Customer Reviews

On Time, On Target: The World War II Memoir of a Paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne

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"On Time On Target" (The World War II Memoir of a Paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne) is a wonderful book with the unimpeachable smack of reality on every page. John MacKenzie gives us the stench of bodies, the terror of peering up from your mud-filled foxhole as your own planes drop 500-pound bombs on you, and the freaked-out reveille of waking to one of your deranged buddies holding a .45 to your head, threatening to shoot you because you know he's the one who shot a horse. And on and on, the telling nitty-gritty details of the paratrooper's life in the soup. But he also gives us keen, witty and insightful digressions, not only of his feelings and assessments then, when he was a twenty-year-old in the midst of action, but his later evaluations after fifty years of rumination. The chapter entitled, "Reflections on Elite Units" is worth the price of the book alone.

This is the real deal, from a guy who was there, the best type of American fighting man, a good and decent citizen who wouldn't have gone unless they dragged him, but once there did his job and kept his eyes and ears open (not an easy task)and whose observations and memories now reward us and add significantly to the history of works on war. Outstanding and indispensible!

Having read John McKenzie's book, about how he experienced his days in the U. S. Army during World War II, I felt like I was there with him. His descriptive style kept me captivated and almost feeling what he felt. I have been a paratrooper and have been in combat and know that it is not constantly being under fire nor is it like "a bed of roses". As John indicates, times can seem very miserable and at times horrific. While at other times, a person can find some enjoyment when the occasion rises. I highly recommend this book to everyone, because John and his comrads are the ones that helped make this world a lot better for all of us! My heartfelt thanks go out to him and the others that put it on the line for our freedom!

LOOKING FOR A QUICK REVIEW?: Great book, written by an airborne vet that fought in every major 82nd campaign from June 6, 1944 to VE Day.
LOOKING FOR DETAIL?: The author was a forward artillery observer whose job it was to hang with an infantry platoon and direct shells into enemy concentrations. He was therefore always in harms way and has many death defying stories to tell. He fought in all of the major campaigns from D-Day to Market Garden to the Bulge to the Rhine, was captured by the SS..and still lived to tell the world what he had seen. This fact alone should justify purchasing this book.
But for an added bonus there is more...Not only does McKenzie tell his story but he adds the feelings and sentiments of the times so that the reader gets an idea of what life was like during the 'greatest generation'.

Although the writing style is sometimes laborious and he has a tendency to jump around, this does not take away from the effect of the book. In fact it gives you the feeling that this is just a normal guys story...which is in fact the most important story of all.

"On Time, On Target" by John McKenzie

This is another excellent personal memoir, written some 50 years later, by an individual who served in the chaos and destruction that was the Second World War. In this book, John McKenzie traces the advance of the Allied Army from the Normandy Beaches to the capture of Berlin. McKenzie, a chemical engineer in later life (who says engineers can't write!?) describes his efforts as a forward observer with the famous 82nd Airborne. His writing is mater-of-fact , as, on page 23, he states that "(t)here I learned what triage meant". Priority was given to the seriously wounded who had the best chance of recovery, while the lightly wounded were treated last. His description of the dead is limited to quiet testimony about "even more bodies and carnage than we had seen thus far". Page 24.

McKenzie has nothing but praise for airborne troopers, who generally had an "...IQ about ten points higher than the army minimum" (P. 39) and were required to be in top-notch physical condition before being accepted as airborne. In many ways, the author echoes writers who have described the obvious effectiveness of elite troops, such as the U.S. Marines. (See "Breakout" by Martin Russ). McKenzie clearly considers the 82nd Airborne to have "...superior efficiency" (p. 39) , performing consistently with excellence.

There are some interesting personal observations such as the size of the German tanks in Normandy , the effects of the "Buzz bombs" on London and the effectiveness of the Sherman tank as compared to the German Panther and Tiger tanks (p. 115). McKenzie sums up the weakness of the Sherman with "Since they usually wound up dead in single tank combat, our tankers developed swarming and flanking tactics that gave them shots against the panzers' more vulnerable side and rear armor" (p. 116) He makes a small comment that epitomizes the lack of understanding of the superiority of the German weapons, "We wondered if our ordnance people had paid any attention at all to the war in North Africa." "...we figured the state of our arms and ordnance should have been far advanced from what it was in late 1944." (P. 117). Finally, the author describes the trip home after the war, by train through `Belgium and then by ship across the Atlantic. Typically, this last part is omitted by many others telling their personal memoirs, so McKenzie's story is appreciated. Overall, this book is well written personal history of an important Army unit in the European theatre.

Above all, this fine battlefield memoir is distinguished by clarity and honesty. John McKenzie's tale takes him from university student through wartime military training, the invasion of Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge--and on into the cold peace and confrontations with our Russian "allies." McKenzie never strives for effect or spares himself. He describes his reactions to combat unsparingly and has a special knack for capturing the mundane aspects of a military campaign. He seems a man of great fairness and sound judgement, which makes his enlisted-man's view of the greatest battles of the allied campaign in the west especially valuable. Whether describing ad hoc paratrooper training in England or missions as a field artillery observer behind enemy lines, the brutality and fanaticism of SS officers or the human bonds that turn individual soldiers into a real unit, McKenzie has done a fine job. This is an excellent, highly-readable addition to the literature on World War II from a thoughtful, quietly-heroic man who embodies the traditions of the American citizen-soldier. Very highly recommended!

A good book, an easy read, and informative. It was a bit shy on detail, though, leaving me with a "wanting more" feeling nearly the whole way through.

As a first-person account, the text is authoratative and commands the reader's attention. The been-there-done-that texture of the material is unmistakably authentic.

My only complaint is that the descriptions of action are very concise, and often left me wondering exactly when/where the action was and, in some cases, what the outcome was. Perhaps this is reminiscent of the author's personal experience at the time ("We don't know who we are shooting at or why."), but for a retrospective of this type it was somewhat frustrating to me as a reader.

Having met a few men of the exceptional 82nd Airborne Division, I looked forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. Author John McKenzie was a forward observer for the 456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, part of the 505th PRCT. His ability as an historian is not the failing of this work; it lies in his emotionless presentation. As an observer, his frequent visits to the front enabled him to see first hand the horror and aftermath of fierce and often hand to hand combat. He carries us with him from Normandy to Market Garden to the Bulge and finally to war's end and his return to civilian life. But reading his presentation, one does not encounter the visceral emotion present in most first hand accounts. McKenzie tells us he counted the losses of his friends until he could, due to the pain, count no more. We learn of their being wounded and their deaths without knowing who they were and why or what they meant to the author. Unlike most first hand accounts, we have no one with whom to identify, as if the book was written in the third person. This is not to say I didn't enjoy the book, indeed, several chapters were very well done, particularly the Huertgen Forest entry.

For a brief period during the Bulge, McKenzie and a few others were taken prisoner by fleeing members of Peiper's 1st SS Panzer. A friend was purposely shot for information and the others, including the author, conducted a daring escape. But the story is told without comment on the internal workings. It is just too dry for one who was there and the feel is that of an observer rather than a participant.

McKenzie implies several times that the horror of war and the losses he suffered forced him to shut down, to seal himself off and these old memories brought back to awareness were painful to deal with. It took courage to relive his war years for us. This defense mechanism, while more than understandable, has perhaps caused McKenzie to write a good book instead of a superior book.

Most memoirs dedicated to or written by paratroopers are of the dashing, crashing, leap out the plane and pull the ripcord kind. On Time, On Target breaks the mold! John McKenzie was a forward artillery observer in the 456th Parachute Field artillery Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division. His battalion, attached to the 505th Regimental Combat Team, was designed to provide the heavy punch of artillery support to the otherwise lightly armed parachute infantry regiments.

Armed with 75-millimeter Pack Howitzers (12 to a battalion), the 456th did not jump into Normandy with the rest of the division. Their main weapon, the Pack Howitzer, was designed to be broken down into 12 pieces and carried on mules. For airborne operations, these same 12 pieces could be dropped in a package of parts and assembled on the ground. This assumed, of course, that all the parts could be found: a task that was more difficult in actual combat conditions than in training.

Therefore, instead of dropping at night with the rest of the 82nd Airborne, the 456th came ashore on Utah Beach on D + 3 with all their equipment and ammo to rejoin and support their division. Most of the men were not even qualified parachutists at that time. McKenzie describes the battles in Normandy until his unit rotated back to England.

The next time the 456th would see action would be in Operation Market-Garden in Holland. The unit was deployed in Waco gliders for this operation in which the author served as a glider co-pilot. After 6 weeks of fighting as infantry, the entire 82nd Airborne was withdrawn for refitting and replacements but that was interrupted by a large German attack that would result in the Battle of the Bulge. In this instance, the 456th was trucked into the Ardennes where they supported the defense of the northern shoulder and where the author was captured and escaped from the SS. For fans of airborne operations in World War II, this book provides an interesting change of pace as it concentrates on the little known and lesser written-about, parachute field artillery battalions.

John E. Nevola
Author of The Last Jump - A Novel of World War II

Having been an avid reader of WWII since my boyhood in the 60's, and of late many of the airborne memoirs (I have a first edition of Band of Brothers from 92') I looked forward this book. It is very good, and what makes it good beside the saga is the author's honesty and emotional verve. If you want to read something emotionless in the airbone genre, try Burgett (which are darn good reads anyhow).

Author John McKenzie, veteran of the 82nd Airborne's enlisted ranks from Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge and on across the Elbe River, has written a marvelous, highly-readable and scrupulously honest account of his personal experiences of war. An artillery forward observer, he literally had the best possible views of engagement after engagement, and his range of experiences ran from a glider assault through capture by and escape from SS panzer troops, to cracking the Siegfried Line. Among the many contributions made by this classic account of history's greatest war, are the soldier's details, from the embarrassing nature of field latrines, to ration comparisons, to the painful lack of winter uniforms and equipment as the 82nd dug its heels into the snow and ice to halt the German offensive in the Ardennes. As a career soldier myself (though of far lesser experience than John McKenzie), I valued this book for its truth. As a reader, I found it a delight that passed by swiftly and ended too soon. Strongly recommended for soldiers, civilians and students of history's harsh realities.