A Brief History

My father, Jim Stevens, as one of the soldiers of the 601st Tank Destroyers, was on active duty for the entire engagement of the North African Campaign and The European Theater of Operations in WWII - for over 4 years. He experienced 546 days of actual combat. While he fought at the Kasserine Pass and El Guettar in North Africa and then in France and Germany, it is the Italian Campaign that I have chosen to focus on. Jim has often said that he would have liked to return to Italy. For him it would have been a ritual journey allowing him to reconcile the brutality of the war he fought with the people, culture, beauty and history of the country that he also experienced. At 91, he cannot take that journey so I am taking it for him.