On August 31, 1944, near the town of Archingny, France, I was the loader in a Sherman tank called 'Wolverine.' We had been pushing through France for three weeks straight without resupply — eating K-rations, sleeping in the mud, smelling like diesel and gunpowder. On that day, we crossed a small bridge and found ourselves facing four German Panthers that had been abandoned — out of fuel. The crews had stripped them and walked east. Our driver, a kid from Detroit named Tommy Kowalski, got out and examined the Panthers. He found a German soldier's lunch pail in one of them — still had actual bre...

For two winters, my unit of 340 partisans lived in the Bryansk forests — the largest forest in Europe. We had no formal supply line. We ate what we could hunt, forage, and steal. We cut German railway lines an average of twice a week. The Germans called it 'the Bandenland' — bandit country — and sent 30,000 troops specifically to pacify us. They never did. What the history books don't tell you: we had families with us. Forty-two children lived in those forests. We had a school — two hours a day, under the trees. We had a newspaper. A theater troupe performed for us. We even had a small printin...