Work Commando 311/I: American Paratroopers Become Forced Laborers for the Nazis (Stackpole Classics) - Softcover

Swedberg, Claire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811737071 ISBN 13: 9780811737074

Publisher: Stackpole Books, 2017

Synopsis

Private Dan Jones was captured by Nazi sergeants in a smoke-filled forest in Holland. He and a small group of American prisoners, mostly paratroopers from the 101st and 82nd Airborne, were taken to the squalid barn loft that was to be their home for the rest of the war. In the Work Commando 311/I, Nazis forced them to work as slave laborers, repairing and maintaining German railroads that had been damaged by Allied bombs. The ill, weary prisoners, once proud members of elite U.S. fighting units, suffered unaccustomed disgrace. Bickering over the meager food supply added to their anxious depression and hopelessness.

Tired of the men’s morose outlook and individualistic ways, Herbert Marlowe, their unofficial leader, held a meeting one evening in the barn loft. Marlow explained that their infighting and irritability were not only keeping their spirits low by also amusing the Germans. He encouraged the prisoners to retaliate against their captors in careful, nonthreatening ways. Jones suggested that they work s

About this title

About the Author

Claire Swedberg is a journalist who has worked in both newspapers and television. She is the author of Work Commando 311/I: American Paratroopers Become Forced Laborers for the Nazis, In Enemy Hands: Personal Accounts of Those Taken Prisoner in WWII, Three Years with the 92nd Illinois: The Civil War Diary of John M. King, and In the Valley of Mystic Light. She lives north of Seattle, Washington.

Edition details

• Publisher: Stackpole Books
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811737071
• ISBN 13: 9780811737074
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226