Overview

With vivid detail Your Loving Son, Philip takes us back to the lives of the GIs in Germany at the end of World War II. Philip Herzig, a 19-year-old studying at Princeton University, was drafted in 1944. For the next two years he wrote home every other day, describing his life, first in boot camp, then in Germany, first in battle duty and then in the army of occupation. Philip describes everything from the guns issued during boot camp to the desolate surroundings of bombed out Germany. He even spends a day at the Nuremburg Trials. His mature observations about the German personality, about the GIs fraternizing with German frauleins-the enemy-and politics in the US are all fascinating and honest. At the same time, this boy misses his family greatly and doesn't hesitate to fantasize about their trips in the family car, the cookouts and his parents' loving personalities. After showing his sister Pat's photo around to his friends in his company, he warns her that she may be getting a lot of phone calls when the war is over. The book includes photos of Phil and his buddies as they travel around Germany and their posturing in the mountaintop ruins of Hitler's headquarters in Berchtesgaden. He describes his surroundings -from the Riviera when he's on deserved leave after action that led to a Purple Heart to the house of a family that hosted him in Holland to the shower the company gets to take in a deserted monastery. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph J. Ellis says in his Preface: Your Loving Son, Philip is a major memoir from the World War II generation, distinctive for its literacy, its palpable recovery of the ordinary routines amidst those extraordinary times, the distinctive voice of a coming-of-age American man-child who has been hurled into the greatest military venture of the twentieth century...Philip is always disarmingly honest, never poses, never embellishes for effect. This is the genuine article.

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9781439272329

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Philip Herzig was born on December 31, 1924, in a New York City hospital, amid the clatter of New Year celebrations on 42nd Street. Life settled down at the family home in Douglaston, where he lived until four years old. With no schools in Douglaston, the family, now including a little sister Patricia, moved to Great Neck, L.I., where his schooling was assured. At 15 he matriculated at the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, where he excelled in academics, played saxophone in the school band, and honed his swimming and football skills. Princeton University came next, but World War II interfered and he left in his sophomore year for basic training in South Carolina. He was soon shipped out to the European Theater of Operation (ETO) to eventually become a sergeant in the Infantry with the 405th regiment. He fought, liberating one German town after another, receiving a purple heart and a Combat Infantry Badge for participation in the European Campaigns. As the war receded he edited the company Regimental Post and did duty at a prisoner of war camp. After his discharge, he returned home to graduate from Princeton University with honors. Upon graduation, he married his roommate's sister, Helene Phillips, and settled down to start a business in finance, P.R.Herzig and Co. A contrarian, he became well known as a gold bug and published a paper called, Gold Dustings. The father of two daughters and a son, he enjoyed 54 fulfilling years with his wife Helene, including many interesting business trips to South Africa, and other world travels. He passed away at 79 in 2004.

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