The personal beginning
A son trying to
understand his father.
My father, Jim Looby, served in Company I, 3rd Battalion, 85th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. He was wounded on Mount Belvedere.
Growing up, I knew him simply as Dad. He carried the hardest parts of the war quietly.
My mother, Nancy, preserved his papers. At ninety-one, she climbed to the attic to retrieve them, along with records and histories of the division.
After my father was gone, I wanted to pass his story on to the grandchildren he never had the chance to meet.
That search became The Tenth Trail Mark. Johnnie Grey is fictional. The men who inspired his story—including my father—were real.
The men who led them
One story led to another.
To understand the men, I also wanted to understand their commanders. That led me to George P. Hays—and, through him, to William O. Darby and the Rangers.
The Tenth Station reaches back to Hays’s service as a young lieutenant during the First World War, when his actions earned him the Medal of Honor. The Tenth Command brings Hays and Darby into Italy’s final campaign.
I wrote these novels to bring the human experience behind the history to life—the fear, the grit, the humor, the heartbreak, and the extraordinary strength of ordinary men and women.
— Joe Looby
These were never three separate stories.
They were always one.
An Author’s Note · Joe Looby
Behind
The Tenth Series
Rome, 1944. American prisoners pass under German guard. One raises two fingers: V for Victory.
That moment of defiance is one thread in three historical novels about the men who went to war—and the people who waited for them.
Here for The Tenth Command?
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The novels
Begin with The Tenth Trail Mark.
Then return to the origins in The Tenth Station, and continue with The Tenth Command.
World War II · Begin here
The Tenth
Trail Mark
Johnnie Grey carries the lessons of the Adirondacks into the 10th Mountain Division’s war in Italy—and holds fast to Ellie and the promise of home.
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World War I · The prequel
The Tenth
Station
On the Carolina coast, young Price Hays finds love while learning to live with loss. The Great War will carry him to France.
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World War II · The final campaign
The Tenth
Command
George P. Hays. William O. Darby. Two commanders facing the burden of every order in Italy’s final campaign.
Read the novel on Amazon Included with Kindle UnlimitedAbout the history and photographs
The Rome prisoner parade and prisoners’ victory gestures are documented in the United Nations War Crimes Commission’s Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, volume XI, case 63, printed page 53.
The photographs of Jim Looby and the mountain soldiers are from the author’s personal collection.