General histories of the campaign in north-west Europe are pretty much a dime a dozen but first hand accounts of events from the ordinary soldier are far less common...

A FOOTSOLDIER FOR PATTON by Michael C Bilder with James G Bilder

Professor Richard Holmes, no less, tells us that soldiers make the best observers; and he should know. General histories of the campaign in north-west Europe are pretty much a dime a dozen but first hand accounts of events from the ordinary soldier are far less common.  

Michael Bilder tells a vivid story of his adventures from enlistment to demob as a conscript in the US 5th Infantry Division.  A reluctant soldier, he nevertheless did his duty with humanity and no small measure of dignity. As his story unfolds the reader is left with a strong sense of an urge for survival as so many comrades are killed.  I can’t say it makes for pleasant reading, but the characters of these unfortunate souls are generally not developed enough to build up too great an attachment to them, which is for the best. There are far too many of them.

Mr Bilder did not seek promotion, seeing it as a sure fire route to a quick death. He saw too many men gain stripes and go to their deaths in short order, including his best friend. His recollections are naturally peppered with violence and so much of the futility as casualties mount. The author is pretty damning about the illustrious Patton and many junior officers and some of them do seem to have been real duds.

We follow his story from call up and exercises in Louisiana, to garrisoning Iceland where the extremes of climate are marked. We move on to the UK with some pugilistic adventures in London and then the horrors of a race riot in Andover. We move to Northern Ireland, where as a devout Roman Catholic, the author confronts a religious divide still in effect today. From Normandy the advance of the Red Diamond Division continues across France; past Reims and on to the slaughter of Metz, where Patton pushed thousands of men into the meat-grinder assaulting a succession of near impregnable fortresses.  The sacrifice and sheer waste of life here is resonant of the Great War.

The book continues with the Battle of the Bulge and the eventual defeat of the Nazis. Bilder’s division finished the war in Czechoslovakia and by this time he reveals the often repeated frustration of soldiers that Eisenhower did not take Berlin or Prague. Encounters with the Russians illustrate a sense of foreboding for the future which proved all too accurate.Of German ancestry, our hero (for he is every inch one) was used as a linguist to translate during the interrogations of prisoners-of-war. His health was battered by the war and he earned his Bronze Star. The gratifying thing is he returned safely to Chicago and married his sweetheart. They shared a long happy life together.  

He concludes “I hope I used my time well and I trust in God’s mercy. Mary and almost everyone else I knew from that ea are gone now, but my mind and heart are at peace and I look forward to seeing them all again.”  God bless him.

 

Published by Casemate £22.50. ISBN 978-1-932033-91-5