Yank: Memoir of a World War II Soldier (1941-1945) -- From the Desert War of North Africa to the Allied Invasion of E

I found this book nearly as compelling as Charles McDonald's "Company Commander," for about the same reasons--fresh, unemotional, unadorned details, etc. I don't know why it took until 2006 to publish a manuscript written in 1946 or so, but that's beside the point. The effect was to take me back in time, as if I were standing at Elsworth's side, fight off German attacks and counter-attacks with meager resources and almost no intelligence (information). It seems taking prisoners was a commander's option, and this worked for both sides. Times change, of course, but somehow the most gruesome elements of war remain the same. The details of his captivity and liberation are worth reading, if nothing else.

Ted Ellsworth's World War II memoir YANK is simply amazing. Ted is able to write in a balanced manner about the actual events of the war and his own actions and feelings. The memoir is truly incredible. Ted takes the reader with him through his journey as a solider, from fighting for the British in Africa, to Italy, to France and Poland. Ted having been captured with his fellow American soldiers, is brought to a POW camp in Poland, where he vividly illustrates his life in the POW camp. Ted faces death many times but he always escapes it, and eventually returns home to his wife Barbara in his small hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. Ted's experience is remarkable and YANK captures the thoughts, questions, beliefs, and raw emotions of a young American World War II solider.

"Yank", the late Ted Ellsworth's memoir of his World War II service, is a compelling, first-hand account of a soldier's life in those dangerous times. Newly married, Ellsworth and his friend Tom Braden joined the British Army in the autumn of 1941, before America had officially entered the hostilities. He served under General Montgomery in Africa, then transferred to the American Army and saw action in Italy and France and spent time in a German POW camp in Poland, before being liberated by the Russians. His travails after liberation are as tense and grueling as what he had faced fighting against the Germans. The book covers nearly four years of Ellsworth's life, in which he experienced more danger and excitement than most of us will encounter in our entire lifetimes. The prose is not flowery or literary, but it is literate and honest and gives the reader a chance to see those difficult years through the eyes of someone who was there, and who lived them. At times, particularly in the first half of the book, there are passages that seem like stream of consciousness collages of things that happened or things he observed that he recalled but apparently felt did not merit detailed examination. This helps to quicken the pace of the book; Ellsworth glides through the less important events to get to the ones that matter, the accounts of making friends - and losing them - in the maelstrom of war. Once begun, this is an impossible book to put down, and an important reminder of the sacrifices of previous generations.