SIXTY DAYS IN COMBAT(ISBN=9780891418399) 英文原版 下载 pdf 2025 网盘 epub 在线 mobi 免费

　　“The infantryman’s war is . . . without the slightest doubt

the dirtiest, roughest job of them all.”

He went in as a military history buff, a virgin, and a

teetotaler. He came out with a war bride, a taste for German beer,

and intimate knowledge of one of the darkest parts of history. His

name is Dean Joy, and this was his war.

For two months in 1945, Joy endured and survived the everyday

deprivations and dangers of being a frontline infantryman. His

amazingly detailed memoir, self-illustrated with numerous scenes

Joy remembers from his time in Europe, brings back the sights,

sounds, and smells of the experience as few books ever have. Here

is the story of a young man who dreamed of flying fighter aircraft

and instead was chosen to be cannon fodder in France and Germany .

. . who witnessed the brutality of Nazis killing Allied medics by

using the cross on their helmets as targets . . . and who narrowly

escaped being wounded or killed in several “near miss” episodes,

the last of which occurred on his last day of combat.

Sixty Days in Combat re-creates all the drama of the “dogface’s”

fight, a time that changed one young man in a war that changed the

world.

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　　Chapter 1FROM COLLEGE FRESHMAN TO ARMY DRAFTEEJune 12, 1942,

through July 2, 1943Like my boyhood friend Horace Jeffrey-we called

him Jeff-I had a passion for airplanes. But unlike him, I had never

made plans to go to college. To my father's dismay, I had not taken

one of the high school math courses needed to enter college as an

engineering student. I felt my talents were limited to drawing,

commercial art, and playing the clarinet. In high school my plans

for a career were to become either a commercial artist, or maybe a

cartoonist, or maybe a jazz clarinetist, or possibly even an

airline pilot.It was on a June day that summer of 1942, just after

I graduated from high school, that Dad invited me to join him

downtown for lunch. He asked me if I would consider getting a

college engineering degree-perhaps at his alma mater, Iowa

StateCollege-and someday take over his small business. I painfully

declined, suggesting that either of my two younger brothers would

be a better choice when the time came. "Dad," I said, "you have

many years before you may want to retire. And to be honest, if I

went to college I would only be interested in aeronautical

engineering, not mechanical. I'm not cut out to follow in your

footsteps as a power plant sales engineer."He understood, and from

that point on it was tacitly understood that my brother Stanley

would one day take over the business. But I was faced with a

dilemma. On July 21, my eighteenth birthday, I would be eligible

for the draft, and unless in college I was almost certain to be

called up before the end of the year and sent to the dreaded

infantry-in my mind the dirtiest, least glamorous military service

imaginable. I gave no thought to joining the navy; I was a poor

swimmer. Like thousands of other draft-age American boys, I dreamed

of flying P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft with the U.S. Army Air

Corps.At Jeff's suggestion, I went with him on a trip to the

registrar's office at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and

was told that I would be accepted as an engineering freshman that

fall if I passed a summer night class in solid geometry. I had

found a summer job running an ancient knitting machine at Gates

Rubber Company, making radiator hose for tank engines. My pay was

all of forty-four cents per hour, and I spent most of it taking

flying lessons and attending a night school class in solid

geometry. By summer's end I had accumulated just five hours in a

little Piper Cub when my flight instructor was called off to join

the Civil Air Patrol. I was almost broke, and that ended my first

shot at getting a pilot's license. It wasn't until 1948, courtesy

of the GI Bill, that I earned that coveted license.Dad and Mother

had been carefully saving enough money to send all four of us

children to college. My piano-playing sister was well on her way to

a degree in music at Colorado College. And now, in August 1942, Dad

agreed to pay for my college education in aeronautical engineering

at the University of Colorado. And so it was that in mid-September

Jeff and I became roommates in an old widow's rooming house within

walking distance of the CU campus in Boulder. The main attraction

of the newly formed School of Aeronautical Engineering was an

expert who had been hired away from Purdue University to head it.

His name was Professor Karl D. Wood, better known to us all as K.

D.-author of Technical Aerodynamics, probably the best textbook in

the field at that time.On the war fronts, while Jeff and I

struggled through our first months as freshman engineering

students, Russia was holding off the German armies in front of

Moscow, the British had stopped Rommel at El Alamein in Egypt, and

the hated Japanese in the Pacific were licking their wounds after

their disastrous defeat at Midway. Our navy was building up its

strength with new, fast carriers, battleships, cruisers, and

destroyers now coming off the ways at record rates. And General

Douglas MacArthur was getting ready to take the offensive from

bases in Australia.The name Dwight Eisenhower was not yet on the

front pages, although he had just been given two stars and would

become famous as commander of the forthcoming invasion of North

Africa. Nor was George Patton yet famous, although-like

MacArthur-he was a prima donna with an insatiable love of personal

publicity. But in my opinion the similarities between these two

egotists ended there. Patton was perhaps a bit crazy, but he was a

tactical genius who loved to fight and whose troops both feared and

respected him. On the other hand, MacArthur was a much-ridiculed

tin god and obnoxious snob who thought of himself as the world's

best global strategist. I believed then, and still believe today,

that he fancied himself a president-perhaps even king.At

Christmastime in 1942 I came home for a welcome respite from the

spartan life and colder climate of Boulder, where I could never

seem to stay warm. My mother invited a couple of GIs for Christmas

dinner, responding to a call from Central Presbyterian Church, and

it was of considerable interest to me to hear them talk about army

life. I could not know it, of course, but that winter holiday of

1942 was to be the last I would spend at home until four years

later, when I returned from the war as a twenty-two-year-old

veteran wearing the coveted Combat Infantryman's Badge and platoon

sergeant's stripes.During the Easter break in the spring of 1943 I

rode the train to Denver and joined our family at the Easter

sunrise services up in the huge amphitheater of Red Rocks Park.

From every seat of that amphitheater one could watch the sun rise

over Denver as the city lights blinked out. I remember wondering,

as I looked over the Plains toward Nebraska, if my fate would take

me across the Atlantic to Europe, or west to the Pacific, when my

number was called.Before returning to Boulder, I rode with Dad on a

business trip to Colorado Springs. We talked about the war and my

hope to join the Army Air Corps. En route we passed close to Camp

Carson and spotted several hundred khaki-clad infantrymen hiking

toward Pike's Peak, leading long strings of heavily laden mules. I

could not know that this was the same outfit with which I would

serve in combat only ten months later. Those slogging GIs belonged

to the 5th Infantry Regiment, part of the newly organized 71st

Light Infantry Division.In June 1943 I completed my freshman year

in engineering at CU with a B average. The big question was whether

I would be drafted before completing a second year. Desperate to

know where I stood, I borrowed my mother's car, drove down to the

Denver draft board, and put the question to an old gentleman. He

looked at a file and informed me that, as I would turn nineteen in

July, my number would almost surely be called by November, even if

I had started my sophomore year.Disappointed, I asked, "How do I go

about volunteering for the Army Air Corps? I would like to fly, but

I would be happy as a crewman, or even as an aircraft engine

mechanic. Anything rather than being sent to the infantry.""That's

easy," the old gentleman said. "Volunteer for early induction today

and you can choose your branch. But if you wait until November

there's no such guarantee. I can set your physical up for this

week, and if you pass you'll be called in July."I said I'd take a

walk and think it over. I walked around the block, agonizing

whether to go to my father's office for his advice. Then I thought:

No, this decision is mine alone. Half an hour later I had made up

my mind. I returned to the draft board and signed the papers. It

was a month before my nineteenth birthday. That night my parents

tried to hide their pain when I told them I had volunteered to be

drafted five months early to avoid being sent straight to the

dreaded infantry.Two days later I drove downtown to take the

physical, which I nearly flunked. First, a little hammertoe on my

left foot attracted a team of three doctors, who had me walk naked,

back and forth, with and without shoes. My heart fell as they

deliberated. "Oh, no sir," I assured the senior doctor. "It doesn't

bother me! I walk without a limp. See? I was a Boy Scout, I play

tennis, I'm a fast runner, and I climb mountains with the Colorado

Mountain Climbing Club." It was all true. So they smiled and passed

me.The second problem was an unsuspected polyp in one of my

nostrils, discovered by an ear, nose, and throat specialist in the

line of examiners. "That's bad," he said. My heart fell again as

the specialist wrote something on the form. But the last doctor in

the line looked over the form, signed it, and said, "Passed with

flying colors. Get dressed, take this form to the next room, and

wait for the next swearing-in."What a relief! Army Air Corps, here

I come, I said to myself. The thought of being classified 4-F

(physically unfit for military service) and seeing the unspoken

question "Young man, why aren't you in the service like my son?" on

countless faces I would pass on the street was almost as horrible

as the thought of serving in the infantry.Little did I know that

before the war ended my questionable feet would carry me many

hundreds of miles across Europe as a lowly infantryman.My orders

were to report at the induction center on July 2, 1943. That

morning I brought my single suitcase down the stairs, hugged my

brothers and kissed my sister good-bye with studied nonchalance,

then went out on the front porch with my mother as Dad pulled the

car around to the front of the house. Wonder of wonders, Mother

smiled bravely and shed not one tear that I could see. Our embrace

was quick, I strode thankfully to the car, turned just once to

wave, and then off we drove. I have no doubt that she cried after

we were gone.Ten minutes later we pulled up in front of the

induction center in downtown Denver. What happened there at the

curb was totally unexpected. Still playing the cool grown-up, I

shook my father's hand and said something like, "See you, Dad.

Don't worry. I'll write home often." My beloved Rock of Gibraltar

father opened his mouth but could not speak as tears rolled down

his cheek! I knew he was trying to say, "I love you, son," but

nothing came except a sob of grief. Unwanted tears welled in my own

eyes, and now it was I who couldn't speak.I put my hand on his

shoulder, turned wordlessly, got out of the car, and with suitcase

in hand rushed into the building through a crowd of onlooking

draftees. That was the only time I ever saw my father cry until

just before he died, in June 1976, thirty-three years later.Chapter

2THE U.S. ARMY AIR CORPSJuly through September 1943There must have

been more than a hundred of us seated on folding chairs in a large

room in the Denver induction center. A sergeant came in and bawled,

"Awright, all you guys who wanna be pilots, stand up!" About half

of us gullible new draftees stood up, and the others had a good

laugh when the sergeant said, "Okay, each of you pilots fold up yer

chair and pile it up on that stack over there, then come back and

git the other chairs."When we were done with that chore, we were

all lined up alphabetically and given name tags for our suitcases.

Shortly after that, several army buses drove up in front of the

center and we climbed aboard. I spotted a few familiar faces from

South High School in the crowd but recognized no one from the

University of Colorado. The hackneyed phrase "You're in the army

now" kept going through my mind as the convoy of buses pulled out

and headed for the processing center at Fort Logan, near the suburb

of Englewood, southwest of Denver.The day had started bright and

sunny, but by the time the convoy entered the Fort Logan gate, huge

cumulus clouds were piling up, and the mountains to the west were

obscured. We unloaded in a large parking lot and formed a ragged

line under the direction of a sergeant and two corporals in sun

helmets and suntan uniforms. After a long wait, an officer arrived

in a jeep and the sergeant reported, "Company B present and

accounted for, sir." The officer made a short speech of welcome,

then left as the wind rose and the first raindrops began to fall.

We recruits were soaked by the time the noncoms double-timed us

down to the new white barracks, where we left our suitcases. Then

we were run back up a hill to the mess hall for our first army

meal.After lunch we were issued summer Class A suntan uniforms with

cap, tie, a web belt with brass buckle, green army fatigues and

fatigue hat, two pairs of GI shoes, olive-drab socks, shorts, and

undershirts, two barracks bags, one mattress cover, two towels, and

a bar of yellow GI soap. Back at our barracks the sergeant passed

out copies of The Soldier's Handbook and told us we had twenty-four

hours to memorize the General Orders by heart and learn how to

salute. A corporal showed us how to arrange our gear in the green

footlockers, told us what civilian personal items we could keep,

and gave us ten minutes to get out of our civvies into our

olive-green fatigues, and repack our suitcases with stuff to be

sent home. He reappeared with a pfc carrying pails, brooms, mops,

and rags, and we new recruits were put to work mopping the floors

and dusting shelves, windowsills, and double-tiered bunks.Three of

my friends from South High were in my barracks, all with orders

assuring us that we would be sent to the Army Air Corps. These were

Stan Detrick, Bill Bromm, and Gordon Bungaard. We four picked bunks

close to one another and helped each other make up our bunks in

army fashion, as demonstrated by a corporal-blankets tucked with

"hospital" folds at the foot and stretched tight so that a dropped

coin would bounce. Bungaard, who had been in high school ROTC,

showed us how to salute properly, with elbow forward and forearm

and hand swept up to the forehead in a straight line. By the time

we marched to evening chow I had accepted the fact that I was no

longer a civilian but a soldier in Uncle Sam's army.

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书籍介绍

“The infantryman’s war is . . . without the slightest doubt the dirtiest, roughest job of them all.”

He went in as a military history buff, a virgin, and a teetotaler. He came out with a war bride, a taste for German beer, and intimate knowledge of one of the darkest parts of history. His name is Dean Joy, and this was his war.

For two months in 1945, Joy endured and survived the everyday deprivations and dangers of being a frontline infantryman. His amazingly detailed memoir, self-illustrated with numerous scenes Joy remembers from his time in Europe, brings back the sights, sounds, and smells of the experience as few books ever have. Here is the story of a young man who dreamed of flying fighter aircraft and instead was chosen to be cannon fodder in France and Germany . . . who witnessed the brutality of Nazis killing Allied medics by using the cross on their helmets as targets . . . and who narrowly escaped being wounded or killed in several “near miss” episodes, the last of which occurred on his last day of combat.

Sixty Days in Combat re-creates all the drama of the “dogface’s” fight, a time that changed one young man in a war that changed the world.