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Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich | 
 enlarge | Authors: David Kenyon Webster, Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Delta
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 73461
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rev Rep
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0385336497
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.542142
EAN: 9780385336499
ASIN: 0385336497
Publication Date: October 29, 2002
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Product Description
David Kenyon Webster’s memoir is a clear-eyed, emotionally charged chronicle of youth, camaraderie, and the chaos of war. Relying on his own letters home and recollections he penned just after his discharge, Webster gives a first hand account of life in E Company, 101st Airborne Division, crafting a memoir that resonates with the immediacy of a gripping novel.
From the beaches of Normandy to the blood-dimmed battlefields of Holland, here are acts of courage and cowardice, moments of irritating boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and pitched urban warfare. Offering a remarkable snapshot of what it was like to enter Germany in the last days of World War II, Webster presents a vivid, varied cast of young paratroopers from all walks of life, and unforgettable glimpses of enemy soldiers and hapless civilians caught up in the melee. Parachute Infantry is at once harsh and moving, boisterous and tragic, and stands today as an unsurpassed chronicle of war—how men fight it, survive it, and remember it.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 47 more reviews...
 slacker soldier, great book. August 21, 2008
Following the success of the book and TV series Band of Brothers, several autobiographies of surviving members have come out enabling the men to tell their own stories.
Arranged on a book shelf they make very good reading, but David Webster's Parachute Infantry should stand out because of when it was written in the 1950's, decades before Stephen Ambrose made E company, 506 PIR of the 101st Airborne Division famous.
Later books enlarge upon or correct what Ambrose wrote or what was shown in the TV series, but Webster, who died in 1961, had none of that. He was just telling his story. He also wrote it less than 20 years after the events happened when he was still in the prime of life and years had less time to cloud memories.
As do all the autobiographies he enlarges upon some details that others have mentioned and gives further details of some members who are not around to tell their own tale. Such as more examples of Liebgott really not being trustworthy around German prisoners,exactly WHY Lt. Peacock was theo fficer everyone was gad to be rid of and probably the best description of captain Nixon's behavior when other books describe him as either a rude drunk or fearless under fire depending on how the author knew him.
As a soldier, Webster was, by his own admission, a slacker. In a company of men who famously apologized for being wounded or broke out of hospitals while still wounded, to rejoin their mates, Webster reports he proudly did the least required of him to get by. To his credit he admits this. He tells it to you in his story and that before Easy Company he had served in Fox Company, where his attitude got him thrown out.
This probably explains why he had trouble selling the book in his lifetime. Webster wrote his book during the 1950's in the golden age of American grandeur. People did not want to read about some guy who hated the army, officers and fate. They wanted glory and heroism. Had Webster lived another 10 years his book might well have been a best seller as veterans of Vietnam could learn their experiences with the Army were not unique but an on going issues an early generation of Americans had gone through. This did not happen, but luckily for us, Webster's book does survive for us to enjoy and learn from.
The less heroic side of "Band of Brothers", written in the 1950s, well ahead of its time July 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I liked this book. It was not the best reading ever, but it fills out more fully the story of the `Band of Brothers", the WWII exploits of E Company of the 101st Airborne division. It is one of several books that came out after the success of "Band of Brothers".
To read "Parachute Infantry" is to look at the flip side of the story of E Company.
David Kenyon Webster, a Harvard student, was not an original member of E Company at Toccoa, jumping on D-Day as a member of the HQ Company.
He later joined and became a completely unaccomplished member of E Company, and had a very limited role in its storied successes during WWII. He was a self-admitted "goldbrick", and refused to volunteer for anything. He was not a coward but did have a strong sense of self-preservation which served to severely limit his opportunities for doing anything heroic.
Webster barely seems to have even gotten to know Major Dick Winters, the central character of E Company in the BoB story. Throughout his time with E Company, Webster was so good at keeping his head down that he rarely was able to see the bigger picture of what his unit was trying to accomplish beyond a very tightly focused small objective.
Webster would end his autobiography of his WWII experience with this lament: "I have accomplished nothing, achieved no rank, seen almost no action".
Why would anybody interested in WWII, in the story of E Company, be interested in this book? Why would Stephen Ambrose be so interested in it that he would help get it published in 1994, after it had been initially rejected in the 1950's, when it was first written?
For BoB aficionados, it does fill out some more details about several members of E Company, such as Joe Liebgott, Donald Hoobler, Burton Christenson, George Luz, John Janovek, Ronald Speir, Lieutenant Thomas Peacock, and the Camera Killer Lieutenant.
The other books about E Company concentrate on the most active members of E Company, the "heroes", the "killers" (Dick Winters's term). This book is about the other guys in the company, the faceless GIs of E Company who were only trying to get by and survive the war. And to that extent, this book is full of the rich details of the daily grind and trivia of Army life during WWII. We get abundant details about food and Army rations out in the field, about the cooks, about the looting, about the sex, about the civilians in the countryside.
We find out additional details such as the fact that towards the end of the war, George Luz had left E Company to go to the HQ Company.
From this book came the scene of German prisoners being shot by the roadside by a French soldier (Webster's account is much more striking than the movie version - you'll have to read it), as well as the scene of Webster chatting with the German MP at the roadside checkpoint from the HBO series.
Other scenes from the HBO series involving David Webster are not in this book, and so it remains unclear whether these came only from the imagination of the writers. These include the conversations between Webster and Joe Liebgott in the truck (where Liebgott talks about his dreams after the war is over), Webster's rant at the passing columns of surrendering German soldiers, the scene at the concentration camp involving Webster and Liebgott, and Webster's involvement in the Last Patrol (he actually stayed in one of the outposts to cover the patrol while Liebgott went as the translator - Webster's account does have a more detailed description of what happened to the dying German soldier left behind by the American raiding party). The HBO depiction of Webster getting snubbed by E Company members when he rejoins them is completely contrary to his account of a warm reception by E Company in this book.
It was good to read this book to find out more about what was true and what was Hollywood in the scenes involving Webster, and to get such a different viewpoint of "Band of Brothers" beside the ones focusing on the heroes of E Company.
This was a book written well before its time. The ethos of the 1950s simply could not handle its raw honesty about life in the military. It is not unlike "Jarhead", a book about the first Iraq War, and it also is similar to many other Vietnam era and post-Vietnam era war autobiographies.
The only part that's really different, that has changed completely, is that this book describes a time when students at elite universities like Harvard would volunteer to serve with military, with the paratroopers of the U.S. Army.
The honest perspective of a paratrooper May 29, 2008
Its a good book, far from the best, but it covers all the issues a paratrooper had to deal with, both physically and mentally. Combat is not the main focus in this book, but rather the entire situation he was in.
 Best Band of Brothers Autobiography May 18, 2008
This book is the best autobiography written by a member of the "Band of Brothers." If you have seen the mini-series, then you are undoubtedly familiar with David Kenyon Webster, the Harvard English-lit major who could have probably been an officer or at minimum, a clerk but who chose to join the Paratroopers so he could fight the war first hand and write about it.
What is great about this book, as opposed to the others written by the members of this famed unit is the fact that it was still written during his youth without a lifetime of, well, life to diminish the memories. He speaks frankly about what he felt and admits to the fear, boredom and camaraderie from fighting in war.
When reading, one will notice several differences between his experiences and what was on the Band of Brothers mini-series and one that comes to mind was in the mini-series when a bunch of troopers crossed a river to get a prisoner. In the movie, Webster was there but in the book, he states that he didn't go (mainly because he didn't volunteer to do it!)
He speaks frankly and honestly about this disdain for officers (how Generals don't know how to speak on an enlisted-man's level and how they associate their speeches to football) and even mentions how Nixon was kind of bragging about going to Yale but he kept his mouth shut but could have told him that he went to Harvard.
I would rate this book up there with the other "must read" from an airborne's perspective, that being Curahee by Donald Burgett--a book also written soon after the war's end.
Please get this book immediately--you will not regret it.
A Very Good Book May 1, 2008
I was interested in this book because it was written long before the fanfare and pop culture status that Easy Company gained from the Band of Brothers movies. This book gives a fresh and down to earth view of what it must have been like to be a member of the 506 PIR. It is a great first person account of life on the front and really conveys the turmoil that Weber experienced. If you are looking for a story about the 506th that is far and apart from the contempory accounts, this is a book for you.
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