附註:To war via North Africa -- The palace: this is war? -- An Anzio cave: time for reflection -- "Like shooting fish in a barrel" -- A new general takes over -- The Germans switch to defense -- A night to remember -- Hitler's secret weapon -- Deciphering a dress pattern -- Rome falls: a time of work and play -- Planning in Naples -- Invasion of southern France -- The V-1 and V-2, now the V-3 and V-4? -- The big brass visits -- Temporary duty with green divisions -- Battle of the mind warriors -- The fight for Alsace -- Straw shoes for "Good" soldiers -- Tales of gay paree -- Heidelberg of song and story -- Field Marshal Rommel's widow -- An emissary and more field marshals -- Rommel's battlefield letters -- The war ends -- Disbanding the German army.
摘要:Charles Marshall, a Columbia University graduate and ardent opponent of U.S. involvement in World War II, entered the army in 1942 and was assigned to intelligence on the sheer happenstance that he was fluent in German. On many occasions to come, Marshall would marvel that so fortuitous an edge spared him from infantry combat - and led him into the most important chapter of his life. In A Ramble through My War, he records that passage, drawing from an extensive daily diary he kept clandestinely at the time. Sent to Italy in 1944, Marshall participated in the vicious battle of the Anzio beachhead and in the Allied advance into Rome and other areas of Italy. He assisted the invasion of southern France and the push through Alsace, across the Rhine, and through the heart of Germany into Austria. His responsibilities were to examine captured documents and maps, check translations, interrogate prisoners, become an expert on German forces, weaponry, and equipment - and, when his talent for light, humorous writing became known, to contribute a daily column to the Beachhead News. The nature of intelligence work proved tedious yet engrossing, and at times even exhilarating. Marshall interviewed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's widow at length and took possession of the general's personal papers, ultimately breaking the story of the legendary commander's murder. He had many conversations with high-ranking German officers - including Field Marshals von Weichs, von Leeb, and List. General Hans Speidel, Rommel's chief of staff in Normandy, proved a fountain of information.
