With the 41st Division in the Southwest Pacific: A Foot Soldier's Story

by Francis Bernard Catanzaro and Francis B. Catanzaro

Book Overview

" W]e began our advance toward the Mokmer Airstrip. . . . The road climbed a ridge 15 or 20 feet high and we found ourselves on a flat coral plateau sparsely covered by small trees and scrub growth. . . . As we moved westward along the road, two of our destroyers were sailing abreast of the lead elements of the advancing column. The first indication of trouble was the roar of heavy artillery shells sailing over our heads . . . aimed at our destroyers...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253341426
• ISBN13: 9780253341426
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

41st Div; A Soldiers Story

This book was a gift for my Father. He was in the 41st Infantry Division during WWII. He enjoyed it thoroughly.

It was like learning my father's war experience first hand

My father served in the Southwest Pacific also. He very rarely spoke about what he experienced there. All I knew was he was in New Guinea and the Philippines. After going through his separation papers and old photos after he died, I learned he was in the 41st Division in the same places and at the same time as the author of this book. It was well written and described what the men of my father's and the author's generation had to go through. A true soldier's story from the "Greatest Generation".

Very good combat memoir of the Southwest Pacific

This book is a brief, but solid memoir of a soldier who fought in New Guinea and the Phillipines written nearly fifty years after the end of the war. The battle descriptions are first rate and his prose is very readable. The author is honest in admitting when his memory of events is imperfect but the years have not dimmed much. The author comes across as a likeable guy who is rightfully proud of his contribution to the "Good War".