Currahee! A Screaming Eagle at Normandy. Donald R. Burgett is a real Screaming Eagle, who jumped with that famed division at Normandy and survived to tell the tale. His memoir vividly portrays the tragic chaos of war: the blood and sweat, the glory and tears of one of the greatest battles of all time. Currahee! (this was the battle cry and motto of his regiment) begins with jump training and explodes in drama as they are parachuted into Normandy with orders to take and hold the high ground behind the beaches. It contains unforgettable incidents. The author's almost dispassionate tone goes a long way toward explaining a particular set of psychological defenses which enabled these men to do their duty and-for some of them-to survive with their sanity intact. Currahee! is the only book on World War II that General Dwight D. Eisenhower ever endorsed, calling it "a fascinating tale of personal combat" that "portrays the courage, endurance, initiative and fighting qualities of an American soldier on a European battlefield of World War II." Currahee! was originally published to critical acclaim in 1967. Donald R. Burgett holds the title of being the first enlisted man to write and publish on the Airborne.

Currahee!: Currahee! is the first volume in the series "Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle"

Biographies & Memoirs

Burgett, Donald, R.

Leaders & Notable People

DRB Enterprise, Incorporated

Following their epic combat in Normandy (the paratroopers were finally pulled out of the line on June 30, 1944, after being in virtually constant combat since their night drop in the early morning of June 6) the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division returned to battle on Sept. 17, 1944 as part of Field Marshal Montgomery's audacious plan to seize a Rhine River bridgehead and help bring the war against Germany to a swift conclusion. The plan was simple: A three airborne division air assault would secure key bridge sites along the sixty-mile road to the Rhine River town of Arnhem allowing the attacking British XXX Corps, spearhead across the river. Once across the Rhine, Monty's armies would be able to end-run the German forces in France and capture Berlin before the Nazis would be able to respond. The British field marshal named his bid to bring the war to a quick end Operation Market Garden. Historian Cornelius Ryan immortalized it with a different name: 'a bridge too far.' Operation Market Garden proved to be as impossible as it was audacious. Yet, the paratroopers of the 101st accomplished their mission, capturing and holding all of their assigned objectives. It was at a high cost, however as the Screaming Eagles battled the Nazis along what quickly became known as Hell's Highway for seventy-two days. Finally, in late November, the 101st was pulled out of line. In a harrowing first-person narrative of battle, The Road to Arnhem, Donald R. Burgett describes his experiences in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II, is considered a classic of combat literature. Donald R. Burgett is the author of Currahee!, a critically acclaimed memoir of the Normandy invasion, and Seven Roads to Hell, his epic account of the Battle of Bastogne and Beyond the Rhine that continues through Austria and Germany to the capture of Hitler's home in Berchtesgaden.

The Road to Arnhem: The Road to Arnhem is the second volume in the series 'Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle'

History

Military

The Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division had just finished the battle for the bridge too far, Field Marshal Montgomery's ill-fated Operation Market Garden. As Christmas 1944 approached, the division was settling in for some hard earned rest and recuperation. Despite its failure to hold the Rhine River bridgehead at Arnhem a few weeks earlier, Eisenhower's Allied juggernaut appeared unstoppable. Then, Hitler ordered a massive Nazi counterattack through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes Forest. The overwhelming armor-heavy Wehrmacht forces cut through the thinly-manned Allied lines, racing for Antwerp and the coast. German victory in what is now known at the Battle of the Bulge would split the Allied armies, cripple their attack against the Reich, and lengthen the war, perhaps by years. The author and the rest of the Screaming Eagles were rushed to Bastogne, a small Belgian crossroads town where seven roads met. The lightly-armed paratrooper became 'the cork in the bottle' of the Nazi onslaught. Bastogne became the key to German victory. They immediately found themselves in close combat. Without enough ammunition or food, in freezing weather with deep snow, they even lacked winter clothing. Yet, for eleven days they held out against the best the Nazis could throw at them, buying the time needed for Patton's Third Army to redeploy form the south. Burgett's memoir (he was not yet twenty years old at the time of the battle) is an exciting and enduring testament to the Screaming Eagles and their epic defense of Bastogne. Donald R. Burgett is the author of three additional books; Currahee! a critically acclaimed memoir of the Normandy invasion, Road to Arnhem and Beyond the Rhine.

Seven Roads to Hell: Seven Roads to Hell is the third volume in the series 'Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle'

Donald R. Burgett and the rest of the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne had fought long and hard since the Normandy invasion. They fought through seventy-two days of continuous combat in Holland, and thirty days of frozen hell in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. War weary, tired, and bloodied, Burgett and other Screaming Eagles of A Company were heading for the last battle, the drive that would carry them through Alsace, Germany's Ruhr Valley, the Rhineland, Austria, and the end of the war in Europe. The last push across Germany did not hold the full-scale fanatic resistance the U.S. command had expected, but rather, small pockets of die-hard Nazis unwilling to admit that they had lost. It became clear why some did not wish to surrender. Burgett and the other American soldiers discovered forced labor camps of half-starved Poles, Russians, Czechs, and Jews; men, women, and children all forced to labor for the cause of Germany, or die. Burgett and his men liberated four Nazi concentration camps where inmates were starved, brutally and systematically tortured, medically and surgically experimented on, and finally gassed and cremated. Burgett writes" "German guards were still forcing inmates to stoke the furnaces with human bodies as we tore through the barbed-wire enclosures. We witnessed atrocities that were beyond human comprehension." The Americans fought on from the Black Forest in Bavaria, to Berchtesgaden, where VE day found the Screaming Eagles finally at rest in the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's fabled mountaintop retreat. Certainly now the hard charging paratroopers could return home to enjoy the fruits of their victory, bloodied but proud, to take up family life with loved ones in a world they fought to keep free. But the war against Japan still raged, however, and the 101st was one of the two airborne divisions alerted for redeployment to the Pacific. August 1945 brought atomic relief to Burgett and millions more around the world with the surrender of Japan. On New Year's Eve, 1945, Sergeant Burgett finally returned to his home in Detroit, still just twenty years old.

Beyond the Rhine: Beyond the Rhine is the fourth volume in the series 'Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle'

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the DRB Enterprise, Incorporated publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by DRB Enterprise, Incorporated

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the DRB Enterprise, Incorporated publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Currahee!: Currahee! is the first volume in the series "Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle"

The Road to Arnhem: The Road to Arnhem is the second volume in the series 'Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle'

Seven Roads to Hell: Seven Roads to Hell is the third volume in the series 'Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle'

Beyond the Rhine: Beyond the Rhine is the fourth volume in the series 'Donald R. Burgett a Screaming Eagle'