Content area
Full Text
Conqueror's Road: An Eyewitness Report of Germany 1945. By Osmar White. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-83051-6. Map. Photographs. Illustrations. Appendixes. Glossary. Pp. xvii, 222. $55.00.
The name Osmar White is not likely to he familiar to the readers of this journal, hence this digression. White, who died twenty years ago, was an Australian journalist who covered both the Pacific and European theaters during World War Il for a British/Australian newspaper syndicate. After spending the early war years in the Pacific, he was badly wounded when a Japanese bomb struck his LST at Rcndova, New Guinea. While recovering from his wounds, he produced a controversial book critical of the Allied command for sending men into battle poorly trained and equipped (Green Armour, 1945).
After his recovery, White was posted to Europe, ending up in early 1945 on the German border, assigned to (embedded in, to use the current terminology) Patton's Third Army. Conquerors' Road, drawn largely from his notes...