The Rucksack: 10th Mountain Division Blog

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Online Lecture: Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum Red Bench Lecture

Online Lecture: Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum Red Bench Lecture

Join author Skyler Bailey and local historian Brian Lindner, on Thursday, December 1st at 7:00 PM for our Virtual Writer’s on the Red Bench series. Skyler will be discussing his new book, Heroes in Good Company: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945. Skyler will share the journey that lead to the writing of Heroes in Good Company, his personal ties to the stories, and how he…

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Heroes In Good Company Available on Kindle, and in Hardcover and Paperback

Heroes In Good Company Available on Kindle, and in Hardcover and Paperback

Heroes in Good Company is now available in Kindle format, as well as in hardcover and paperback editions.  Containing rare photographs and custom maps, Heroes in Good Company turns veteran interviews, wartime letters, rare or unpublished memoirs, archived documents and more into a seamless narrative of the wartime experience of one company of mountain troops. L Company of the 86th Mountain…

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HEROES IN GOOD COMPANY: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945

HEROES IN GOOD COMPANY: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945

A new book, HEROES IN GOOD COMPANY: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945, released on April 11, 2022 is now available on amazon and in select bookstores. L Company of the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment went into action with 185 men, and sustained 156 casualties in just two months of fierce combat with German forces. Heroes in Good Company turns interviews, letters,…

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Voices of War: Ed "Lucky" Lisciandro

Voices of War: Ed “Lucky” Lisciandro

L Company of the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment was activated at Camp Hale, Colorado on April 26, 1943. Gone were the days of needing three letters of recommendation to get into the mountain troops; by the spring of 1943, many recruits had merely to express an interest. Even so, Company L was comprised of dynamic young men from all over the world. One of the first men assigned was T/Sgt. Edward…

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Explosion: A Dog's Fate During World War Two

Explosion: A Dog’s Fate During World War Two

  In May of 1942 the Island of Kiska, in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, was one of the world’s remotest places; A rocky outcrop in a chilly sea, coated with tufts of grass and mossy tundra, cloaked in fog, and facing a constant sea wind. American code-breakers relayed Japanese signals indicating planned operations in the Aleutians, and so the US Navy determined to establish a weather station on Kiska…

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Ski Troops on Leave: Letters from Rome

Ski Troops on Leave: Letters from Rome

  During the first major offensive operations of the 10th Mountain Division, L Company of the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment sustained 83 casualties (20 killed, 63 wounded), a loss rate of almost forty-five percent. These were serious losses in a World War Two unit. Two or three more weeks of such combat would have annihilated L Company. Fortunately, the division was to get a reprieve. The men…

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Ambush in the Night: First Firefight with the 10th Mountain Division

Ambush in the Night: First Firefight with the 10th Mountain Division

In January 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in for his fourth term as President of the United States. As the war in Europe rapidly approached its denouement, the Allies launched a counterattack against “the Bulge,” where the last major German offensive in the West had failed to meet its objectives. Operation Bodenplatte, the final attempt by the Luftwaffe to gain even local superiority…

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Newport News to Naples: Ski Troops at Sea The first element of the 10th Mountain Division to make the trip overseas to Europe was the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment.

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“Dear Mrs. Abbott -” Letter for a Fallen Friend Pfc. Stuart Abbott The 10th Mountain Division was in training for a much longer period of time than most other units in the US Army.

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Horace Sullivan enlisted in the 10th Mountain Division from Odessa, Missouri. He arrived at Camp Hale and joined L Company of the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment in October, 1943. He participated in the grueling D Series training, and rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. His company was among the first troops of the 10th Mountain Division sent to Italy, where they landed on Christmas Eve of 1944.…

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Battle Between Ski Troops: Part Two - Counterattack of the Mittenwald Mountain Battalion

Battle Between Ski Troops: Part Two – Counterattack of the Mittenwald Mountain Battalion

This is the second part of a two-part series. Read Part One here: http://www.skylerbaileyauthor.com/battle-between-ski-troops-part-one-attack-of-the-10th-mountain-division/On the afternoon of February 24, 1945, men of the 10th Mountain Division captured the final objective of the first phase of Operation Encore, an irregular hill cut by draws and woodlots called Monte Della Torraccia. The 3rd…

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Battle Between Ski Troops: Part One - Attack of the 10th Mountain Division

Battle Between Ski Troops: Part One – Attack of the 10th Mountain Division

Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division move in the direction of Monte Della Torraccia. (Denver Public Library)The 10th Mountain Division’s first major offensive operation was code-named Operation Encore, and launched in late February, 1945. The main objective of the attack was the rocky and wooded 3,700-foot Monte Belvedere, which dominated a route that led north toward the Po River Valley. The…

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Voices of War - Horton K. Durfee

Voices of War – Horton K. Durfee

     Of all of the World War Two veterans of the 10th Mountain Division, perhaps none recounted their stories with as much humility and endearing honesty as Horton Durfee. In interviews and in his self-published book ‘World War II Memoirs of Horton K Durfee: 1943-1946,’ his accounts are infused with humor and with a full admission of all of his shortcomings in a way that is deeply human. He…

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Sacrifice in the Sky: the Death of the Magnificent Malfunction

Sacrifice in the Sky: the Death of the Magnificent Malfunction

The men of the 10th Mountain Division drove the Axis forces out of the northern Apennine Mountains and across the Po Valley with an incredible amount of assistance from Allied air forces. This story is about one drama that unfolded in the war that was fought over the heads of the mountain troops. It is one of terror, death, heroism and sacrifice, and how archivists, archaeologists, veterans, and…

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First Blood in the 10th Mountain Division: The Skirmish at Querciola

First Blood in the 10th Mountain Division: The Skirmish at Querciola

          It was with some justification that the men of the 10th Mountain Division believed themselves to be the best trained outfit in the US Army. Their years of intensive training in extreme conditions were remembered by many as being more physically grueling than any of their experiences at the front. On a snowy night in January 1945, around a couple of houses outside the Italian town of…

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Into Italy, Into Poverty: Christmas 1944 in the 10th Mountain Division

Into Italy, Into Poverty: Christmas 1944 in the 10th Mountain Division

     Christmas of 1944 marked the arrival in Italy of the first elements of the 10th Mountain Division. The men of the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment noted the holiday for its drab and disjointed passing, as well as for their first impressions of war-torn Italy. The 86th Regiment boarded the SS Argentina on December 10, 1944 in Newport News, Virginia. After a two week voyage, uneventful aside…

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A 10th Mountain Division Rescue: The Montrose Tornado of 1944

A 10th Mountain Division Rescue: The Montrose Tornado of 1944

Tornado damage in Montrose in a photo taken by Doris Bailey. (Click photo to view larger) In the summer of 1944, as the Allied armies struggled to expand their toe-hold in Normandy, and the Red Army completed the virtual destruction of German Army Group Centre during Operation Bagration, the 10th Mountain Division was moved from its beloved Camp Hale in the mountains of Colorado to Camp Swift,…

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