David E. Pergrin (1917–2012)

5720. First Across the Rhine The 291st Engineer Combat Battalion in France, Belgium, and Germany, by Colonel David E. Pergrin with Eric Hammel (read 25 Nov 2020) This book was published in 1989 and is a pretty detailed account of the work of the named engineer battalion in the Battle of the Bulge, and their building of a bridge beside the bridge at Remagen which the Germans failed to destroy before it was captured by American forces in March 1945, It is a workmanlike telling and no doubt would be more interesting to an engineer than it was to me. But there is some drama in the accounts though they probably are based on reports made at the time, otherwise the accounts could not be as detailed as they are. I did, on 29 June 1999, read Ken Hechler's book about the capture of the bridge and frankly found that book better reading than is this one. When the war in Europe ends the account ends quite abruptly--nothing about the author's return to his family and not much about the subsequent life of the author, though he is the subject of an article in that priceless site, Wikipedia.… (mehr)