McAuliffe (English)

‘Nuts’, a simple four-letter word uttered on 22 December 1944, propelled an ordinary and hitherto totally unknown soldier to the rank of hero of the American nation. That soldier was Brigadier General Anthony Clement McAuliffe, at the time commander of the self-styled Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne. With them in the breach, often in the outposts, the interim leader of the 101st Airborne Division’s paratroopers instilled his fierce determination into the defenders of the Ardennes. Nothing predestined this forty-six-year-old officer to become an American hero and a legend of United States history. This book looks back at his exceptional destiny.