Strike and Hold: a Memoir of the 82nd Airborne in World War II (Paperback, New ed)

Strike and Hold is a fast-moving memoir of T. Moffatt Burriss's extraordinary experiences as a platoon leader and company commander with the U.S. Army's 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82d Airborne Division in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Burriss and his fellow paratroopers saw combat in many of the pivotal battles of the war and quickly won a reputation as disciplined, resourceful, and highly effective assault troops. They were an almost unstoppable fighting force that earned the nickname "devils in baggy pants" from Germans who dreaded encountering them. Burriss's compelling narrative, interspersed with recollections by other men with whom he served, gives the reader a firsthand account of harrowing combat. The key battles and campaigns the author chronicles include the Allied invasion of Sicily, the landings at Salerno and the offensive up the Italian peninsula, the bloody amphibious assault at Anzio, the heroic Waal River crossing during Operation Market-Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and the break through the Siegfried Line into the heart of Germany