Task Force Hogan: The World War II Tank Battalion That Spearheaded the Liberation of Europe

Former U.S. Army officer and fourth-generation soldier Hogan debuts with a fast-paced and immersive chronicle of the wartime exploits of his father, Samuel Hogan, who fought in WWII as a member of the Third Armored Division. At 28 years old, Hogan was one of the youngest lieutenant colonels in the army when he risked his life daily from July 1944 to April 1945, leading a column of Sherman tanks from Normandy to Berlin. During that period, the Third Armored Division, nicknamed the “Spearhead,” suffered 2,214 killed in action, 7,451 wounded in action, and 706 missing. The bond between Hogan and some of his men stretched back to a few months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when the newly created division came together in Louisiana. Drawing on recollections of conversations with his father before his death in 2005, official Army after-action reports, and his own experiences serving in war zones, Hogan captures the constant danger, uncertainty, and stress of combat. The result is an action-packed tribute to a father from his son. (Nov.)