Summary of Mckay Jenkins's The Last Ridge

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Allied campaign in Italy had been a drain on Hitler’s army, a third front. The final German defensive barrier, the Gothic Line, had been unbreakable by the Allies.

#2 By late 1944, the American Fifth Army had broken through the Gothic Line and was making its way north along the Adriatic. The Germans were beginning to retreat, but they were taking the last ridge back with them.

#3 The one remaining keystone in the Apennines was the heavily fortified Mount Belvedere, which was the southwestern butt of a four-mile ridge that also included Mount Gorgolesco and Mount della Torraccia. Belvedere was the key.

# The ridgeline between Mount Belvedere and Rocca Corneta was protected by the 1044th Grenadier Regiment and the 232nd Fusilier Battalion, which were reinforced by hundreds of soldiers from Fanano and Sestola. The flanks were locked up in ice and snow by the coldest winter in recent memory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822534841

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Insights on Mckay Jenkins's The Last Ridge

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Allied campaign in Italy had been a drain on Hitler’s army, a third front. The final German defensive barrier, the Gothic Line, had been unbreakable by the Allies.

#2

By late 1944, the American Fifth Army had broken through the Gothic Line and was making its way north along the Adriatic. The Germans were beginning to retreat, but they were taking the last ridge back with them.

#3

The one remaining keystone in the Apennines was the heavily fortified Mount Belvedere, which was the southwestern butt of a four-mile ridge that also included Mount Gorgolesco and Mount della Torraccia. Belvedere was the key.

#4

The ridgeline between Mount Belvedere and Rocca Corneta was protected by the 1044th Grenadier Regiment and the 232nd Fusilier Battalion, which were reinforced by hundreds of soldiers from Fanano and Sestola. The flanks were locked up in ice and snow by the coldest winter in recent memory.

#5

The 10th Mountain Division was a US army unit that was training to climb the ridge at night. They were among the most famous soldiers in the American army, and they had just completed three years of the most rugged training in U. S. military history.

#6

In 1942, thirty months before Hays first laid eyes on Riva Ridge, an Irishman named Denis Nunan boarded a train at Camp Roberts and headed north to join an experimental training center at Fort Lewis, near Washington’s Mount Rainier. He wanted to fight on the front lines as a private.

#7

The training at Fort Lewis was already under way for just six months when Nunan arrived, but already the camp had attracted dozens of the best skiers in the world. The first man to arrive was the former captain of the Dartmouth College ski team, Charles McLane.

#8

The American mountain soldiers were able to find men who knew how to make use of the mountains, and they began training them. The men became one of the most celebrated units in the U. S. Army.

#9

The mountain troops were a distinct group of men that represented the ideal blend of self-confidence and patriotism. They were used to reassure a frightened nation that old-fashioned, even virtuous, soldiering would stand up to the Axis threat.

#10

The men training to become elite mountain troops were as vulnerable to the brutality