weber6560

The following is from the Wall Street Journal:

In the race to liberate Prague at the end of World War II, Eugene Fodor won. The founder of the eponymous travel-guide series was a U.S. Army lieutenant and officer of the Office of Strategic Services when he bounced into the Czechoslovak capital with two other Americans in a lone jeep on May 8, 1945, V-E Day. Though Berlin had fallen to the Soviets almost two weeks before, Prague was still something of a no-man's land, with Russian forces hundreds of miles east of the city, American troops stalled just to the west and Czech insurgents battling it out against scattered Nazi diehards.

Fodor and the rest of his group—Sgt. Kurt Taub and Pvt. Nathan Shapiro—made it 100 miles through disintegrating German lines armed with only a rifle and a few pistols. Along the way, they managed to depose the pro-Nazi mayor of Karlsbad and pick up a shipment of insulin to deliver to Prague's besieged hospitals.

I guess that would be called "Independent travel".

I am continually humbled by the "greatest generation".

lincasanova

What a great post, weber6560. Thank you.

weber6560

I did a bit of Wiki research on Fodor: He was born in Hungary and marryied a Czech. He published his first travel guide in 1936 and after the war set up the firm we now know in Paris, moving it to Connecticut in 1961.

adrienne

You can download a free copy of the first guide:

http://www.fodors.com/75-anniversary...ree-ebook.html

tedgale

I thought this was going to be some dreadful revelation about the Hungarian Arrow Cross and collaboration w/ the Nazi occupiers after the Hungarian capitulation. A nice surprise

latedaytraveler

Very interesting info. Gracias...

Tentek

Fantastic piece of information. thank you!

Morningglory47

Thanks for posting.

cynthia_booker

Another thank you for posting. Makes me proud to know him (through this site and the books, of course.)