Messengers of the Lost Battalion : Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge

Following his father's tragic death, American poet and historian Gregory Orfalea journeyed to France to attend the first reunion of his father's World War II infantry battalion, the ill-fated 551st.

What he found was a compelling and unsolved mystery: why was the 551st sent to its destruction in a futile assault on Rochelinval during the Battle of the Bulge, and why has this heroic unit's memory been all but erased from military history? Orfalea explores this mystery, and the result goes beyond recovering a crucial chapter in the annals of World War II.

Through its characters, narration of dramatic and deadly action, and reconstruction of the period and its mores, this work seeks to recover a deeper moral and cultural reality - the lost legacy of that generation's understanding of manhood and heroism.