Soldier Boys

Soldier Boys is a 2001 novel by writer Dean Hughes. The story is set during the Second World War and tells the story of two teenagers, one American, the other German, who join their respective armies and fight at the battle of the bulge. Both the boy's families are saddened by their leaving, and have many thing in common. Both have a playful little brother and some sisters, as well as concerned parents.

Plot

Spencer "Spence" Morgan is a sixteen-year-old from Brigham City, Utah, a member of a well-known Mormon family. His brother joins the navy, and after getting his fathers approval, Spence joins the paratroopers. During grueling training, he meets Ted Draney and befriends him. They are soon sent off to England. Dietrich "Dieter" Hedrick is a fifteen-year-old German boy from the town of Krumbach, Bavaria (a state in southern Germany). Dieter is a member of the Hitler Youth and is a leader of a group of teenage German boys helping to fortify the Siegfried line(commonly known as the westwall). Dieter's boys also fired anti-aircraft guns at Allied bombers during their raids over German cities and scored one confirmed kill. Dieter's hard work got him promoted to lead a group of 180 boys. Dieter and a few other leaders meet Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer, and Dieter is given a medal for his war service. Dieter is anxious to fight and at Dieter's requests, he is sent into an infantry unit and meets Corporal Johann Schaefer, a middle aged veteran of the Russian front, including the battle of Stalingrad. He was wounded and sent to a hospital in Warsaw to recover. It is revealed later that Schaefer learned about the Holocaust while in Poland. He was sickened by what he saw and despises Hitler. He also knows that Germany is about to lose- "the Russians have won in the east, and now the enemy is overtaking us in the west. This battle is desperate, just a wild gamble and it isn't going to work". When he tries to tell Dieter, Dieter calls him a traitor. Despite this, Dieter and Schaefer develop a father-son relationship throughout the book. Spence and Dieter are both sent to the battle of the bulge. When both boys kill their first enemy, they react differently. Dieter is proud when he shoots an American soldier. Spence is sickened when he finds a young German soldier who looks to be twelve years old who had been feeding bullets to a machine gun lying dead beside a dead German machine gunner whom he had thrown a grenade at moments before. As fighting continiues, both boys lose their friends. Ted and half the company are killed after a charge into waiting German tanks, machine gunners, and riflemen(one of them Dieter, who, when talking to Schaefer, claims to have shot a few himself.). In a German charge against two companies, one of them Spence's, Schaefer is killed and Dieter is wounded. Spence hears Dieters desperate cries and when feels sorry for him. disobeying orders, slips out at night to help Dieter. Spence bandages Dieter's wounds and sing a song. Dieter knows that the soldier who is helping him is an American, but he is not afraid. In his mind, Spence is just a young man like himself. And sometimes he fantasizes that he is Schaefer. As Spence tries to get Dieter back to his own lines so he can reach medics, two German soldiers who heard Dieter's cries shoot Spence and pull Dieter off the hill. Spence dies before his comrades know where he is, and Dieter is taken to a field hospital and told that he will need surgery. Dieter remembered Spence and is saddened by what happened. Although his sergeant tries to convince him otherwise, Dieter realizes that he will think about Spence the rest of his life. The book ends with a memorial service in Spence's hometown of Brigham city.