Best of
World-War-Ii

2005

Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway


Jonathan Parshall - 2005
    It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, Shattered Sword makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida’s Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle. Parshall and Tully examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading World War II naval historian John Lundstrom, Shattered Sword is an indispensable part of any military buff’s library.Shattered Sword is the winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and was cited by Proceedings as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.

Auschwitz


Laurence Rees - 2005
    Yet its story is not fully known. In Auschwitz, Laurence Rees reveals new insights from more than 100 original interviews with Auschwitz survivors and Nazi perpetrators who speak on the record for the first time. Their testimonies provide a portrait of the inner workings of the camp in unrivalled detail—from the techniques of mass murder, to the politics and gossip mill that turned between guards and prisoners, to the on-camp brothel in which the lines between those guards and prisoners became surprisingly blurred.Rees examines the strategic decisions that led the Nazi leadership to prescribe Auschwitz as its primary site for the extinction of Europe's Jews—their "Final Solution." He concludes that many of the horrors that were perpetrated in Auschwitz were driven not just by ideological inevitability but as a "practical" response to a war in the East that had begun to go wrong for Germany. A terrible immoral pragmatism characterizes many of the decisions that determined what happened at Auschwitz. Thus the story of the camp becomes a morality tale, too, in which evil is shown to proceed in a series of deft, almost noiseless incremental steps until it produces the overwhelming horror of the industrial scale slaughter that was inflicted in the gas chambers of Auschwitz

Forgotten Voices of The Holocaust: A new history in the words of the men and women who survived


Lyn Smith - 2005
    As well as revealing the story of the Holocaust as directly experienced by victims, these testimonies also illustrate how, even enduring the most harsh conditions, degrading treatment and suffering massive family losses, hope, the will to survive, and the human spirit still shine through.

The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy


Judith L. Pearson - 2005
    The secret story of Virginia Hall, America's greatest World War II spy heroine.

Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers


Larry Alexander - 2005
    They were Easy Company, 101st Army Airborne--the World War II fighting unit legendary for their bravery against nearly insurmountable odds and their loyalty to one another in the face of death. Every soldier in this band of brothers looked to one man for leadership, devotion to duty, and the embodiment of courage: Major Dick Winters.This is the riveting story of an ordinary man who became an extraordinary hero. After he enlisted in the army's arduous new Airborne division, Winters's natural combat leadership helped him rise through the ranks, but he was never far from his men. Decades later, Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers made him famous around the world.Full of never-before-published photographs, interviews, and Winters's candid insights, Biggest Brother is the fascinating, inspirational story of a man who became a soldier, a leader, and a living testament to the valor of the human spirit--and of America.

Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima


Stephen Walker - 2005
    Walker has extensively interviewed American soldiers, Los Alamos scientists, and Japanese survivors that were involved in the bombing, and thus is able to tell the story through truly alive-on-the-page characters. The result is a narrative that—without either trivializing the tragedy of the bombing or ignoring its importance in WWII’s end—tells the real story of why and how one of the most important events of the 20th century took place. Shockwave might not change anyone’s opinion about the justification of the Hiroshima bombing, but it will provide readers with an unprecedented viewpoint that is sure to educate and enthrall its audience.

The Liberation Trilogy Boxed Set


Rick Atkinson - 2005
    Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author Rick Atkinson brings great drama and exquisite detail to the retelling of these battles and gives life to a cast of characters, from the Allied leaders to rifleman in combat. His accomplishment is monumental: the Liberation Trilogy is the most vividly told, brilliantly researched World War II narrative to date.

A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army


Vasily Grossman - 2005
    A Writer at War – based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered raw material for his articles – depicts the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. It also includes some of the earliest reportage on the Holocaust. In the three years he spent on assignment, Grossman witnessed some of the most savage fighting of the war: the appalling defeats of the Red Army, the brutal street fighting in Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk (the largest tank engagement in history), the defense of Moscow, the battles in Ukraine, and much more.Historian Antony Beevor has taken Grossman’s raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions – at once unflinching and sensitive – we have ever had of what he called “the ruthless truth of war.”From the Hardcover edition.

Brotherhood of Heroes: The Marines at Peleliu, 1944--The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War


Bill Sloan - 2005
    Peleliu was the setting for one of the most savage struggles of modern times, a true killing ground that has been all but forgotten—until now. Drawing on interviews with Peleliu veterans, Bill Sloan's gripping narrative seamlessly weaves together the experiences of the men who were there, producing a vivid and unflinching tableau of the twenty-four-hour-a-day nightmare of Peleliu. Emotionally moving and gripping in its depictions of combat, Brotherhood of Heroes rescues the Corps's bloodiest battle from obscurity and does honor to the Marines who fought it.

Under the Wire: The bestselling memoir of an American Spitfire pilot and legendary POW escaper


William Ash - 2005
    From the lean days of Depression-era Texas to the thrill of being one of the few who flew Spitfires, from a death-defying crash landing in Occupied France to capture and torture by the Gestapo, imprisonment in the Great Escape camp, Stalag Luft III, and years spent becoming a serial escape artist, this is the wartime memoir of a true hero, a real-life Cooler King. Recounted in a wonderfully honest and self-deprecating voice, William Ashs Under the Wire is a classic in the makinga riveting story of bravery by one of the last of his generation. QUOTES Ashs book is full of such wit, and held together with the sort of wry adventure story that begs to be immortalized on film as a cross between Tom Jones and The Great Escape. Metro News Toronto (4 of 5 stars) [A] remarkable story. Toronto Star

Let The Bells Ring


Anne Baker - 2005
    Let the Bells Ring is an evocative wartime saga from much-loved author Anne Baker, as a family face battles in life and love. Perfect for fans of Sheila Newberry and Cathy Sharp.Hannah and her mother Esme are lucky to escape when their home is destroyed during a bombing raid. Forced to move in with Esme's difficult sister-in-law, they make the best of things, and soon Hannah falls for the boy next door, Eric Goodwin. But Esme's worried; she's always been afraid of Eric's father Arnold, and she suspects that Eric is a chip off the old block, full of charm but up to no good. Is innocent Hannah being drawn into an unpredictable and dangerous world of crime? What readers are saying about Let the Bells Ring 'I have read 14 of Anne Baker's books and have enjoyed every one of them. The books are easy to read with fascinating storylines. I couldn't put Let the Bells Ring down and felt I was part of the plot. I found myself daydreaming about what I would do if I was a certain character in the book''This book kept me engrossed from the first to the last page'

The Bomber Boys: Heroes Who Flew the B-17s in World War II


Travis L. Ayres - 2005
    But nothing offered more fatal choices than being inside a B-17 bomber above Nazi-occupied Europe. From the hellish storms of enemy flak and relentless strafing of Luftwaffe fighters, to mid-air collisions, mechanical failure, and simple bad luck, it?s a wonder any man would volunteer for such dangerous duty. But many did. Some paid the ultimate price. And some made it home. But in the end, all would achieve victory. Here, author Travis L. Ayres has gathered a collection of previously untold personal accounts of combat and camaraderie aboard the B-17 Bombers that flew countless sorties against the enemy, as related by the men who lived and fought in the air?and survived.

A Place to Call Home


June Francis - 2005
     But there is more to Alexander Armstrong than meets the eye. When it becomes clear his intentions are pure, she is determined to help him on his quest. But will the looming threat of the Second World War ruin everything... or will Greta finally find love?

Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944


Joseph Balkoski - 2005
    Equal parts oral history and meticulous reconstruction, Omaha Beach is the closest the modern reader can get to experiencing the Normandy landings firsthand. About the Author: Joseph Balkoski is a historian specializing in D-Day and the Normandy campaign. He is currently the Command Historian of the Maryland National Guard and is the author of Utah Beach (0811733769) and Beyond the Beachhead (0811732371).

Together We Stand: Turning the Tide in the West: North Africa, 1942-1943


James Holland - 2005
    This book looks afresh at the conflict in Northern Africa, focusing for the first time on the involvement of the US and the way this early collaboration to defeat shaped the whole Anglo-American axis for the rest of the war in Europe.

Patton's Panthers: The African-American 761st Tank Battalion In World War II


Charles W. Sasser - 2005
    No other unit fought for so long and so hard without respite. The 761st defeated more than 6,000 enemy soldiers, captured thirty towns, liberated Jews from concentration camps—and made history as the first African American armored unit to enter the war. This is the true story of the Black Panthers, who proudly lived up to their motto (Come Out Fighting) and paved the way for African Americans in the U.S. military—while battling against the skepticism and racism of the very people they fought for.

The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich


Robert M. Citino - 2005
    Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again. Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great sleigh-drive against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.

Michael of Romania


Ivor Porter - 2005
    Based on royal archives, Queen Helen's unpublished diaries, sources in Romania, and interviews with King Michael, Queen Helen and Crown Princess Margarita, it integrates the story of Michael with that of the country which he once ruled, and which he once tried to save. during the Second World War. After refusing to be a puppet to give legitimacy to the regime Hitler had set up in Romania he led a coup d'etat against the Germans which shortened the war and postponed the communist dictatorship of his country. For three years, from 1944-7, with the Soviet army in occupation, the Western Allies unable to help, and the two main democratic parties virtually destroyed, he hung on grimly to some degree of constitutional democracy until Stalin showed his hand. affection and support by the Romanian people. When he returned in 1996 he told them, 'I love you. Don't forget that.'

Semper Fi: The Definitive Illustrated History of the U.S. Marines


Avery Chenoweth Sr. - 2005
    Avery Chenoweth, this tribute to the U.S. Marines shines with all the pride of the Marines themselves.Salute the few, the proud, the Marines. From their founding in 1794 to their most recent actions--including the second battle of Falluja--the entire history of the U.S. Marine Corps comes vividly to life in these lushly illustrated pages. Pore through the comprehensive images of nearly every Marine hero, uniform style, sidearm, saber, weapons platform, recruiting poster, plane, helicopter, boat, and mess kit. Many of the photos were shot recently right at the Historical Center at Quantico, Virginia, and they include rare and never-before-seen artifacts from the Marines' long history. Colonel H. Avery Chenoweth provides fascinating background information and context to compliment the visual journey.

War and Grace: Short Biographies from the World Wars


Don Stephens - 2005
    Read about: The Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor The German pastor who was prepared to suffer imprisonment and death for the sake of his faith. The British general given the task of defending Malta against invasion by Hitler and Mussolini The American airman who was converted while a prisoner of the Japanese and who later returned to Japan as a missionary The Jewish girl who came to know Christ as her Saviour while in hiding from the Nazis The American chaplin who witnessed to leading Nazi war criminals on trial at Nuremberg The British secret agent who was the inspiration for 'Q' in the James Bond 007 stories. What did these people, and the others whose lives are told in this book, have in common? During the turbulent events of those momentous years, God was at work in their lives. He brought these thirteen people to trust, know, love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore to give themselves to the service of others.

All American, All the Way: The Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II


Phil Nordyke - 2005
    Always at the forefront of some of the heaviest fighting in WWII, the 82nd helped spearhead the Allied drive to victory. This book is the first to tell the full combat history of these gallant All-Americans -- from their first perilous night drop into Sicily to their acclaimed victory parade up New York's 5th Avenue in 1946. Currently, the 82nd remains the only active American parachute division. The 82nd Airborne Division — dubbed the All-Americans during WWI, when Sgt. Alvin York was among its soldiers — parachuted into history on July, 9, 1943, as the opening salvo in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. This book, the first to tell the full story of the 82nd — America’s first airborne division to see combat, and the only American parachute division still active today — follows these all-Americans from their first perilous drop to their victory parade up 5th Avenue in January 1946. From the shore of Sicily to the beaches of Normandy, from the Rhine to the Elbe to the German surrender and the U.S. occupation of Berlin, this is military history at its best, often told in the words of the soldiers themselves. It is a fitting — and long overdue — tribute to the valorous service of one of America’s most celebrated fighting divisions.

Living with the Enemy: My Secret Life on the Run from the Nazis


Freddie Knoller - 2005
    Little more than an ordinary Jewish schoolboy, his desperate journey took him, among many other places, to Paris, where he earned a living guiding the Nazis around the red light district, an occupation that provoked complex feelings of guilt, elation, and fortune. But his luck ran out, and Freddie was soon on the run again before he fell victim to a friend's betrayal that saw him transported straight to Auschwitz. He survived the horrors of the extermination camp, and has lived to tell his story.

Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942-45


Brian MacArthur - 2005
    To this day, many survivors–most of whom are in their eighties–still cannot talk about their experiences without unearthing terrible memories. Surviving the Sword gives voice to these tens of thousands of Allied POWs and offers us a powerful reminder of the terror and depravations of war and the resilience of the human spirit. In this important book, Brian MacArthur draws on the diaries of American, British, Dutch, and Australian Fepows (Far Eastern prisoners of war), some of whose recollections are published here for the first time. These soldiers wrote and kept their diaries, in secret, because they were determined that to record for posterity how they were starved and beaten, marched almost to death, or transported on “hellships”; how their fellows were summarily executed by guards or felled by the thousands by tropical diseases; and how they were used as slave labor–most notoriously on the Burma-Thailand railway, as depicted in The Bridge on the River Kwai. The diaries excerpted in this book make plain why the Fepows believed that their brutal treatment by Japanese and Korean guards was, literally, incomprehensible to those who did not live it. The prisoners whose stories appear here risked torture and execution to keep diaries and make sketches and drawings that they hid from the guards wherever they could, sometimes burying them in the graves of lost comrades. The survivors’ narratives reveal not just a litany of horrors, but are a moving testament to the nobler instincts of humanity as well, detailing how the POWs prevailed over horrible conditions, even finding or creating a precious few creature comforts and sustaining the rudiments of culture, learning, and play. Forced into solidarity by inhuman conditions, the soldiers showed incredible compassion for one another, improvising ingenious ways to care for the sick, boost morale by subtly mocking their jailers’ authority, or even turn meager rations into the occasional feast. Countless thousands died in Japanese prison camps during World War II. Those fortunate enough to emerge from their ordeal were never the same again. Surviving the Sword at last fills a notable historical gap in our understanding, while also commemorating and memorializing the Fepows’ struggle and sacrifice.

Calculated Risk: The Extraordinary Life of Jimmy Doolittle — Aviation Pioneer and World War II Hero


Jonna Doolittle Hoppes - 2005
    This firsthand account by his granddaughter reveals an extraordinary individual—a scientist with a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from MIT, an aviation pioneer who was the first to fly across the United States in less than 24 hours and the first to fly “blind” (using only his plane’s instruments), a barnstormer well known for aerobatics, a popular racing pilot who won every major air race at least once, recipient of both the Congressional Medal of Honor and Presidential Medal of Freedom, a four-star general, and commander of both the 8th, 12th and 15th Air Forces. This memoir provides insights into the public and private world of Jimmy Doolittle and his family and sheds light on the drives and motivation of one of America's most influential and ambitious aviators.

A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII.


Sarah Helm - 2005
    Throughout the war, Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored the agents for the SOE's French Section, which sent more than four hundred young men and women into occupied France, at least one hundred of whom never returned and were reported MPD (missing presumed dead) after the war. Twelve of these were women and among Atkins' most cherished spies. When the war ended in 1945, she made it her personal mission to find out what happened to them and the other agents lost behind enemy lines, tracing rigorously their horrific final journeys. But as the woman who carried out this astonishing search appeared quintessentially English, Atkins was nothing of the sort. As we follow her through the devastation of postwar Germany, we learn Atkins herself covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past.In A Life in Secrets Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera Atkins' many veils. Drawing on recently released sixty-year-old government files and her unprecedented access to the private papers of the Atkins family, Helm vividly reconstructs a complex and extraordinary life.

Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943


David M. Glantz - 2005
    In Colossus Reborn he recounts the miraculous resurrection of the Red Army, which, with a dazzling display of military strategy and operational prowess, stopped the Wehrmacht in its tracks and turned the tide of war.A major achievement in the recovery and preservation of an entire nation's military experience, Colossus Reborn is marked by Glantz's unrivaled access to and use of Soviet archival sources. This allows him to illuminate not only Russian victories in the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk, but also to rescue a host of major forgotten battles, many of which had been suppressed to preserve reputations and national pride. As he reveals in unprecedented detail, disastrous defeats vied with resounding victories throughout the early years of the conflict, as the Red Army struggled to find itself in the Great Patriotic War.Beyond the battles themselves, Glantz also presents an in-depth portrait of the Red Army as an evolving military institution. Assessing more clearly than ever before the army's size, strength, and force structure, he provides keen insights into its doctrine, strategy, tactics, weaponry, training, officer corps, and political leadership. In the process, he puts a human face on the Red Army's commanders and soldiers, including women and those who served in units--security (NKVD), engineer, railroad, auto-transport, construction, and penal forces--that have till now remained poorly understood.The world's top authority on the Soviet military, Glantz has produced a remarkable study that adds immeasurably to our understanding of the one part of World War II that's still struggling to emerge from the shadows of history.

Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web


Lynn H. Nicholas - 2005
    Nicholas recounts the euthanasia and eugenic selection, racist indoctrination, kidnapping and “Germanization,” mass executions, and slave labor to which the Nazis subjected Europe’s children. She also captures the uprooted children’s search for their families in the aftermath of the war. A disturbing and absolutely necessary work, Cruel World opens a new chapter in World War II studies.

A Perfect Hell: The True Story Of The Black Devils, The Forefathers Of The Special Forces


John Nadler - 2005
    Germany is winning on every front. This is the story of how one of the world’s first commando units, put together for the invasion of Norway, helped turn the tide in Italy.1942. When the British generals recommend an audacious plan to parachute a small elite commando unit into Norway in a bid to put Nazi Germany on the defensive, Winston Churchill is intrigued. But Britain, fighting for its life, can’t spare the manpower to participate. So William Lyon MacKenzie King is contacted and asked to commit Canadian troops to the bold plan. King, determined to join Roosevelt and Churchill as an equal leader in the Allied war effort, agrees.One of the world’s first commando units, the First Special Service Force, or FSSF, is assembled from hand-picked soldiers from Canadian and American regiments. Any troops sent into Norway will have to be rugged, self-sufficient, brave, and weather-hardened. Canada has such men in ample supply.The all-volunteer FSSF comprises outdoorsmen — trappers, rangers, prospectors, miners, loggers. Assembled at an isolated base in Helena, Montana, and given only five months to train before the invasion, they are schooled in parachuting, mountain climbing, cross-country skiing, and cold-weather survival. They are taught how to handle explosives, how to operate nearly every field weapon in the American and German arsenals, and how to kill with their bare hands.After the Norway plan is scrapped, the FSSF is dispatched to Italy and given its first test — to seize a key German mountain-top position which had repelled the brunt of the Allied armies for over a month. In a reprise of the audacity and careful planning that won Vimy Ridge for the Canadians in WWI, the FSSF takes the twin peaks Monte la Difensa and Monte la Remetanea by storming the supposedly unscalable rock face at the rear of the German position, and opens the way through the mountains.Later, the FSSF will hold one-quarter of the Anzio beachhead against a vastly superior German force for ninety-nine days; a force of only 1,200 commandos does the work of a full division of over 17,000 troops. Though badly outnumbered, the FSSF takes the fight to the Germans, sending nighttime patrols behind enemy lines and taking prisoners. It is here that they come to be known among the dispirited Germans as Schwartzer Teufel (“Black Devils”) for their black camouflage face-paint and their terrifying tactic of appearing out of the darkness.John Nadler vividly captures the savagery of the Italian campaign, fought as it was at close quarters and with desperate resolve, and the deeply human experiences of the individual men called upon to fight it. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with veterans, A Perfect Hell is an important contribution to Canadian military history and an indispensable account of the lives and battlefield exploits of the men who turned the tide of the Second World War.

Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor


Donald A. Davis - 2005
    It is the true story of the man behind Pearl Harbor---Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto---and the courageous young American fliers who flew the million-to-one suicide mission that shot him down.Yamamoto was a cigar-smoking, poker-playing, English-speaking, Harvard-educated expert on America, and that intimate knowledge served him well as architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next sixteen months, this military genius, beloved by the Japanese people, lived up to his prediction that he would run wild in the Pacific Ocean. He was unable, however, to deal the fatal blow needed to knock America out of the war, and the shaken United States began its march to victory on the bloody island of Guadalcanal.Donald A. Davis meticulously tracks Yamamoto's eventual rendezvous with death. After American code-breakers learned that the admiral would be vulnerable for a few hours, a desperate attempt was launched to bring him down. What was essentially a suicide mission fell to a handful of colorful and expendable U.S. Army pilots from Guadalcanal's battered "Cactus Air Force":- Mississippian John Mitchell, after flunking the West Point entrance exam, entered the army as a buck private. Though not a "natural" as an aviator, he eventually became the highest-scoring army ace on Guadalcanal and the leader of the Yamamoto attack. - Rex Barber grew up in the Oregon countryside and was the oldest surviving son in a tightly knit churchgoing family. A few weeks shy of his college graduation in 1940, the quiet Barber enlisted in the U.S. Army. - "I'm going to be President of the United States," Tom Lanphier once told a friend. Lanphier was the son of a legendary fighter squadron commander and a dazzling storyteller. He viewed his chance at hero status as the start of a promising political career.- December 7, 1941, found Besby Holmes on a Pearl Harbor airstrip, firing his .45 handgun at Japanese fighters. He couldn't get airborne in time to make a serious difference, but his chance would come. - Tall and darkly handsome, Ray Hine used the call sign "Heathcliffe" because he resembled the brooding hero of Wuthering Heights. He was transferred to Guadalcanal just in time to participate in the Yamamoto mission---a mission from which he would never return.They flew the longest over-water fighter mission ever and ambushed and killed Yamamoto. After his death, the Japanese never won another major naval battle. But the victorious American pilots seemed cursed by the samurai spirit of the admiral and were tormented for the rest of their lives by what happened that day. Davis paints unforgettable personal portraits of men in combat and unravels a military mystery that has been covered up at the highest levels of government since the end of the war.

1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls


Winston Groom - 2005
      On December 7, 1941, an unexpected attack on American territory pulled an unprepared country into a terrifying new brand of warfare. To the generation of Americans who lived through it, the Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century, and the defining moments of that war were played out in the year 1942.   This account covers the Allies’ relentless defeats as the Axis overran most of Europe, North Africa, and the Far East. But by midyear the tide began to turn. The United States finally went on the offensive in the Pacific. In the West, the British defeated Rommel’s panzer divisions at El Alamein while the US Army began to push the Germans out of North Africa. By the year’s end, the smell of victory was in the air.  1942, told with Winston Groom’s accomplished storyteller’s eye, allows us into the admirals’ strategy rooms, onto the battlefronts, and into the heart of a nation at war.   “When not drawing in readers with the narrative, Groom is impressing them with his masterful analyses.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution   “Groom has done an artful job of blending the many stories of 1942.” —The Anniston Star

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos


Jennet Conant - 2005
    Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant, charismatic head of the Manhattan Project, recruited scientists to live as virtual prisoners of the U.S. government at Los Alamos, a barren mesa thirty-five miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thousands of men, women, and children spent the war years sequestered in this top-secret military facility. They lied to friends and family about where they were going and what they were doing, and then disappeared into the desert. Through the eyes of a young Santa Fe widow who was one of Oppenheimer's first recruits, we see how, for all his flaws, he developed into an inspiring leader and motivated all those involved in the Los Alamos project to make a supreme effort and achieve the unthinkable.

The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933


Zara S. Steiner - 2005
    In The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933, part of the Oxford History of Modern Europe series, Steiner challenges the common assumption that the Treaty of Versailles led to the opening of a second European war. In a radically original way, this book characterizes the 1920s not as a frustrated prelude to a second global conflict but as a fascinating decade in its own right, when politicians and diplomats strove to re-assemble a viable European order. Steiner examines the efforts that failed but also those which gave hope for future promise, many of which are usually underestimated, if not ignored. She shows that an equilibrium was achieved, attained between a partial American withdrawal from Europe and the self-imposed constraints which the Soviet system imposed on exporting revolution. The stabilization painfully achieved in Europe reached it fragile limits after 1925, even prior to the financial crises that engulfed the continent. The hinge years between the great crash of 1929 and Hitler's achievement of power in 1933 devastatingly altered the balance between nationalism and internationalism. This wide-ranging study helps us grasp the decisive stages in this process. In a second volume, The Triumph of the Night, Steiner will examine the immediate lead up to the Second World War and its early years.

The Colonel Of Tamarkan: Philip Toosey And The Bridge On The River Kwai


Julie Summers - 2005
    While a brilliant performance, it owed more to fiction than fact, as the man who actually commanded the POWs ordered to build the infamous bridges - there were in fact two: one wooden, one concrete - was cut from very different cloth. Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey was the senior officer among the 2,000-odd Allied servicemen incarcerated in Tamarkan prison camp, and as such, had to comply with the Japanese orders to help construct their Thailand-Burma railway. With malnutrition, disease and brutality, their constant companions, it was a near-impossible task for soldiers who had already endured terrible privations - and one, which they knew would be in the service of their enemy. But, under Toosey's careful direction, a subtle balancing act between compliance and subversion, the Allied inmates not only survived but regained some sense of self-respect. Re-creating the story of this remarkable leader, with tremendous skill and narrative flair, and drawing on many original interviews with Second World War POWs from the Asian theatre, "The Colonel Of Tamarkan" is a riveting blend of biography

Blossoms in the Wind: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze


M.G. Sheftall - 2005
    In the last days of World War II, the Japanese unleashed a new breed of warrior. They were the Kamikaze, idealistic young men who believed that there was no greater glory than to sacrifice their lives in suicide attacks to defend their homeland. But, what of those men who took the sacred oath to die in battle and lived? Soon after the 9/11 attacks, ethnographer M.G. Sheftall was given unprecedented access to the cloistered community of Japan's last remaining Kamikaze corps survivors. The result is this poignant and timely glimpse into the lives and mindsets of former Kamikaze pilots who never completed their final missions.

Survival


Magda Herzberger - 2005
    Survival is an autobiography in which the author relates her experiences and her struggle to survive during her captivity as a young, 18-year-old girl in the three German concentration camps: Auschwitz, Bremen, and Bergen Belsen. Being of Jewish descent she had been deported with her family and in the camps encountered the danger and the probability of being killed one way or another on a daily basis. She also depicts the senseless deaths of her fellow prisoners. The book gives an insight into the author's childhood and adolescent years, where the concept of anything like this happening was beyond belief. The reader finds out about her family background and the historical events that took place in her native city in Romania during that time. The political changes which occurred during World War II played a crucial role in her destiny and the fate of the Jewish people. Magda also conveys how she coped with the grief and pain of losing so many members of her family, including her father, in the Holocaust. Then she speaks about her gradual recovery from the wounds of the Holocaust and her ultimate reunion with her mother. Magda's poetry is included in the book.

Taught to Kill: An American Boy's War from the Ardennes to Berlin


John B. Babcock - 2005
    Babcock, called up as a replacement after D-Day, who fought in the front lines through the last battles of the war.

The Flying Tiger: The True Story of General Claire Chennault and the U.S. 14th Air Force in China


Jack Samson - 2005
    Fourteenth Air Force in China.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, an Illustrated History, Germany's Victories and Defeat 1939-1945


Chris Bishop - 2005
    For the first three years, the Werhmacht seemed invincible. The swift victory in Poland was followed by the rapid conquest of Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, the Werhmacht launched the Blitzkrieg ("Lightning War") in the west, overwhelming Holland and Belgium in a matter of days, driving the British Expeditionary Force back across the English Channel, and completing the defeat of France within a month. Further victories followed in the Balkans, Greece, and North Africa. The opening months of the invasion of Soviet Russia, Operation "Barbarossa," proved equally successful, with the German panzers being halted just short of Moscow amidst the harsh conditions of the Russian winter.However, in December 1941 the United States entered the war. By the end of 1942, with the British victory at El Alamein and the isolation and eventual annihilation of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the Nazis suffered their first major military reversals. The tide of war turned decisively against the Third Reich in 1943, with heavy Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and the Allied invasion of Sicily coinciding with the failure of the Werhmacht's offensive against the Soviets on the Eastern Front at Kursk.In 1944, while the Red Army began the relentless advance that would take it all the way to Berlin, the Allies launched their long-awaited invasion of western Europe, the landings in Normandy. Despite their increasingly desperate plight, the Germans continued to fight doggedly, launching a major counterattack through the Ardennes in December. However, by March 1945 the Allies were across the Rhine, and in the east the Soviets began to besiege Berlin in April. By the end of the month Hitler had committed suicide, and on May 8 Germany signed an unconditional surrender. The "Thousand-Year Reich" had lasted just 12 years.Chris Bishop is an established military historian who has written, edited, and contributed to numerous military publications over the last 25 years. He is author of German Campaigns of Word War II, The Rise of Hitler's Third Reich, SS: Hitler's Foreign Divisions, and SS: Hell on the Western Front.David Jordan is a lecturer at the Joint Services Command and Staff College in Wiltshire, where he teaches intermediate and advanced staff courses. He has held posts at the universities of Birmingham, Worcester, and Keele, as well as the Open University. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. Dr. Jordan has written many books and articles on military subjects, including Wolfpack, The U.S. Navy Seals, Battle of the Bulge: The First 24 Hours, and The Fall of Hitler's Third Reich.

Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble


Roger Cohen - 2005
    Here, the soldiers were worked to death, starved and brutalized; more than twenty percent died from this horrific treatment.This is one of the last untold stories of World War II, and Roger Cohen re-creates it in all its blistering detail. Ground down by the crumbling Nazi war machine, the men prayed for salvation from the Allied troops, yet even after their liberation, their story was nearly forgotten. There was no aggressive prosecution of the commandants of the camp and the POWs received no particular recognition for their sacrifices. Cohen tells their story at last, in a stirring tale of bravery and depredation that is essential for any reader of World War II history.

The Third Reich Then and Now


Tony Le Tissier - 2005
    In this book Tony Le Tissier (author of Berlin Then and Now) traces the rise of Hitler, the Nazi Party and its ramifications, together with its deeds and accomplishments, during the twelve years that the Third Reich existed within today's boundaries of the Federal Republics of Germany and Austria. The homes ... Full description

Stolen Youth: Five Women's Survival in the Holocaust


Isabelle Choko; Frances Irwin; Lotti Kahana-Aufleger; Margit Raab Kalina; Jane Lipski - 2005
    In the camps, she stayed close to her mother, but her mother died in her hands in Belsen shortly before liberation. Isabelle recovered from typhus and pleurisy in Sweden and later moved to France ro live with her uncle, the only survivor of the family.Frances Irwin, "Remember to be a Good Human Being": A Memoir of Life and the Holocaust. A fifteen, Frances snuck out of the Konskie ghetto through sewers to get food for her family. After almost two years imprisonment in Auschwitz-Birkenau, she endured a death march to Mauthausen and was liberated from that camp's Lenzing sub-camp. She immigrated to the U.S., where she became a lecturer on the Holocaust for Facing History and Ourselves and a member of the board and executive committee of Hillel at Brooklyn College.Lotti Kahana-Aufleger,Eleven Years of Suffering The inspiring story of a woman willing to make almost any sacrifice to save her ill husband, six-year-old daughter, and elderly parents from the Romanian-run (and Ukrainian-assisted) camps in Transnistria. With resourcefulness and courage, Lotti and Sigfried rescued the family from extreme brutality and from the murderous Aktions, in which the camp inmates were taken across the Bug River to be killed.Margit Raab Kalina, Surviving a Thousand deaths (Memoir:1939-1945) At the war's outbreak, a 16-year-old Margit and her family fled Karvina (Czech Silesia) to Eastern Poland. After her father was killed in a bomb-raid, the family fled westward to Tarnow, where the Gestapo shot Margit's mother. Margit worked at the Madritsch textile factory there and then in the Paszow labor camp, was deported to Auschwitz, and from there to Bergen-Belsen. After liberation, she joined her only surviving relatives in Bratislava.Jane Lipski, My Escape into Prison and Other Memories of a Stolen Youth, 1939-1948 The story of a young woman surviving both the Nazis and Soviet prisons. Part of the Bedzin ghetto resistance, after her family was deported to Auschwitz she escaped to Slovakia, where she met her future husband. Soviet partisans took them to Moscow to be honored as heroes, but imprisoned them instead; she never saw her husband again. Jane bore her son in prison, and miraculously they both survived. Repatriated to Poland in 1948, she later settled in the U.S.

Passing on the Comfort: The War, The Quilts, And The Women Who Made A Difference


Lynn Kaplanian-Buller - 2005
    Amazingly, the many pieces have come together to form a design that none of us imagined at first. First there is An in Holland in the early 1940s, fighting to keep the War from taking over her young, promising life. Met with unspeakable horrors, she takes risks that would confound the bravest of souls. At the same time, groups of women across North America meet in sewing circles, making quilts—and then bundling them up and sending them off to do their part to give comfort and courage and respite during the War.           I, Lynn, come 20-some years later, showing up in Amsterdam in the early 1970s, a little rebellious and tired of another war. I didn't know An, and quilts were not something I ever made. But my grandmother and aunts, and other older women in my childhood church, did. And I knew an immigrant's longing for the textures of home. We have scattered images of 19 quilts, which eventually emerge near the heart of this story, throughout the book. These quilts drew An and me to each other. We'll put this story together a little like a quilt top—here a patch, there a patch, until the design emerges, startlingly cohesive. Terrible odds. Determined women. Quilts, well-worn from having been called into active duty.

The Pacific Campaign in World War II: From Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal


William Bruce Johnson - 2005
    King managed to commit the Marine Corps to ground action in the South Pacific six months earlier than originally planned, by ignoring the Roosevelt's commitment to defeat Germany prior to fighting Japan, and by outmaneuvering Gen. Douglas MacArthur for leadership. It also explains how Marines under Maj. Gen. A.A. Vandegrift, despite inadequate logistical support, managed to prevail in the Americans' first ground campaign of World War II, making Japan's ultimate defeat inevitable.In addition to recounting these key events, it traces how censorship and patriotism influenced the reporting of the conflict in America, how Hollywood films further shaped public opinion by portraying the significant events in particular ways, and how certain crucial decisions such as the early bombing raid of Tokyo, and giving Douglas MacArthur command of the war effort in Australia, were political rather than strategic, and were made to foster morale rather than to gain any military advantage.This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of Military History, and to all readers with a general interest in World War II, particularly in the conflicts of the Pacific, Pearl Harbor and Guadalcanal.

Sinbad of the Coast Guard


George F. Foley Jr. - 2005
    Although famous to thousands of people in many nations, Sinbad was happiest at sea, treading the decks of the sleek Campbell, where he was treated as just another member of the crew. He slept and ate his chow with the men and even had his own battle station. Battles and hurricanes never dulled his love of standing on the heaving deck with spray breaking over his wiry body. To Coast Guardsmen on the Campbell and all over the world he was real hero. This new edition, the first in 60 years, includes photos of Sinbad and an introduction by Mike Walling, author of Bloodstained Sea, The U.S. Coast Guard in the Battle of the Atlantic 1941-1944.

Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps


Shirli Gilbert - 2005
    She documents a wide scope of musical activities, ranging from orchestras and chamber groups to choirs, theatres, communal sing-songs, and cabarets, in some of the most important internment centres in Nazi-occupied Europe, including Auschwitz and the Warsaw and Vilna ghettos. Gilbert is also concerned with exploring the ways in which music--particularly the many songs that were preserved--contribute to our broader understanding of the Holocaust and the experiences of its victims. Music in the Holocaust is, at its core, a social history, taking as its focus the lives of individuals and communities imprisoned under Nazism. Music opens a unique window on to the internal world of those communities, offering insight into how they understood, interpreted, and responded to their experiences at the time.

Concise Historical Atlas of World War Two: The Geography of Conflict


Ronald Story - 2005
    The Concise Historical Atlas of World War Two: The Geography of Conflict consists of 50 full-color maps that vividly convey not only the key military battles and campaigns but also the cultural and political geography of the war. Each map covers a significant phase of World War Two and is accompanied by an adjacent page of explanatory text that clarifies the shifting frontiers and populations of the region represented. These descriptions explain features of the conflict in question, describe changes in circumstances and the movements of battles, contextualize the events, and suggest longer-term consequences of campaigns. Offering a vivid summary of the war over space and time, this unique, full-color atlas covers all theatres of the war. It is ideal for courses on World War Two, American and European history in the twentieth century, U.S. political and military history, and world history. It is also a fascinating resource for anyone interested in the sprawling landscape of the Second World War.

War in the Pacific: Volume III - The Road to Tokyo


Jerome T. Hagen - 2005
    Not ex-library.

Antisubmarine Warrior in the Pacific: Six Subs Sunk in Twelve Days


John A. Williamson - 2005
    Commissioned into service in late 1943 and dispatched to the Pacific the following February, the England and its crew, in one 12-day period in 1944, sank more submarines than any other ship in U.S. naval history: of the six targets attacked, all six were destroyed. For this distinction, legendary in the annals of antisubmarine warfare, the ship and her crew were honored with the Presidential Unit Citation.   After convoying in the Atlantic, John A. Williamson was assigned to the England—first as its executive officer, then as its commanding officer—from the time of her commissioning until she was dry-docked for battle damage repairs in the Philadelphia Naval Yard fifteen months later. Besides being a key participant in the remarkable antisubmarine actions, Williamson commanded the England in the battle of Okinawa, where she was attacked by kamikaze planes.   Williamson narrates his memoir with authority and authenticity, describes naval tactics and weaponry precisely, and provides information gleaned from translations of the orders from the Japanese high command to Submarine Squadron 7. The author details the challenges of communal life aboard ship and explains the intense loyalty that bonds crew members for life. Ultimately, Williamson offers a compelling portrait of himself, an inexperienced naval officer who, having come of age in Alabama during the Depression, rose to become the most successful World War II antisubmarine warfare officer in the Pacific.

Bootprints: An Infantryman's Walk Through World War II


Hobert Winebrenner - 2005
    From Utah Beach, through the hedgerows of Normandy, the liberation of France, the Battle of the Bulge, the assault on Germany and the chase into Czechoslovakia, follow in Sergeant Hobert Winebrenner's "Bootprints." Wounded twice and captured once, with five Bronze Battle Stars and one Silver Star, he saw much in his "Walk Through World War II."

The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII and His Secret War Against Nazi Germany


David G. Dalin - 2005
    Dalin provides a ringing defense of the wartime pontiff, arguing that Holocaust-era Jews justly regarded Pius as their protector, not their tormentor.

The Guy Liddell Diaries, Vol. 2, 1942-1945


Guy Liddell - 2005
    The document was considered so highly classified that it was retained in the safe of successive Directors-General, and special permission was required to read it.Liddell was one of three brothers who all won the Military Cross during the First World War and subsequently joined MI5. He initially first served in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch at Scotland Yard, dealing primarily with cases of Soviet espionage, until he was transferred to MI5 in 1931. His social connections proved important because in 1940 he employed Anthony Blunt as his personal assistant and became a close friend of both Guy Burgess and Victor Rothschild, and was acquainted with Kim Philby. Despite these links, when Liddell retired from the Security Service in 1952 he was appointed security adviser to the Atomic Energy Commission, an extremely sensitive post following the conviction of the physicist Klaus Fuchs two years earlier.No other member of the Security Service is known to have maintained a diary and the twelve volumes of this journal represents a unique record of the events and personalities of the period, a veritable tour d'horizon of the entire subject. As Director, B Division, Liddell supervised all the major pre-war and wartime espionage investigations, maintained a watch on suspected pro-Nazis and laid the foundations of the famous 'double cross system' of enemy double agents. He was unquestionably one of the most reclusive and remarkable men of his generation, and a legend within his own organisation.

The 12th SS: The History of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division


Hubert Meyer - 2005
    A detailed and gripping account of the most famous, and infamous, division to fight in World War II for any side.

Helmut Lent: The Lent Papers


Peter Hinchliffe - 2005
    The life of this outstanding Luftwaffe personality and leading exponent of night fighter tactics, who was killed when his plane crashed in October 1944.

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945


Catherine Merridale - 2005
    They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan -- as the ordinary Russian soldier was called -- remain a mystery. We know something about hoe the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought.Drawing on previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with veterans, and private letters and diaries, Catherine Merridale presents the first comprehensive history of the Soviet Union Army rank and file. She follows the soldiers from the shock of the German invasion to their costly triumph in Stalingrad, where life expectancy was often a mere twenty-four hours. Through the soldiers' eyes, we witness their victorious arrival in Berlin, where their rage and suffering exact an awful toll, and accompany them as they return home full of hope, only to be denied the new life they had been fighting to secure.A tour de force of original research and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed, badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army. In the process Merridale restores to history the invisible millions who sacrificed the most to win the war.

Singapore Burning: Heroism And Surrender In World War II


Colin Smith - 2005
    The Japanese had promised that there would be no Dunkirk in Singapore, and its fall led to imprisonment, torture and death for thousands of allied men and women. With much new material from British, Australian, Indian and Japanese sources, Colin Smith has woven together the full and terrifying story of the fall of Singapore and its aftermath. Here, alongside cowardice and incompetence, are forgotten acts of enormous heroism; treachery yet heart-rending loyalty; Japanese compassion as well as brutality from the bravest and most capricious enemy the British ever had to face.

Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America


Truman K. Gibson Jr. - 2005
    In 1940, when Truman Gibson reported for duty at the War Department, Washington was like a southern city in its seemingly unalterable segregation and oppressive summer heat. Gibson had no illusions about the nation’s racism, but as a Chicagoan who’d enjoyed the best of the vibrant Black culture of prewar America, he was shocked to find the worst of the Jim Crow South in the capital. What Gibson accomplished as an advocate for African American soldiers—first as a lawyer working for the secretary of war, then as a member of Harry S. Truman’s “Black cabinet”—fueled the struggle for civil rights in the American military. A University of Chicago Law School graduate, Gibson took his fight for racial justice to the corridors of power, arguing against restrictive real estate covenants before the US Supreme Court, opposing such iconic military figures as Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and George C. Marshall to demand the integration of the armed forces, and challenging white control of professional sports by creating a boxing empire that made television history. Filled with firsthand details and little-known stories about key advancements in race relations in the worlds of law, the military, sports, and entertainment, Gibson’s memoir is also an engaging recollection of encounters with the likes of Thurgood Marshall, W. E. B. Du Bois, Eleanor Roosevelt, George Patton, Jackie Robinson, and Joe Louis. Winner of the 2006 Illinois State Historical Society Book Award Certificate of Excellence, Knocking Down Barriers illuminates social milestones that continue to shape race in the United States today.

Churchill and America


Martin Gilbert - 2005
    Winston Churchill, whose mother, Jennie Jerome, the daughter of a leading American entrepreneur, was born in Brooklyn in 1854, spent much of his seventy adult years in close contact with the United States. In two world wars, his was the main British voice urging the closest possible cooperation with the United States. From before the First World War, he understood the power of the United States, the "gigantic boiler," which, once lit, would drive the great engine forward. Sir Martin Gilbert was appointed Churchill's official biographer in 1968 and has ever since been collecting archival and personal documentation that explores every twist and turn of Churchill's relationship with the United States, revealing the golden thread running through it of friendship and understanding despite many setbacks and disappointments. Drawing on this extensive store of Churchill's own words -- in his private letters, his articles and speeches, and press conferences and interviews given to American journalists on his numerous journeys throughout the United States -- Gilbert paints a rich portrait of the Anglo-American relationship that began at the turn of the last century. Churchill first visited the United States in 1895, when he was twenty-one. During that first visit, he was invited to West Point and was fascinated by New York City. "What an extraordinary people the Americans are!" he wrote to his mother. "This is avery great country, my dear Jack," he told his brother. During three subsequent visits before the Second World War, he traveled widely and formed a clear understanding of both the physical and moral strength of Americans. During the First World War, Churchill was Britain's Minister of Munitions, working closely with his American counterpart Bernard Baruch to secure the material needed for the joint war effort, and argued with his colleagues that it would be a grave mistake to launch a renewed assault before the Americans arrived. Churchill's historic alliance with Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War is brilliantly portrayed here with much new material, as are his subsequent ties with President Truman, which contributed to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. In his final words to his Cabinet in 1955, on the eve of his retirement as Prime Minister, Churchill gave his colleagues this advice: "Never be separated from the Americans." In Churchill and America, Gilbert explores how Churchill's intense rapport with this country resulted in no less than the liberation of Europe and the preservation of European democracy and freedom. It also set the stage for the ongoing alliance that has survived into the twenty-first century.

The Button Box: A Daughter's Loving Memoir of Mrs. George S. Patton


Ruth Ellen Patton Totten - 2005
    This we took for granted. Being our father’s children was a special influence in all our lives, but the greatest, most pervasive, and most interesting influence in my life was Ma."The Button Box isthe loving memoir of Beatrice Ayer Patton (1886–1953), the wife of one of the greatest military figures in history, General George S. Patton, Jr. Written by the Pattons’ daughter, Ruth Ellen, the book covers Beatrice’s life from her youth in a wealthy New England family until her death, with an emphasis on her years of marriage to George Patton. A supportive and loving wife, Beatrice was accomplished in her own right as an equestrian, musician, lecturer, sailor, and internationally published author. Courageous and adventurous, Beatrice played a significant role in her husband’s life. Without her, General Patton might never have reached his own level of success.Although there have been numerous books written on George S. Patton, The Button Box provides a unique perspective on the general’s complex personality as well as a rare and intimate look inside his famous American family, a glimpse of the “Old Army” that formed the cadre of the army of World War II, and a detailed description of life “between the wars” in a society not to be seen again. Most important, though, it is the story of a truly fascinating woman, told with love and a rowdy sense of humor by her daughter.

The Longest Battle: September 1944-February 1945: From Aachen to the Roer and Across


Harry Yeide - 2005
    Three months after the landing at Normandy, the Allies were finally within reach of the enemy on his home turf. Among the troops there was even talk of getting home for Christmas. What followed, though, was one of the most grueling campaigns of the war—the nearly six-month-long battle fully recounted for the first time in this powerful work. Combining stirring narrative and meticulous historical detail, The Longest Battle provides a complete and compelling account of what happened after the first breach of the Third Reich by Allied ground combat forces: of the troops’ terrible struggle across the Siegfried Line, Hitler’s vaunted West Wall, through the benighted Hurtgen Forest, and across the Roer. The strategic decisions and setbacks, the incremental advances, and catastrophic losses that marked this still-controversial but critically important battle unfold in all their historical, military, and human significance in Harry Yeide’s book—finally filling a gap in our understanding of World War II.

The Bitter Road to Dachau


Robert L. Wise - 2005
    Joining the Confessing Church to protest Adolf Hitler and Nazism, the fury of the Reich was unleashed. Ending up in the Dachau concentration camp where 10 percent of the prisoners were men of the cloth, Reger struggled to survive. Crammed into the Pastor’s Barracks with other ministers, the clergyman came face to face with man’s inhumanity to man. His struggled to endure asked tough questions about God, suffering, and life itself.