The Ski Troops of WWII
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
This week we’re bringing you a story about the 10th Mountain Division, a World War II military experiment to train skiers and climbers to fight in the mountains. The men of the 10th led a series of daring assaults against the German army in the mountains of Italy. Though the division fought in WWII for only four months, it had one of the highest casualty rates of the war.
After they returned home, many of the soldiers helped to create the modern ski industry.
This story originally aired on NPR’s All Things Considered in 2007.
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| 0:00.0 | Radiotopia |
| 0:02.5 | From PRX |
| 0:05.8 | From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. |
| 0:09.2 | I'm Joe Richmond. |
| 0:11.0 | Dan Kennerly was a soldier in World War II, and he kept a diary. |
| 0:15.8 | Wednesday, February 14, 1945. |
| 0:18.7 | This morning, I'm up at 9 a.m. |
| 0:20.8 | I eat and work in my Jeep. Orders come down to be |
| 0:23.4 | ready to move on a moment's notice, so I get all my gear ready, take a bath, and return to the |
| 0:27.9 | company area. Sergeant Poshman tells me and Slim Crowder that Parker is down with a bad back |
| 0:33.1 | and that one of us will have to take his place. Slim says he has a bad ankle and can't walk. |
| 0:38.5 | Me like a damn fool volunteer to take his place. |
| 0:41.6 | Why I do this, I'll never know. |
| 0:43.7 | Right now, I'm really pissed off at myself. |
| 0:49.1 | Kennerly grew up in the South, in Georgia. |
| 0:52.1 | He had never seen snow actually stick to the ground. But in |
| 0:55.7 | World War II, he decided to volunteer for an unlikely new unit of the U.S. Army, the ski |
| 1:00.8 | troops. They were officially called the 10th Mountain Division. It began as an experiment |
| 1:05.6 | to train skiers and climbers to fight in the most difficult mountainous terrain in Europe. |
| 1:11.1 | Some of the men who joined the division were skiers already. |
| 1:14.5 | Others had never seen a ski in their lives. |
| 1:17.4 | They were also trained in snowshoeing and rock climbing, |
... |
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