Finding Granddad's War, by Jeffrey Badger; 321 pg; paperback; ISBN 978-1-5933132-1-0; Item TP217
To discover the grandfather he never knew, Jeff Badger began tracking down dozens of World War II veterans from the 978th Engineer Maintenance Company, his granddad’s unit. Through his new “war buddies,” some who told him stories they had never shared before, Jeff began to reconstruct both a life and a very personal vision of a war and the men who fought it.
Some stories were funny: tales of brothels, brawls, and bank robberies. Some were painful: the death of a best friend; building a bridge under enemy fire; the harassment a Jewish GI endured—not from the Germans, but from his fellow GIs. Jeff even retraced his grandfather’s travels in Europe to track down French, Dutch, and Germans who remembered men in the unit.
Ultimately, Finding Granddad's War becomes the story of Jeff Badger’s own journey, told through first-hand accounts, scores of original photographs, and the friends he makes as he traces the footsteps of the 978th back through Germany, Holland, and France—and through time. In part II of the book, Jeff provides readers looking to fill in blanks in their own family stories a roadmap based on things he learned during his own 10-year voyage.
