The Lost Battalion

I just returned from a family reunion of three brothers who lost their 551st father to a postwar life of change, sorrow, and memories. We were reunited with the sister we never knew, of a father we shared. We brothers lost our father in 1952; our sister lost him in 1986, this nation lost him in 2002. With deep thanks of appreciation to all the members of the 551st family, from Missouri to Maryland, Florida to New York, we four children of the 551st thank you so very much for keeping the family and unbreakable loyalty that was wrought from the days of that odd formation of tropics-trained badasses and the crucible, unimaginable oddysee of terror, death by frost, and combat at the Bulge. The author has performed a compatibably honorable, right for his generation, task of searching out and recording these untold stories of brotherhood and true patriotism. The things that caused these men to come together, and to support, and ultimately love one another in ways that those who follow can only remotely imagine, these are the things that their families and their nation, must search out for themselves, individually. For each of us, as we try to uncover those facts, we will find pieces, torn and stained fragments of their lives, well worn; and, in that process, uncover pieces of our selves -common remnants of times and lives long past, and by the grace of god many still living, some in strength, some in frailty, all in unity. For those of us who live in their shadow, it is our honor, and it must be our duty to piece that quilt of tangible life and abstract emotion that does now and will make the fabric of our nation and our individual families sturdy and warm against the unknown challenges we shall all face, or have faced. I hope to meet this fine author and thank him for his most honorable service to us all. The story of his father's 551st and all those who were equal parts of it is a true record of the real greatest generation. Honor, Airborne, Mark Roberts LaPierre on behalf of his father, Gordon I. Roberts, PFC, 551st PIB, and his entire family.

Some histories need to be written, and Gregory Orfalea did it for personal reasons and he produced a great book. Twenty years ago I met and got to know one of the survivors of the 551st PIR. He never mentioned anything about it's history or his experiences, so I never pushed the issue. At the time, the 551st was just another battalion who fought in WWII, my knowledge of that war was (and still is) limited. It would have been a travesty if these men had been forgotten. Thanks to Greg Orfalea, the record has been set straight.

This is a superbly written account of the 551st airborne in WW II. The author tells the whole story by piecing together many small interesting individual stories much like Bruce Catton did with his civil war books. The individual stories are interesting with much detail of the personal adventure of the men who lived this adventure.

The story is Gregory Orfalea's search for who his father was a half-century ago. Many of us arrive at the time of our fathers' deaths and wonder what our fathers were really like. Greg began by looking up veterans of the 551st. Thus begins a haunting tale of a group of men who trained to the nth degree, fought the bloodiest battles, suffered unbelieveable losses and disappeared from the pages of history. The 551st attack on the last SS foothold west of the Salm River during the "Battle of the Bulge" compares with the charge of the "Light Brigade" at Balaklava, except that the 551st didn't have a poet to immortalize them. The Army simply sent the few survivors to four other airborne units and closed the book.Read this book to get an idea of how bad war can be. After you finish it, go hug your father, if you are lucky enough to still have him, "buy" him a cup of coffee and get him to tell you "how it was" when he was young.

This is an incredible book, and a superlative history of the 551rst. I found the beginning to be a bit slow, but that was only the beginning. As I got further and further into the book it got better and better. From the night jump to the maritime alps, and to the attack on Rochlinval. This book will also make your blood boil at the incredible injustice done to these heroic soldiers, by the Army and the government.