"This combat memoir covers fighting in Alsace, crossing the Rhine, breaching the Siegfried line, and battling throughout Southern Germany. Based on official unit histories and exhaustive interviews with West, this soldier's story is rich in personal anecdotes that run the gamut from humor to horror" -- Provided by publisher.

Hatten : the ordeal -- Arizona : family beginnings -- Camp Chaffee, Arkansas : basic training -- Tennessee : advanced training, field exercises -- Kentucky : further advanced training, war games -- New York to Marseilles : the difficult Atlantic crossing -- Rhone Valley to Alsace : initial fighting -- Barr : intense battle -- To the Rhine : initial attempt, and failure to cross -- The Vosges : fighting a German counterattack -- Hatten : the American Stalingrad -- Nancy : hospitalized in the rear -- Strasbourg : Allied advance renewed -- Across the Rhine : fighting through the last barrier -- Creussen : another deadly German counterattack -- Moosburg : freeing thousands of Allied POWs -- The Danube : racing into Austria, VE Day -- Southern Europe : postwar military details -- Edinburgh : stationing in Scotland -- America : home and wife -- Epilogue : the return : 1990 tour of ETO battlefields.