Any World War II buff will love this tale of heroism.
A remarkable World War II story of an American within the French Resistance.
Guiet teams up with former Fortune senior features editor Smith to tell the story of Guiet’s father, Jean Claude Guiet (1924-2013). At the outbreak of war, Jean Claude and his brother, Pierre, got stuck in France for a year, giving them valuable experience in French life. Fluent in idiomatic French, they were prime targets for recruitment by the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. OSS head Bill Donovan drew up the plan for American spy services with Britain’s Special Operations Executive. Both brothers were sent to England, Pierre to a desk job and Jean Claude to rigorous training in codes, wireless operations, parachuting, and unconventional warfare. Then he was assigned to an operations group named “Salesman II,” along with three others: Violette the messenger, Philippe the leader, and Bob the explosives expert (last names were never used). The authors make it absolutely clear that they were not spies but rather secret agents, trained for mayhem. Their job was to organize and galvanize the “maquisards,” the guerrilla army, to create havoc, and to prevent Nazi troops and materiel from reaching the D-Day landing sites. Though poor weather delayed their arrival in Limoges until the day after D-Day, they wasted no time finding the maquisards. The problem was to convince them all to work together. Communists, socialists, and anarchists all disagreed and often trusted no one. Philippe managed to pull everyone together, which left the matter of getting Allied equipment where it was needed. Those drops were epic in their volume, one involving 72 plane loads; another featured tricolor parachutes, which incurred Nazi wrath. In this page-turning, exciting book, the authors demonstrate an eye for significant details and a strong feel for the players.
Any World War II buff will love this tale of heroism.Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2520-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
PROFILES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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