"Where the Birds Never Sing" by Jack Sacco

The true story of the 92nd Signal Battalion and the liberation of Dachau.

At once epic in scope and intimate in detail, Where the Birds Never Sing effortlessly transports even a casual reader on an emotional and unforgettable journey as author Jack Sacco masterfully recounts the true story of his father, Joe Sacco, an American GI in World War II. 

Instead of using the tired genre of third-person documentary-style writing to tell the tale, the author speaks in the first person, through the eyes of his father. The result is one of the most powerful and moving accounts of the human drama in World War II in recent memory.

The story begins in 1943 on a farm in Alabama, when the young Joe Sacco receives a letter informing him that he has been drafted into the service. From there, it seamlessly moves through his training with the 92nd Signal Battalion, shipping out to England (where the soldiers witnessed the stirring and famous speech by General George Patton), landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy, surviving the Battle of the Bulge, and fighting their way across Nazi Germany.