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zfeig's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
1.0
Really not worth the read. The problem is this book is told like a heroic war story, when the story of the 10th mountain unit is much more interesting as an allegory for wealth in politics and bureaucratic mismanagement.
Management of the 10th was fascinating. Basically it started out as a fantasy of the east coast country club elite. They saw ski troops in Finland, and said well wouldn't that be a fun way to spend the war. Because they were rich politicians listen to them and bent over backwards to overequip and over train a unit that was basically not used.
It spent most of the war in training. The training was expensive, and actively harmful because it was conducted at too high in altitude in a camp with poor ventilation.
When they were deployed, they first went to kiska to take the island from the Japanese who had already left. Despite there being no Japanese on the island there were disturbingly high casualty rates due to friendly fire. The incident was more or less buried in the history books.
When they Were then deployed to Italy, they used mountain training maybe once for a small number of troopers to climb one rock face one morning.
If this was told as the story of mismanagement and incompetence it would have been fascinating. Instead we just hear excerpts from the men's diaries focusing on bravery and combat.
Management of the 10th was fascinating. Basically it started out as a fantasy of the east coast country club elite. They saw ski troops in Finland, and said well wouldn't that be a fun way to spend the war. Because they were rich politicians listen to them and bent over backwards to overequip and over train a unit that was basically not used.
It spent most of the war in training. The training was expensive, and actively harmful because it was conducted at too high in altitude in a camp with poor ventilation.
When they were deployed, they first went to kiska to take the island from the Japanese who had already left. Despite there being no Japanese on the island there were disturbingly high casualty rates due to friendly fire. The incident was more or less buried in the history books.
When they Were then deployed to Italy, they used mountain training maybe once for a small number of troopers to climb one rock face one morning.
If this was told as the story of mismanagement and incompetence it would have been fascinating. Instead we just hear excerpts from the men's diaries focusing on bravery and combat.
kfrig's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars - this is an incredibly well researched book and a must read for anyone interested in BOTH the founders of places like Vail/Aspen and history. Five stars for research and completeness. Only 3.5 stars because of the writing style. I found myself glazing over important details as I tried to get through quote after quote for every scene in the book. There were simply too many quotes for points that could have been conveyed in more impactful, brief ways. I found the style distracting. Glad I read!
seanzie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
thomcat's review against another edition
3.0
This is a fairly complete history of the 10th Mountain division, the US "ski troops" from WWII. This book was referenced in one I recently read about the Finnish Winter War, which partly inspired the creation of this corps.
This history spends a lot of time on the logistics of creation and the training in Colorado at more than a mile of altitude (problematic - no battles were ever fought that high, and altitude sickness caused plenty of problems). In addition to skiing, they also trained for mountain climbing, which was somewhat used during the war.
The latter portion of the book covers front-line combat, including adding troops to this division with no actual mountain training. They saw a lot of service in the oft-forgotten Italian campaign, but were mostly underutilized for their specialty. Their greatest impact may have been after the war, contributing to recreational skiing through being instructors and helping found destinations like Aspen and Vail.
Thoroughly researched, but the story was rough in a few patches. A good history with interesting tidbits (e.g. Bob Dole joined the 10th as a reinforcement and was wounded in action). Contains several pictures and a few maps.
This history spends a lot of time on the logistics of creation and the training in Colorado at more than a mile of altitude (problematic - no battles were ever fought that high, and altitude sickness caused plenty of problems). In addition to skiing, they also trained for mountain climbing, which was somewhat used during the war.
The latter portion of the book covers front-line combat, including adding troops to this division with no actual mountain training. They saw a lot of service in the oft-forgotten Italian campaign, but were mostly underutilized for their specialty. Their greatest impact may have been after the war, contributing to recreational skiing through being instructors and helping found destinations like Aspen and Vail.
Thoroughly researched, but the story was rough in a few patches. A good history with interesting tidbits (e.g. Bob Dole joined the 10th as a reinforcement and was wounded in action). Contains several pictures and a few maps.
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