Showing posts with label world war ii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world war ii. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Tuesday Ebook Spotlight: 'Band of Brothers'

“Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest” by Stephen E. Ambrose is on sale now for $1.99 as an ebook download. The book was a New York Times bestseller about the ordinary men who became World War II’s extraordinary soldiers in Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, US Army. The book was later made into an award-winning mini-series. Ambrose was an historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, among many bestselling volumes of American popular history, and a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans. His work with the Eisenhower Center and D-Day veterans inspired him to found the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, which is now called the National World War II Museum.

Here’s the publisher’s description of “Band of Brothers:”

They came together, citizen soldiers, in the summer of 1942, drawn to Airborne by the $50 monthly bonus and a desire to be better than the other guy. And at its peak—in Holland and the Ardennes—Easy Company was as good a rifle company as any in the world.

From the rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the disbanding in 1945, Stephen E. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. In combat, the reward for a job well done is the next tough assignment, and as they advanced through Europe, the men of Easy kept getting the tough assignments.

They parachuted into France early D-Day morning and knocked out a battery of four 105 mm cannon looking down Utah Beach; they parachuted into Holland during the Arnhem campaign; they were the Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne, brought in to hold the line, although surrounded, in the Battle of the Bulge; and then they spearheaded the counteroffensive. Finally, they captured Hitler’s Bavarian outpost, his Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden.

They were rough-and-ready guys, battered by the Depression, mistrustful and suspicious. They drank too much French wine, looted too many German cameras and watches, and fought too often with other GIs. But in training and combat they learned selflessness and found the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They discovered that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them.

This is the story of the men who fought, of the martinet they hated who trained them well, and of the captain they loved who led them. E Company was a company of men who went hungry, froze, and died for each other, a company that took 150 percent casualties, a company where the Purple Heart was not a medal—it was a badge of office.

Louisiana Book News is written by journalist Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. The first two books in her award-winning series are FREE as ebooks! For more information and to sign up for her newsletter visit www.cherieclaire.net.






Sunday, December 11, 2016

Poignant book on WWII penned by Rayville native

             William Davis Cotton was elected to the Louisiana State Senate under the reform administration of Gov. Sam Jones but that didn’t stop him from serving in World War II as a lieutenant colonel. He religiously wrote letters home to his wife and daughter, saying that one day he might write a book. His daughter Carole Cotton Winn, a native of Rayville now living in Slidell, has compiled these letters along with newspaper clippings, photos, WWII correspondence and more in a heartfelt book titled “My Darling, A World War II Scrapbook.” The title refers to her father’s salutation at the beginning of each letter.
            Winn spent a year typing the letters and working with Carolyn Portier Gorman to lay out a book that’s as emotionally moving as it’s aesthetically beautiful.
            “As I read his words in his own hand, his tenderness filled me,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “This first letter strongly reconnected me with Dad in a way I had not expected and allowed me to see clearly through his writing to times and events of which we had only seldom spoken during his lifetime.”
            I read the book in spurts, lingering over old photographs or news snippets that tug at your heartstrings, such as “Mrs. Jones of Britain,” written by Comdr. Stephen King-Hall commending a housewife as “the greatest heroine of the war, and one of the pillars of victory.”
            The book sells for $40, plus $4 shipping, and checks should be sent to Winn, 101 Byron Ct., Slidell, LA 70461. Cotton hopes to have the book in military museums, the Rayville library (where she grew up) and the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
            Winn has served 42 years in United Methodist ministry and will discuss and sign copies of “My Darling” at noon Sunday, Dec. 11, at First United Methodist Church in Houma and at noon Sunday, Dec. 18, at the Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church in New Orleans. 

Book events for the week of Dec. 11-17
The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) will host Peggy Scott Laborde for a presentation and book signing of her latest book, “The Fair Grounds through the Lens: Photographs and Memories of Horse Racing in New Orleans,” from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 533 Royal St. in New Orleans. Admission is free.
            New Orleans author Ethan Brown signs “Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8” at 7 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble Lafayette.


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CherĂ© Coen is the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country.” She writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.