What do you think?
Rate this book
Last of the 357th Infantry: Harold Frank's WWII Story of Faith and Courage
For those who loved Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers and E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed . Drawing on toughness and skills forged in hardscrabble Depression-era North Carolina, Bronze Star recipient and expert B.A.R. rifleman Harold Frank invades Normandy, fights Germans, and endures a grueling stint in a German POW camp where he witnesses the fire-bombing of Dresden.
From D-Day to Dresden with a Crack Shot B.A.R. Rifleman
D-Day 1944: twenty-year-old PFC Harold Frank had moved as one with his battalion onto the shores of Utah Beach, pushing into France to cut off and blockade the pivotal Nazi-occupied deep-water port of Cherbourg. As a recognized crack shot with WW II's iconic American automatic rifle, Frank fought bravely across the bloody hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula. During the most intense fighting, Frank was ambushed and wounded in a deadly, nine-hour firefight with Germans. Taken prisoner and with a bullet lodged under one arm, Frank found himself dumped first in a brutal Nazi POW concentration camp, then shipped to a grueling work camp on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany, where the young PFC was exposed to the vengeance of a crumbling Nazi regime, the menace of a rapidly advancing Russian military—and the danger of thousands of Allied bombers screaming overhead during the firebombing of Dresden.
Historian Mark Hager builds on hundreds of hours of interviews with Harold Frank, sharing the intimate and heart-pounding account of Frank’s journey as a child of the Great Depression to the bloody shores of the D-Day invasion, into the bowels of Nazi Germany, and back to the U.S. where as a young man Harold would spend years resolutely dealing with the lingering effects of starvation rations while determinedly building a new life—a life always mindful of the legacy of his POW experience and his faithful service in America’s hard-fought war against Nazi aggression.
From D-Day to Dresden with a Crack Shot B.A.R. Rifleman
D-Day 1944: twenty-year-old PFC Harold Frank had moved as one with his battalion onto the shores of Utah Beach, pushing into France to cut off and blockade the pivotal Nazi-occupied deep-water port of Cherbourg. As a recognized crack shot with WW II's iconic American automatic rifle, Frank fought bravely across the bloody hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula. During the most intense fighting, Frank was ambushed and wounded in a deadly, nine-hour firefight with Germans. Taken prisoner and with a bullet lodged under one arm, Frank found himself dumped first in a brutal Nazi POW concentration camp, then shipped to a grueling work camp on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany, where the young PFC was exposed to the vengeance of a crumbling Nazi regime, the menace of a rapidly advancing Russian military—and the danger of thousands of Allied bombers screaming overhead during the firebombing of Dresden.
Historian Mark Hager builds on hundreds of hours of interviews with Harold Frank, sharing the intimate and heart-pounding account of Frank’s journey as a child of the Great Depression to the bloody shores of the D-Day invasion, into the bowels of Nazi Germany, and back to the U.S. where as a young man Harold would spend years resolutely dealing with the lingering effects of starvation rations while determinedly building a new life—a life always mindful of the legacy of his POW experience and his faithful service in America’s hard-fought war against Nazi aggression.
- GenresNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
Published May 31, 2022
6 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 3, 2025
The book chronicles the life of Harold Frank, from growing up during the Depression, to how he adjusted coming back from the war. His wartime experience is only about a third of the book. Reading this, something felt off to me the whole time, and I never really got into the book. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for veterans, especially from World War 2, this story felt a bit repetitive, as if I have read some of the things that happened to him before.
It is also bold to suggest that if you loved Band of Brothers and With the Old Breed, then you would enjoy this, as this book is simply not in the same class as those two books. This book was not well-written, normally this would not matter too much if the story is a good one for me, but constant mistakes, especially with dates, just took all the joy out of this one for me. Not recommendable, as there are much better books of WW2 out there to read.
It is also bold to suggest that if you loved Band of Brothers and With the Old Breed, then you would enjoy this, as this book is simply not in the same class as those two books. This book was not well-written, normally this would not matter too much if the story is a good one for me, but constant mistakes, especially with dates, just took all the joy out of this one for me. Not recommendable, as there are much better books of WW2 out there to read.
July 10, 2023
This book isn't meant to be a literary work. I gave it 5 stars because of the content.
It's a story of an American, a young man who against all odds returns from war. It tells of his years spent struggling through the great depression using resourcefulness, hard work and ingenuity to survive. It tells of the work ethic and never-say-die attitude of that generation. It talks about the importance of family and faith (dare I say God?)
The way the story is told makes me feel like I'm listening to my grandfather talking about his life experiences .Yeah, sometimes he repeats himself, he doesn't speak like a scholar, but what he is sharing with us is a part of history we should never forget.
It's a story of an American, a young man who against all odds returns from war. It tells of his years spent struggling through the great depression using resourcefulness, hard work and ingenuity to survive. It tells of the work ethic and never-say-die attitude of that generation. It talks about the importance of family and faith (dare I say God?)
The way the story is told makes me feel like I'm listening to my grandfather talking about his life experiences .Yeah, sometimes he repeats himself, he doesn't speak like a scholar, but what he is sharing with us is a part of history we should never forget.
July 14, 2022
2.5 stars really. The author writes poorly - way too much passive voice and an unsophisticated vocabulary. The book needs better editing - typos, inconsistencies (who was Harold's second sister?) and an appearance by boxing legend Joe Lewis! But dammit! The story is engaging.
December 14, 2022
The writing was not very good as was pointed out in an earlier review. The foreward seems not to have been edited at all and was borderline unreadable. My favorite part was the beginning about Harold's time during the depression. The parts on the wartime experience were scattered and there could have been more research done alongside the interviews with Harold in order to add more context and color.
I felt that as much as the book was a chronicling of Harold's history and experience during World War II it was a love letter to the South and and the Bible Belt. It was like a Hank Williams Jr song on repeat. If the phrase "A country boy will survive" was not in every chapter it was at least every other and the whole "Rebs vs Yanks" trope made an appearance more then necessary. We get it - you think the Southern country boys won the war single handedly and the 'big city Yanks' that had never held a rifle before the war were inferior.
The authors insistence at placing himself in the story at every opportunity was also self aggrandizing and distracting. The book could have done without all of that. All in all if you have limited reading time this is a missable book and should only be picked up if you have run out of WWII stuff to read.
I felt that as much as the book was a chronicling of Harold's history and experience during World War II it was a love letter to the South and and the Bible Belt. It was like a Hank Williams Jr song on repeat. If the phrase "A country boy will survive" was not in every chapter it was at least every other and the whole "Rebs vs Yanks" trope made an appearance more then necessary. We get it - you think the Southern country boys won the war single handedly and the 'big city Yanks' that had never held a rifle before the war were inferior.
The authors insistence at placing himself in the story at every opportunity was also self aggrandizing and distracting. The book could have done without all of that. All in all if you have limited reading time this is a missable book and should only be picked up if you have run out of WWII stuff to read.
March 5, 2024
A true American Hero
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews