Product Review

Capturing the imagination of the World War II generation, these airborne demolitions men of Regimental Headquarters Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division shaved their heads with scalp locks and painted their faces in Indian fashion for the jump into Normandy. Their rebellious and rowdy antics during training defied the traditional concept of military discipline, but their leaders recognized they possessed a different type of discipline, one needed in this new airborne experiment of inserting men behind enemy lines. War Paint tells the story of those men who made up the Filthy Thirteen at the time it jumped into Normandy. While the two previous books, The Filthy Thirteen and Fighting with the Filthy Thirteen, recount the personal experiences or the unit's two key leaders, Jake McNiece and Jack Womer, War Paint provides a historical narrative of who all the men were and their ordeal in combat. It sets their stories into their proper context. This new book not only fills in many gaps left by the previous books, but provides a study of a single airborne stick that jumped into Normandy. It weaves together each man's account where he landed and what happened to him on the ground, through the rest of war and finally home. It verifies what the odds really were of a combat paratrooper ever surviving the war. In the decade since the first book came out, the authors and publisher have collected over a hundred photos of these men that bring their story to life as words never could. This is the story of one of the greatest legends to grow out of the 101st Airborne Division.