Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich

by David Kenyon Webster

Book Overview

David Kenyon Webster's memoir is a clear-eyed, emotionally charged chronicle of youth, camaraderie, and the chaos of war. Relying on his own letters home and recollections he penned just after his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385336497
• ISBN13: 9780385336499
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Screaming Eagle & Wordsmith! Outstanding!

If you are a devotee of Military History, a keen follower of literature, mesmerised by insightful writing and thought, then this book will capture your attention. This true story is nurtured and developed through David Kenyon Websters crucible experience of serving in a Parachute Infantry Company. Not just any Company but with a unique company for who it fought against and the unique role of honour and battles they fought in. Moving, insightful and packed with raw emotion describing experiences many veterans have difficulty in articulating let alone writing. Vale to the memory of David Kenyon Webster and those like him. A powerful read in history and remembrance and a mans unique life experience.

Not your ordinary soldier

Kenyon, as he calls himself in his letters home, wrote a fascinating experience of the Second World War and the now legendary 506 PIR. This book differs from so many other first person texts in that it is written by a man with a fair amount of education prior to the war and based on the content of his letters home to his parents, Kenyon was not from a stereotypical 1930's family. He doesn't write about incredibly fierce combat, indeed the most intense experience he relates is his experience in Holland. He claims to have only killed one German soldier for sure but, after seeing the Lager system, wishes he had killed more. He has little love for the French, loved the Dutch and had a grudging respect for the German people. And his tales of his comrades and the friendships and intense loyalties with his squad mates make it clear what esprite de corps really arises from. This book is masterfully written and a pleasure to read. After reading this text I am tempted to order Webster's book on sharks because I am sure it would be a pleasure to read. If you like personal tales and are not looking for a definitive history of the 101st AirBorne (of which there are plenty written), then this book is as good as it gets.

Fascinating Book

For those of you who have seen the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers or read the book will definitely enjoy this book. Not only because it will give you a greater insight on the characters featured in the miniseries but because he is a wonderful writer. The manner in which he describes the towns and cities is incredibly vivid and realistic. What is also compelling about this book is that all of his emotions come across (anger, sadness, frustration and happiness), which makes us realize that the men who fought in the war were human and fallible. However, despite this they did what they had to do.Furthermore, this book is a wonderful read for all of those who are interested in WWII, personal accounts about war or war itself. The author does not glamorized war he describes it as it is, and this is what makes it an incredible read.

Excellent Read

One of the best books I have read this year! If you really like first hand accounts, this is the book for you. I would agree with some other reviewers that this book is somewhat incomplete but only because the author could not describe the experiences of the 101st in his absence. I would not recommed this book for someone who is looking for research information on the 101st Airborne but it is a very entertaining book to read. This book really gives the reader an idea of what it was like to be an allied soldier in WWII.

Parachute Infantry's Journey to Publication

Those of you who have read Stephen Ambrose's book, Band of Brothers, will remember David Kenyon Webster as a passionate and articulate member of Easy Company, the unit also featured in HBO's "Band of Brothers" miniseries. Webster wrote Parachute Infantry shortly after the end of World War II; it languished during the post-war years, when memoirs of regular soldiers were of little interest to publishers. After Webster's untimely death in 1961 at the age of 39, his widow continued to believe in the manuscript and approached publishers without success. After the late Stephen Ambrose came upon the manuscript while researching Band of Brothers, he recommended it to Louisiana State University Press. Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich, with an introduction by Stephen E. Ambrose, was published by LSU Press in 1994, just in time for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. The book received excellent reviews. Last year, Webster's widow, the long-time champion of Parachute Infantry, approached Dell Publishing, a division of Random House. Dell was a likely choice: it had published a mass market paperback of Webster's shark book, Myth and Maneater: The Story of the Shark, when the movie "Jaws" was released. She felt that Parachute Infantry could find a wider audience now, given the interest in HBO's "Band of Brothers." Dell was interested, and went back to the original manuscript to produce a revised and expanded edition of the book. In October 2002, this new edition of Parachute Infantry was published. It features over 100 pages of previously unpublished material, including 20 letters home, and restores some of the grittier language and actual names that were used in Webster's original manuscript. If you want to know more about the men of Easy Company, as seen through the eyes of one young private, read this book. Webster takes you from training at Toccoa, through jumps on D-Day and in Operation Market Garden in Holland, and to the last days of the war in Germany. It is an excellent companion piece to Band of Brothers (the book or DVD/video), and a powerful, unforgettable book on its own.

A magnificent book!

This is one of the very best books I have read. Webster was an excellent writer and an excellent observer of the horrors of battle and the chickens--t so common in military organizations. I cannot see how anyone who read the book could rate it less than a five star effort. Seattleatty's comment that the book was incomplete because it doesn't deal with important actions like the Battle of the Bulge fails utterly to recognize the that this was a personal memoir of Webster's service. He made it very clear that he was recovering from his leg wound and awaiting reassignment during the Bulge (page 120). Since he was very honest, he didn't include that heroic action as a part of his book. What he did omit was his impressions of the concentration camp that was liberated by E company (it was part of the Dachau system). I believe this was because it was too painful to think about, let alone, write about. I mourn Webster's far too early death, for he was a writer of a calibre far better than 99% of those being published today. Also, as an intellectual in a very non-intellectual setting, he was able to see the worst of war and being in the Army and translate what he saw into exquisite prose. This book is one of my all time favorites because it deals honestly with the petty tyranies of the army. As Professor Paul Fussell pointed out in "Wartime", chickens--it was the organizational theme of the WW 2 army. I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone, most especially to all purveyors of chickens--t.