Fighting with the Screaming Eagles: With the 101st Airborne from Normandy to Bastogne

by Robert Bowen

A member of the 101st Airborne’s Glider Infantry recalls WWII, from the horror of D-Day to the despair of Nazi captivity, in this compelling memoir.   As World War II broke out, Robert Bowen was drafted into Company C, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Soon afterwards, he found himself storming Utah Beach amid the chaos of D-Day, through unfamiliar terrain littered with minefields and hidden snipers. Bowen was wounded during the Normandy campaign but went on to fight in Holland and the Ardennes, where he was captured. That’s when his “trip through hell” truly began.   In each of Bowen’s campaigns, the 101st “Screaming Eagles” spearheaded the Allied effort against the Nazi occupation of Europe. At Bastogne, they stood nearly alone against the onslaught of enemy panzers and grenadiers. His insights into life behind enemy lines after his capture provide as much fascination as his exploits on the battlefield. Written shortly after the war, Bowen’s narrative is immediate and compelling. An introduction by the world’s foremost historian of the 101st Airborne, George Koskimaki, further enhances this classic work.

Genres: World War II, Military History, History, Military Fiction

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2009

About the author

Robert Bowen was drafted into Company C, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, as World War II broke out, and soon after found himself storming ashore amid the chaos on Utah Beach, through unfamiliar terrain littered with minefields and hidden snipers. He was wounded during the Normandy campaign but went on to fight in Holland and the Ardennes, where he was captured and his "trip through hell" truly began.

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Glider Infantry are the Airborne Divisions' ugly ducklings, largely forgotten amidst the whole Band of Brothers bonanza, but their contribution sheds a whole new light on the 101st time in the ETO. Among others, it disspells the notion, engraved in the series' voice-over, that missing Bastogne made you an outsider all over again.

Bowen only glidered once into combat, but the bloody randomness on that Dutch field was not an experience he cared to repeat. He tells us about it in a straight manner, with enough style to carry us forward. Mostly, people die . People die all the time. Suddenly, in the most stupidly unpredictable ways. One dollar-sized bit of metal makes the most vigilant veteran a corpse. Nobody has the time or the will to linger upon it when it happens. If you're making a mental list of likely survivors because trooper A or B gets a lot of background or shows up a lot, Bowen's memory is right next to you to kill them.

[Marge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book to find out something of my dad's experiences in World War II. Even though he wasn't in the same unit as this author, he was in the 101st Airborne. The book even includes a map of where the different units were during the Battle of the Bulge, and I found my dad's unit.
The author includes a lot of details, including the many soldiers he knew who died. He also writes about one soldier who got not only himself but two others killed because he wanted a souvenir gun from a dead Nazi.
The real downside of this book is that the editor didn't do a better job putting this all together. There's repetition, unimportant details and some bad writing. But it was still the best thing I've ever read about the actual war from a common soldier's viewpoint.

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Fighting with the Screaming Eagles" is a first-person account of the war that author experienced from his training in the US, through landing at Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion, fighting his way through France before being severely wounded and captured during the Battle of the Bulge, subsequent POW nightmare, then slow recovery after VE Day. Bowen gives his readers no narrative of sweeping war history: his history is deeply personal, mostly seeing no farther than he could view from his own foxhole. Yet in this constricted story he communicates essential truths about World War II: people died, even good friends, often in completely unpredictable ways, and you simply went on because that was what you needed to do; almost everyone was scared during combat, yet pushed the fear down far enough to be able to act; the fighting in France was unbelievably dirty, and cold, and brutal. I'm struck by his ability to capture massive amounts of detail about each fight he experienced, with names and terrain described carefully, including frequent mentions of each death he saw. An outstanding contribution to World War II history, in my opinion.

[James Michael Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding insight into the actions of glider infantry

Bowen is an articulate observer of combat conditions facing the glider men of the 101st. His story echoes those of my Uncle who fought in the same actions.

[Rick Van Oers · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better books I have read ! Recommend it to everyone interested in WW2

[Richard Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid Book Covering Glider Airborne

[Edma Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

...il vero benessere è appaltare la propria vita a registi capaci di emozionarti. registi per il sesso, registi per lo sconvolgimento, registi per cene lievi e dopocena indimenticabili.

*
...una bellezza stota e profondissima, irregolare come i desideri più nascosti, inconfessabili anche alle amiche del cuore.

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...guardava di lato quando c'era qualche situazione che preferiva non fissare frntalmente...

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Erano quei giorno di primavera in cui l'aria spinge ai baci e il colore della città si fa rosa e giallo mentre il sol temporeggia volentieri sui tetti fino a tardi. Erano quei giorni dell'anno in cui le emozioni si fissano meglio nel ricordo...sicuri che nessun autunno toglierà più determinate voglie profondissime.

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Cosa vuoi fare se non paio di settimane da decadentista giusto per ricaricare un pò e batterie?

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Io le donne, non so, fore le odio. Forse mi piacciono troppo e non riesco ad accettare che siano tagliate con certe schifezze chimich. Tipo i fatto di innamorarsi del primo stronzo...

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Altre volte però i faccio aggredire dallo sconforto, penso che siamo solanto modeste sorprese dell'uovo kinder, immobili, carini, muti ogni volta che apriamo bocca, perfettamne inutili.

*

Respira veloc, come sognasse inquietudini.

[Nick Boldrini · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good counter point to the experience of paratroopers in the 101st Airborne i World War II. It suffers from the problems many of these accounts do, telling you what happened to a person later on when he is mentioned, and then this information being sometimes repeated, but this is a minor quibble. It also had a harrowing coda in that the author was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, and details his POW experience.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read concerning a soldier on D-Day. It is another view of that battle from the view of an infantry soldier who parachuted on that day. I love to read about the different views that different soldiers experienced. It is like a giant puzzle where the views fill in all the missing pieces of that great battle. Fascinating.

[Mike Hargrave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, but many typos, especially with anything involving numbers.