Alex Kershaw > Quotes

“The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, what you do—is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny … it is the light that guides your way. —HERACLITUS”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“Like his other books, Kershaw has written a rousing tale of little-known heroes . . . The Few marks Kershaw as a master storyteller." — Booklist”
― Alex Kershaw, The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain

“Bavaria, May 8, 1945.
While civilians embraced...and took to the streets around the globe...many infantrymen in Europe, brutalized and broken, sat alone with their grief or paced their rest areas in mournful silence. "There is V-E Day without, but no peace within," wrote the war's most decorated infantryman, Audie Murphy..."People were damaged," remembered Thunderbird Guy Prestia. "It was like we'd been in a car crash. There was trauma. It takes a while to get over that."..."There was great relief," recalled [Lieutenant Colonel Felix] Sparks, "but no celebrations."....It was hard to believe, hard to accept that the killing and dying were finally over. There would be no more Anzios, Salernos, or Reipertswillers. Finally, after the death of 135,576 young Americans, Europe was free.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“The Stevens brothers had shared everything except women since they could remember: poker winnings, uniform, Red Cross parcels, news from home, and their most intimate fears and hopes. But in a few hours' time, after years of being inseparable, they would not share the same landing craft bound for the beaches of northern France. For the first time since they had joined the National Guard, a week apart in 1938, they would not be side by side. They would not face their greatest test together. They would arrive on Omaha Beach in different boats.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice

“Indeed, good leaders were often good actors, able to convince their men if not themselves that they would somehow prevail.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“His only realistic hope of survival was to order his own artillery to fire on his positions to stall the German attack. Some of his own men might be killed, but “pulling the chain,” as it was called, was his only option.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“Here we are, a quarter of a century later,” declared Clark, “with the same Allies as before, fighting the same mad dogs that were let loose in 1918.” Clark”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“The news was far from encouraging. The Germans were waging a stunningly successful campaign of blitzkrieg—lightning war—coordinating massed tank attacks with strikes from the air, in particular from a new dive bomber, the Junkers 87, which”
― Alex Kershaw, The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain

“Patton was being driven in a jeep. Just days before, the silver-haired Seventh Army commander had admitted to a fellow general that the two things he loved most in life were “fucking and fighting.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“Italian foe in Sicily. From now on, the men”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“Although most well-informed people have heard of Wallenberg today, many, including Jews, know less about him than about Oscar Schindler, who saved far fewer people and in any case profited from their forced labor.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Envoy: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II

“you need”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“Since January, when he had arrived in England to command Overlord, Eisenhower had been under crushing, ever greater strain. Now it had all boiled down to this decision. Eisenhower alone—not Roosevelt, not Churchill—had the authority to give the final command to go, to “enter the continent of Europe,” as his orders from on high had stated, and “undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.”3 He alone could pull the trigger. Marshaling the greatest invasion in the history of war had been, at times, as terrifying as the very real prospect of failure. The last time there had been”
― Alex Kershaw, The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II

“It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.”
― Alex Kershaw, The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II

“THE”
― Alex Kershaw, The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon

“Parisians were starting to chafe against rationing and other restrictions despite their occupiers going to extraordinary lengths to foster good relations. German soldiers were not allowed to smoke or loosen their ties in public, buy cocaine in bars, go swimming in the Seine, sing or dance in the street,”
― Alex Kershaw, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris

“Berlin, April 22, 1945.
That afternoon, with the Soviet front lines just a few miles away, the Führer held a final conference with his most senior generals. It would be the last time many would see Hitler alive. The news he relayed was, for the first time, stripped of all fantasy and optimism. The Reich was almost at an end. Berlin would be encircled in a matter of hours. Defeat was inevitable. But it was not Hitler's fault. Then began a wild stream of invective and crude abuse. His generals, his people, and his soldiers had failed him.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“According to a study done just after the war, conducted by the US Army’s Information and Education Division, combatants like Lindstrom were in the majority, especially in terrifying situations, with almost three-quarters relying on prayer as their reason to carry on.”
― Alex Kershaw, Patton's Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II

“Fellers had studied the Allied intelligence and countless aerial shots and concluded that Company A was being sent to face certain slaughter.

Fellers and Nance both looked out to sea.

"We stood there awhile," recalled Nance. "We didn't say a word, not a single word to each other. I guess we'd said it all.

An anti-aircraft gun broke the silence, tracer bullets spitting through the sky, and then a searchlight caught the blaze of an exploding plane. "That brought it home to me," recalled Nance. "This thing is real. It's not an exercise.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice

“Ninety percent of all German combat deaths had in fact occurred fighting the Soviets, who had suffered and sacrificed most to defeat Hitler: an astounding 65 percent of all Allied fatalities.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau