REVIEWS
PUBLISHERS DAILY REVIEWS
It’s a little after 8 a.m., June 13, 1944, and Lt. William C. Frodsham, Jr. 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 famous D-Day invasion. Then, they had slogged 12 miles into the Normandy countryside under withering enemy fire.
Now, Frodsham and his men are pinned down and outnumbered among the hedgerows, waging a brave and bloody battle against equally determined German forces.
It’s an action-packed start to this excellent first-person narrative about one man’s harrowing — and sometimes humorous — experiences in World War II.
Well-told in an almost cinematic style, this tale draws the reader immediately back to that unforgettable time when America — and its young men and women — were thrown into a global conflict whose outcome was perilously uncertain.
In large part, however, the book, which is largely based on Frodsham’s personal diary, is full of anecdotes and fascinating stories that will surely appeal to anyone who has spent time in the military. Indeed, much of it rivals Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues in its ability to enthrall the reader.
Flash back to December 7, 1941. Frodsham has kissed his girl goodbye, along with his family, and shipped off to Fort Dix, NJ — the first of several Army posts where he is taught to be a soldier.
What follows is a highly entertaining account of what it was like to be in the U.S. Army back in the early days of the war. Frodsham excels in every posting, and is soon on his way to OCS — Officer Candidate School.
But his journey is not without its share of off-base adventures — like the 24-hour AWOL Christmas trip to a friend’s home, and the brief but victorious alley confrontation in which he and a ranking middleweight sergeant dispatch four paratroopers intent on getting them kicked out of OCS.
Time passes and Frodsham seeks — and wins — the hand of his beloved Connie, and they are married in a full-blown regimental ceremony on May 22, 1943 at Fort Leonard Wood in rural Missouri.
Their precious time together is brief, however, as he ships out to England in October aboard the newly refitted SS Mauritania. The five-day voyage is uneventful — except for two exciting days wallowing through 50-foot ocean swells — and he lands at Liverpool along with thousands of his shipmates.
Endless days of drills and preparation for the Normandy invasion are interspersed with fascinating stories of Frodsham’s fraternization with the Brits — and inspiring insights into how this remarkable island nation not only survived the Blitzkriegs, but found humor and hard-won conviviality in its neighborhood pubs each night.
Then, D-day arrives, and it finds Frodsham floating with his men just off the Normandy coast. It’s a hellish scene that confronts them as they wade ashore. Body parts litter the beach, but Frodsham and his platoon forge ahead, intent on their mission to make it to the village of Isigny and hold it until relieved.
In trying to get there, however, murderous crossfire by German machine guns costs the soldiers dearly in terms of dead and injured. By the time they finally cross one field bordered by six-foot hedgerows, Frodsham wonders to himself:
“If the enemy (is) going to surrender France only one hundred feet at a time, this (is) going to make for a very long war.”
Finally, they come upon a German force larger than their own, and, after a furious firefight, Frodsham orders his men to lay down their arms. They become prisoners of war, and the remaining pages detail the hardships, pain, and debilitating slow starvation inflicted upon the troops.
Still, Frodsham and his fellow detainees find opportunity for gaiety even in a Gulag. A theatre group sprouts up, and even a camp newspaper, The Oflag 64 Item. Still, starvation is a constant companion. Frodsham, like most of his fellow POWs, loses more than 60 pounds while in captivity.
I won’t reveal the book’s surprising and satisfying ending. Suffice to say, celebration of the War’s final actions is sweet for Frodsham — who at many times during a forced wintertime march from Poland by his captors, fleeing the advance of Russian liberators, lay huddled against cattle for simple warmth during the long, frozen nights.
This memoir is a saga of celebration and hardship, heroism and tragedy, set against the sweeping backdrop of the twentieth century’s most important worldwide conflict.
Yet it carries with it a tone and craftsmanship at once imminently readable and startlingly personal. The author has written a masterpiece of first-person narrative gleaned purely from Frodsham’s meticulous diary and equally exhaustive research that often puts the reader squarely in the middle of war-torn France and into the very hearts and souls of the valiant men and women who secured the peace we now enjoy.
Five-plus unequivocal stars to The Road to War. It’s an extraordinary read that everyone should enjoy.
— October 20, 2016, Publishers Daily Reviews
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/384410.Steven_Burgauer
https://www.undergroundbookreviews.org/author-spotlight-steven-burgauer/
https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadToWarDutyandDrill/
THE BOOK REVIEWERS
(a division of Full Media Ltd. (UK))
October 28, 2016
4 stars out of 5
The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture by Steven Burgauer
Historical novel based on the diaries and autobiography of an American officer in WWII which details the remarkable courage and resilience he demonstrated in combat and capture.
William Frodsham was just one of the many thousands of young American citizens to enlist for military duty after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Unlike the vast majority of those men and women, William, years after the conflict, gathered his notes and his memories to write a detailed account of those years. Author Steven Burgauer has shaped these writings into a very readable historical novel, structured in diary form.
The opening pitches us straight into the intense fighting which followed the D-Day landings. We learn straightaway that William is a courageous soldier and an excellent leader of his platoon despite the impossible situation in which they find themselves. From here we are taken back in time to the beginning of the war and his immediate decision to fight for the country he clearly loves. The first part of the book focuses on ‘duty and drill’ which aptly describes the many months that William spends in the U.S. in basic and then officer training.
Now a 2nd lieutenant, he is posted to Cornwall, England, to train and lead a platoon in preparation for the invasion of France. Throughout William keeps up a commentary of the various duties that he is assigned and of the difficulties he faced. Although there are times when you feel like you are reading a list of events, names and places, there is always historical interest as well as numerous personal anecdotes that give a clear picture of life in the U.S Army.
From the prologue, we know that William had decided not to write about his feelings and doubtless the horrors that he saw and participated in were forever with him and just too much to express with words. Although this is quite understandable, the consequence is that you never seem to get to know him as a man — you gain an understanding of his character and his qualities, but the reader is rarely allowed more than a few glimpses inside, limiting the depth of engagement with the book. That said, the combat scenes and the brutal deprivation of his time as a prisoner of war are well written, making some of the horrors of war all too real. Indeed, the awfulness of his final combat duties when freed and then seconded by the Russian are chilling.
THE BOOK BAG (UK)
“Personal, inspiring & insightful.”
After World War II Bill Frodsham led an everyday life, raising a family in an ordinary US suburb. He, his wife and children became friends with the Burgauer family, little Steven Burgauer knowing him as Mr. F. Time rolls on and little Steven grows up, and then eventually retires from the American financial sector to write science fiction and lecture from time to time. He's therefore surprised when, out of the blue, Mr. F's daughter tracks him down and presents him with a pile of handwritten notes asking Steven to make them into a book. These are Mr. F's self-authored memoirs, stretching from his youth onwards and showing that this seemingly good, kind but unremarkable man was anything but unremarkable. During the war Mr. F trained for the impossible and then lived it as he led men across Omaha Beach on D-Day. He was then captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in inhumane conditions. Steven accepted the request and The Road to War is the result: the life and war of Captain William C Frodsham Jr.
Indeed this is a departure from the usual science fiction we enjoy from Steven, but it's easy to see why he accepted the challenge. Although Steven has had to add the emotion and feeling to the piece that Bill had left out of his memoirs, Bill is definitely there in his words.
Bill seems very much a no-nonsense guy, raised with straightforward salt of the Earth morals by parents whose hearts must have torn with sorrow as well as pride when their lad signed up for the infantry after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. For we readers this is where it gets really interesting as Bill's eye for detail takes us through his training in a way that other writers may skip over.
Places, procedures and the daily patterns of events right down to the types of armoury are all laid before us in a way that will sate those of us who have a deep affection for militaria without alienating those of us with a passing interest. However, for me, the most affective and affecting passages arrive with the immediate preparation for and encounter with battle.
Bill spent his final weeks pre-embarkation in the south of England training with those in his charge. What I hadn't realised (actually there is much in these pages I hadn't realised!) was that the fatalities didn't start on that fateful stretch of French coast. Eye-witness Bill retells the tragic story of Exercise Tiger when in 1942 a training exercise on Slapton Sands, Devon, went terribly wrong causing thousands of deaths. I'll leave the details with him, but it's understandable why the authorities hushed it up till recently.
As we know from history, the real horror hits the allied forces when they land in Dunkirk and again Bill fills in the bits that the history texts skip over. As he describes the confusion on the beach and how human instinct took over from finely drilled training in a way that could only come of first-hand experience, it's as if he's providing a commentary for those first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. He lists the names of the men who died around him without drama – Bill doesn't do drama – yet with a palpable sadness of one looking back and allowing the thoughts that he couldn't indulge at the time.
Bill's stoicism continues into the German prison stalags. He writes of the conditions and treatment there in an almost throwaway style, peppered with black humour and tales of morale boosting anti-Nazi one-upmanship. We extrapolate his words into what he must have experienced: the pain and suffering that accompanies poor conditions, packed cattle trucks and forced marches when half-starved and, in many cases, half-alive.
Bill has a simple narrative style that makes it feel even more authentic than these words had been dressed by a literary mind. It's a slow burner of a tale until Bill signs up but that's not important. Steven affords us access to a personal account of preparation for and commission of war that can't be equalled by those who haven't lived it.
Indeed, writings justly informing us of the bravery shown during World War II by others are everywhere. However, the writings of the brave themselves, almost unwittingly revealing their courage are more precious. This book is precious.
(Our special thanks go to the author for providing us with a copy for review.)
THE BOOK BAG
3 November 2016
BOOK VIRAL
“An intimate and often daunting portrait of one man’s life-changing confrontation with war, The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture is highly recommended.”
— November 11, 2016, BookViral Reviews
A commendably engrossing portrait of how one soldier coped with his experiences in World War II. Burgauer has delivered a rare and humanising biography that provokes much reflection. His passion for accuracy is evident in every chapter as he captures the haphazard chances of life and the unanticipated twists of fate, without smoothing them down. Captain William C. Frodsham, Jr. was a real person caught up in events that were indifferent to him, a courageous man who never stopped giving his very best. Burgauer doesn’t hype or aggrandize the detailed richness of his story, but diligently conveys the extremes and cold harsh realities of men at war whilst maintaining the self-effacing honesty of Frodsham’s words. As a human story with an emotional intensity it has no need for conventional or dramatic order. It’s undeniably harrowing at times, particularly in recounting the traumas of imprisonment behind enemy lines but on another level it celebrates the endurance and resilience of soldiers at war lest we ever forget the sacrifices so many have made.
http://www.bookviral.com/the-road-to-war-duty-drill/4593131319
GoodReads Reviews
The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture
by Steven Burgauer (Goodreads Author)
Michael Bully, November 23, 2016
4 stars out of 5 / really liked it
Essentially an outline is provided by the World War 2 recollections of Lt. William C. Frodsham Jr. written in 1994: Frodsham recounts joining the US army shortly after Pearl Harbour, was stationed in Britain at the end of 1943, took part in the D-Day landing and was captured, becoming a German prisoner of war for the last ten months of the war.
The author himself is candid enough to state that the book is written as a “novel”… not “generally fiction” ... but “It is somewhat fictionalized and somewhat improvised.”
“William reveals very little about himself ... I have tried to ferret out his feelings the best I could.”
Overall it reads well and I would have to count the whole project as a success. The author is not afraid to question Frodsham’s recollections. The book starts with Frodsham’s ‘baptism of fire’ in Normandy 13th June 1944, experiencing his first week of combat in Normandy.
The narrative returns to the impact of Pearl Harbour leading to Frodsham’s initial enlistment, a substantial section of the book is focused on his training in the US army. Then his experience as an American soldier in Cornwall, with some excursions to the other English counties. He recounts barroom brawls, cycling in the countryside, tea dances besides his account of military life.
There are a few pages about the Exercise Tiger debacle, a secret D-Day preparation exercise that cost over 630 US servicemen their lives in Lyme Bay at the end of April 1944. The account of landing at Green Dog beach on 7th June 1944, the pressures of leading other men into battle, encountering the brutality of war, are all depicted well. The account of being a prisoner of war is especially moving. A great deal of work seems to have gone into trying to get all the technical details reading.
The only question I have is what are we as readers invited to gain by reading this? Is the author maintaining that William Frodsham, certainly a courageous soldier, with many endearing qualities, is typical of his generation? Is his combat experience somehow unusual.
Or as the preface suggests “A classic American story”...which possibly underrates the book: I would say as a British chap with no knowledge of the USA, that the combat and the POW sections are the most powerful, whilst the account of training in the US of far less interest. In fact the depiction of the POW camps, how to create order from such deprivation, and uncertainty, the fear of being bombed, with prisoners being moved on a regular basis, were perhaps the book’s strongest part.
Overall I can recommend this.
======================================
The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture is a rather interesting tale of World War II. It is based on the first-hand account of Captain William C. Frodsham, Jr. But, by author Steven Burgauer’s own account, the story is fictionalized.
That being said, I really enjoyed the book. Captain Frodsham enlisted following the attack on Pearl Harbor and chronicles his journey from enlistment through training and into battle before becoming a Prisoner of War (POW) in Nazi Germany.
The story is very moving and detailed. From the description of the training exercises to the equipment and battle preparations. But there is candidness to it, a human element. I believe this is the result of the book being drafted from Captain Frodsham's journals.
This is not a war story. It is a human existence story that happens to center around WWII. Throughout the book, the reader will laugh, cry, and feel the breadth of emotions associated with life and love.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for this review.
Gina Fasano November 29, 2016, as posted on GoodReads
MILITARY WRITERS SOCIETY of AMERICA
The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture, by Steven Burgauer
In The Road to War, author Steven Burgauer weaves a cohesive representation of the diaries of Captain William C. Frodsham, Jr., an Army Officer and POW camp survivor of World War II.
The book’s subtitle, Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture, is aptly named: From December 8, 1941 — the day after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor — to August 9, 1945, we accompany Captain Frodsham through his call to duty, basic training, Officers Candidate School, deployment to the European theater of war, Omaha Beach, skirmishes through French hedgerows, capture by the Germans, life in various stalags in Poland, liberation by the Russians, and his return home.
Having visited the D-day landing beaches several times myself, Captain Frodsham’s memoir offers me a front-row seat to the experiences of a very real soldier on that beach. I find it humbling.
In the early stages of the Captain’s memoirs, the reader sees him as an enthusiastic recruit, an ace at almost all of his training, and a cocky young man. As the war progresses and he has still not seen combat duty, he looks forward to deployment overseas. A good section of the book is dedicated to “Drill” and explains his various assignments and posts. Perhaps a bit too much, but it is tolerable.
The Captain mellows the closer he gets to actual battle, and his cockiness dissipates as he faces the brutal reality of loss of some of his men, injury, blood, and capture. His descriptions of life as a Prisoner of War (POW) are also quite interesting and made me appreciate the work of the Red Cross more than I had before I read the book.
Insights into the military lives of officers vs. enlisted soldiers are offered, and to a reader such as myself who never served in the military, the stratified structure of military life is quite revealing. Most of the time, military terms are explained throughout the book, although there are a few instances where I had to look up some things. I wished for a cheat sheet to look up the differences among squad, platoons, companies, brigades, regiments, and so on. There was a reference to a specific bureaucratic form, too, and I had to research it. There was a minor copyediting error or two, and reading the text on the photos was difficult.
These are minor inconveniences, however, because Mr. Burgauer’s book is highly engaging, and it is a memoir worth reading for its insights into human altruism, courage under fire, and adaptability to extremely difficult situations. It flows well, and is both enlightening and heartfelt.
Reading it, I found author Burgauer constructed a window into Captain Frodsham’s psyche and soul.
by Patricia Walkow, MWSA Reviewer, February 20, 2017
http://www.mwsadispatches.com/reviews/2017/1/20/the-road-to-war-duty-drill-courage-capture
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Small Press Bookwatch, March 2017
The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture
Critique: A truly remarkable story that is an exceptionally candid and well written, riveting first-person account of a young man caught up in a cataclysmic World War, “The Road to War” is especially recommended for community library collections and is a worth addition to expanding academic library World War II memoirs and biographies. It should be noted for personal reading lists that “The Road to War” is also available in a paperback edition (9781450218801, $23.95) and in a Kindle format ($2.51).