Best of
War

1979

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers


Filip Müller - 1979
    He was still alive when the gassings ceased in November 1944. He saw millions come and disappear; by sheer luck he survived. Muller is neither a historian nor a psychologist; he is a source--one of the few prisoners who saw the Jewish people die and lived to tell about it. Eyewitness Auschwitz is one of the key documents of the Holocaust.

Sophie's Choice


William Styron - 1979
    Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.

The Short-Timers


Gustav Hasford - 1979
    It follows the career of the sardonic narrator from the organized sadism of Marine basic training to an assignment as a combat reporter in Vietnam to his experiences as a platoon commander after the Tet offensive, portraying the descent into barbarism that marked America's intervention in Vietnam.

The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry


Matthew George Walter - 1979
    This newly edited anthology reflects the diverse experiences of those who lived through the war, bringing together the words of poets, soldiers, and civilians affected by the conflict. Here are famous verses by Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen; poetry by women writing from the home front; and the anonymous lyrics of soldiers’ songs. Arranged thematically, the selections take the reader through the war’s stages, from conscription to its aftermath, and offer a blend of voices that is both unique and profoundly moving.

Patton And His Third Army


Brenton G. Wallace - 1979
    Patton At the start of the war the Nazi armed forces was one of the most feared war machines in history. It had swept away all opposition and threatened all of Europe with its dominating force. But its supremacy was not to last. In fact the gains made by Nazi Germany over the course of 1940 to 1942 were rolled back in ten short months as Patton and the Third Army roared through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. Through the course of this offensive Patton and his men faced some of the toughest fighting of World War Two, most notably when the Germans attempted to reverse the tide in the Battle of the Bulge. Colonel Brenton G. Wallace was there to witness all of this as he served, and went on to earn five battle stars, with the Third Army through the course of its movements into Germany. His book, Patton and his Third Army is a remarkable account of this fascinating leader and his troops that changed the course of World War Two and revolutionized warfare. Wallace uncovers the actions of the Third Army from its preparations in Britain, to its first engagements with the enemy, through to the major battles around the Falaise Pocket and countering the German offensives, breaking across the Moselle into Germany until they eventually subdued the Nazi forces. This book provides fascinating insight into the strategies used by Patton to defeat the Germans. It is full of direct quotes from Patton that demonstrate his determination to win, such as: “When you have an adversary staggering and hanging on the ropes, don’t let up on him. Keep smashing, keep him off balance and on the run until you have knocked him out completely. That is the way to get this dirty business over quickly and at the smallest cost.” Patton and his Third Army is essential reading for anyone interested in the European Theater of war and finding out more about this remarkable figure who Eisenhower said was “born to be a soldier”. Brenton G. Wallace was an American army officer and architect. Through the course of the war he was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star from the United States, the Croix de Guerre with Star of Vermeil from France and also made part of the Order of the British Empire. He served under Patton as an assistance chief of staff and retired from the army as a Major General in the United States Army Reserve. His work Patton and his Third Army was first published in 1946. He passed away in 1968.

And No Birds Sang


Farley Mowat - 1979
    This powerful, true account of the action he saw, fighting desperately to push the Nazis out of Italy, evokes the terrible reality of war with an honesty and clarity fiction can only imitate. In scene after unforgettable scene, he describes the agony and antic humor of the soldier's existence: the tedium of camp life, the savagery of the front, and the camaraderie shared by those who have been bloodied in battle.

Bomber Command


Max Hastings - 1979
    More than 56,000 British and Commonwealth aircrew and 600,000 Germans died in the course of the RAF’s attempt to win the war by bombing. The struggle in the air began meekly in 1939 with only a few Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, razing whole German cities in a single night. Bomber Command, through fits and starts, grew into an effective fighting force.In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the U.K., famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Now back in print in the U.S., this book is an essential addition to any history reader’s bookshelf.

Wingmen


Ensan Case - 1979
    But a more subtle kind of hell was brewing in his feelings for rookie pilot Fred Trusteau. As another wingman watches - and waits for the beautiful woman who loves Jack - Hardigan and Trusteau cut a fiery swath through the skies from Wake Island to Tarawa to Truk, there to keep a fateful rendezvous with love and death in the blood-clouded waters of the Pacific.

Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon & the Destruction of Cambodia


William Shawcross - 1979
    William Shawcross interviewed hundreds of people of all nationalities, including cabinet ministers, military men, and civil servants, and extensively researched U.S. Government documents. This full-scale investigation with material new to this edition exposes how Kissinger and Nixon treated Cambodia as a sideshow. Although the president and his assistant claimed that a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia was necessary to eliminate North Vietnamese soldiers who were attacking American troops across the border, Shawcross maintains that the bombings only spread the conflict, but led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent massacre of a third of Cambodia's population."

Ice Brothers


Sloan Wilson - 1979
    The lone U.S. Coast Guard trawler Arluk is commanded by "Mad" Mowry, a salty old drunk, a raging tyrant -- and the finest ice pilot around. But when Mowry cracks up, two greenhorns are suddenly thrust into command. Paul Schumann and Nathan Greenberg must conquer the icy Greenland seas, the brutal Arctic elements, the fog-enshrouded Nazi gunboats -- or die.Based on personal experience, Sloan Wilson, author of The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, has written a gripping story of war at sea, of the officers and seamen who fight fear and the enemy. The solitary trawler Arluk and its crew become a microcosm of the entire war.

Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk


Len Deighton - 1979
    Len Deighton brings to bear all the skills of a best-selling novelist in this compelling study.In Blitzkrieg, Len Deighton turns a searchlight on the rise of Hitler, the lightning dash of his armies to the Channel coast in 1940 and on the debacle of Dunkirk, where — in a mistake that was to trigger his eventual downfall — a quarter of a million British troops were allowed to escape.

Bruce Catton's America


Bruce Catton - 1979
    In his books, ranging from the celebrated Civil War trilogies to the account of his boyhood in back-country Michigan, Catton brought the people of the past to such vivid life that he became the nation's best-loved and most widely read historian. Bruce Catton's friend and associate for many years, Oliver Jensen, has assembled this volume of selections of Catton's works - as a memorial to the man and a tribute to the historian. The excerpts chosen for Bruce Catton's America include portions of A Stillness at Appomattox, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; The American Heritage History of the Civil War, awarded a special Pulitzer Prize Citation; and representative selections from many other books and articles. The book also includes several previously unpublished pieces. Bruce Catton helped to create American Heritage magazine in 1954 and continued to influence it for the next twenty-four years - first as editor, then as senior editor and a frequent contributor. He spent much of his adult life as a newspaperman in the Midwest and Washington, D.C., and became a historian "by logical extension." Although best known as the greatest writer on the Civil War, he had wide-ranging interests. To those who are familiar with Bruce Catton's work, these selections will appear as old friends whose company never fails to provide enjoyment, stimulation, and a deep sense of worth. For those who have not yet read him, Bruce Catton's America will be an introduction to historical writing at its best.

By Bread Alone: The Story of A-4685


Mel Mermelstein - 1979
    This is a true story of Mel Mermelstein

Memoirs of an Anti-Semite


Gregor von Rezzori - 1979
    Our hero tells of his childhood: his passion for hunting, his love of the wild landscape of Romania, his ridiculous social snobbery. He leads us through his youth, and between fantastic and colourful stories of Bucharest in the late twenties and early thirties, he dissects his own complicated, at times agonizing, development as a moral creature. We are with him as the Nazis take over Austria; as his own anti-semitism - already such a mixture of belief, caprice, and compromise - is shaken to its core. And later on we meet him as a much older man, one haunted by his own protean character, by the beautiful but tragic web of memories and events that together form his history, and by the greatest love of his life, a beautiful Jewess.

Escape from Laos


Dieter Dengler - 1979
    An American pilot shot down over Laos in 1966 tells of his inhumane treatment and torture at the hands of the Communist Pathet Lao and his daring escape from a prison camp five months after capture.

Nānā I Ke Kumu (Look to the Source): Volume 2


Mary Kawena Pukui - 1979
    It is a source book of Hawaiian cultural practices, concepts and beliefs which illustrate the wisdom and dignity contained in the cultural roots of every Hawaiian child.The Hawaiian lived for many years isolated from the rest of the world, with a viable culture that met the needs of a thriving, industrious and religious people. Then came the foreigner with his technology and Judeao-Christian culture. He saw the native beliefs as pagan and inferior, and superimposed his culture. In order to gain acceptance, avoid ridicule and disapproval, the Hawaiian gradually adapted to Western ways. However, he secretly hung on to some of the beliefs and ways of his own culture. The confusion in his sense of identity which resulted exists today. For many Hawaiian families today, only the negatives, often in garbled fashion, have persisted. This is complicated further by mergers or conflicts of Hawaiian convictions with other ethnic or religious precepts. Forgotten are the positives in the culture, such as: the importance of the family (ohana); the respect for seniors (kupuna); insuring harmonious interdependence within the ohana through regular family therapy (hooponopono); dealing with each successive layer of trouble (mahiki); forgiving fully and completely (mihi);) and freeing each other completely (kala). It is this knowledge that the Hawaiian needs to recapture. The objectives of this work are to provide factual information as accurately as possible in a subject that reaches back to unwritten history and legend, to clarify Hawaiian concepts, and to examine their applicability to modern life. Volume I culminates seven years of weekly meetings of study and research by the Culture Committee of the Queen Liliuokalani Childrens Center, a child welfare agency created by the Deed of Trust of Her Majesty Queen Liliuokalani, to provide services to children of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian ancestry. This committee was started when, in our work with children and families, many Hawaiian concepts, beliefs and practices emerged. Our staff, confronted by these deeply felt beliefs, felt uncomfortable, and as a result avoided discussion and exploration, even though this hampered successful work in resolving family conflicts. This pointed to our need to learn and understand the authentic Hawaiian culture in order to increase our effectiveness in helping those we serve. We are fortunate that Mrs. Mary Kawena Pukui, associate of the Bishop Museum, translator and author, agreed to be our kumu (this also means teacher). Her belief in our sincere wish to help our people and her recognition that cultural information was of great value, were the motivating factors behind her sharing her knowledge with us. She did express her concern that the concepts in this book not be misused or misunderstood to cause her people embarrassment. (For example, she was once severely criticized for writing an article on hooponopono.) She believes the Hawaiian needs to understand and appreciate the soundness and beauty of his culture. We are deeply indebted to the contributions of Mrs. Pukui. Without her, this work could not have been done.

The Eternal Mercenary


Barry Sadler - 1979
    That he didn’t was only the first surprise. The second, bigger one, was that Casey had been fighting for two thousand years, ever since that day on Golgotha when he put his lance into the side of the Man on the Cross. “Soldier, you are content with what you are. Then that you shall remain until we meet again.” So does Casca’s journey begin, a man who cannot die, does not age, and knows no skill but those of battle. He becomes The Eternal Mercenary.

To War in a Stringbag


Charles Lamb - 1979
    Antiquated as it was, the "Stringbag" still outmaneuvered almost any other aircraft—especially with Lamb at the controls. Go with him into the thick of the action—landing on the Courageous just before she sinks; flying 29 sorties over northern Europe; attacking E-boats through the nine days of Dunkirk. Also experience the terror of being shot down...and living to soar again, defending Malta and the Mediterranean. A rare story of courage. 5 X 7 3/4.

The Year of the French


Thomas Flanagan - 1979
    They were supposed to be an advance guard, followed by other French ships with the leader of the rebellion, Wolfe Tone. Briefly they triumphed, raising hopes among the impoverished local peasantry and gathering a group of supporters. But before long the insurgency collapsed in the face of a brutal English counterattack.Very few books succeed in registering the sudden terrible impact of historical events; Thomas Flanagan's is one. Subtly conceived, masterfully paced, with a wide and memorable cast of characters, The Year of the French brings to life peasants and landlords, Protestants and Catholics, along with old and abiding questions of secular and religious commitments, empire, occupation, and rebellion. It is quite simply a great historical novel.Named the most distinguished work of fiction in 1979 by the National Book Critics' Circle.

The Politics of War: The Story of Two Wars Which Altered Forever the Political Life of the American Republic


Walter Karp - 1979
    Politics of War describes the emergence of the United States as a world power between the years 1890 and 1920-our contrivance of the Spanish-American War and our gratuitous entrance into World War I-and by filling in the back story of an era in which mendacious oligarchy organized the country's politics in a manner convenient to its own indolence and greed, Karp offers a clearer understanding of our current political circumstance.

The Infidel


Georgia Taylor - 1979
    Beautiful Jimena was little more than a girl when she was given in marriage to the man she loathed – Rodrigo Diaz, known as El Cid, Christian Spain’s greatest warrior hero, and the man who had slain her father.Jimena had barely learned to play the role of wife when she was abducted by her husband’s hated enemy, Hasan was the brilliant, daring, superbly handsome Arab chieftain who had made her prisoner of his power - and of her own wakening passion

Zulu Dawn


Cy Endfield - 1979
    Across the slopes of Isandhlwana, there came the sound of thunder. Assegai shafts pound against drum-tight shields. Fifty thousand voices cry in one dread voice the Zulu word for ‘kill’: ‘U-SU-THU! U-SU-THU!’ Against the sweeping landscapes of Southern Africa, Lord Chelmsford’s army of eight thousand soldiers moves inexorably into Zululand. Their aim: to subdue a proud and unyielding warrior nation. But what starts as an imperial adventure turns into one of the bloodiest episodes in African history. It becomes a struggle to the death between Chelmsford’s Redcoats and a fearsome army of fifty thousand Zulus, fighting for their nationhood and birth right. Lieutenant William Vereker is young, light-hearted and keen for war. However, seeing the torture and slaying of Zulu warriors at the hands of his comrades hits Vereker hard. Yet his determination to fight for his Queen and Country is unwavering. Lieutenant Coghill firmly believes in the great destiny of the British Empire, whilst his close friend Lieutenant Melvill thinks the army need to get the Zulus before the Zulus get them. Can these young officers survive that fateful day on the slopes of Isandhlwana? Zulu Dawn is the story of the tragedy and shattering human drama of that struggle. A powerful action adventure tale, it was made into the hit film Zulu Dawn in 1979. Praise for Zulu Dawn ‘A remarkably forward thinking work.’ – Mountain Xpress Cyril Raker Endfield (1914 – 1995) was an American screenwriter, film director, theatre director, author, magician and inventor. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, attended Yale University and began his career as a theatre director and drama coach, becoming a significant figure in New York's progressive theatre scene. He was based in Britain from 1953.

A Ship Must Die


Douglas Reeman - 1979
    Out in the wastes of the Indian Ocean, British ships are sinking. The cause: a German armed raider, disguised to deceive unwary merchantmen. In Williamstown, Australia, HMS Andromeda awaits transfer to the Australian navy. After years together in bloody combat with the Nazis, the cruiser's crew will disperse to fight in other ships, in other seas. But a call to Andromeda's youthful captain, Richard Blake VC, changes everything. He puts to sea immediately. His mission: to seek out and destroy the raider. And in this conflict, one ship must die.

Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed


Philip Paul Hallie - 1979
    There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.Author Biography: Philip Hallie was Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University, where he taught for thirty-two years. He died in 1994, leaving this manuscript. That it can now be published is do to the devotion of his wife, Doris Ann Hallie, who contributed an afterword. The foreword by John Compton, fellow philosopher and longtime friend of the author, will help the reader to understand this unusual document in the context of Hallie's life and thought.

The Hunger Winter: Occupied Holland 1944-1945


Henri A. van der Zee - 1979
    Life in occupied Holland was hideous enough, but for the Dutch the worst was yet to come. After the Western Allies lost the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944, the Dutch provinces north of the Rhine and Waal Rivers were in the hands of the Germans, and to the south fighting raged for months. In the winter of 1944–45, just as other parts of Europe were being liberated, the Dutch seemed forsaken by the Allies, who bypassed Holland on their drive to Berlin. That last winter of the war, with its severe food and fuel shortages, was a terrible one for the Dutch people, who also suffered from episodes of Nazi terrorism. In some provinces there was nothing to eat but tulip bulbs and sugar beets, and eighteen thousand Dutch civilians actually starved to death. Henri van der Zee, who was ten years old that winter, remembers what happened to his people.

The Vienna I Knew: Memories of a European Childhood


Joseph Wechsberg - 1979
    However, his father was killed in action on the Russian front very soon after the start of the First World War, and his mother, having invested her inheritance in government bonds, was impoverished when the government lost the war and was dissolved. Yet this is in no way a mournful book: young Wechsberg found the pre-war years entertaining, and his inquiring, wry mind makes the post-war years equally so. His account of a visit in the twenties to rich relatives in Vienna, describing his provincial bewilderment at their cosmopolitan luxury, is very funny; it is also excellent social history, and everybody in the story — for example, the chauffeur, whom Wechsberg found the most comprehensible member of the ménage — comes alive for us. Though Wechsberg can remember himself as a country cousin, his memoirs are urbanity itself.” — The New Yorker (July 30, 1979)

The Military Balance 2019


International Institute for Strategic Studies - 1979
    

No Man's Land: Combat and Identity in World War 1


Eric J. Leed - 1979
    Ancient myths about war eroded in the trenches, where the relentless monotony and impotence of the solder's life was interrupted only by unpredictable moments of annihilation. Professor Leed looks at how the traumatic experience of combat itself and the wholesale shattering of the conventions and ethical codes of normal social life turned ordinary civilians into 'liminal men', men living beyond the limits of the accepted and the expected. He uses the concept of liminality to illuminate the central features of the war experience: the separation from 'home': the experience of pollution, death, comradeship, and 'the uncanny': and the ambivalence of returning veterans about civilian society. In a final chapter Professor Leed assesses the long-term political impact of the front experience. He finds that the end of hostilities did not mean the end of the war experience as much as the beginning of a process by which that experience was framed, institutionalized, celebrated and relived in political action as well as in fiction.

Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968: Anatomy of a Decision


Jiri Valenta - 1979
    Comparing the events of 1968 to the Kremlin's very different reaction to reforms now under way in Czechoslovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe, Valenta shows that Soviet politics were never simple. The USSR's foreign policy response to the "Prague Spring," he contends, was the result of a complex political process conditioned by bureaucratic inertia, coalition politics, and East European pressures.

Paratrooper! The Saga Of Parachute And Glider Combat Troops During World War II


Gerard M. Devlin - 1979
    

The Union Cavalry in the Civil War: From Fort Sumter to Gettysburg, 1861-1863


Stephen Z. Starr - 1979
    Starr covers in three volumes the dramatic story of the Union cavalry. In this first volume he presents briefly the story of the United States cavalry prior to the Civil War, describing how the Union cavalry was raised, organized, equipped, and trained, and offering detailed descriptions of the campaigns and battles in which the cavalry engaged -- the Peninsula, Shenandoah Valley/Second Bull Run, Lee's invasion of Maryland, Kelly's Ford, Stoneman's May 1863 Raid, Brandy Station (Fleetwood), Aldie-Middleburg-Upperville, and Gettysburg. Starr focuses on the officers and men of the Union cavalry -- who they were; how they lived, fought, behaved; what they thought. Starr tells their story -- drawn from regimental records and histories, memoirs, letters, diaries, and reminiscences -- whenever possible in the words of the troopers themselves.

Angels in the Camp: A Remarkable Story of Peace in the Midst of the Holocaust


Jan Markell - 1979
    A fictionalized account of a young Jewish girl's life in war-torn Germany where she discovers the differences Jesus Christ makes, even in the midst of the holocaust.

The Battle of Arnhem


Cornelius Bauer - 1979
    Paratroopers were dropped in the Netherlands to secure bridges and towns along the Allied axis of advance. They landed at Arnhem to secure the Nederrijn. The British forces faced unexpected resistance from elements of the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions. This is a detailed account of Operation Market Garden and its unexpected consequences in Arnhem.

Advance to Barbarism: The Development of Total Warfare from Sarajevo to Hiroshima


Frederick J. Veale - 1979
    Veale examines, for example, the authentic holocaust of civilians perpetrated by the Allies, as in the infamous fire bombing attacks on Dresden and Hamburg. He establishes that it was Britain's wartime leaders - not Hitler - who introduced the policy of strategic terror bombing.Veale compellingly argues that the "War Crimes Trials" at Nuremberg and Tokyo, and their more numerous and barbaric imitations in Communist-controlled eastern Europe, established the perilous principle that "the most serious war crime is to be on the losing side."Veale traces the evolution of warfare from primitive savagery to the rise of a "civilized" code that was first threatened in the American Civil War, again in the First World War, and finally shattered during the Second World War - the most destructive conflict in history."I have read the book with deep interest and enthusiasm," wrote Norman Thomas. "It is original in its approach to modern warfare, cogent and convincing... His indictment of modern warfare and post-war trials must stand." Francis Neilson praised it as "indispensable to earnest students of the nature and effects of warfare. It contains trenchant criticism of the Nuremberg trials, and exposes the stupidities of 'peace-loving' politicians." Prof. Harry Elmer Barnes called it "the best general book on the Nuremberg Trials... A very readable and impressive volume and a major contribution to any rational peace movement."With a foreword by the Very Rev. William Ralph Inge, Dean of St. Pauls. This rare C. C. Nelson edition includes a dust jacket, photos, bibliography and index.

Journal Of A Plague Year: 12, 20 & 5


John A. Parrish - 1979
    

One Night in London


Lucilla Andrews - 1979
     It’s 1944, and at St. Martha’s Hospital the staff carry out their duties as flying rockets and bombs fall around them. The doctors and nurses of Wally’s ward must care for their patients despite little or no sleep, dwindling supplies, and a steady stream of air raid victims. Nurse Carter and Nurse Dean keep a watchful eye on the welfare of both patients and doctors, while Nurse Smith struggles to cope with the horror surrounding her. Meanwhile, Senior Surgical Officer, ‘Mack’ MacDonald, aided by his young house-surgeon, Mr Jason, operates under almost impossible conditions, while also hiding a tragic secret. During this one night in London, hospital workers and patients alike will face a wartime nightmare with determination, courage and dignity. But what will the morning bring? One Night in London is the first novel in The Jason Trilogy by bestselling hospital fiction author Lucilla Andrews. For the first time, Lucilla's novels are now available as ebooks (with new print editions available from the late summer 2017). More at www.lucillaandrews.com

Double-Edged Secrets: U.S. Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific During World War II


W.J. Holmes - 1979
    J. Holmes was an important part of the naval organization that collected, analyzed, and disseminated intelligence information, and his compassionate understanding of the business of intelligence gathering is unique. Here, he not only captures the mood of the period but also gives rare insight into the problems and personalities involved. The reader comes to fully appreciate the painful moral dilemma faced daily by commanders in the Pacific once the Japanese naval codes were broken. Every time the Americans made use of the enemy messages they had decoded, they increased the probability that the Japanese would realize what had happened and change their codes, thereby causing the U.S. Pacific Fleet to lose a vital edge. Withholding the information, however, could - and sometimes did - result in the loss of American lives and ships. This illuminating study reveals not only the difficulties of collecting intelligence, but of deciding when to use it.