Where the Birds Never Sing: The True Story of the 92nd Signal Battalion and the Liberation of Dachau

Instead of using the tired genre of third-person documentary-style writing to tell the tale, the author speaks in the first person, through the eyes of his father. The result is one of the most powerful and moving accounts of the human drama in World War II in recent memory.

The story begins in 1943 on a farm in Alabama, when the young Joe Sacco receives a letter informing him that he has been drafted into the service. From there, it seamlessly moves through his training with the 92nd Signal Battalion, shipping out to England (where the soldiers witnessed the stirring and famous speech by General George Patton), landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy, surviving the Battle of the Bulge, and fighting their way across Nazi Germany.

All along the way, the author crafts memorable and beautifully written scenes, from the terrors of battle to the tranquility of a snowfall in the forests of Alsace-Lorraine, from the sorrows of the death of a buddy to the joys of falling in love with a beautiful French girl named Monique.

The book, already powerful and moving up until that point, then takes the reader to a new level of realism as horrifying details of the liberation of Dachau are revealed. Rarely, if ever, has there been a written account of the reality of the concentration camps so graphic, gripping, or compelling.

In describing the emotions of the men before leaving Dachau, Sacco writes, “Now, after a year of combat, each of us finally and forever understood why destiny had called us to travel so far away from the land of our birth and fight for people we did not know. And so it was here, in this place abandoned by God and accursed by men, that we came to discover the meaning of our mission.“

This is not another book about World War II. It is, instead, an intimate journey into the heart of an American soldier, and as such, it is as triumphant as the men it depicts. Readers will not only delight in Where the Birds Never Sing, they will gain a new appreciation for the accomplishments of their own fathers, uncles, and grandfathers who may have served in World War II as part of the Greatest Generation.