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Formats
Paperback Details
  • 04/2010
  • 978-1450218801 1450218806
  • 348 pages
  • $23.95
Steven Burgauer
Author
The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture

Adult; History & Military; (Market)

A riveting first-person account of a brave young man caught up in a cataclysmic World War. This is the story of Captain William C. Frodsham, Jr., who — shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — enlisted in the U.S. Army Infantry, where he excelled in basic training, became a junior officer, and eventually led a combat boat team ashore on OMAHA BEACH. Six days later, in French hedgerow country and under withering German fire, Frodsham was wounded and taken prisoner. He spent the next year as a German POW, where he suffered great deprivation before finally being liberated by advancing Russian forces. His training, his courage, his capture. The reader is taken for a first-person tour of the times at home and then tunneled into a vastly different world on the battlefield and in a German prisoner-of-war camp. A truly remarkable story.
Reviews
Publishers Daily Reviews

It’s a little after 8 a.m., June 13, 1944, and Lt. William C. Frodsham, Jr. is in the fight of his life.

Eight days earlier, he and his platoon had waded ashore on Dog Green Beach along with thousands of other determined G.I.s. during the famous D-Day invasion.  Then, they had slogged 12 miles into the Normandy countryside under withering enemy fire.

Now, Frodsham and his men are pinned down and outnumbered among the hedgerows, waging a brave and bloody battle against equally determined German forces.

It’s an action-packed start to this excellent first-person narrative about one man’s harrowing — and sometimes humorous — experiences in World War II.

Well-told in an almost cinematic style, this tale draws the reader immediately back to that unforgettable time when America — and its young men and women — were thrown into a global conflict whose outcome was perilously uncertain.

In large part, however, the book, which is largely based on Frodsham’s personal diary, is full of anecdotes and fascinating stories that will surely appeal to anyone who has spent time in the military.  Indeed, much of it rivals Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues in its ability to enthrall the reader.

Flash back to December 7, 1941.  Frodsham has kissed his girl goodbye, along with his family, and shipped off to Fort Dix, NJ — the first of several Army posts where he is taught to be a soldier.

What follows is a highly entertaining account of what it was like to be in the U.S. Army back in the early days of the war.  Frodsham excels in every posting, and is soon on his way to OCS — Officer Candidate School.

But his journey is not without its share of off-base adventures — like the 24-hour AWOL Christmas trip to a friend’s home, and the brief but victorious alley confrontation in which he and a ranking middleweight sergeant dispatch four paratroopers intent on getting them kicked out of OCS.

Time passes and Frodsham seeks — and wins — the hand of his beloved Connie, and they are married in a full-blown regimental ceremony on May 22, 1943 at Fort Leonard Wood in rural Missouri.

Their precious time together is brief, however, as he ships out to England in October aboard the newly refitted SS Mauritania.  The five-day voyage is uneventful — except for two exciting days wallowing through 50-foot ocean swells — and he lands at Liverpool along with thousands of his shipmates.

Endless days of drills and preparation for the Normandy invasion are interspersed with fascinating stories of Frodsham’s fraternization with the Brits — and inspiring insights into how this remarkable island nation not only survived the Blitzkriegs, but found humor and hard-won conviviality in its neighborhood pubs each night.

Then, D-day arrives, and it finds Frodsham floating with his men just off the Normandy coast.  It’s a hellish scene that confronts them as they wade ashore.  Body parts litter the beach, but Frodsham and his platoon forge ahead, intent on their mission to make it to the village of Isigny and hold it until relieved.

In trying to get there, however, murderous crossfire by German machine guns costs the soldiers dearly in terms of dead and injured.  By the time they finally cross one field bordered by six-foot hedgerows, Frodsham wonders to himself:

“If the enemy (is) going to surrender France only one hundred feet at a time, this (is) going to make for a very long war.”

Finally, they come upon a German force larger than their own, and, after a furious firefight, Frodsham orders his men to lay down their arms.  They become prisoners of war, and the remaining pages detail the hardships, pain, and debilitating slow starvation inflicted upon the troops.

Still, Frodsham and his fellow detainees find opportunity for gaiety even in a Gulag.  A theatre group sprouts up, and even a camp newspaper, The Oflag 64 Item.  Still, starvation is a constant companion.  Frodsham, like most of his fellow POWs, loses more than 60 pounds while in captivity.

I won’t reveal the book’s surprising and satisfying ending.  Suffice to say, celebration of the War’s final actions is sweet for Frodsham — who at many times during a forced wintertime march from Poland by his captors, fleeing the advance of Russian liberators, lay huddled against cattle for simple warmth during the long, frozen nights.

This memoir is a saga of celebration and hardship, heroism and tragedy, set against the sweeping backdrop of the twentieth century’s most important worldwide conflict.

Yet it carries with it a tone and craftsmanship at once imminently readable and startlingly personal.  The author has written a masterpiece of first-person narrative gleaned purely from Frodsham’s meticulous diary and equally exhaustive research that often puts the reader squarely in the middle of war-torn France and into the very hearts and souls of the valiant men and women who secured the peace we now enjoy.

Five-plus unequivocal stars to The Road to War.  It’s an extraordinary read that everyone should enjoy.

Publishers Daily Reviews

October 19, 2016

READER REVIEWS

Just finished “The Road to War” and loved it.  Excellent first-hand narrative of one soldier’s World War II experiences.

I got it from Amazon on Thursday, April 15.  It was so interesting that I couldn’t put it down.  Finished reading at 3 a.m. the following Tuesday.  My dad is a Korea vet and has expressed many of the same feelings in the last couple of years.

Steve, you can certainly use any of my comments that you feel will help.  I think it was an incredible story and a wonderful read.  Again, my congrats and I hope you think about some more historical subjects — you seem to have a knack for it.

I look forward to your time-travel story back to Shiloh.  Hope you write some historical stuff; your style is excellent.  I have enjoyed all four of your SF books that I’ve read.  Thanks and keep up the good work.

Chip Stahl, April 22, 2010

(reprinted with permission)========================================================

The book is really good.

I finished reading the book last weekend.  It was very good.  I especially enjoyed knowing that Mr. Frodsham appreciated the fact that he served his country.  So much is lost on our youth today.  They don’t know how to serve.  What will happen if we have another enemy of freedom, like Hitler or Hirohito come on the scene?  So many will refuse to go and our children will have to fight that battle on our own soil.

Being a veteran and a past resident at Ft. Leonard Wood and Ft. Meade, I could relate to many of the things talked about in the book.  It is written in a fashion that makes it just like Captain Frodsham is telling it.  Burgauer seems to capture his persona.

Jim Shively, June 13, 2010

(reprinted with permission)=======================================================

Hey,

I finished your book Tuesday night.  I really enjoyed it and I’m not just saying that.  It was really easy to read.  There was just enough detail to help me understand what was happening throughout his journey.  I am going to go on Amazon and write a review, once I get a chance.  I would recommend the book to anyone.  You don’t have to be a war buff to enjoy the book.

You should be so very proud of your dad.  He was truly an American Hero.

Jerita H. Mull

07/01/2010 09:11 AM

========================================================

Fiction as truth, truth as fiction.

by Dave in Missouri (Amazon user published 2010-07-27)

A true story necessarily written as a fictional work due to the lack of information from the late Captain William C. Frodsham.

Frodsham left behind some written accounts of his experiences in WWII, but not enough to fill in the details demanded by a non-fiction account.

So, when asked by Frodsham's family, author Steven Burgauer took what was available and restructured it into an absorbing story of a young man in the furnace of war.

I picked this up and looked it over, decided not to read it, then tried a few pages.

I was immediately hooked, and was soon absorbed in the story of a kid who joins the Army as a private and within 2 years is a D-Day officer wounded and captured in the bloody fighting in the French boscage country.

Sent to a German prisoner of war camp on the Eastern Front, Frodsham somehow manages to survive intact.

Highly recommended for another perspective on WWII.

===========================================================

The Book Bag Reviews (UK)

“Personal, inspiring & insightful.”

After World War II Bill Frodsham led an everyday life, raising a family in an ordinary US suburb.  He, his wife and children became friends with the Burgauer family, little Steven Burgauer knowing him as Mr. F.  Time rolls on and little Steven grows up, and then eventually retires from the American financial sector to write science fiction and lecture from time to time.  He's therefore surprised when, out of the blue, Mr. F's daughter tracks him down and presents him with a pile of handwritten notes asking Steven to make them into a book.  These are Mr. F's self-authored memoirs, stretching from his youth onwards and showing that this seemingly good, kind but unremarkable man was anything but unremarkable.  During the war Mr. F trained for the impossible and then lived it as he led men across Omaha Beach on D-Day.  He was then captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in inhumane conditions.  Steven accepted the request and The Road to War is the result: the life and war of Captain William C Frodsham Jr.

Indeed this is a departure from the usual science fiction we enjoy from Steven, but it's easy to see why he accepted the challenge.  Although Steven has had to add the emotion and feeling to the piece that Bill had left out of his memoirs, Bill is definitely there in his words.

Bill seems very much a no-nonsense guy, raised with straightforward salt of the Earth morals by parents whose hearts must have torn with sorrow as well as pride when their lad signed up for the infantry after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.  For we readers this is where it gets really interesting as Bill's eye for detail takes us through his training in a way that other writers may skip over.

Places, procedures and the daily patterns of events right down to the types of armoury are all laid before us in a way that will sate those of us who have a deep affection for militaria without alienating those of us with a passing interest.  However, for me, the most affective and affecting passages arrive with the immediate preparation for and encounter with battle.

Bill spent his final weeks pre-embarkation in the south of England training with those in his charge.  What I hadn't realised (actually there is much in these pages I hadn't realised!) was that the fatalities didn't start on that fateful stretch of French coast.  Eye-witness Bill retells the tragic story of Exercise Tiger when in 1942 a training exercise on Slapton Sands, Devon, went terribly wrong causing thousands of deaths.  I'll leave the details with him, but it's understandable why the authorities hushed it up till recently.

As we know from history, the real horror hits the allied forces when they land in Dunkirk and again Bill fills in the bits that the history texts skip over.  As he describes the confusion on the beach and how human instinct took over from finely drilled training in a way that could only come of first-hand experience, it's as if he's providing a commentary for those first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.  He lists the names of the men who died around him without drama – Bill doesn't do drama – yet with a palpable sadness of one looking back and allowing the thoughts that he couldn't indulge at the time.

Bill's stoicism continues into the German prison stalags.  He writes of the conditions and treatment there in an almost throwaway style, peppered with black humour and tales of morale boosting anti-Nazi one-upmanship.  We extrapolate his words into what he must have experienced: the pain and suffering that accompanies poor conditions, packed cattle trucks and forced marches when half-starved and, in many cases, half-alive.

Bill has a simple narrative style that makes it feel even more authentic than these words had been dressed by a literary mind.  It's a slow burner of a tale until Bill signs up but that's not important.  Steven affords us access to a personal account of preparation for and commission of war that can't be equalled by those who haven't lived it.

Indeed, writings justly informing us of the bravery shown during World War II by others are everywhere.  However, the writings of the brave themselves, almost unwittingly revealing their courage are more precious.  This book is precious.

(Our special thanks go to the author for providing us with a copy for review.)

THE BOOK BAG (UK)

3 November 2016

The Book Reviewers

4 stars out of 5

“The Book Reviewers,” a division of Full Media Ltd. (UK)

October 28, 2016

The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture by Steven Burgauer

Historical novel based on the diaries and autobiography of an American officer in WWII which details the remarkable courage and resilience he demonstrated in combat and capture.

William Frodsham was just one of the many thousands of young American citizens to enlist for military duty after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.  Unlike the vast majority of those men and women, William, years after the conflict, gathered his notes and his memories to write a detailed account of those years.  Author Steven Burgauer has shaped these writings into a very readable historical novel, structured in diary form.

The opening pitches us straight into the intense fighting which followed the D-Day landings.  We learn straightaway that William is a courageous soldier and an excellent leader of his platoon despite the impossible situation in which they find themselves.  From here we are taken back in time to the beginning of the war and his immediate decision to fight for the country he clearly loves.  The first part of the book focuses on ‘duty and drill’ which aptly describes the many months that William spends in the U.S. in basic and then officer training.

Now a 2nd lieutenant, he is posted to Cornwall, England, to train and lead a platoon in preparation for the invasion of France.  Throughout William keeps up a commentary of the various duties that he is assigned and of the difficulties he faced.  Although there are times when you feel like you are reading a list of events, names and places, there is always historical interest as well as numerous personal anecdotes that give a clear picture of life in the U.S Army.

From the prologue, we know that William had decided not to write about his feelings and doubtless the horrors that he saw and participated in were forever with him and just too much to express with words.  Although this is quite understandable, the consequence is that you never seem to get to know him as a man — you gain an understanding of his character and his qualities, but the reader is rarely allowed more than a few glimpses inside, limiting the depth of engagement with the book.  That said, the combat scenes and the brutal deprivation of his time as a prisoner of war are well written, making some of the horrors of war all too real.  Indeed, the awfulness of his final combat duties when freed and then seconded by the Russians are chilling.

News
05/16/2010
TELLING A SOLDIER'S STORY

By MICHAEL FORTUNA
DAILY SUN
May 16, 2010

LADY LAKE —

Some 50 years after the fact, Capt. William C. Frodsham Jr. put down on paper his experiences during World War II so his children could see what he went through.

Now author Steven Burgauer is bringing Frodsham’s story to the masses.

“When he wrote it, he wrote it to his kids in a sense,” Burgauer said. “He wouldn’t talk about the war while he was alive (but) he wanted them to know.

“His memories were amazingly accurate. He probably wrote it in his mind 10,000 times before committing it to paper.”

“The Road to War” is told in the first person from Frodsham’s perspective.

Frodsham had enlisted in the U.S. Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor and went to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion.

Six days after landing on Omaha Beach, Frodsham was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans. He spent a year in captivity before being liberated by advancing Russians.

According to the preface, Frodsham had reunited with some of his friends from the Army in 1994, spurring the idea to write about his experiences.

Frodsham’s daughter had called Burgauer asking him to take the information from the diaries and create a book.

“My initial impression was I thought it was a very interesting story,” Burgauer said. “It let me have some poetic license, making it more interesting.

“He (Frodsham) sanitized the account, a kind of emotional detachment. I put some emotion back into it. I’m proud of the end result.

“The family liked it. They thought I did a good job with it.”

Burgauer will be signing copies of his book from 1-3 p.m., May 23 at Big City Grill in Spanish Springs Town Square. Thirty percent of sales will go to the Christian Food Pantry. To learn more about the book, go to: http://pages.prodigy.net/scifi20/road.htm

Burgauer, who splits his time between Lady Lake and Peoria, Ill., started writing the book about a year ago.

Burgauer double-checked the information to make sure the things Frodsham wrote down were accurate. He also used Google Maps to pinpoint landmarks Frodsham had mentioned in the diaries so Burgauer could visualize and properly describe the terrain.

“That made it easier to understand the landmarks,” Burgauer said.

After he went through several drafts, Burgauer sent the manuscript to several veterans to see if he captured the spirit of being in war.

“I was leaning on lots of people for help,” Burgauer said.

With “The Road to War,” Burgauer is taking his first foray into nonfiction; prior to this he had written several science fiction novels, some of which feature scenes on battlefields, while one novel was set during a second American Civil War.

Burgauer had worked as a stockbroker for 20 years, but he always wrote short stories during his free time.

He soon decided to take the plunge and write a novel, but he couldn’t devote a lot of time to that endeavor with his job.

“Being a broker is a full-time business,” Burgauer said. “(I said to myself): If you really want to write, you have to quit. So I quit.”

That was ten years ago. Since that time, he has penned 10 novels, including “The Fornax Drive”, “The Last American”, “The Grandfather Paradox”, “The Night of the Eleventh Sun” and “A More Perfect Union.”

His interest in science fiction developed when he was a boy, around the time going to the moon captured the country’s imagination.

“I was strongly interested in science,” Burgauer said. “As an adult I went to Space Camp.”

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 04/2010
  • 978-1450218801 1450218806
  • 348 pages
  • $23.95
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