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Published in 2009 and available on Amazon.com

Memoirs of a WWII Infantryman
of the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division:



  Bob Kauffman joined the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment (AIR), Co D, in Normandy in mid-June, 1944, as a replacement for a rifleman who had been killed. Between then and May, 1945, he was wounded three times, twice hospitalized, and twice rejoined Co D. It is not an exaggeration to say that Kauffman's harrowing close-in experiences as an infantryman, and his close-calls with death, exceeded those of any Hollywood-portrayed soldier, real or fictional. How he somehow survived was nothing short of a miracle. This engrossing book will put you at his side, but, beware, this was a time when infantrymen did not have body armor and bullet-proof helmets. - Vic Damon, 3AD.com staff

 

From the INTRODUCTION to "THE REPLACEMENT":

Much of the success of the U.S. Army during World War II was due to their well organized system of replacements. As men in the front line units were injured or killed they were replaced by other already trained men, thus keeping each unit continually at near full strength. The U.S. was the only country to do this effectively, a fact which impressed even the Germans.

Bob Kauffman was one such replacement. He landed in Normandy on D-Day+lO (June 16, 1944). A few days later he joined the 3rd Armored Division, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, Company D, 2nd Platoon, 3rd Rifle Squad, when a man in that unit had been killed. He was with that unit only a few weeks when he was wounded on July 10th and sent to a hospital in England. He rejoined his unit at the beginning of September and fought with them for several months until he was wounded again. He later joined them for a third time shortly after the surrender of Germany.


 

From the book's FOREWORD:
By
Major General Michael Reynolds, CB, ret. British Army,
former commander of NATO's Allied Command Europe Mobile Force


 

Most books about the Second World War outline various strategic situations and then go on to describe the tactics employed by both sides and the resulting battles. The picture is usually viewed from the top down and one is rarely able to appreciate what it was really like for the individual soldier involved in such conflict. This book is quite different. It shows the reader the raw material from which history is made and describes, often in brutal form, the tedium and misery of sitting in a foxhole in the freezing cold and the intense mixture of terror and elation of being involved in close combat. What is even more surprising is that it was written by a draftee who, as a member of an Armored Infantry Regiment (AIR), had been wounded twice before he was nineteen and who ended the war after nearly three years service still as a Private First Class.

I first met Bob Kauffman nearly twenty years ago (20th March, 1993) when he was revisiting the battlefields of the Belgian Ardennes, and I was carrying out research in the same area. They say that people of similar character immediately get on, and so it was with us, for we soon discovered that we had both been infantrymen. In my case the selection officer interviewing me when I was just eighteen expressed great surprise when I told him that I wanted to join the infantry; "I've never met anyone who wanted to be an infantryman before!" he told me.

In Bob Kauffman's case, despite being taught by a World War One veteran and reading everything he could about that war and the horrors of trench warfare, he developed "a very strong affinity to the infantry" and "just felt that this was where I belonged". This is all the more surprising because he came from a family with a Mennonite background and a strong pacifist attitude. He got his wish though and after training in the States and the UK he landed in Normandy soon after D-Day and was assigned to D Company of the 36th AIR. Despite being wounded twice in the same action within a few weeks of joining, he was able to return to this same Company, enter Germany with it in late 1944, only to be wounded again in January 1945 in Belgium. After recovering yet again he was involved in a serious traffic accident and received a Disability Discharge from the Army in August 1946.

This book takes us through the dramatic and often disturbing time of Bob Kauffman's service. It is written with obvious sincerity and gives us a very clear picture of what it was like to be a 'grunt' in battle and to actually close with and see the faces of the men you are required to kill or capture. Few books have done this with such clarity.




Presented by the
3rd Armored Division History Website (3AD.com).
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