Bill Hanford had one of the U.S. Army’s riskiest jobs in World War II: artillery forward observer. Tasked with calling in heavy fire on the enemy, FOs accompanied infantrymen into combat, crawled into no-man’s-land, and ascended hills and ridges to find their targets--all while the enemy singled them out with a vengeance. The war may have been drawing to a close as Hanford fought in eastern France and then Germany, but as his brutally honest memoir reveals, that didn’t make his assignment any less dangerous.
Bill Hanford had one of the U.S. Army’s riskiest jobs in World War II: artillery forward observer. Tasked with calling in heavy fire on the enemy, FOs accompanied infantrymen into combat, crawled into no-man’s-land, and ascended hills and ridges to find their targets--all while the enemy singled them out with a vengeance.
