In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as “Maggie” to his fellow
paratroopers, joined the 82d Airborne Division, his new “home” for
the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains
outside Naples.
In October 1943, when most of the 82d departed Italy to prepare for
the D-Day invasion of France, Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, the Fifth Army
commander, requested that the division’s 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, Maggie’s outfit, stay behind for a daring new operation
that would outflank the Nazis’ stubborn defensive lines and open
the road to Rome. On 22 January 1944, Megellas and the rest of the
504th landed across the beach at Anzio. Following initial success,
Fifth Army’s amphibious assault, Operation Shingle, bogged down in
the face of heavy German counterattacks that threatened to drive
the Allies into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Anzio turned into a fiasco, one
of the bloodiest Allied operations of the war. Not until April were
the remnants of the regiment withdrawn and shipped to England to
recover, reorganize, refit, and train for their next mission.
In September, Megellas parachuted into Holland along with the rest
of the 82d Airborne as part of another star-crossed mission, Field
Marshal Montgomery’s vainglorious Operation Market Garden. Months
of hard combat in Holland were followed by the Battle of the Bulge,
and the long hard road across Germany to Berlin.
Megellas was the most decorated officer of the 82d Airborne
Division and saw more action during the war than most. Yet All
the Way to Berlin is more than just Maggie’s World War II
memoir. Throughout his narrative, he skillfully interweaves stories
of the other paratroopers of H Company, 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment. The result is a remarkable account of men at war.
From the Hardcover edition.
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