The Eighteen-Year-Old Replacement: Facing Combat in Patton's Third Army

When the U.S. entered World War II, eighteen-year-old enlistees were routinely assigned temporary duties and not sent into battle until they turned nineteen, but America was eventually forced to draft younger men into combat to replace wounded troops. Kingsbury was drafted six weeks after D-Day and rushed to the Siegfried Line to bolster Patton's 94th Infantry Division. He recounts his experiences as a rifleman during the final bloody battles in Germany, giving readers a real feel for what combat was like for a raw recruit. More poignantly, he shares his anxieties over killing--as well as the distinct possibility of being killed. Interspersed with the accounts of battle are letters that capture Kingsbury's blossoming romance with a girl back home.