Avenging Eagles: Forbidden Tales of the 101st Airborne Division in World War 2

When WW2 ended, the historians who wrote of America's involvement went to unprecedented lengths to censor and sanitize the grittier details. Walt Whitman once wrote of war in general: "The real war will never get in the books."In this original presentation, historian Mark Bando shows the reader a real slice of WW2 that was previously known to only a handful of individuals at the combat squad level. These are the types of incidents that are normally left out of conventional history books. Although not 'history' in the academically accepted sense, these incidents did happen, and need to be recorded for posterity. You will discover stories about insubordination, sexual encounters, brawls with other servicemen, accidental deaths from parachute mishaps or unexpected firearms discharge, mayhem and summary execution on the battlefield. These are stories that are not openly discussed by combat veterans and are usually only whispered between individuals at military reunions. The tales range from sad to hilarious, from surprising to horrible, but they are real. These are not the creations of a screenwriter or some novelist's pipe dreams; they are actual events that had a lifelong impact on the soldiers who experienced them. Such a collection could only have resulted from 35 years of research on the 101st Airborne Division, which entailed interviews with almost 1000 veterans who wore the 'Screaming Eagle' patch in WW2. No other researcher has devoted as much time to obtaining original source information from WW2 101st survivors. Three quarters of the veterans interviewed for this book have since passed away. This is an entertaining smorgasboard of forbidden tales, from a unit of high spirited, bold volunteers who pioneered a new form of warfare.