You Can't Get Much Closer Than This

A young soldier’s memoirs of fighting in WWII: “Fascinating . . . A personal record like this is a valuable resource to anyone interested in the period”(Military Model Scene).

After the Citadel and Officer Candidate School, Andrew Z. Adkins Jr., was sent to the 80th Infantry Division, then training in the California-Arizona desert. There, he was assigned as an 81mm mortar section leader in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 317th Infantry Regiment.

When the division completed training in December 1943, it was shipped in stages to the United Kingdom and then Normandy, where it landed on August 3, 1944. Lieutenant Adkins and his fellow soldiers took part in light hedgerow fighting that served to shake the division down and familiarize the troops and their officers with combat. The first real test came within weeks, when the 2nd Battalion, 317th Infantry, attacked high ground near Argentan during the drive to seal German forces in the Falaise Pocket. While scouting for mortar positions in the woods, Adkins met a group of Germans and shot one of them dead with his carbine. This baptism in blood settled the question faced by every novice combatant: He was cool under fire, capable of killing when facing the enemy. He later wrote, “It was a sickening sight, but having been caught up in the heat of battle, I didn’t have a reaction other than feeling I had saved my own life.”

Thereafter, the 2nd Battalion, 317th Infantry, took part in bloody battles across France, sometimes coping with inept leadership and grievous losses, even as it took hills and towns away from the Germans. In the fighting graphically portrayed here, Adkins acted with skill and courage, placing himself at the forefront of the action whenever he could. His extremely aggressive delivery of critical supplies to a cut-off unit in an embattled French town earned him a Bronze Star, the first in his battalion.

This is a story of a young soldier at war, a junior officer’s coming of age amid pulse-pounding combat. Before his death, Andy Adkins was able to face his memory of war as bravely as he faced war itself. He put it on paper, honest and unflinching. In 1944-45, he did his duty to his men and country—and here, he serves new generations of military and civilian readers.