Avid skier and 10th Mountain Division descendant Charles J. Sanders is a music industry executive and an NYU professor.

"Focusing on the lives, and the deaths, of three young men from vastly different backgrounds, Sanders traces the history of the U.S. Army's Tenth Mountain Division from its inception, training in Washington and Colorado, first blooding in the Aleutians, and finally, to deployment to Italy in 1945. . . . Sanders's treatment of strategic questions is capable and his discussion of the division's high command, especially Fifth Army Commander General Mark Clark, is far from uncritical. His accounts of combat, usually in the survivors' voices, are riveting. . . . In his brief, eloquent conclusion, Sanders notes the outstanding contributions of those who survived the war and wonders what might have been. . . . Amply illustrated with photos and maps, The Boys of Winter is a sensitive tribute."
--Western Historical Quarterly

"Sanders distills the complicated and years-long saga of the creation of America's ski troops into an intensely personal story . . .[and] doesn't shy away from a question that haunts the survivors of the division, and the families of those who never returned . . . Was the Italian campaign intensified in the closing months of the war to justify the time and expense devoted to the development of the ski troops? Was the costly campaign primarily intended to keep the name of Gen. Mark Clark in the headlines? No part of this remarkable history is more important, or more relevant, in light of today's American military involvement overseas."
--Durango Herald

"The Boys of Winter perfectly captures the spirit of the men who made the division what it was, as well as the spirit of those troopers who survived to help shape the postwar world."
--John Imbrie, 10th Mountain Division historian and co-editor of Good Times and Bad Times

"Sanders book isn't just another collection of ski tales, but rather serves as a full-fledged study on the U.S. ski troops during World War II. The Boys of Winter endows readers with valuable insight not only in regard to the history of the ski industry, but also the history of America."
--National Ski Areas Association Journal

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Pub date: 2005-07-08

Length: 257 pages