Best of
War

1963

The Civil War: A Narrative


Shelby Foote - 1963
    Collected together in a handsome boxed set, this is the perfect gift for any Civil War buff.Fort Sumter to Perryville"Here, for a certainty, is one of the great historical narratives of our century, a unique and brilliant achievement, one that must be firmly placed in the ranks of the masters." -Van Allen Bradley, Chicago Daily News"Anyone who wants to relive the Civil War, as thousands of Americans apparently do, will go through this volume with pleasure.... Years from now, Foote's monumental narrative most likely will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of its kind." -New York Herald Tribune Book ReviewFredericksburg to Meridian"This, then, is narrative history-a kind of history that goes back to an older literary tradition.... The writing is superb...one of the historical and literary achievements of our time." -The Washington Post Book World"Gettysburg...is described with such meticulous attention to action, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commanders that I understand, at last, what happened in that battle.... Mr. Foote has an acute sense of the relative importance of events and a novelist's skill in directing the reader's attention to the men and the episodes that will influence the course of the whole war, without omitting items which are of momentary interest. His organization of facts could hardly be bettered." -AtlanticRed River to Appomattox"An unparalleled achievement, an American Iliad, a unique work uniting the scholarship of the historian and the high readability of the first-class novelist." -Walker Percy"I have never read a better, more vivid, more understandable account of the savage battling between Grant's and Lee's armies

In the Hell of Auschwitz: The Wartime Memoirs of Judith Sternberg Newman


Judith Sternberg Newman - 1963
     She was the only one to leave alive again. At five o’clock on February 23, 1942, Nazi police, armed with rifles surrounded the hospital where Sternberg worked. Time had run out for the Jewish inhabitants of Breslau. There had been ten thousand Jewish inhabitants in the city prior to the rise of Nazis. By the end of the war only thirty-eight had escaped the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps. Sternberg’s book relates episode after episode of events where she should have been killed, but for whatever reason, she was spared. Much has been written of the horrific events that occurred in Nazi Germany, yet it is rare that you are able to hear of these stories written by survivors themselves. Sternberg’s book is therefore an invaluable source that uncovers the dark days that she spent in hell. In the Hell of Auschwitz is a fascinating book that provides insights into the worst horrors of the Second World War. Although at points it is a difficult read, it should be read by everyone so that such horrors will never be allowed to occur again. After the war Judith Sternberg Newman married Senek Newman, a fellow concentration camp survivor, and emigrated to the United States 1947. She began writing her account immediately after arriving in the United States. She worked as a nurse in Providence, Rhode Island, until her retirement. In the Hell of Auschwitz was first published in 1963. Newman passed away in 2008.

The Two-Ocean War


Samuel Eliot Morison - 1963
    naval operations in World War II. Morison was a distinguished historian, a former Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University. But he also wrote as a participant in many of the events described in this volume: he served on eleven different ships during the war, emerging as a captain with seven battle stars on his service ribbons, having gone to sea specifically to be able to write in contact with the events covered. Fully illustrated with 35 photographs and 54 charts and maps of key engagements, this is a blazing record of the action from Pearl Harbor to the long war of attrition between submarines and convoys in the Atlantic, through Midway and Guadalcanal, to the invasion of continental Europe, to Okinawa, Leyte, and the final grudging surrender of the Japanese. Morison's narrative is rich enough to reveal all levels of each wartime encounter, dramatizing the strategic arguments that went on between Churchill and King, between MacArthur and Nimitz, as well as highlighting the glory of individual feats of arms. The Two-Ocean War is a truly outstanding contribution to military history.

Patton: Ordeal and Triumph


Ladislas Farago - 1963
    He represents toughness, focus, determination, and the ideal of achievement in the face of overwhelming odds. He was the most feared and respected adversary to his enemies and an object of envy, admiration, and sometimes, scorn to his professional peers. An early proponent of tank warfare, George S. Patton moved from being a foresighted lieutenant in the First World War to commanding the Third Army in the next, leading armored divisions in the Allied offensive that broke the back of Nazi Germany. Patton was an enigmatic figure. His image among his troops and much of the press achieved legendary status through his bold and colorful comments and combat leadership, yet these same qualities nearly jeopardized his career and forced him out of the battle on several occasions. Victory was impossible without Patton, and returning to the field, his army was responsible for one of the most crushing advances in the history of warfare.In Ladislas Farago's masterpiece, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, the complete story of this fascinating personality is revealed. Born into an aristocratic California family, Patton rose in military rank quickly and was tapped to lead the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942. Under Patton's direction, American troops cut their teeth against Rommel's Afrikakorps, advanced further and more quickly than British General Montgomery's army in the conquest of Sicily, and ultimately continued their exploits by punching into Germany and checking the Russian westward advance at the end of World War II. A sweeping, absorbing biography and critically hailed, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph provides unique insights into Patton's life and leadership style and is military history at its finest.

And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II


Jacques Lusseyran - 1963
    He finished his schooling determined to participate in the world around him. In 1941, when he was seventeen, that world was Nazi-occupied France. Lusseyran formed a resistance group with fifty-two boys and used his heightened senses to recruit the best. Eventually, Lusseyran was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in a transport of two thousand resistance fighters. He was one of only thirty from the transport to survive. His gripping story is one of the most powerful and insightful descriptions of living and thriving with blindness, or indeed any challenge, ever published.* Chosen as one of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the Twentieth Century by a jury of writers including Harold Kushner, Thomas Moore, Huston Smith, and Natalie Goldberg* This fourth edition includes a new insert of photographs“One of the most powerful memoirs I’ve ever encountered...[Lusseyran’s] experience is thrilling, horrible, honest, spiritually profound, and utterly full of joy.”— Ethan Hawke, in the Village Voice

The Long Voyage


Jorge Semprún - 1963
    During the seemingly endless journey, he has conversations that range from his childhood to speculations about the death camps. When at last the fantastic, Wagnerian gates to Buchenwald come into sight, the young Spaniard is left alone to face the camp.

"I Will Fight No More Forever": Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War


Merrill D. Beal - 1963
    In this superb summation of the ethnohistory of the Nez Perce tribe containing also careful analyses of the military campaigns and political events and a wholly balanced review of facts, opinions, and previous evaluations of the situation and circumstances within have colored the evidence, we have what seems to be the last word...

How I Won The War


Patrick Ryan - 1963
    

Beat the Last Drum: The Siege of Yorktown (The Thomas Fleming Library)


Thomas Fleming - 1963
     Along with French General Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, George Washington made an astonishing march through New Jersey and trapped British General Charles Cornwallis and his forces in Yorktown, Virginia, where they unleashed a tremendous artillery assault, with the support of the French navy. But victory was never certain - both sides made a series of dramatic attacks and counterattacks. Using the diaries and letters of participants in the siege, Fleming creates a moving and exciting depiction of the days in October 1781 that ended the American Revolution and changed the world.

The Seed and the Sower


Laurens van der Post - 1963
    What follows is the story of two British officers whose spirits the Japanese try to break. Yet out of all the violence and misery strange bonds of love and friendship are forged between the prisoners - and their gaolers. It is a battle of survival that becomes a battle of contrasting wills and philosophies as the intensity of the men's relationship develops.

They Fought Alone


John C. Keats - 1963
    What happened to him during nearly three years behind enemy lines is the amazing story that John Keats tells in They Fought Alone. With the aid of a handful of Americans who also refused to surrender, Fertig led thousands of Filipinos in a seemingly hopeless war against the Japanese. They made bullets from curtain rods; telegraph wire from iron fence. They fought off sickness, despair and rebellion within their own forces. Their homemade communications were MacArthur s eyes and ears in the Philippines. When the Americans finally returned to Mindanao, they found Fertig virtually in control of one of the world s largest islands, commanding an army of 35,000 men, and bringing a measure of hope to a beleaguered people. John Keats, who also served in the Philippines, captures all the pain, brutality, and courage of this incredible drama. "They Fought Alone" is a testament to the ingenuity and sheer guts of an authentic American hero."

This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness


T.R. Fehrenbach - 1963
    Partly drawn from official records, operations journals, and histories, it is based largely on the compelling personal narratives of the small-unit commanders and their troops. Unlike any other work on the Korean War, it provides both a clear panoramic overview and a sharply drawn "you were there" account of American troops in fierce combat against the North Korean and Chinese communist invaders. As Americans and North Koreans continue to face each other across the 38th Parallel, This Kind of War commemorates the past and offers vital lessons for the future.

Dawn Like Thunder (Annotated): The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U.S. Navy


Glenn Tucker - 1963
    These sea raiders, or ‘corsairs’ as they were known, sought captives to enslave in the Ottoman Empire’s galleys, mines and harems. When reports circulated of white Christians being shackled to oars, smashing rocks in mines and being sold into sexual slavery, the American public became incensed. The leaders of the young republic were forced to act and with remarkable dexterity built a fleet of ships that grew into a fighting force powerful enough to withstand its first major test: The Barbary Wars.*Includes annotations and images.

Secrets & Spies - Behind the Scenes Stories of World War II


Reader's Digest Association - 1963
    Many stories of fascinating secrets and spies during WW II.

The Janowska Road


Leon Weliczker Wells - 1963
    The book is the harrowing account of Wells' experiences from his sixteenth to his twentieth year in Lvov, Poland, from 1941-1945. Most of that time was spent as a prisoner in the Janowska concentration camp.Wells would later testify that he was the only member of his family, including his parents, six siblings, cousins and uncles, numbering 76 in all, to survive the Holocaust. He survived by becoming part of the "Death Brigade" at Janowska, whose job it was to obliterate, with bonfires and bone-crushers, the evidence of the Third Reich's guilt: thousands upon thousands of human corpses. Following the war, Wells emigrated to the United States. Leon Wells passed away on December 19, 2009, at the age of 84.This new edition includes an Introduction by Steve W. Chadde, maps, and photographs of Lvov and the Janowska Camp.

The Stonewall Brigade


James I. Robertson Jr. - 1963
    Rich in anecdotes and interwoven with lively narrative, this will be of interest to students of strategy and those interested in pure Civil War drama.

Highway of Heroes: True Patriot Love


Pete Fisher - 1963
    The fallen soldiers were driven down the 172-kilometre stretch of highway between Trenton and Toronto, and pedestrians lined the overpasses, hoping to make a connection with the grieving families. The support these people show isnt political; its not a movement for or against Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. Its always been a grassroots movement about showing respect for our fallen champions. People young and old, emergency services workers, Canadian Legion members, military personnel, friends of the fallen, and family of fallen soldiers stand atop each bridge along the highway in the blistering heat or bone-chilling cold. After five years of this display of patriotism, the Highway of Heroes was officially named in the summer of 2007 and has been a gleaming example of a nation's grief and its pride.

The Beginning And The End, And Other Poems


Robinson Jeffers - 1963
    

Landscape in Concrete


Jakov Lind - 1963
    But after a horrifying defeat at Voroshenko, where most of his Eighth Hessian Infantry Regiment was slaughtered in a single instant, Bachmann was declared mentally unfit to serve. Incapable of accepting this judgment, and of returning to his girlfriend and a quiet life as a gold- and silversmith, Bachmann wanders the war-ravaged countryside, trying to find a way to rejoin his regiment, or any regiment, and return to the front.While trying to find his regiment and come to terms with the horrors he has seen and committed, the increasingly unstable Bachmann is manipulated by a series of figures from the underbelly of war’s underbelly—deserters and collaborators, corrupt officers and sexual predators—who induce him to carry out their venal missions, which they’ve justified against the background of institutionalized murder going on all around them.Containing dark echoes of Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, Jakov Lind's Landscape in Concrete is an "astonishing and highly original imagining of (the) dimensions of evil including sadistic cruelty, of the condition of being a victim and the madness abroad which constitutes the virtual victory of Hitler if we fail to translate survival into freedom" (Anthony Rudolf).

The Mosquito Fleet


Bern Keating - 1963
    The story of the PT Boats in World War II.

The Hunting Of Force Z


Richard Hough - 1963
    A famous account of one of the most dramatic and tragic episodes of the Second World War * Published to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the outbreak of World War II * Also famous as a major television documentary under the same title

International Law and the Use of Force by the States


Ian Brownlie - 1963
    Professor Brownlie has confined himself to the pursuit, on historic lines, of an estimation of the extent of legal prohibition of the use of force by states. He includes the deliberations and findings of political organs of the League of Nations and the United Nations, as well as a study of the quality of prohibition of force, making some indication of relevant corollaries.

Introduction and Syntopical Guide (Gateway to the Great Books, #1)


Robert Maynard Hutchins - 1963
    The Ways -and Whys- of ReadingII. The Imagination of ManIII. Man and SocietyIV. Science and MathematicsV. PhilosophyVI. The Endless JourneySYNTOPICAL GUIDEAPPENDICESI. A Plan of Graded ReadingII. Recommended NovelsIII. Recommended Anthologies of Poetry

Always With Honour


Peter Wrangel - 1963
    The memoirs of the last commander-in-chief of Russian soldiers fighting after the Soviet seizure of power.

Pacific War Diary, 1942-1945: The Secret Diary of an American Sailor


James J. Fahey - 1963
    One of the most extraordinary personal documents to emerge from the war, James J. Fahey's diary presents a vivid picture of an average sailor's daily life -- from the first experience of battle in the waters surrounding the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific to the typhoons and food shortages to the final desperate attacks by kamikaze pilots and Japanese suicide ships near Okinawa.

Message to the Grassroots


Malcolm X - 1963
    Shortly after, Malcolm split from the Nation of Islam.

Guerrilla


Charles W. Thayer - 1963
    From Yugoslavia to Vietnam, from Lawrence of Arabia to Mao Tse-tung - a military expert's fascinating study of guerrilla warfare and the men who fight it.

An Introduction To Strategy


André Beaufre - 1963
    

An End to Bugling


Edmund G. Love - 1963
    Confederate Maj Gen Jeb Stuart and his cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia are conducting an operation at Gettysburg, PA in July 0f 1863. Passing through a mysterious cloud they find themselves in Gettysburg, PA in 1963 during the centennial of the Battle of Gettysburg. The soldiers have to deal with modern devices and a new culture (the 20th Century) and a populace unlike anything they've encountered before. All told, an enjoyable read