ARTICLES & REVIEWS
Several upcoming events planned for Veterans Day
By Susan Smiley-Height
Two local authors have released books that shine a light on heroes of World War II. And, several local events have been lined up to pay tribute to all veterans.
In “Central Florida’s World War II Veterans,” Bob Grenier shares, among other compelling profiles, the story of Lt. Marcus McDilda of Dunnellon.
“He was a big Dunnellon hero and a big American hero, period,” Grenier said.
Grenier, curator of the Lake County Historical Museum, said he authored the new book on the heels of the success of his book about Civil War veterans, released during the 150th anniversary of that conflict.
“I thought it was appropriate to also honor the World War II veterans, who, sadly, are passing each day,” Grenier said of the new book.
“It was a great opportunity to meet with these veterans,” he said. “Obviously, McDilda is gone, but he was a big hero.”
According to an email from Sam Scott, with the Dunnellon Historical Society and Dunnellon’s Historic Train Depot, his friend John Everlove, a historian and author, has written that one day after Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb, McDilda was forced to bail out of his P-51 off the coast of Japan and was taken prisoner. Interrogators wanted information about the bomb and thought every American pilot knew something. Under torture and repeated beatings, McDilda refused to give any information.
After being threatened with a sword to his face, McDilda used his knowledge of high school physics to bluff his way into staying alive. Records indicate the information made it to the highest levels of the Japanese military, but whether or not his lies made any difference in the capitulation of Japan may never be known.
McDilda was released shortly after Japan surrendered. All of the prisoners in his camp had been executed.
Everlove and Scott say there is no significant recognition of McDilda’s accomplishments and service anywhere in Marion County.
Scott invited Grenier to make a presentation about his book at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Historic Train Depot at 12061 S. Williams St., Dunnellon.
“Marcus McDilda is spotlighted in this book. Grenier will have copies for sale and will gladly sign them over coffee and cake,” Scott said.
The event is free and open to the public. To learn more, call Scott at 229-1030.
Find out more about Grenier’s book at www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467116794.
***
Steven Burgauer of The Villages recently penned “The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture,” which highlights the life of Capt. William C. Frodsham Jr., who lived in Libertyville, Illinois. Burgauer formerly lived in Peoria, Illinois.
According to Burgauer, “The Road to War opens in French hedgerow country just after D-Day. It’s a little after 8 a.m., June 13, 1944, and Frodsham is in the fight of his life. Seven days earlier, he and his platoon had waded ashore on Dog Green Beach, along with thousands of other determined G.I.s during the D-Day invasion. Then, they slogged 12 miles into the Normandy countryside under withering enemy fire.
“Now, Frodsham and his men are pinned down and outnumbered, waging a brave and bloody battle against equally determined German forces. Frodsham is wounded and taken prisoner. He spends the next year as a German POW, where he suffered great deprivation before finally being liberated by advancing Russian forces.”
He said the first-person narrative is “about one man’s harrowing — and sometimes humorous — experiences in a cataclysmic World War.”
“The heroes of the WWII generation are passing away with increasing frequency, but their timeless stories live on,” he added.
The October 20 edition of Publishers Daily Reviews states: “Five-plus unequivocal stars to The Road to War. It’s an extraordinary read that everyone should enjoy.”
Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadToWarDutyandDrill/ or by emailing steven.burgauer@gmail.com
Burgauer is a retired stockbroker and investment company manager. He also has written several science fiction books. All of his books are available on amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. He said he will have a new book about World War II coming out later this year.
***
Pekin Daily Times
Local author tells a World War II veteran’s story
Josh Bradshaw / Times staff
By Shanna Shipman
Pekin Daily Times
May 13, 2010
PEKIN, Ill. —
At a place of momentary safety on Omaha Beach, Lt. William Frodsham looked down at the binoculars on his chest and saw that a bullet had severed them in half. The angle at which the chain hung in an instant meant the difference, for him, between life and death.
On the sixth day of the sixth month, 66 years ago, American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy and engaged in battle, the brutality of which is hardly conceivable in the context of modern wars.
As each day claims the lives of more World War II veterans, and other members of the only living generation who can personally recall the magnitude of sacrifice this nation endured during that era, we rely more and more on written accounts of major events such as the D-Day invasion.
There are countless stories to be told, each linked to individual lives.
In telling one soldier’s story, a local author reminds readers that the personal journeys of this “greatest generation” began long before the major battles, and continued afterward in equally incredible ways.
In “The Road to War: Duty and Drill, Courage and Capture,” Peoria author Steven Burgauer relays one soldier’s first-hand account as he enlisted, trained and served in the U.S. Army Infantry during the Second World War.
William C. Frodsham, Jr., now deceased, joined the war effort shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and would eventually lead a combat boat team during the D-Day assault at Omaha Beach. Following a week of fighting, he was wounded and taken prisoner by German forces.
Frodsham survived a year of grueling conditions in captivity, and the remainder of the war, to lead a full life, retiring as an Army captain. Late in his life, he was motivated to record his experiences in writing, mainly for the sake of his children and anyone interested to learn from his recollections.
Frodsham’s daughter eventually approached Burgauer, who had lived next door to the Frodsham family in Libertyville as a child.
Burgauer agreed to develop Frodsham’s written notes into book form, in a departure from his usual genre, science-fiction.
“This was a whole different kind of project,” with its own unique rewards, according to Burgauer.
“This represents similar stories of tens of thousands of soldiers,” he said.
Unlike many portrayals of D-Day, Burgauer’s book does not start there, but follows Frodsham from home soil, where he was trained and eventually said good-bye to his new bride and close-knit family to leave for war.
These aspects of one’s personal experience, said Burgauer, are vital to fully understanding what it took to be a soldier.
The story goes well past D-Day, as well.
“A great deal of the story is of the deprivation and really brutal conditions he survived in the prison camp,” Burgauer said. “They weren’t physically beaten, but the conditions were extraordinarily challenging.”
Following his capture at Normandy, Frodsham was taken by train from France to Poland. Near emaciation from lack of nutrition and suffering dementia due to exhaustion, Frodsham and other POWs were forced to march that winter, shoeless and coatless, toward Berlin as Russian forces advanced.
Although Frodsham’s notes, written 50 years after the war, reflected an intentional emotional distance, Burgauer said he did his best to depict what Frodsham might have felt during that time.
“You have to get into the character of what it would feel like to be a terrified 20-year-old with a gun in your hand,” Burgauer said. “He didn’t come out and say ‘I was scared,’ but he obviously must have been terrified.”
In writing the book, Burgauer said, he remained true to real-life events without overdramatizing them for the sake of sensation. “This is not a blood-and-guts book,” he said. “It is completely readable without losing the tenseness of being under fire for hours and hours on end.”
He calls it a “general interest” book that is accessible to the masses, including young people.
The book has educational value, Burgauer said, as it depicts what military service was like then and how much it differs from that of today. Fighting from hedgerow to hedgerow, man-to-man combat, and months of platoon-sized tactics in the field without any outside news were all part of the story Frodsham had to tell.
With personal respect for soldiers’ sacrifice both then and now, Burgauer made the extreme intensity of the war, and the price paid by soldiers and their families, evident in the book.
“I would never in any way belittle the modern soldier,” said Burgauer, while still stating that there is no modern context comparable to World War II. “The numbers of soldiers lost in a decade in current wars might not be as many as in a day in Normandy. There were thousands lost in just this battle. Overall, the number of families impacted by the war, the loss of men — husbands, sons, fathers — was enormous.”
“Frodsham was a great officer and an exceptional soldier,” said Burgauer. “Tens of thousands of men were.… This is his story, but it’s also a generic story, of all the soldiers who fought and made great sacrifices for our freedom.”
Copyright 2010 Pekin Daily Times. Some rights reserved
Peoria Journal Star
Author relays soldier’s story of World War II
Book recounts man’s experiences of D-Day, troops’ sacrifices
By SHANNA SHIPMAN
GateHouse News Service
May 15, 2010
PEORIA —
At a place of momentary safety on Omaha Beach, Lt. William Frodsham looked down at the binoculars on his chest and saw that a bullet had severed them in half. The angle at which the chain hung in an instant meant the difference, for him, between life and death.
On the sixth day of the sixth month, 66 years ago, American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy and engaged in battle, the brutality of which is hardly conceivable in the context of modern wars.
As each day claims the lives of more World War II veterans, and other members of the only living generation who can personally recall the magnitude of sacrifice this nation endured during that era, we rely more and more on written accounts of major events such as the D-Day invasion.
There are countless stories to be told, each linked to individual lives.
In telling one soldier’s story, a local author reminds readers that the personal journeys of this “greatest generation” began long before the major battles and continued afterward in equally incredible ways.
In “The Road to War: Duty and Drill, Courage and Capture,” Peoria author Steven Burgauer relays one soldier’s first-hand account as he enlisted, trained and served in the U.S. Army infantry during the Second World War.
William C. Frodsham, Jr., now deceased, joined the war effort shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and would eventually lead a combat boat team during the D-Day assault at Omaha Beach. After a week of fighting, he was wounded and taken prisoner by German forces.
Frodsham survived a year of grueling conditions in captivity, and the remainder of the war, to lead a full life, retiring as an Army captain. Late in his life, he was motivated to record his experiences in writing, mainly for the sake of his children and anyone interested to learn from his recollections.
Frodsham’s daughter eventually approached Burgauer, who had lived next door to the Frodsham family in Libertyville as a child.
Burgauer agreed to develop Frodsham’s written notes into book form, in a departure from his usual genre, science-fiction.
“This was a whole different kind of project,” with its own unique rewards, according to Burgauer.
“This represents similar stories of tens of thousands of soldiers,” he said.
Unlike many portrayals of D-Day, Burgauer’s book does not start there; it follows Frodsham from home soil, where he was trained and eventually said goodbye to his new bride and close-knit family to leave for war.
These aspects of one’s personal experience, said Burgauer, are vital to fully understanding what it took to be a soldier.
The story goes well past D-Day, as well.
“A great deal of the story is of the deprivation and really brutal conditions he survived in the prison camp,” Burgauer said. “They weren’t physically beaten, but the conditions were extraordinarily challenging.”
After his capture at Normandy, Frodsham was taken by train from France to Poland. Near emaciation from lack of nutrition and suffering dementia because of exhaustion, Frodsham and other POWs were forced to march that winter, shoeless and coatless, toward Berlin as Russian forces advanced.
Although Frodsham’s notes, written 50 years after the war, reflected an intentional emotional distance, Burgauer said he did his best to depict what Frodsham might have felt during that time.
“You have to get into the character of what it would feel like to be a terrified 20-year-old with a gun in your hand,” Burgauer said. “He didn’t come out and say ‘I was scared,’ but he obviously must have been terrified.”
In writing the book, Burgauer said, he remained true to real-life events without over-dramatizing them for the sake of sensation. “This is not a blood-and-guts book,” he said. “It is completely readable without losing the tenseness of being under fire for hours and hours on end.”
He calls it a “general interest” book that is accessible to the masses, including young people.
The book has educational value, Burgauer said, as it depicts what military service was like then and how much it differs from that of today. Fighting from hedgerow to hedgerow, man-to-man combat, and months of platoon-sized tactics in the field without any outside news were all part of the story Frodsham had to tell.
With personal respect for soldiers’ sacrifice both then and now, Burgauer made the extreme intensity of the war, and the price paid by soldiers and their families, evident in the book.
“I would never in any way belittle the modern soldier,” said Burgauer, while still stating that there is no modern context comparable to World War II. “The numbers of soldiers lost in a decade in current wars might not be as many as in a day in Normandy. There were thousands lost in just this battle. Overall, the number of families impacted by the war, the loss of men — husbands, sons, fathers — was enormous.”
“Frodsham was a great officer and an exceptional soldier,” said Burgauer. “Tens of thousands of men were. . . . This is his story, but it’s also a generic story, of all the soldiers who fought and made great sacrifices for our freedom.”
Copyright 2010 pjstar.com. Some rights reserved.
Villages Daily Sun
LOCAL AUTHOR
Steven Burgauer, author of the book ‘The Road to War’ is seen.
Telling a soldier’s story
Area resident brings World War II vet’s memory to masses
By Michael Fortuna
DAILY SUN
May 16, 2010
LADY LAKE —
Some 50 years after the fact, Capt. William C. Frodsham Jr. put down on paper his experiences during World War II so his children could see what he went through.
Now author Steven Burgauer is bringing Frodsham’s story to the masses.
“When he wrote it, he wrote it to his kids in a sense,” Burgauer said. “He wouldn’t talk about the war while he was alive (but) he wanted them to know.
“His memories were amazingly accurate. He probably wrote it in his mind 10,000 times before committing it to paper.”
“The Road to War” is told in the first person from Frodsham’s perspective.
Frodsham had enlisted in the U.S. Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor and went to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion.
Six days after landing on Omaha Beach, Frodsham was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans. He spent a year in captivity before being liberated by advancing Russians.
According to the preface, Frodsham had reunited with some of his friends from the Army in 1994, spurring the idea to write about his experiences.
Frodsham’s daughter had called Burgauer asking him to take the information from the diaries and create a book.
“My initial impression was I thought it was a very interesting story,” Burgauer said. “It let me have some poetic license, making it more interesting.
“He (Frodsham) sanitized the account, a kind of emotional detachment. I put some emotion back into it. I’m proud of the end result.
“The family liked it. They thought I did a good job with it.”
Burgauer will be signing copies of his book from 1-3 p.m., May 23 at Big City Grill in Spanish Springs Town Square. Thirty percent of sales will go to the Christian Food Pantry. To learn more about the book, go to: http://pages.prodigy.net/scifi20/road.htm
Burgauer, who splits his time between Lady Lake and Peoria, Ill., started writing the book about a year ago.
Burgauer double-checked the information to make sure the things Frodsham wrote down were accurate. He also used Google Maps to pinpoint landmarks Frodsham had mentioned in the diaries so Burgauer could visualize and properly describe the terrain.
“That made it easier to understand the landmarks,” Burgauer said.
After he went through several drafts, Burgauer sent the manuscript to several veterans to see if he captured the spirit of being in war.
“I was leaning on lots of people for help,” Burgauer said.
With “The Road to War,” Burgauer is taking his first foray into nonfiction; prior to this he had written several science fiction novels, some of which feature scenes on battlefields, while one novel was set during a second American Civil War.
Burgauer had worked as a stockbroker for 20 years, but he always wrote short stories during his free time.
He soon decided to take the plunge and write a novel, but he couldn’t devote a lot of time to that endeavor with his job.
“Being a broker is a full-time business,” Burgauer said. “(I said to myself): If you really want to write, you have to quit. So I quit.”
That was ten years ago. Since that time, he has penned 10 novels, including “The Fornax Drive”, “The Last American”, “The Grandfather Paradox”, “The Night of the Eleventh Sun” and “A More Perfect Union.”
His interest in science fiction developed when he was a boy, around the time going to the moon captured the country’s imagination.
“I was strongly interested in science,” Burgauer said. “As an adult I went to Space Camp.”