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{"id":1535,"date":"2016-12-31T21:37:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T21:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2017-03-30T21:04:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T21:04:29","slug":"the-liberator-by-alex-kershaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/2016\/12\/31\/the-liberator-by-alex-kershaw\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liberator- By Alex Kershaw"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-1536\" src=\"http:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"245\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator.jpg 420w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Review By Tom Huntingdon<\/p>\n<p>War is hell, but Felix Sparks, the central figure in The Liberator, learned the very hard way that hell comes in many forms. Sparks lived through sickening battles of attrition and the torment of seeing his men die in droves as his battalion fought its way through Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Then he discovered a whole new kind of evil when he reached a concentration camp called Dachau.<br \/>\nBestselling author Alex Kershaw uses the combat-hardened Sparks to track the Seventh Army\u2019s 45th Division, the Thunderbirds, during its long, bloody attempts to reach Germany from the south. Raised in Arizona during the hardscrabble Depression years, Sparks served a hitch in the army, left, and was drafted following Pearl Harbor, leaving behind a pregnant wife. Chafing at his role as regimental adjutant during the Sicily campaign, he asked for a combat command; he discovered he had a knack for battle, and preferred to be with his men at the front. Even after being wounded outside Ponte, Sparks insisted on returning to his unit for the brutal winter campaign in Italy.<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- Vierkant responsief --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:block\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3607132294366157\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"5331534427\"\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>The stalled Italian offensive, especially the carnage at the Battle of the Caves during the bungled aftermath of the Anzio landings, ushered Sparks deeper into hell: only he and one other soldier from his company survived. Promoted to command the division\u2019s 3rd Battalion, Sparks found the invasion of southern France\u2014\u201dthe Champagne Campaign\u201d\u2014to be a piece of cake in comparison. But enemy resistance stiffened as the Americans approached Germany. During the Battle of Reipertswiller in the Vosges Mountains, Sparks\u2019s battalion, alone and exposed, fought experienced SS troops in the cold, snow, and ice, and suffered their first defeat of the war. Sparks called it his most tortured memory. Stunned by his losses\u2014more than 600 of his thousand men\u2014Sparks exchanged angry words with division commander Robert Frederick, who had refused to withdraw the battalion. In turn, Frederick vetoed a recommendation that Sparks receive the Distinguished Service Cross.<\/p>\n<p>On April 29, 1945, Sparks received orders to liberate Dachau. At its outskirts, he and his men discovered boxcars filled with human corpses\u2014\u201dbodies stacked on bodies, waist-deep, stacked like cordwood,\u201d Kershaw writes. The added horrors inside the camp pushed some of Sparks\u2019s battle-weary men past their breaking points: they killed at least 17 of their SS prisoners being held in a coal yard. Sparks rushed back to the scene, firing his .45 into the air, and put an end to the killing. General George S. Patton later quashed an investigation. Kershaw\u2019s account of this controversial and unsettling incident is even-handed yet compelling, particularly his depiction of Sparks, close to the edge himself, forcing a publicity-hungry American general to leave Dachau at gunpoint.<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- Vierkant responsief --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:block\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3607132294366157\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"5331534427\"\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Kershaw\u2019s accounts of the battles Sparks survived are clear and grisly and gripping. The terrors Sparks and his men endured in combat again and again prompt the question, how could they do it? The answer for Felix Sparks, as for many veteran warriors, was to turn off his emotions. \u201cSo long as he stayed numb, Sparks could fight,\u201d Kershaw writes. Perhaps that\u2019s why Sparks seems less of a fully fleshed-out individual than a somewhat shadowy guide, as Virgil was for Dante, on a harrowing journey\u2014especially when he and his men grapple with the mind-bending enormity of what they find at Dachau. The Liberator is about war at the point of the spear, and it\u2019s not pretty or reassuring. It\u2019s hell.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1537\" src=\"http:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator-2-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Liberator-2.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Review By Tom Huntingdon War is hell, but Felix Sparks, the central figure in The Liberator, learned the very hard way that hell comes in many forms. Sparks lived through sickening battles of attrition and the torment of seeing his men die in droves as his battalion fought its way through Sicily, Italy, France, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[88],"tags":[53],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Liberator- By Alex Kershaw - World War Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.worldwarmedia.com\/2016\/12\/31\/the-liberator-by-alex-kershaw\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Liberator- By Alex Kershaw - World War Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Review By Tom Huntingdon War is hell, but Felix Sparks, the central figure in The Liberator, learned the very hard way that hell comes in many forms. 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