Four Hours of Fury
by James M. Fenelon
Author's Description:
“On the morning of March 24, 1945, more than two thousand Allied aircraft droned through a cloudless sky toward Germany. Escorted by swarms of darting fighters, the armada of transport planes carried 17,000 troops to be dropped, via parachute and glider, on the far banks of the Rhine River. Four hours later, after what was the war’s largest airdrop, all major objectives had been seized. The invasion smashed Germany’s last line of defense and gutted Hitler’s war machine; the war in Europe ended less than two months later.
Four Hours of Fury follows the 17th Airborne Division as they prepare for Operation Varsity, a campaign that would rival Normandy in scale and become one of the most successful and important of the war. Even as the Third Reich began to implode, it was vital for Allied troops to have direct access into Germany to guarantee victory—the 17th Airborne secured that bridgehead over the River Rhine. And yet their story has until now been relegated to history’s footnotes.
In this viscerally exciting account, paratrooper-turned-historian James Fenelon “details every aspect of the American 17th Airborne Division’s role in Operation Varsity...inspired” (The Wall Street Journal). Reminiscent of A Bridge Too Far and Masters of the Air, Four Hours of Fury does for the 17th Airborne what Band of Brothers did for the 101st. It is a captivating, action-packed tale of heroism and triumph spotlighting one of World War II’s most under-chronicled and dangerous operations.”
Four Hours of Fury follows the 17th Airborne Division as they prepare for Operation Varsity, a campaign that would rival Normandy in scale and become one of the most successful and important of the war. Even as the Third Reich began to implode, it was vital for Allied troops to have direct access into Germany to guarantee victory—the 17th Airborne secured that bridgehead over the River Rhine. And yet their story has until now been relegated to history’s footnotes.
In this viscerally exciting account, paratrooper-turned-historian James Fenelon “details every aspect of the American 17th Airborne Division’s role in Operation Varsity...inspired” (The Wall Street Journal). Reminiscent of A Bridge Too Far and Masters of the Air, Four Hours of Fury does for the 17th Airborne what Band of Brothers did for the 101st. It is a captivating, action-packed tale of heroism and triumph spotlighting one of World War II’s most under-chronicled and dangerous operations.”
My Review - Rating - 8/10
I thought that this was a good book, one that is similar to but not as good as Band Of Brothers. It’s mostly well written, very informative, and very well researched. The story of the 17th Airborne and its role in the Normandy invasion and beyond is fascinating, but I feel like the author didn’t write the story as well as he could have. Don’t get me wrong, the writing is pretty good, but the author focused on small-scale combat and individual soldiers while trying to give a tactical/strategic view of the battle. This just didn’t work. What was great about Band Of Brothers is that you genuinely care about the soldiers, you got a sense of their personalities and the camaraderie between the men of Easy Company, because the author showed you their basic training, their personal life, and the time leading up to D-Day for them. In Four Hours of Fury, you are just sent straight into the action, and get told the story of many different groups and people. You don’t know much about them, their families, their personalities, or their fears, you just get their account of the fighting. I feel like this book tried to combine a strategic overview of the para-drops and the personal fighting, and the two together are nowhere near as good as just one on its own. The way the author conveys the wider battle is through the stories of different soldiers in various important engagements, which isn’t as good at giving you an overall sense of the battle as a pure strategic description would. The author’s tactical/personal level isn’t that compelling, because you know nothing about the person fighting and don’t care as much about them as you do in a book like Band of Brothers. Despite this issue, the book is still worth a read. It gives you a great sense of the chaos of the pre-landing para-drops, the disorganized nature of the entire event, and the incredible heroism of paratroops who often just met up with whoever they met along the way, most of whom were from different units, and assaulted nearby important positions with the assembled ragtag groups of soldiers. This book is a good read and gives the reader a good sense of what the early operations of D-Day were like, and what the general war was like for the 17th Airborne. I’m just a bit disappointed because this good book could have been great if it hadn’t tried to cover both the strategic and personal, which lead to it weakening both when focusing on just one could have been incredibly strong.
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