Sons and Soldiers

By Bruce Henderson,

Book cover of Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler

Book description

'The last great, untold story of WWII... highly compelling' Daily Mail

Fleeing Nazi persecution for America in the 1930s, the young German-born Jews who would come to be known as The Ritchie Boys were labelled 'enemy aliens' when war broke out. Although of the age to be inducted into the…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Sons and Soldiers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Stephanie Vanderslice

Author

Sons and Soldiers tells the stories of the Ritchie Boys, a special military intelligence unit of the US Army in World War II trained in Camp Ritchie, Maryland and made up of German-Austrian men, often German Jews who had fled Nazi persecution. These men had everything to lose: if they were captured and identified behind enemy lines, they would be killed on the spot. However, they also knew that their special knowledge of the German language and German culture gave them an advantage against Hitler’s army. The Ritchie Boys were critical to the Allied victory. Not surprisingly, those who survived…

From Stephanie's list on stories of World War II you’ve never heard before.

Colin D. Heaton

Author

Sons and soldiers is a remarkable book not so much due to the content, which is amazing in and of itself; it is remarkable due to the secrecy surrounding their selection, training, and operations decades after the war was over. These men each have their own tragic tales, which are offset by their bravery and dedication to serving their adopted country to the best of their abilities.

From Colin's list on true stories of survival.