In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as “Maggie” to his fellow
paratroopers, joined the 82d Airborne Division, his new “home” for
the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains
outside Naples.
In October 1943, when most of the 82d departed Italy to prepare
for the D-Day invasion of France, Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, the Fifth
Army commander, requested that the division’s 504th Parachute
Infantry Regiment, Maggie’s outfit, stay behind for a daring new
operation that would outflank the Nazis’ stubborn defensive lines
and open the road to Rome. On 22 January 1944, Megellas and the
rest of the 504th landed across the beach at Anzio. Following
initial success, Fifth Army’s amphibious assault, Operation
Shingle, bogged down in the face of heavy German counterattacks
that threatened to drive the Allies into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Anzio
turned into a fiasco, one of the bloodiest Allied operations of the
war. Not until April were the remnants of the regiment withdrawn
and shipped to England to recover, reorganize, refit, and train for
their next mission.
In September, Megellas parachuted into Holland along with the
rest of the 82d Airborne as part of another star-crossed mission,
Field Marshal Montgomery’s vainglorious Operation Market Garden.
Months of hard combat in Holland were followed by the Battle of the
Bulge, and the long hard road across Germany to Berlin.
Megellas was the most decorated officer of the 82d Airborne
Division and saw more action during the war than most. Yet All the
Way to Berlin is more than just Maggie’s World War II memoir.
Throughout his narrative, he skillfully interweaves stories of the
other paratroopers of H Company, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
The result is a remarkable account of men at war.
關於作者：
James Megellas was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. After the
war he returned to civilian life. He eventually served in the U.S.
Army’s effort to aid the Republic of Vietnam in establishing an
efficient infrastructure as head of Civil Operations and
Revolutionary Development Support CORDS in II Corps. He is now
retired and lives with wife, Carole, near Dallas.
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