Roll Me Over: An Infantryman’s World War II

OVER THERE

When Raymond Gantter arrived in Normandy in the fall of 1944, bodies were still washing up from the invasion. Sobered by that sight, Gantter and his fellow infantrymen moved across northern France and Belgium, taking part in the historic and bloody Battle of the Bulge, before slowly penetrating into and across Germany, fighting all the way to the Czechoslovakian border.

With depth, clarity, and remarkable compassion, Gantter–an enlisted man and college graduate who spoke German–portrays the extraordinary life of the American soldier as he and his comrades lived it while helping to destroy Hitler’s Third Reich. From dueling with unseen snipers in ruined villages to fierce battles in which the lightly armed American infantry skirmished against Hitler’s panzers, Gantter skillfully captures one infantryman’s progress across a continent where guns, fear, and death lay in wait around every bend in the road.