Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-242) and index.

"The Boys of Winter is the true story of three young Depression-era American ski champions and their brutal, heroic, and ultimately tragic transformation from athletes to infantrymen with the fabled Tenth Mountain Division. Rudy Konieczny, Jacob Nunnemacher, and Ralph Bromaghin - three skiers from disparate geographic and economic backgrounds - forged names for themselves in the burgeoning sport of snow skiing during the late 1930s. With the world suddenly at war, they found themselves drawn together with several of the world's greatest winter athletes in the U.S. Tenth Mountain Division at Camp Hale, Colorado, where they trained to fight Hitler's troops in the mountains of Europe." "Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive historical research, Charles J. Sanders reveals the stories of these young men. Sanders traces their journeys from childhood to ski championships and from training at Mount Rainier and in the Colorado Rockies to bloody battles against the Nazis in the Apennine Mountains of Northern Italy." "Ultimately, The Boys of Winter is the story of how some of America's best and brightest died in the war's last and most desperate battles under General Mark Clark, calling into question the necessity of their sacrifices - and those of thousands of other troops - on the "forgotten" Italian front in the spring of 1945."--BOOK JACKET.