Customer Reviews

Teenagers at War: D-Day to the Elbe

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The experience of John J. Somers as told in his book "Teenagers at War" is true to the title in that many of the anecdotes are defined by a youthful irreverence and immaturity. Somers definitely falls into the category of writers who chose to tell their stories of the war in an honest fashion, disregarding the fact that many of their actions do not measure up to the heroics of John Wayne. I find these books to be quite frank, as it is certain that not every soldier who served during the war was a gung ho paratrooper. Somers shows the reader some of the foibles that can arise from having a large army of civilian soldiers.

Though Somers is drafted while in his senior year of high school in Providence, Rhode Island, he is very eager to serve and has some youthful visions of himself returning from the war a celebrated hero of epic status. Somers points out these notions in a comical way, looking back on his naiveté before really experiencing the army in a zone of war. As he ships out to Fort Devens in the summer of 1943, he meets what would be a lifelong friend in Lester Ploettner, also from Providence. As fate would have it, these two men would not leave each other's side for over two year's time. I found this to be quite a coincidence as men usually did not stay with others from their hometown throughout the war, especially not in an army made up of replacements. The friendship between Les and "JJ" is perhaps the backbone of Somers writing, as his story is essentially shared by Les. The two share dire moments together, but Somers chooses not to focus upon the misery in his memoir of war. His story is not a gritty account of combat; it is more a collection of anecdotes (most of them humorous) that are pieced together from the year they spent together on the Western front. They clearly suffered both the mental and physical privations of combat in Europe, but Somers writing is not in least bit morbid. The fact he and Les made it through alive gives the story a lighter feel which most accounts of time at war do not express. Somers and Ploettner really are teenagers at war; though they mature throughout the war, their attitudes are essentially those of kids--fun loving, independent and downright silly.

Though Somers is assigned to 29th Division (which was destined to endure one of the highest casualty rates of the units in the ETO), JJ and Les join the divisional artillery. This duty, situated near the front, but not at it, contributes to the youthful spirit of the book. Though they do see a few men killed, the batteries do not experience the heartbreaking attritional combat of the Division's 3 infantry regiments. Humor is also a way Somers combats the stress of war, even as he lands on D Day. His account shows the absolute chaos on Omaha, as nearly every tank and artillery piece sank in the heavy seas. He skips over most of the campaign in Normandy after D Day, but includes one hedgerow firefight against German paratroopers. Though I'm sure those June and July days were very trying, he does not dwell on it and skips ahead to the siege of Brest with more anecdotes scattered around the operations of his gun crew.

Perhaps the best accounts of life in the field are at the Siegfried line during the winter of 44-45. Somers is able to use humor once again to alleviate the stress of living in freezing windswept dugouts. I was a little disappointed at the lack of technical detail regarding the operations of his battery, but the focus of his book is the attitude of young soldiers, not an in depth description of their daily duties. He gives a good telling of life in Germany after the war with the typically funny antics of teenagers chasing girls and good times while in an essentially difficult situation. Not a bad read, but for an account of combat in the 29th look elsewhere (i.e. Frank Irgang, Charles Cawthon).