Descending from the Clouds A Memoir of Combat in the 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment 82d Airborne Division eBook Spencer F Wurst Gayle Wurst
Download As PDF : Descending from the Clouds A Memoir of Combat in the 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment 82d Airborne Division eBook Spencer F Wurst Gayle Wurst 
Wearing the remnants of a WWI uniform and pulling a water-cooled 30-caliber machine-gun, Spencer Wurst marched through his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1940 as a member of the National Guard. He was 15 years old. Five years later he was a hardened platoon sergeant leading his troopers through the frozen killing fields of “Death Valley” in Germany’s Heurtgen Forest. A squad leader in Company F, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne, for most of the war, Wurst jumped into Italy in September 1943, and received his baptism of fire at Arnone. Jumping into Normandy on D-Day, he received his first Purple Heart in the liberation of Ste. Mère-Eglise, and a second Purple Heart in grueling combat through the hedgerows. On his third jump, Wurst’s bravery under fire earned him the coveted Silver Star when he and his fellow paratroopers were swept up in the ferocious battle with the SS for the Highway Bridge at Nijmegen, Holland, in Operation Market Garden. A few months later, the dawn of his twentieth birthday found him serving on point in the long, freezing march to the shoulder of the Bulge. A unique view of combat from pre-war training and mobilization to First Army maneuvers, parachute school at Fort Benning, and Europe’s killing fields, Wurst’s poignantly written and carefully researched memoir has been hailed as an outstanding addition to the literature of WWII.
Descending from the Clouds A Memoir of Combat in the 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment 82d Airborne Division eBook Spencer F Wurst Gayle Wurst
First person memoirs provide some of the most informative and interesting insights into the nuts and bolts of serving in the Armed Forces in wartime. Spencer Wurst weaves such a compelling tale.Joining the 28th Infantry Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard at the age of 15 before the outbreak of hostilities, he had two solid years of military experience when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In the rapid expansion of the Army that was to follow, he was made an NCO and training instructor in the 112th Infantry Regiment. Disenchanted at the low quality of the draftees he was charged to train and the bureaucracy of the Army that prevented him from a desired transfer overseas, he volunteered for both the paratroopers and for OCS. He was determined to accept whichever transfer was approved first and thus became a paratrooper.
Wurst takes the reader through his training at the Parachute School at Fort Benning, Georgia and through his early assignments in various stateside paratrooper units. Still desiring an overseas assignment and making a nuisance of himself in the process, he was eventually transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division just as it shipped out to North Africa in 1943. He was assigned to a "casual" unit that would serve as replacements for the first casualties suffered by the division. As such he missed the Sicilian Campaign but was ultimately assigned to F Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. From that point on, Wurst was in the middle of the action.
With three combat jumps and two Purple Hearts, he served bravely in Italy, Normandy, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge. He was an NCO and a grizzled combat leader before the age of 20. This is a poignant story with a great deal of "inside baseball" about how the paratrooper brass and the men functioned throughout the War. It is also a tale of commitment, dedication and love of country. Only America can produce fine young men to fight its battles with the humility of the likes of Spencer Wurst.
John E. Nevola
Author of The Last Jump - A Novel of World War II
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Descending from the Clouds A Memoir of Combat in the 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment 82d Airborne Division eBook Spencer F Wurst Gayle Wurst Reviews
My great uncle Howard Krueger was pictured and written about in the book...the history is firsthand and very valuable information to anybody that is interested in the 82nd Airborne during WWII and the moment by moment details of some of the major battles in France. History doesn't always accurately record information...This book does! Thank you Spencer F. Wurst and Gayle Wurst for writing this and recording this history for all time.
I really enjoyed reading this book! It tells one man's story but includes many other men's stories at the same time of what they went through and endured during World War II. It also shows how the US Army uses the Airborn units as their "go anywhere, do anything" troops.
A great war biography from a member of The Greatest Generation. I read it in about three sittings. If you are interested in World War Two history, and specifically the battles of the 82nd Airborne Division you will enjoy this book.
Nothing tells the story of World War II better than first-hand accounts by those who lived it. This is a candid almost dad-by-day account of Wurst's paratroop training and fighting in Europe after D-Day in 1944. A must-read for those of us interested in WWII.
This is a fine book on what US paratroopers did and how they performed in WW II. The author shares his personal account, and it's a vivid story of both combat and survival. It's one of the better memoirs of its type covering this topic. Well done and well worth reading.
This is really one of the better stand-alone books written by an American paratrooper from World War Two. It really sets quite the scene when a young boy, enthralled by the military joins his state's national guard out of pride and hunger. But I won't ruin the book by giving away too many details in this review.
Wurst survived his national guard duty, joined the 82nd Airborne and made three combat jumps in the war and fought in Italy, Normandy and Holland from the platoon level.
Some of the more interesting details regarding this book are descriptions of the 1930s and 40s, the national guard at the time, training, and blistering street-to-street combat. But I also enjoyed his commentary on the state of the guard in the late 30s and early 40s. He makes clear how rapidly we advanced as a military in the 1940s.
If you liked this book I would recommend any of Don Burgett's famous books, Parachute Infantry by David Webster, Those Devils in Baggy Pants and All the way to Berlin.
The unvarnished tale of a young man parachuted into the toughest fights in Europe. Tough and real heroics told modestly. Wurst wanted desperately to be in the war but and too late he found reality was uncompromisingly dangerous. He manfully shouldered his load and led his company. It was a dangerous job made more dangerous by lack of support. Like many elite forces, they were pushed out too far fighting a highly skilled enemy with far too few heavy weapons or tanks for support and were kept in the field far too long. Casualties were high and Wurst, despite developing sharp combat skills, was lucky to be one of the few to make it back.
This is a tremendous and realistic read!
First person memoirs provide some of the most informative and interesting insights into the nuts and bolts of serving in the Armed Forces in wartime. Spencer Wurst weaves such a compelling tale.
Joining the 28th Infantry Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard at the age of 15 before the outbreak of hostilities, he had two solid years of military experience when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In the rapid expansion of the Army that was to follow, he was made an NCO and training instructor in the 112th Infantry Regiment. Disenchanted at the low quality of the draftees he was charged to train and the bureaucracy of the Army that prevented him from a desired transfer overseas, he volunteered for both the paratroopers and for OCS. He was determined to accept whichever transfer was approved first and thus became a paratrooper.
Wurst takes the reader through his training at the Parachute School at Fort Benning, Georgia and through his early assignments in various stateside paratrooper units. Still desiring an overseas assignment and making a nuisance of himself in the process, he was eventually transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division just as it shipped out to North Africa in 1943. He was assigned to a "casual" unit that would serve as replacements for the first casualties suffered by the division. As such he missed the Sicilian Campaign but was ultimately assigned to F Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. From that point on, Wurst was in the middle of the action.
With three combat jumps and two Purple Hearts, he served bravely in Italy, Normandy, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge. He was an NCO and a grizzled combat leader before the age of 20. This is a poignant story with a great deal of "inside baseball" about how the paratrooper brass and the men functioned throughout the War. It is also a tale of commitment, dedication and love of country. Only America can produce fine young men to fight its battles with the humility of the likes of Spencer Wurst.
John E. Nevola
Author of The Last Jump - A Novel of World War II
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