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Broken Jewel The Betrayal Game The Assassins Gallery Liberation Road Last Citadel Scorched
Earth The End of War War of the Rats Souls to Keep |
David L. Robbins's Liberation Road In June of 1944, the world shuddered under the impact of the Allied invasion of occupied France. Within one week of the June 6th landings, over a quarter million soldiers would be landed ashore, fighting to break through Germany’s heavily guarded Atlantic Wall. This force soon swelled to over a million fighting men. Along with them came millions of tons of equipment and supplies: oil, diesel, food, ammunition, medicine, spare parts, even replacement soldiers for the wounded and killed. Every ounce of supply and every green solider had to be delivered right to the front lines where the battle raged fiercest. It has been said by historians and politicians alike that the greatest achievement of the U.S. Army’s assault on France was logistical, the movement of men and materiel into combat so quickly and with such magnitude that the enemy became overwhelmed. This effort fell in greatest measure to the African American truck drivers who became famous world over driving on the Red Ball Express, an impromptu circuit ranging from the Normandy beaches all the way to the German border. The Red Ball chased the American sweep across France, driving day and night into the action, keeping the fighting men clothed, fed, and armed. One young man, Joe Amos Biggs, drives a GMC truck (the “Jimmy”) in a transportation company. He has come to France burning to prove himself a soldier and a fighter, but because of the military’s policy of segregating black troops into service units instead of front line combat, he finds himself held back from the fray. Nonetheless, he takes every dangerous assignment, driving his Jimmy into the teeth of the German defense, delivering supplies into harm’s way. He waits for his chance to redeem himself and prove that men of color can fight and sacrifice as well as any other American solider. While Joe Amos ministers to the soldiers’ needs for supplies, another man, Rabbi Ben Kahn, risks his life to care for their spirits. Ben is a veteran of World War I. He has returned to war as a chaplain because he fears his son, a B-17 pilot, has been shot down and lost over France. Ben, in the first war, was a bloody man. Now he fears God has taken his son in recompense. Even though he knows that his people, the Jews, are being systematically destroyed by Hitler, Ben has made a pact with God, that he will not take up arms again; instead, he exhorts the soldiers in his unit to fight ever harder, to destroy the enemy and end the war. Two men, black and white, both desperate to fight: one is prevented by his government, the other by his faith. Liberation Road follows Joe Amos and Ben through the invasion of France, to the liberation of Paris and beyond. The book tells the brave and true stories of the Army Chaplain corps and the birth of the Red Ball Express, concluding in a powerful battle where the two come together, where Ben and Joe Amos determine each other’s fate. |
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