*The instant New York Times bestseller*
The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War
II--all Medal of Honor recipients--from the beaches of French Morocco to
Hitler's own mountaintop fortress, by the national bestselling author of
The First Wave
"Pitch-perfect."--The Wall Street Journal - "Riveting."--World War
II magazine - "Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the
heat of the action."--Martin Dugard
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit,
earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie"
Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first
American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly
was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his
men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in
history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In
WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a
baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe,
each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source
material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of
American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly
merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of
Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors
would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be--and how great
the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds,
who among them would finally find peace?
