Book review: WWII through dad’s eyes

Bill Thorness is a journalist in Seattle who has previously published nonfiction books on cycling and gardening in the Pacific Northwest during his 35-year career. His present book, “All Roads Lead to Rome,” explores his relationship with his taciturn and alcoholic father who died in 1969 of a stroke while the author was still in grammar school.

At his mother’s funeral in 2007, he discovered a bundle of letters which she had preserved from her courtship days which revealed a totally unexpected aspect of the father he had remembered. At that time, the author decided to uncover how his father’s experiences in WWII may have influenced the personality of the man he had barely known as an embittered farmer in rural North Dakota.

This book resulted from Thorness’ investigation of the reminiscences and military records of the unit described in the letters, and trips he had made to Italy in 2009 and 2011 to visit the sites of the battles involved. It succeeds as both a study of the history of the bloody and under-appreciated war which drove the German army from the Italian peninsula prior to D-Day and as a Rick Steves-type modern day travelogue.

Eric Thorness had been drafted in 1942 at age 31 and while in basic training had volunteered for a new commando unit called the First Special Service Force (FSSF) composed of both American and Canadian soldiers. It was recruited from outdoorsmen such as lumberjacks, hunters, forest rangers, and farmers who would be trained in parachuting, mountain climbing, and guerilla tactics in preparation for the Allied attempt to retake Norway. This plan was abandoned when the American Fifth Army landed in Italy at Anzio in 1943 and the FSSF became one of its “spearhead” units.

The Force was recognized for capturing a heavily defended mountain pass on the road to Rome featured in a 1968 Hollywood movie, “The Devil’s Brigade,” starring William Holden. Eric had never mentioned this after having been wounded and spending his next years in military hospitals recuperating and writing his letters to the author’s mother.

Author Thorness’ descriptions of the long-forgotten battles involved are vivid and his depictions of the Italian landscape 70 years later serve as reminders of the war which changed so many families and lives. Readers who had relatives affected by the conflict will find this tale of a son seeking to understand his father a compelling journey into the past.