Kershaw, Alex. The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon. .

KERSHAW, Alex. The longest winter; the Battle of the Bulge and the epic story of World War II's most decorated platoon. Perseus, Da Capo Press. 330p. illus, notes, bibliog. index, c2004.0-306-81440-4. $15.95. A

Author Alex Kershaw has developed a surefire formula to develop reader interest in his popular military histories: start with a small army unit and follow it into an epochal battle. Study intensively the actions, attitudes and personas of each one of its members, and then follow them to their fate at the war's end. Kershaw did this in his best-selling The Bedford Boys (about a small town's sacrifice in the D-Day invasion), and repeats it here with the Battle of the Bulge. In each book, he tells what really happens in war and what it is like to find oneself a small pawn in an overwhelmingly chaotic, yet extremely important, situation.

In this instance, we are dealing with a small American infantry unit that rarely reached its official strength of 25 men. This was no elite Commando outfit, but scarcely a typical one either. The idea was to create a small group of expert riflemen with battlefield stamina to be one of many "tactical reconnaissance" squads. This particular platoon assembled late in 1944 and fought steadily and well across northern France toward the German heartland. They dug into the iron-hard ground near the German frontier in bitter December weather, only to suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives when the final German blitzkrieg erupted out of the Ardennes Forest in front of them. The Americans made a heroic and--for a time--effective stand against the Nazi forces before they were engulfed and captured. Thereafter the 18 survivors continued their struggle to stay alive, this time in German POW camps. Even their final captivity turned out to be historic: their camp was the target of General Patton's audacious (and completely illicit) raid to liberate his son-in-law from captivity. This book is no substitute for a conventional account of the Battle of the Bulge, still less of WW II. In fact, it is very much a keyhole view of the war--sort of Ernie Pyle in extreme close-up. It is not only a life lesson about how war affects individuals and small groups, but also very much about the converse as well. Even in a situation of overwhelming Gotterdammerung, the actions of a few can affect the many in ways they will never know about. Raymond Puffer, Ph.D., Historian, Edwards AFB, Lancaster, CA