Snow Sticks

November 1944: The Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division fought their way across France and assaulted the Germans in Holland, securing the highway all the way up to "The Island." After the bloody battles of Operation MARKET-GARDEN, the troopers finally are given a break - R&R in France, a time to slip off to see loved ones or simply get drunk and have a good time, as airborne troopers are wont to do.

Slowly, the wounded from Normandy and Holland trickle back to duty at Mourmelon, the rest center in France, joined by battle-tested units from the Italian campaigns, also due for a rest, and replacements for the many casualties.

Many of our old friends from MISSING STICKS and ONE STICK AND A WACO return:

Lt. Alex Pfister leads a new OSS Jedburgh team behind the German lines, grief stricken when he thinks he has lost his love to a V-2 in London. (The cover is a WWII photo of a Jedburgh team jumping from a "Carpetbagger" B-24.) Dawson and his war dog, Max, return from an unauthorized visit to his pregnant war-bride across the Channel. Even Staff Sergeant Harry Rule, the ex-smoke jumper from Montana, slips away from his hospital bed in England and returns to the Screaming Eagles to revenge the death of the French Resistance fighter who save his line in Normandy...and salve his conscience.

Since SNOW STICKS is a novel based on facts, both in time, place and military organization, we all know what happens next. The Allied high command think the Germans are going to hunker down during the winter; prepare for a Spring offensive or simply strengthen the Siegfried Line or, as the Germans called it, the "Westwall."

Instead, the Germans attack, the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. Among others, soldiers of the 110th Regimental Combat Team, 28th Division, scattered Engineer units, men who think they are on R&R for the weekend, all find themselves in the midst of battle as the Germans surge into Belgium in their thrust toward Antwerp. The Nazi's have at least two goals: stop the Allied flow of supplies and capturing what they could to restock their depleted logistics, and delay the Allied advance long enough to bring the Nazi Vengeance Weapons, the rockets, the jet and rocket planes, all the super weapons envisioned by Hitler, to bear.