With the publication in 2015 of The Last Roll Call: The 29th Infantry Division Victorious, 1945, Joseph Balkoski has completed his remarkable five-volume history of the 29th Division in World War II as it fought its way from Omaha Beach to the Elbe River. Balkoski’s work has enriched the nation’s memory of the courage, tenacity, and spirit of American fighting men waging war in a just cause with much of the world’s freedom at stake.
It all began in 1989 with the publication of Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy, where Balkoski described the pre-war assembling and training of the Division’s units (the 115th, 116th, and 175th regiments) at Ft. Meade, Maryland, A.P. Hill Military Reservation near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Camp Blanding in Florida. After Pearl Harbor, training intensified and in September-October 1942, the soldiers of the Division departed from Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, for England. Training continued in England for the next 19 months, and on June 6, 1944, the Division embarked for Omaha Beach. Balkoski described the harrowing experiences of individual soldiers (that he fondly calls “29ers”) during the first hours of the invasion.
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