Description
This photo album presents the history of the division through a brief text, hundreds of photographs, several maps and numerous custom color illustrations. This book offers the first account in English of this battle-proven division, which was formed shortly before the outbreak of the war. It fought in Poland, France and in the opening stages of the campaign in Russia. In mid-1942, it was pulled out of the line, reconstituted and reorganized in France and then sent to North Africa as part of Hitler’s desperate attempt to save the situation there. Although the division spent only six months in the desert, it fought both the British and the Americans. It gave the “green” American Army a bloody nose in some of its first encounters with the Germans, including the legendary fighting at Kasserine Pass, before it had to bow to defeat and capitulation at Tunis in May 1943. Although the division had a proud and successful history, it was never reconstituted.
Authors J. Restayn and N. Moller have brought this division to life with photographs that chronicle the division from its formation to its demise. Hundreds of unpublished photographs from veterans of the division are coupled with breathtaking combat photography from French and German archives. In addition to the pictorial coverage, the reader is treated to a concise account of the division’s history, maps of all of its major campaigns, numerous tables of tank inventories and order of battle along with 34 pages of full-color illustrations, including two pages of color photographs. J. Restayn has superbly illustrated virtually all of the combat vehicles and artillery pieces of the division, as well as most of the armored personnel carriers, armored cars and soft-skinned vehicles it used throughout its 44-month history. In addition, there are numerous renderings of some of the armored vehicles the division encountered during its campaigns.
Hard cover, large format (9″x12″), 350 pages with 34 pages of color and hundreds of terrific black and white photographs.
ISBN 0921991 76-2
