Overview

David Kenyon Webster's memoir is a clear-eyed, emotionally charged chronicle of youth, camaraderie, and the chaos of war. Relying on his own letters home and recollections he penned just after his discharge, Webster gives a firsthand account of life in E Company, 101st Airborne Division, crafting a memoir that resonates with the immediacy of a gripping novel. From the beaches of Normandy to the blood-dimmed battlefields of Holland, here are acts of courage and cowardice, moments of irritating boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and pitched urban warfare. Offering a remarkable snapshot of what it was like to enter Germany in the last days of World War II, Webster presents a vivid, varied cast of young paratroopers from all walks of life, and unforgettable glimpses of enemy soldiers and hapless civilians caught up in the melee. Parachute Infantry is at once harsh and moving, boisterous and tragic, and it stands today as an unsurpassed chronicle of war--how men fight it, survive it, and remember it.

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"""Although all personal narratives of combat possess common themes and follow predictable paths, they invariably draw the reader into their world of common suffering, shared joy, collective terror, and appalling inhumanity. Webster brings this world alive for the reader. A useful supplement to Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers, which told the story of Webster's parachute unit."" -- ""Library Journal"" ""Beautifully written...Perfectly evokes life and battle in a parachute infantry company."" -- ""Washington Post Book World"" ""Webster left this gutsy, sometimes bemused and sometimes angry memoir behind...It bites and hangs on."" -- ""New York Times"""

Author Information

David Kenyon Webster (1922-1961) was an aspiring writer who left Harvard to join the paratroops in World War II. After the war ended, he wrote about his experience as a paratrooper in Parachute Infantry. The manuscript for this book and the letters he sent home during the war were used as source material for Stephen E. Ambrose's book Band of Brothers. In addition to Parachute Infantry, Webster is the author of Myth and Maneater: The Story of the Shark. Alan Sklar, a graduate of Dartmouth, has excelled in his career as a freelance voice actor. Named a Best Voice of 2009 by AudioFile magazine, his work has earned him several Earphones Awards, a Booklist Editors' Choice Award (twice), a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and Audiobook of the Year by ForeWord magazine. He has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY.

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