Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany.

• Author: Abrahamson, James
• Position: Book review

Text:

Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany

Reviewed by James Abrahamson

Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier's Journey through the Second World War. By Francis P. Sempa. (Lanham, MD: hamilton Books, 2001. Pp. x, 102. $23.95 paper.).

With more than a thousand World War II veterans dying every day, a part of the past may soon slip through our fingers and become beyond retrieval. That almost happened to Francis P. Sempa. His father, Frank, like many who had served in combat, rarely talked about the formation of his infantry unit, its training in the United States, its movement to England, and eventually fighting its way from the beaches of Normandy to Germany and the U.S. Army's meeting with the Russians at the Elbe. As a child Sempa had seen his father's few wartime souvenirs, his medals, and a scrapbook. Only occasionally had his father commented about his military service, as when the two men joined to watch old movies or documentaries like The World at War.

At least that was about all the author had until his sister, after their father's death, opened a shoebox stuffed with the 4" by 5" V-Mail letters that American GIs had used to keep in touch with their loved ones. With those letters, Sempa gained the ability to recreate his father's wartime role and place his unit--the 175th Regiment of the 29th Division--within the context provided by both the units' After Action Reports, now available on line, and the war's many secondary histories. From those materials Sempa has produced a little gem that brings to life the wartime experience of one European war veteran who had fought in some of its bloodiest campaigns.

Frank R. Sempa, drafted from his job as a correspondent for the Scranton Tribune in April 1941, returned to his former position four years and three months later, a discharged Master Sergeant with "memories of the terrible things" he had seen and who felt the utmost respect for the "deeds of valor, the courage and devotion to duty, [and] the hidden fears of men in combat." (85) In this book, Frank's son, Francis, shares with readers the sources of those feelings.

The elder Sempa's first post, Fort Meade, Maryland, revealed a lot about America's lack of readiness for war: unfinished barracks, often dilapidated, unpainted, and lacking doors and windows, but surrounded with "ankle-deep" mud. (6) There the draftees joined

Guardsmen from Pennsylvania, two southern states, and the District of Columbia to form the...