200,000 Heroes

Italy, July 1944. The unendurable insult to Italy's inherently genial way of life brought about by Hitler's storm-troopers and Mussolini's Fascist toadies was both taking its toll on the people of Italy and creating a fledgling underground Resistance movement whose heroic ranks would soon swell to nearly 200,000 brave men and women. Author Leon Weckstein was there-an American GI in combat fighting with and befriending the Partisans. Here is the story, as told through eye-witness accounts and carefully researched historical archives, of the Italian Partisans and their American OSS allies' battle to destroy the Nazi-Fascist regime and expel the culprits from their beloved Italy.