25x20. tapa dura. 312 páginas. Ilustrado.
By early December 1941, World War II had been raging in Europe for two years. The British had been busy fighting in North Africa, Norway, and Greece. They had survived the Blitz and the debacle at Dunkirk. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in the desert town of San Bernardino, California, Phil Stern, a budding photographer from Brooklyn, was on assignment for Popular Photography, to take pictures of the Women’s Ambulance and Defense Corps of America (WADCA).
In the early morning of December 7, Stern was snapping photos of the women reenacting with gas masks on when the field radios blared out, “The Japs have just bombed Pearl Harbor! The West Coast Army Command orders all officers and national guardsmen to report to their post at once!”
Phil hastened back to Los Angeles and immediately enlisted in the US Army. A few months later he was working at 35 Davis Street in London and Allied Headquarters at 20 Grosvenor Square as a Signal Corps Photographer. For a while, London was exciting for a young Yank’s first time across the pond, but boredom soon set in. Taking photos of high level officers and elite society parties wasn’t exactly what he had expected. Where was all the excitement and combat scenes he joined the Army to photograph? He desperately wanted to see some action and fight the Nazis. As luck would have it, Phil came across a notice in Stars and Stripes looking for volunteers to “get nasty with those Nazis – in an elite hit-and-run unit.” After getting the okay from his boss, Major Cuthbertson, Phil hopped on a train to Corker Hill in the Scottish Highlands, where he would train with the British Commandos. After meeting with Colonel Darby, the charismatic leader of the 1st Ranger Battalion, Phil would not only be designated as Darby’s Rangers official photographer but would also train and fight alongside the men as a bona-fide member of the elite army unit in North Africa, Tunisia and Sicily. He was given the nickname “Snapdragon” by one of his fellow Rangers. Now, if he could just figure out how to shoot a rifle.
The moonfaced, stocky snapper would also capture rare photos of three of the 50 rangers that fought alongside the Canadians and British in the Dieppe Raid on August 19, 1942. Little has been known about the Rangers’ top-secret first raid, codenamed Operation Jubilee. Three Rangers were KIA in the raid in Northern France. They would be the first American casualties in Europe during the war.
