Battle Yet Unsung: The Fighting Men of the 14th Armored Division in World War II Hardcover – Illustrated, December 30, 2010

Well-written and researched! My father was a medical officer in the 14th Armored Division and now I know why he never talked too much about his experience. Horrible injuries and death. Unbelievable the research that went in to this book. The persistence of the allies and the desperation of the Nazis toward the end of the war. Hitler enlisting children as young as 12 to fight as the allies continued to advance despite heavy opposition.

The US Seventh Army came ashore in Southern France in August 1944. Due to personality conflicts with Eisenhower's headquarters it was treated as a "junior partner" in the operations in Europe. As a result there are fewer histories printed about the Seventh Army and its battles. The US 14th Armored Division joined the Seventh Army in the fall of 1944 and became its longest serving armored outfit. Finally a book has been printed giving the history of the 14th Armored Division. While not perfect, this book certainly helps fill a big gap. O'Keefe provides a look at an armored division in combat. The main focus is on the men, including many veterans' accounts. If there is any disappointment it is in the writing style. THe author will occasionally skip around during events and present side comments that detract from easy reading. As an example, a story about Operation Northwind in January 1944 will suddenly include references to the crossing of the Rhine River that occurred three months later! This can lead to confusion if the reader is not familiar with the "rythm" of events in WW2 Europe. As a person who is interested in the equipment and organization of the unit, I also became apparent that the author is very familiar with the human story but has only a minimal grasp of the machines used in armored combat in WW2. Unfortunately the machines are almost as much a part of an armored division's story as are the people - the unit existed to conduct mechanized combat. Definely a book worth having, as nothing else is readily available abou this famous unit. The stories are fascinating. I would rate it "8" on a 10-point scale.

My father-in-law is in this book. He came home from the war after suffering burns. Thanks to the author for digging up some of the many skirmishes that took so much courage and yet which became invisible in the larger picture of that war.

GIFT

Heavy on detail, too much for the average reader. Some organizational charts would have been beneficial in following the units and people.An uncle, who passed away recently, went ashore with the 14th, commanding a recon squadron. He was involved in the defense of the German civilians in Bavaria and came to know one in particular, whose name could not be mentioned. Two decades later, as a Col. at Redstone Arsenal he came to know Dr. Werner von Braun. von B recognized him as the 1LT in charge of the guard detail, and they became fast friends.

"Battle Yet Unsung" is literally riddled with historical inaccuracies. Commanders' names are often incorrect or transposed with those of other officers. Units on both sides are frequently misidentified, and on several occasions the author manages to include units that simply never existed. Other units are identified as being in the wrong places at the wrong times. In one instance the author tells his readers the 71st Infantry Division was operating in the S. Vosges Mountains in late November 1944 when, in fact, that division did not land on French soil until February 1945. The list of historical errors is simply far too long to provide in this review. Suffice it to say the book contains so much inaccurate information that it is essentially useless as a source of information on the combat history of the 14th Armored Division.In addition the book is highly derivative of previously published materials. Although they provide valuable eyewitness accounts, the majority veterans' stories were, for the most part, previously published. The author also relied far too heavily on published sources. One especially egregious example is his citation of the History of the 14th Armored Division by Captain Joseph Carter no less than 60 times in three consecutive chapters. Worse still is his rather evident attempt to obscure this fact by referring to Capt. Carter's book using three or four distinctively different methods of citation. And even worse, at one point the author apparently tired of writing his narrative actually tells his readers to read Capt. Carter's history if they wish to know what the other two thirds of the division was doing during it drive to the Rhine River in late March 1945. Similarly, he relies a great deal on material taken from the 14th Armored Division Association's official newsletter, The Liberator. Oddly enough, he used this material without the permission of the Association."Battle Yet Unsung" is a prime example of a military history written by someone who is unwilling, academically ill-equipped, or both (the latter choice seems most probable) to perform the research necessary to develop even a marginal command of the relevant sources, primary and secondary. Resultantly, the author demonstrates no facility whatsoever with the subject matter, and little, if any, command of even those sources from which he so liberally borrowed.Publishers of military history certainly deserve to receive just and reasonable compensation for their products, but they bear an ethical and even moral responsibility to produce works without the significant numbers of obvious and easily avoidable errors of the sort found in "Battle Yet Unsung." It is impossible for this reviewer to assign Casemate Publishing any motivation for releasing such a heavily flawed history except one -- money.For these reasons I cannot recommend this book. If anything it does a great disservice to the combat history of the 14th Armored Division, and by extension, the men who served in it ranks. Note: The single star awarded to this review rightly should have been a zero, but the software would not allow it.Sincerely,Jim LankfordNational Historian14th Armored Division Association"LIBERATORS"

Excellent documentary

Good product