All the Way to Berlin: A Paratrooper at War in Europe

Not the most well written or well organized book but it is a memoir about combat from one person who was there and has a healthy disdain for command officers who often never even saw a battlefield. Megellas here gives the most thorough description of the Waal River crossing which he himself was part of (Operation Market Garden). This was one of the worst planned missions of the whole war but was unsuccessful due to General Montgomery wasting the efforts of the American Airborne troops and letting his own British 1st Parachute Division be destroyed by not linking up with them as reinforcements. Megellas says that Eisenhower himself is not without blame for later letting the Germans counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge. Due to this, show more the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions had to be called up to the front lines as emergency infantry troops to hold back Panzer tanks while the US armored divisions and required supply lines were created. He ends the war effort by describing the liberation of a newer concentration camp (Wobbelin). He says that before the bodies were buried they had a interreligious prayer service for the dead. This is the first I have ever read of that happening at the camp sites.
This book is not a literary work of art and it took me awhile to figure out what was the author's methodology (memoir, with added historical notes for wider context which are usually part of a historian's tools).
Megellas is a Greek Orthodox former altar boy from Wisconsin. Megellas won a Distinguished Service Cross and three Silver Stars. I know of only one other US officer who won three Silver Stars. If you have the time and can stomach what happens in wartime, this is worth reading (minus the dated military lingo). show less