Leaders & Notable People
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Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II
The national bestselling author of The First Wave tells the untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II-all Medal of Honor recipients-from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler's own mountaintop fortress
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be-and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be-and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?
Editorial Reviews
"Against All Odds is a timely reminder of the horrors of war and valor and sacrifices of the Greatest Generation."
-Booklist
"In his latest book of popular World War II history, bestselling author Kershaw tells the stories of four Americans who won the Medal of Honor and lived postwar lives that sometimes kept them in the public eye… Realistic portraits of four American superheroes."
-Kirkus
"Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action. Against All Odds is vivid and compelling, a crisp narrative about heroism, war, and going above and beyond the call of duty."
-Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Killing the Mob and national bestselling author of Taking Paris
"Alex Kershaw understands what makes soldiers fight: their devotion to the man to their left and to their right. In Against All Odds, Kershaw continues to raise the bar with an unvarnished story of heroism during World War II, and a lasting tribute to the American soldier as liberator."
-Kevin Maurer, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of No Easy Day and author of Rock Force
"Nobody ‘wins' the Medal of Honor, nor is it ‘awarded.' It is earned under fire, often at the cost of one's life and always in the face of ferocious hostile resistance. What sort of men do such deeds? Alex Kershaw knows. In Against All Odds, the renowned master of the battle narrative takes us right into the most perilous action in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France alongside Maurice Britt, Michael Daly, Audie Murphy, and Keith Ware, heroes all. It's a gripping, unforgettable story of undaunted courage in the heart of World War II."
-Daniel P. Bolger, Lt. Gen., U.S. Army Ret., and author of The Panzer Killers
-Booklist
"In his latest book of popular World War II history, bestselling author Kershaw tells the stories of four Americans who won the Medal of Honor and lived postwar lives that sometimes kept them in the public eye… Realistic portraits of four American superheroes."
-Kirkus
"Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action. Against All Odds is vivid and compelling, a crisp narrative about heroism, war, and going above and beyond the call of duty."
-Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Killing the Mob and national bestselling author of Taking Paris
"Alex Kershaw understands what makes soldiers fight: their devotion to the man to their left and to their right. In Against All Odds, Kershaw continues to raise the bar with an unvarnished story of heroism during World War II, and a lasting tribute to the American soldier as liberator."
-Kevin Maurer, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of No Easy Day and author of Rock Force
"Nobody ‘wins' the Medal of Honor, nor is it ‘awarded.' It is earned under fire, often at the cost of one's life and always in the face of ferocious hostile resistance. What sort of men do such deeds? Alex Kershaw knows. In Against All Odds, the renowned master of the battle narrative takes us right into the most perilous action in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France alongside Maurice Britt, Michael Daly, Audie Murphy, and Keith Ware, heroes all. It's a gripping, unforgettable story of undaunted courage in the heart of World War II."
-Daniel P. Bolger, Lt. Gen., U.S. Army Ret., and author of The Panzer Killers
Readers Top Reviews
Tyler Wallace
Up to par with Alex Kershaw’s other great books. It is great to read about other great men that surrounded Audie Murphy. It is well written. At times it feels rushed during certain time periods. I however feel this is due to him setting up the story and really does not detract from the book.
Short Excerpt Teaser
CHAPTER 1
Baptism of Fire
The silence was unnerving after several days at sea, crossing from America with the constant grinding of the ship's engines, quiet now in the Atlantic waters off North Africa. But it didn't last long. In the early hours, bells clanged and then soldiers heard an anchor chain's rattle, barked orders, heavy and frantic footsteps, power winches whirring as they started to lower landing craft into the whitecapped water.
A radio played. Twenty-four-year-old Lieutenant Maurice "Footsie" Britt to his surprise heard the voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt announce that the invasion of North Africa had already begun. "We figured he had jumped the gun a little," Britt later remembered. "After all, we were still eight miles from shore."1 Then blond-haired Britt, all two hundred twenty pounds of him, took his place in his landing craft. Finally, the craft headed toward the shore.
The seas as far as the horizon were dotted with transports. Britt belonged to the 3rd Division's 30th Infantry Regiment, whose motto was "Our country, not ourselves."2 He was one of thirty-five thousand green American troops in Western Task Force, commanded by General George S. Patton, one of three forces attacking French Morocco and Algeria in three areas of a thousand-mile-long coastline, stretching all the way from Safi on the Atlantic to Algiers. The arrival of the first Americans in Europe to fight the Axis powers came at a critical point in the war. After enjoying stunning success against the British 8th Army through 1941 and much of 1942, General Erwin Rommel and his famed Afrika Korps were now on the defensive, having been defeated at El Alamein in Egypt less than a week earlier.
In all, the Torch Landings, the first joint operation of the war by the Americans and the British, comprised more than a hundred thousand troops backed by three hundred fifty warships from seven Allied navies. The Americans had tried to negotiate an armistice with the French in recent days but to no avail, and so an order had come from on high to Britt's division: "Okay, boys, let's play ball."3
Dawn was now breaking off the coast of North Africa. In the far distance, men could make out the steeple of a Catholic church rising above the port of Fedala.4 There was the sound of machine-gun fire. Bright red tracers spat across the lightening sky. Ahead loomed a flat, broad beach a couple of miles to the east of Fedala.
Britt heard the drone of French bombers and then saw "huge fountains of spray" as bombs crashed into the sea. "It was a pretty sight," he remembered, "until suddenly we realized, with a sickening feeling, that the men in these bombers were trying to kill us. No lectures on the subject, no crawling under carefully aimed machine gunfire, will ever make a soldier. He becomes one the instant he realizes the gunfire he hears is intended to kill him."5
Britt's landing craft ground ashore. Men began to unload it but then there was a "deafening rattle of fire" and Britt looked up and saw a French plane diving toward him, strafing his regiment. There had been no preinvasion bombardment in the hopes that the French would not put up any resistance. Many of Britt's fellow invaders carried American flags, figuring the French would be less likely to fire on US troops. The flags made no difference.
Britt and his men stopped unloading the craft, headed for safety across the beach, and then moved inland. By midday they had reached a preassigned assembly area near a road bridge. Then Britt returned to the beach with a sergeant to salvage the jeeps and equipment he'd been forced to leave in the landing craft. "The first edge of my excitement was beginning to dull and when another strafing plane came over I hit the beach in utter terror, digging madly into the sand."
The plane soon passed over, in search of more targets. For five long minutes, Britt lay flat, terrified, trying to summon the courage to get back on his feet. He then found his landing craft. But before he and the sergeant could pull off several guns and two remaining jeeps, the landing craft sank in the rough seas. There was more bad news. Britt learned that a "submarine torpedo [had] hit our transport standing off shore and all our equipment went down with it. We lost all our barracks bags, food, kitchens, and other equipment. All we had left was the clothes on our backs and the rations we carried. We were tired, sick, and disgusted."6
Britt and the sergeant had no option but to walk back across the beach and rejoin their company at the assembly point by the road bridge. By early afternoon, Fedala was in Ame...
Baptism of Fire
The silence was unnerving after several days at sea, crossing from America with the constant grinding of the ship's engines, quiet now in the Atlantic waters off North Africa. But it didn't last long. In the early hours, bells clanged and then soldiers heard an anchor chain's rattle, barked orders, heavy and frantic footsteps, power winches whirring as they started to lower landing craft into the whitecapped water.
A radio played. Twenty-four-year-old Lieutenant Maurice "Footsie" Britt to his surprise heard the voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt announce that the invasion of North Africa had already begun. "We figured he had jumped the gun a little," Britt later remembered. "After all, we were still eight miles from shore."1 Then blond-haired Britt, all two hundred twenty pounds of him, took his place in his landing craft. Finally, the craft headed toward the shore.
The seas as far as the horizon were dotted with transports. Britt belonged to the 3rd Division's 30th Infantry Regiment, whose motto was "Our country, not ourselves."2 He was one of thirty-five thousand green American troops in Western Task Force, commanded by General George S. Patton, one of three forces attacking French Morocco and Algeria in three areas of a thousand-mile-long coastline, stretching all the way from Safi on the Atlantic to Algiers. The arrival of the first Americans in Europe to fight the Axis powers came at a critical point in the war. After enjoying stunning success against the British 8th Army through 1941 and much of 1942, General Erwin Rommel and his famed Afrika Korps were now on the defensive, having been defeated at El Alamein in Egypt less than a week earlier.
In all, the Torch Landings, the first joint operation of the war by the Americans and the British, comprised more than a hundred thousand troops backed by three hundred fifty warships from seven Allied navies. The Americans had tried to negotiate an armistice with the French in recent days but to no avail, and so an order had come from on high to Britt's division: "Okay, boys, let's play ball."3
Dawn was now breaking off the coast of North Africa. In the far distance, men could make out the steeple of a Catholic church rising above the port of Fedala.4 There was the sound of machine-gun fire. Bright red tracers spat across the lightening sky. Ahead loomed a flat, broad beach a couple of miles to the east of Fedala.
Britt heard the drone of French bombers and then saw "huge fountains of spray" as bombs crashed into the sea. "It was a pretty sight," he remembered, "until suddenly we realized, with a sickening feeling, that the men in these bombers were trying to kill us. No lectures on the subject, no crawling under carefully aimed machine gunfire, will ever make a soldier. He becomes one the instant he realizes the gunfire he hears is intended to kill him."5
Britt's landing craft ground ashore. Men began to unload it but then there was a "deafening rattle of fire" and Britt looked up and saw a French plane diving toward him, strafing his regiment. There had been no preinvasion bombardment in the hopes that the French would not put up any resistance. Many of Britt's fellow invaders carried American flags, figuring the French would be less likely to fire on US troops. The flags made no difference.
Britt and his men stopped unloading the craft, headed for safety across the beach, and then moved inland. By midday they had reached a preassigned assembly area near a road bridge. Then Britt returned to the beach with a sergeant to salvage the jeeps and equipment he'd been forced to leave in the landing craft. "The first edge of my excitement was beginning to dull and when another strafing plane came over I hit the beach in utter terror, digging madly into the sand."
The plane soon passed over, in search of more targets. For five long minutes, Britt lay flat, terrified, trying to summon the courage to get back on his feet. He then found his landing craft. But before he and the sergeant could pull off several guns and two remaining jeeps, the landing craft sank in the rough seas. There was more bad news. Britt learned that a "submarine torpedo [had] hit our transport standing off shore and all our equipment went down with it. We lost all our barracks bags, food, kitchens, and other equipment. All we had left was the clothes on our backs and the rations we carried. We were tired, sick, and disgusted."6
Britt and the sergeant had no option but to walk back across the beach and rejoin their company at the assembly point by the road bridge. By early afternoon, Fedala was in Ame...
