About the Author

Author and historian Mark Bando specializes in the history of the 101st Airborne and the 2nd Armored Division. He has published four previous books with MBI Publishing Company/Zenith Press, including 101st Airborne: The Screaming Eagles at Normandy, The 101st Airborne at Normandy, The 101st Airborne: From Holland to Hitlers Eagles Nest, and Breakout at Normandy: The 2nd Armored Division in the Land of the Dead. He is retired from the police department in Detroit, Michigan, where he resides.

Reviews

Military Heritage, February 2008 “This is author Mark Bando’s fourth contribution to memorializing the service of the 101st Airborne Division and its tremendous combat record in World War II. The coffee table-size book is full of photographs that depict the division’s distinguished service from D-Day until war’s end the following May.   “[Bando] does a nice job of illuminating the official history of the unit with vignettes from the soldiers themselves. These personal stories add a touch of realism and bring the action to life for the reader, who comes away with a much better understanding of what the men endured. The author has paid a lasting tribute to the ‘epic warriors’ of the 101st Airborne who, like so many others, were the ‘vanguard of freedom’ for the United States during World War II.”                    
The “Military historian Mark Bando wrote the text to this coffee-table-style book that is filled with photographs. The most moving were taken aboard an airplane en route to Normandy and on the ground during the Normandy invasion. More than anything, the black and white photos – of men chest-deep in snow, of men in battle on Christmas Day, of men deep in trenches – starkly show the tremendous hardships of war.” Tampa Tribune, November 2007

Airborne Quarterly Magazine, Winter 2007 “There have been many books about the 101st, but this one is truly unique. Cocktail table-sized, it is equally big in content. All the more so since many of the numerous photos are, at least for this reviewer, first time viewings and collectively, tell a pictorial story well accompanied by text … It is rare for this reviewer to come across a book that truly tells it like it was and the photographic support to give life to the text. But that’s what this book does … I recommend it for those who share my interest in our airborne history. In reviewing this book my horizons were expanded! So too will be yours!”