesome book.

By the way, for the price of a paperback this amount of history is irrelevant.