Best of
War

1983

War's Unwomanly Face


Svetlana Alexievich - 1983
    More than 200 women speak in it, describing how young girls, who dreamed of becoming brides, became soldiers in 1941. More than 500,000 Soviet women participated on a par with men in the Second World War, the most terrible war of the 20th century. Women not only rescued and bandaged the wounded but also fired a sniper's rifle, blew up bridges, went reconnoitering and killed... They killed the enemy who, with unprecedented cruelty, had attacked their land, their homes and their children. Soviet writer of Belarussia, Svetlana Alexiyevich spent four years working on the book, visiting over 100 cities and towns, settlements and villages and recording the stories and reminiscences of women war veterans. The Soviet press called the book"a vivid reporting of events long past, which affected the destiny of the nation as a whole." The most important thing about the book is not so much the front-line episodes as women's heart-rending experiences in the war. Through their testimony the past makes an impassioned appeal to the present, denouncing yesterday's and today's fascism...

Eleni


Nicholas Gage - 1983
    Eleni Gatzoyiannis, forty-one, defied the traditions of her small village and the terror of the communist insurgents to arrange for the escape of her three daughters and her son, Nicola. For that act, she was imprisoned, tortured, and executed in cold blood.Nicholas Gage joined his father in Massachusetts at the age of nine and grew up to become a top New York Times investigative reporter, honing his skills with one thought in mind: to return to Greece and uncover the one story he cared about most: the story of his mother.Eleni takes you into the heart a village destroyed in the name of ideals and into the soul of a truly heroic woman.

Piece of Cake


Derek Robinson - 1983
    By the author of "Goshawk Squadron" and "War Story".

Chickenhawk


Robert Mason - 1983
    Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Mason’s astounding personal story of men at war. A veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, Mason gives staggering descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden death—the extreme emotions of a "chickenhawk" in constant danger.

Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam


Stephen W. Sears - 1983
    Here renowned historian Stephen Sears draws on a remarkable cache of diaries, dispatches, and letters to recreate the vivid drama of Antietam as experienced not only by its leaders but also by its soldiers, both Union and Confederate, to produce what the New York Times Book Review has called "the best account of the Battle of Antietam."

Until We Meet Again: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Holocaust


Michael Korenblit - 1983
    A small town in Poland. Two Jewish families flee to hiding places, hoping to evade deportation by the Nazis. At the last moment, 17-year old Manya makes the heart wrenching decision to leave her family and join her sweetheart, Meyer, also 17, with his family. For three long years, Manya and Meyer endure the loss of their parents and siblings, separation from each other, and the horror of concentration camps, including Aushwitz-but are helped at key points by courageous Polish Catholics and are constantly sustained by their faith and their love for each other. Co-authored by the couple's son Michael, this absorbing and suspenseful narrative reads like a novel, yet tells a true story of love and horror, sacrifice and courage, with a conclusion that is truly miraculous.

Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam


Lynda Van Devanter - 1983
    After high school she attended nursing school and then did something that would shatter her secure world for the rest of her life: in 1969, she joined the army and was shipped to Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam her idealistic view of the war vanished quickly. She worked long and arduous hours in cramped, ill-equipped, understaffed operating rooms. She saw friends die. Witnessing a war close-up, operating on soldiers and civilians whose injuries were catastrophic, she found the very foundations of her thinking changing daily. After one traumatic year, she came home, a Vietnam veteran. Coming home was nearly as devastating as the time she spent in Asia. Nothing was the same -- including Lynda herself. Viewed by many as a murderer instead of a healer, she felt isolated and angry. The anger turned to depression; like many other Vietnam veterans she suffered from delayed stress syndrome. Working in hospitals brought back chilling scenes of hopelessly wounded soldiers. A marriage ended in divorce. The war that was fought physically halfway around the world had become a personal, internal battle.Home before Morning is the story of a woman whose courage, stamina, and personal history make this a compelling autobiography. It is also the saga of others who went to war to aid the wounded and came back wounded -- physically and emotionally -- themselves. And, it is the true story of one person's triumphs: her understanding of, and coming to terms with, her destiny.

Somme


Lyn Macdonald - 1983
    However the 18 divisions that went over the top between Arras and St-Quentin on the morning of 1 July 1916, walked into a battle that has gone down in the annals of human conflict as the slaughterhouse of a generation. The author has written other books about the history of World War I, including, They Called it Passchendaele and The Roses of No Man's Land.

Vietnam: A History


Stanley Karnow - 1983
    Free of ideological bias, profound in its undertsanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with participants-French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. Originally published a companion to the Emmy-winning PBS series, Karnow’s defining book is a precursor to Ken Burns’s ten-part forthcoming documentary series, The Vietnam War. Vietnam: A History puts events and decisions into such sharp focus that we come to understand – and make peace with – a convulsive epoch of our recent history.

A Farewell to France


Noel Barber - 1983
    And Larry Astell, heir to a champagne fortune, knows their passion is the most important part of his life. Until war places in jeopardy all they held dear - love, family and country.From the Left Bank of the 1930s to Nazi-occupied Paris, A FAREWELL TO FRANCE is a magnificent epic, played out against the tumultuous background of the time: a decadent French government, the life of a foreign correspondent, the grandeur of the champagne regions and the glory of the French Resistance.

Tumult in the Clouds


James Goodson - 1983
    This is his story, from the first day of the war to the last, of how he became one of history’s leading fighter aces. Starting out flying Spitfires for 416 (Canadian) Squadron and then for an RAF Eagle Squadron, Goodson transferred over to the Thunderbolts and Mustangs of the Fourth Fighter Group when the U.S. joined the war. Mixing it up with the Luftwaffe’s very best pilots accompanying bombing runs into the heart of Germany, Goodson scored thirty kills. But the “King of the Strafers” finally got shot down trying to attack a Me 163 rocket plane. Captured by the Gestapo and only hours away from execution, he managed to buy himself more time by showing the commandant how to blow smoke rings!—and was moved to Berlin, just as Allied bombers besieged the city… With breathtaking descriptions of aerial dogfights and vivid portraits of the men who fought, Tumult in the Clouds is a dramatic, gripping story of courage and sacrifice—and a stunningly personal account of war.

Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America


Ruth Gruber - 1983
    'I have decided,' President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced, 'that approximately 1,000 refugees should be immediately brought from Italy to this country.' One thousand refugees....For years, refugees knocking on the doors of American consulates abroad had been told, 'You cannot enter America. The quotas are filled.' And, while the quotas remained untouchable ... millions died."With this mixture of desperation and hope, Ruth Gruber begins Haven, the inspiring story of one thousand Jewish and Christian refugees brought to sanctuary in America in 1944. As special assistant to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, Gruber was selected to carry out this top-secret mission despite the objections of military brass who doubted the thirty-three-year-old woman's qualifications. When Gruber met the gaunt survivors, they told her about hiding in sewers and forests, of risking their lives to save others. As she wrote down their stories, tears often wiped out the words in her notebook. Gruber became the refugees' guardian angel during the dangerous crossing of the U-boat-haunted Atlantic, and during their eighteen-month internment at a former army camp in Oswego, New York. Lobbying Congress at the end of the war, she also helped the refugees become American citizens. This edition concludes with a new chapter featuring Gruber's look back on her many decades as a crusading journalist, and a special Appendix from the 1946 Congressional Record listing the names of all the camp's residents.Basis for the CBS Mini-series Starring Natasha Richardson.

Delta Force: The Army's Elite Counterterrorist Unit


Charlie A. Beckwith - 1983
    The only insider′s account ever written on America′s most powerful weapon in the war against terrorism

Special Boat Squadron


Barrie Pitt - 1983
     Only since the Falklands campaign have the initials SBS become known to the public. Yet this clandestine formation of Britain’s armed forces has been in existence since the Second World War. Barrie Pitt, who himself served with the SBS, describes how the it came into being in 1941. How they fought with distinction in the Aegean, where one of their exploits inspired The Guns of Navarone. How they earned rapport in the Adriatic, in Greece and in Italy. How the SBS was reorganised in 1946 as part of the Royal Marines and has since played a role in Korea, Borneo and the Falklands. Equally interesting is the author’s report of the training and specialized skills required by the boat units, and the essential tasks facing them — infiltration from the sea, reconnaissance, sabotage, survival, resistance to interrogation, escape from captivity — and the expertise and determination to complete them. As Barrie Pitt's superb account of the formative years of this elite force shows, these qualities have been present from the very beginning. Barrie Pitt (1918-2006) was well known as a military historian and editor of Purnell’s History of the Second World War and History of the First World War. His publications include 'Coronel and Falkland', 'Churchill and the Generals' and 'The Crucible of War', a trilogy covering the North African campaign of the Second World War. He was born in Galway and later lived near Ilminster in Somerset.

The Red Horse


Eugenio Corti - 1983
    Its success had gone far beyond Italy, as the book has been translated into Spanish, French, Japanese and three other languages. This epic historical novel about World War II and after, written from the author's own personal experiences as an Italian Freedom Fighter, is a profoundly moving account of the war, those who fought in it on both sides, and the effects the war had on families in the author's hometown in Italy. On a wider scale, it is a faithful witness to the actual events of the war - including the role of historical personages who appear, the Russian campaign, the Nazi barbarism, the Communist gulag, the North Italian resistance, and political life in the two decades following the war. This world, filled with powerful personalities, drama and clashing armies, bathes in the light of the truth. What makes this truly historical novel, with its epic scope, a masterpiece is the underlying spiritual dimensions of the protagonist, his family and friends, which illuminates the ongoing tragedy of the war and its aftermath. In the end, it is a story of faith and hope in a world reduced to barbarism and cruelty. Born in 1921 in Lombardy, Eugenio Corti joined the Italian Freedom Fighters. From his experiences of the tragic retreat from Russia, Corti wrote a fascinating chronicle, Most Did Not Return, and a book about the Italian Freedom Fighters, The Last Soldiers of the King.

Out of the Ashes


William W. Johnstone - 1983
    Gangs, looters, and vandals have seized the streets. The decent few can only pray for a leader to protect them. Luckily, one of the survivors is Ben Raines. Rebel mercenary, retired soldier, and tireless patriot, Raines is searching for his missing family in the aftermath of this devastating war. His relentless pursuit through the ruined cities of the west unites him with the civilians of the Resistance forces. They become his recruits for a revolutionary army dedicated to rebuilding America. Then comes the final outrage: an armed attack by government forces. With the fate of America's New Patriots hanging in the balance, Raines vows--government be damned--to survive, find his family, and lead this once great nation out of the ashes.

Vietnam Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir


W.D. Ehrhart - 1983
    Ehrhart: "As a poet and editor, Bill Ehrhart is clearly one of the major figures in Vietnam War literature." This autobiographical account of the war, the author's first extended prose work, demonstrates Ehrhart's abilities as a writer of prose as well. Vietnam-Perkasie is grim, comical, disturbing, and accurate. The presentation is novelistic—truly, a "page-turner"—but the events are all real, the atmosphere intensely evocative.

Red and Green Life Machine: Diary of the Falklands Field Hospital


Rick Jolly - 1983
    

Moonless Night: The Second World War Escape Epic


B.A. 'Jimmy' James - 1983
    The author made more than 12 escape attempts including his participation in The Great Escape, where 50 of the 76 escapees were executed in cold blood on Hitler's orders.On re-capture, James was sent to the infamous Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where, undeterred, he tunneled out. That was not the end of his remarkable story.Moonless Night has strong claim to be the finest escape story of the Second World War.

Justice at Nuremberg


Robert E. Conot - 1983
    Conot reconstructs in a single absorbing narrative not only the events at Nuremburg but the offenses with which the accused were charged. He brilliantly characterizes each of the twenty-one defendants, vividly presenting each case and inspecting carefully the process of indictment, prosecution, defense and sentencing.

Spitfire - A Test Pilot's Story


Jeffrey Quill - 1983
    He used his first-hand experience of combat conditions fighting with 65 Squadron at the height of the Battle of Britain to help turn this elegant flying machine into a deadly fighter airplane.

Don't Cry for Me, Sergeant-Major


Robert McGowan - 1983
    The Falklands conflict was supremely an "other ranks" war. Here, then, is their side of the story, recorded at the time by two front line journalists. In their own words, often profane, usually funny, always to the point, the men of the Falklands Task Force and those who accompanied them describe what it was actually like to fight an underdog's battle in an icy wilderness 8000 miles from home. Funny, moving, incisive, occasionally bitter, always humorously resigned, this is the story of one war which could be any war, a portrait of the British soldier, in all his mud-stained glory. Here's to him, wha's like him? Gey few, and a lot of them dead.

Tim Page's Nam


Tim Page - 1983
    They are exhilarating, masculine, terrified, pathetic and criminal. It is rare for a group of photographs to drag the viewer so violently into the middle of someone else's life.' - American Photographer

Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America


Walter F. LaFeber - 1983
    This second edition is updated to include new material covering the Reagan and Bush years, and the Iran/Contra affair.

Night Sky


Clare Francis - 1983
    They are a young Englishwoman, a vicious Paris pimp turned Nazi collaborator and a German scientist.

U.S. Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects


U.S. Department of Defense - 1983
    Chapters include Marine Corps history, Code of Conduct, close order drill, first aid, rifle marksmanship, land navigation and much more. Includes excellent photographs and illustrations.

The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War


Calvin D. Cowles - 1983
    This is a 2003 re-printing by Barns & Noble Publishing Inc. of the 1983 Arno Press Inc. and Crown Publishers Inc printing. Unlike other versions it has the plates numbered in Arabic and not Roman Numerals which is much easier to search.

Forbidden Fires


Bobbi Smith - 1983
    As price held her to his finely sculpted body, eagerly seeking her sensuous lips, she could only surrender to the mysterious and sexy stranger -- and to the deep desire that welled up inside her. For those few tender moments in each other's arms, they would forget that they fought on opposing sides and would be kept forever apart...Price had never seen a woman as innocent or alluring as his sweet savior. Her long dark hair was soft and shiny, her mesmerizing hazel eyes tore at his heart. And when he slowly tasted her sweet kisses, his desire was fanned into uncontainable flames of rapture, and he knew he could not live without her. For once the lovely angel rescued him from death, she was destined to share with him a life of burning ecstasy and love's..".Forbidden Fires"A Southern belle rescues a yankee soldier, and sparks fly!

The Battle for the Falklands


Max Hastings - 1983
    Gavin

The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House


Seymour M. Hersh - 1983
    

The Salamandra Glass


A.W. Mykel - 1983
    Who was his father? Way was he killed? Michael's search leads him to a harrowing story of love and intrigue set against the backdrop of the French Resistance."

Not about Heroes: The Friendship of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen


Stephen MacDonald - 1983
    It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. This moving play is about the poetic life and the inter relationship between two of the finest Great War poets: Owen who died and Siegfried Sasson who didn't. Told by means of letters and poetry, Not About Heroes paints a vivid picture of the war. It was staged to

Grant And Lee: The Virginia Campaigns, 1864 1865


William A. Frassanito - 1983
    Like his first two books, it uses photographs taken during the campaign and analyzes them, comparing modern photos of the same sites.

Contact


A.F.N. Clarke - 1983
    This edition has additional material previously left out of the hardbacks and paperback version first published by Martin Secker & Warburg, PAN Books and Schocken Books.

Gardens Of Stone


Nicholas Proffitt - 1983
    The film, which has been scheduled for release in April, will star James Caan, Anjelica Huston and James Earl Jones. (Entertainment)

Animals In War: Valiant Horses, Courageous Dogs, and Other Unsung Animal Heroes


Jilly Cooper - 1983
    (SEE QUOTE.)

The Language of Oppression


Haig A. Bosmajian - 1983
    Powerful illustrations may be found in the fact that, for instance, Hitler's "Final Solution" appeared "reasonable" once the Jews were successfully labelled by the Nazis as sub-humans, "parasites," "vermin," or "bacilli." So, too, the subjugation of the American Indian was "defensible" since they were defined as "barbarians" and "savages." The author of this engrossing text that was originally published in 1974 by Public Affairs Press successfully identifies and critically comments on the racist, sexist, and ethnic slurs still predominant in society today, with the hope that this decadence will be cured. Winner of the 1983 George Orwell Award from the Committee on Doublespeak of the NCTE.

Kolbe and the Kommandant


Władysław Kluz - 1983
    Conv. and Rudolph Franz Hoess, Kommandant Aushwitz Concentration Camp Oswiecim, Poland

Man of War


John Masters - 1983
     Miller was a career soldier — one of the best. He had twenty years and more of active service behind him — from the trenches of World War 1, to a riot-torn India, and from the Spanish Civil War to a heroic rearguard action at Dunkirk. His tactical brilliance and unquestioned courage played their part in those victories. But there were other battles he had to fight — with the old guard who despised his unorthodox methods, with brother officers who could never accept a shopkeeper's son as one of their own, and with the women whose love he jeopardised in his determination to succeed. This is Miller's story — a vivid, unforgettable portrait of a soldier. And this too is John Masters' epitaph — the novel that only he, with his first-hand knowledge of military life, could write. `A splendid storyteller and a master at describing battles and campaigns' - Daily Telegraph. Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO (1914–1983) was an English officer in the Indian Army who fought in World War Two, and later a novelist. His works are noted for their descriptions of the British Empire in India. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

Three Complete Novels: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, A Small Town In Germany, and The Looking Glass War


John le Carré - 1983
    In le Carré's most autobiographical novel, A Perfect Spy, Rick Pym, a con artist Dickens might have invented (except that he's based on le Carré's dad) raises his son, Magnus, to be the perfect gentleman for the spook trade. Magnus writes to explain himself to his son, Tom; le Carré wrote the book to explain his own scalawag dad to himself, and burst into tears when he finished the novel. In The Russia House, set in 1987, a Soviet dissident physicist drops a secret manuscript to Barley Blair, a boozy loser of a British book publisher, to alert the West that the evil empire is about to collapse of its own absurd weight. Can Western spies trust the dissident? Just how safe is the "safe house" where Barley parleys with his sexy Russian contact, Katya? Where should Barley's loyalty lie, with love or country? The Secret Pilgrim is almost a short-story collection. (That's why it was broken into three separate audio versions: The Fledgling Spy, The Spy Who Came of Age, and The Spy in His Prime.) Ned, a British spook who Barley troubled in The Russia House, invites le Carré's legendary spy George Smiley to lecture his new class of recruits. Smiley's remarks alternate with Ned's reminiscences of his own covert adventures, from the sublimely ridiculous to the scathingly scary. The new kids have no idea what tortuous moral torments await them, but le Carré gives us an idea.

Epic : The Story of the Waffen-SS


Leon Degrelle - 1983
    Why? The celebrated Belgian SS General, Leon Degrelle, answers these, and other questions about the Waffen SS, in this remarkable book.

Hit Hard


David J. Williams - 1983
    Recounts the glorious exploits of the 761st Tank Battalion--a unit of Black soldiers that distinguished itself during World War II, suffering a fifty percent casualty rate.

How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War


Herman Hattaway - 1983
    Selected as one of Civil War magazine's 100 essential titles on military campaigns and personalities.

The Day is Ours!: An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, November 1776-January 1777


William M. Dwyer - 1983
    In this distinguished, highly readable, and richly detailed narrative history, William M. Dwyer reveals as vivid a picture as we are likely to see of a critical period in the American Revolution. He lets the participants--from American, British, and Hessian soldiers to myriad fearful and ambivalent citizens--tell the story in their own words. "Telling the story from the perspective, and often the words, of men in the ranks, Dwyer has written a dramatic account of this turning point in the American Revolution." --James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom "[Dwyer] has cast his net wide, taking advantage of newly found or long-obscure accounts published during the celebration of the Revolution's bicentennial. We learn exactly how it was in that momentous time, from letters, diaries and recollections of officers and men on both sides and civilians caught in the middle." --New York Times Book Review "Dwyer has put together a wonderful, lively account that reflects a reporter's respect for quotes from eyewitnesses . . . He presents the facts and lets history speak for itself. The result is enthralling." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "The courage of the common soldier who stayed and fought when the sunshine patriots had all gone home is a story that deserves to be told--and Mr. Dwyer has told it well." --The Wall Street Journal

The Wizards of Armageddon


Fred Kaplan - 1983
    The book (first published in 1983) explores the secret world of these strategists of the nuclear age and brings to light a chapter in American political and military history never before revealed.

Guide to the Soviet Navy


Norman Polmar - 1983
    The most comprehensive review and analysis available of the modern Soviet fleet -- its ships, aircraft, weapons, electronics, bases, shipyards, personnel, and leadership.

The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union


Edward N. Luttwak - 1983
    

The Nuclear Future


Michael Mandelbaum - 1983
    

Nuclear Power: Both Sides: The Best Arguments For and Against the Most Controversial Technology


Michio Kaku - 1983
    If you read one book about nuclear energy, this should be the one. In twenty-one provocative essays, those who have shaped the course of nuclear power substantiate their views and set forth refutations of their opponents' views.

Does Khaki Become You?: The Militarization of Women's Lives


Cynthia Enloe - 1983
    

Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933-1945


David Welch - 1983
    David Welch studies more than one hundred films of all types, identifying those aspects of Nazi ideology that were concealed in the framework of popular entertainment.

A Treasury Of Great Historical Novels


Reader's Digest Association - 1983
    

The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis: Volume IV: Books VII & VIII


Orderic Vitalis - 1983
    Edited with a facing-page English translation from the Latin text by: Chibnall, Marjorie;