Climb to Conquer

September 1, 2003
Shelton, who writes for Men's Journal and Ski magazine, traces the story of America's 10th Mountain Division Ski Troops from 1940, when the idea for a military mountaineering/skiing division was first proposed, through 1945, when the division was briefly deployed (for 114 days) in northern Italy. Inspired by Finnish resistance to invading Soviet armies in 1939, a small group of New England ski enthusiasts figured America might also need cold-weather–capable resistance, should the Nazis decide to invade the U.S. via Canada. Although the War Department was unclear where such specialized troops might actually be used, authorization to form and train a ski division was granted after Pearl Harbor and the Italian invasion of Greece. The skiers were initially deployed to capture Kiska, a Japanese-held island in the Aleutians, but by the time the skiers arrived, the Japanese had evacuated. Indeed, the 10th spent most of WWII training and waiting for assignment. In the end, it was only their grit, not their special skills, that counted. Sent to capture Monte Belvedere, to secure Allied access to Bologna, they had no skis or climbing equipment, just the usual guns and grenades. After the war, many survivors made careers in the newly developing recreational skiing industry or in various outdoors-related businesses. Relying mostly on unpublished or obscure records of participants' experiences, Shelton's account is earnestly enthusiastic but curiously underwhelming, perhaps because the 10th Division never actually used its extensive ski training in the war. Agent, Elizabeth Kaplan.