Fearsome Battle: With The Canadian Army In World War II Europe [Paperback]

Robert E. Rogge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2004

The main character of this remarkable book is combat—what it was like to exist as an infantry soldier under the horrific life and death situations encountered on the World War II battlefield.

Robert Rogge, a 22-year-old American volunteer with the Canadian Army, waded ashore in Normandy on D-Day, 1944. He survived eleven months of intense fighting until May 1945, when the Allies achieved their hard-fought victory in Europe.

Out of his wartime experiences, Rogge graphically portrays, in a series of stunning, cinematic episodes, the animal fury, terror, raw emotions, and almost subhuman existence of frontline soldiers.

Besides the blood and guts of battle, Rogge also gives us the quiet times, the joy of liberation, and the uplifting renewal of the human spirit that tenderness can provide.

Fearsome Battle—with a style as immediate as yesterday—lays bare the heart of war in all its terrible reality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rogge successfully portrays the horror of combat with Fearsome Battle, making this one of the greatest memoirs of ground combat that I have yet come across. --editor, World War II Database, www.ww2db.com, May 2007

About the Author

After fighting in World War II as an American member of a Highland regiment in the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, Robert Rogge became a military historian for the U.S. Air Force. Under the pen name, Robert Elliot, he is the author of "The EagleÂ’s Height," a novel of air combat in World War I. Mr. Rogge lives with his wife in Smethport, Pennsylvania, where he is at work on another book about the early years of combat aviation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 149 pages
• Publisher: Camroc Press (September 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975450352
• ISBN-13: 978-0975450352
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,313,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Realism of War, December 24, 2004

By 

Lee P. Arellano - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fearsome Battle: With The Canadian Army In World War II Europe (Paperback)

A realistic and grabbing account of war in the European Theater. As the Editor of the newsletter of the National Museum of the Pacific War, I read many accounts of combat on both the European and Pacific fronts. This extremely well written book gives an unflinching view into the shattering of boyhood ideals and the horrors and sacrifices of war. The book is notable because it gives the unique view of an American volunteer serving with the Canadian Army in Europe; in addition, the author's use of the third person allows him to talk about things that otherwise might have been too painful to share openly with others. I highly recommend this narrative which goes a long way to dispell any of the so-called glories and glamour associated with the waging of war.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Punch in the Guts, March 3, 2005

By 

J. L. Richard - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fearsome Battle: With The Canadian Army In World War II Europe (Paperback)

     "Fearsome Battle tells the story of a young American who enlisted in the Canadian Army before America went to war. The writing of Mr. Robert Rogge unceremoniously grabs the reader from the onset. An unusual aspect of Fearsome Battle is that this account has been written in the third person. Mr. Rogge had considerable difficulty writing of the horrors of war he had experienced first hand, from the first person or as seen through his eyes. However, he manages to capture the mind and attention of the reader by describing each account in the short memoir as if from a disinterested bystander reporting the chilling events as they unfolded.

     This World War II personal account narrates small snippets of horrific battlefield action as witnessed firsthand by Mr. Rogge. It delivers a masterful portrayal of a young man's innocent entry into combat and the fulfillment of his coming to age as a seasoned veteran. The war finally ends with his felling a German soldier just prior to hearing that the war has finally ended. The soldier was but a boy, maybe fourteen years of age, but one who would have killed his adversary had he been given the chance.

     Fearsome Battle keeps the reader on the edge of anticipation from the first page to the last.

     I highly recommend this book for any person interested in reading what is in the mind of a combat soldier who fully expects that the next moment in time will be his last.

     Mr. Rogge, Thank You, for an excellent observer's narrative of the brutality of war."

     Joe Richard, web master, World War II Stories -- In Their Own Words.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The gripping true memoir of Robert Rogge, December 13, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fearsome Battle: With The Canadian Army In World War II Europe (Paperback)

Fearsome Battle: With The Canadian Army In World War II Europe is the gripping true memoir of Robert Rogge, a 22-year-old American volunteer who served with the Canadian Army during the perilous era of the second world war. Robert personally participated in the assault on Normandy on D-Day, and survived eleven months in the thick of battle until the war's end. Vividly graphic (almost to the point of disturbing) in portraying hand-to-hand combat, artillery bombardment, and the sad, sometimes gruesome job of picking up the dead after the fighting settled, Fearsome Battle is a candid and informative picture of the horrors the Greatest Generation endured to protect the world against Nazi ambitions and fascist intentions. Highly recommended reading and a welcome addition to the growing library of World War II memoirs and autobiographies.