American Knights

Victor 'Tory' Failmezger is a retired US Naval Officer and nephew of Lieutenant Thomas Peter Welch of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion, the discovery of whose wartime letters inspired this book. In the early 1970s Commander Failmezger was stationed at NATO in Naples, Italy and lived in an apartment overlooking the Bay of Pozzuoli where the 601st conducted practice landings for both the Anzio and Southern France landings. In the early 1980s he served as the Assistant Naval Attaché in Rome, Italy and was a participant in the celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Rome. A later tour found him as the Director of the US Navy Science and Technology Group, Europe in Munich, Germany. He is a graduate of the US Foreign Service Institute (Italian) and the Defense Language Institute (German). After retirement he worked as a consultant in the private sector and for the US Department of Energy and NASA. His historical works include Roman Bronze Coins from Paganism to Christianity and Paget, Discoverer of Hades. He lives in Virginia.

Introduction
Foreword
Prologue

Seek, Strike and Destroy
North Africa
Vindication in North Africa
Italian mud!
Stalemate at Cassino
Anzio “Easy at first but tough as hell now”
Push Them Back into the Sea
World War One All Over Again
Breakout for Rome
Here We Go Again – Training for the Forgotten D-Day
France isn’t Italy
Conquerors of the Vosges
Alsace
The Other Battle of the Bulge
Germany at Last
It Finally Ends
Epilogue

Appendixes
Bibliography