Sheer Misery

Marching across occupied France in 1944, American GI Leroy Stewart had neither death nor glory on his mind: he was worried about his underwear, which was engaged in a relentless crawl of its own. Similar complaints of physical discomfort pervade infantrymen’s memories of the European theater, whether the soldiers were British, American, German, or French. Wet, freezing misery with no end in sight—this was life for millions of enlisted men during World War II. Sheer Misery trains a humane and uns