This book is written by men who actually went on the raid. Was it a suicide mission? The orders for the mission came from Gen. George S. Patton himself. Task Force Baum was to act as am armored strike force behind the German enemy lines - with no ground or air support - and liberate a POW camp at Himmelburg where Patton's son-in-law was being held captive.
Major Abe Baum was assigned to lead the task, and reports thinking at the time that if he didn't know his commanding officer better, he would have thought Lieutenant Colonel Harold Cohen was trying to get rid of him. But he did know Cohen well and respected him, and Baum was the type of officer who followed orders and got the job done.
Then there was the pesky matter of Lieutenant Colonel John Waters who was being held at Hammelburg. "John" was Patton's son-in-law and the general was being plauged by his wife about John's capture. Would Patton risk the lives of 300 men in an armored task force to rescue one man, his daughter's husband?
Throughout the book, the reader wonders at Patton's motives and the quality of his decision making regarding sending these 300 American soldiers virtually into the hands of the enemy. It is ironic that John Waters volunteered in an heroic act to go out with a German officer to meet the American tanks, which by-the-way were firing on the camp. Water was critically wounded, not by American tank fire, but by a lone fanatical German soldier who thought the German officer was deserting with an American and opened fire on both of them.
At the very end of the book, a plausible explaination is given for Patton's orders to have a task force go behind enemy lines. There was a bigger picture. Well, a proposed explanation, more than given, as Patton refused to explain the reasons for giving the orders that sent 300 men into harms way.
I read this book as research for the post World War II historical I'm presently writing. My hero, a former intelligence officer, was operating, also at times behind enemy lines, directly under Patton and I wanted to get a feel for the infamous American general. What made my blood run cold in this book, however, was the incredibly inhumane treatment American prioners of war received at Hammelburg at the hands of the Nazi Germans. It was the coldest winter in Europe in 25 years, yet American soldiers were made to stand in their underware out in the snow to get them to give up any knowledge of American battle plans, or what new weapons American troops might have, or new radio equipment. To the authors' knowledge, none of our American troops gave anything away.
