Stephen E. Ambrose is the best-selling author of Citizen Soldiers, D-Day, Undaunted Courage, and numerous other books. He is the founder of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.

Jan Baalsrud set out in 1943 with a team of commandos to establish resistance to the Nazis in his native Norway. Upon landing, his eleven comrades were captured and killed. Only Baalsrud survived by killing a Gestapo officer and swimming through frigid waters. Shot in the foot, he set off for neutral Sweden. During his mountainous trek, he goes snowblind, is injured in an avalanche, suffers frostbite, and nearly starves while hiding in a snowcave. He is finally-remarkably-pulled to freedom by a team of reindeer as German bullets fly overhead. This short excerpt explains how, while hiding in a snow cave awaiting help, he found the courage to amputate his toes. This act of self mutilation probably saved his life. It is just one short, amazing piece of a fascinating book.

"He was still under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that gangrene would go on spreading, unless one got rid of it, like dry rot in a house. The source of it all was his toes. They were not part of him any more, although they were still attached to him, and it seemed only common sense that he would be better off without them. There was nobody he could expect to help him; but now the time and the chance had come, and he made his preparations to cut off his toes himself. He still had his pocket-knife, and he still had some brandy. With the brandy as anaesthetic, and the knife as scalpel, lying curled up on his side in the snow with his leg drawn up so that he could reach it, he began carefully to dissect them one by one. It would have been best to get it all over quickly, but apart from the pain and the sickening repulsion, it was difficult to cut them; more difficult than he had expected. He had to find the joints. His hands were rather clumsy and very weak, because there ha! d been some frostbite in his fingers too, and the knife was not so sharp as it had been. He grimly persevered, and slowly succeeded. As each one was finally severed, he laid it on a small ledge of rock above him where he could see it, because he no longer had the strength to throw it far away. After each one he had to stop, to get over the nausea and dope himself with brandy. Someone had brought him some cod liver oil ointment, and he smeared a thick slab of it on each wound and tied it in place with a strip of blanket. This grisly operation was spread out over nearly three days. At the end of it, there were nine toes on the ledge. The little toe on his left foot did not seem so bad as the others, so he kept it." --From We Die Alone (pages 194-195)