I try to and usually do read two books a week and I want to tell you about the latest ones. Hitler's Last Offensive by Peter Elstob and The Bitter Woods by John Eisenhower. In neither title is recalled the Bastogne battle to which we have a more dispassionate view and neither is very impressed by Hollywood. In neither of these books does the author try to downplay the fighting there but it does put it into perspective. Both authors and the German High Command thought that they lost the great counter-offensive because of other battles, mostly at St Vith and Malmedy. The books are written with a different view and Eisenhowers is more of a personal view with lots of individual reflections and Elstob's view, he is an Englishman, with very great information from the German point of view. Both had a very hard task to write about this because it was a hundred different battles, not one.

You should read especially Elstob's because he gives grea tto the isolated Engineers who fought to the very end They actually mention 8 different Engineer Units by name and give them full credit which is very unusual in most of my reading. I think Elstob is best so go and get your library to order it. It is too cold out to garden or to play golf.

36 Engineers are rugged......John Fallon II. Capt. USA Ret.