On June 6, 1944, Thomas E. French stepped off the ramp of a landing craft and into the "utter and complete chaos" of Omaha Beach. As a soldier in Company "I" of the 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, he was part of the third wave to assault the sector known as "Easy Red."
REMBERANCES and RECOLLECTIONS of W.W.II is the raw, first-hand account of a young man from Wisconsin who fought his way across Europe. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the hand-to-hand combat in Aachen, and through the frozen terror of the Battle of the Bulge, French's memoir captures the exhaustion, the fear, and the camaraderie of the "Big Red One".
His journey culminates on the snow-covered slopes of Hill 587, where, pinned down and wounded, he faced the longest day of his life. More than just a battle history, this is the story of a soldier who, when facing a court-martial for seeking a moment of relief in Paris, told his superiors: "What we had to do in battle, that was about dying What I have just been doing is about living ... If I do live, I will have won."
Thomas E. French did live.
This is his story.