The 84th Infantry Division In The Battle Of Germany: November 1944-May 1945

In early November 1944, five months after D-Day, the “Railsplitter” division landed on Omaha beach.

Through the course of the next six months it would see some of the most ferocious fighting of the entire war.

As soon as they landed they drove quickly into the Netherlands to prepare for an offensive into Nazi Germany.

Their movements were dramatically altered as the German forces attempted to launch a momentous counter-offensive against the allies. The 84th division was sent to Belgium to plug a gap in the Allied line and fought back against the last ditch effort of Nazi forces.

Draper takes the reader through every engagement that the division took part in from the first shots fired in anger through to crossing the Rhine into Germany and finally taking Hannover and making contact with Soviet forces in May 1945.

Lt. Theodore Draper’s book is a unique account of the allied invasion of Germany.

Rather relying on secondhand stories of the division’s actions months after the events had occurred, Draper was encouraged to go direct to the source, to the men themselves, from the commanding general to any private, for the most complete, firsthand information on every action.

This book is largely based on hundreds of pages of such interviews, most of them within 48 hours of the unit’s relief and many of them while the unit was still fighting.

“Though ostensibly a divisional history, Draper’s well-informed and interesting account is useful for an understanding of the war on the western front in general.” Robert Gale Woolbert, Foreign Affairs

“This is the whole operation of the battle of Germany on the broad and individual level, the Siegfried Line, the fight to the Rhine, the Ardennes, the mad race to the Elbo, with credit attributed to men, companies, battalions where it is due.” Kirkus Reviews

Theodore Draper was an American historian and political writer. He wrote many notable books during his career on a variety of subjects. During the Second World War he was inducted into the U. S. Army and worked in the historical section of the 84th Infantry Division. His book The 84th Infantry Division In The Battle Of Germany : November 1944-May 1945 was first published in 1946 and he passed away in 2006.