The Prodigal Para: An Afghan War Diary


Andy Tyson - 2018
    He was 47 years old. During his time on the ground he kept a diary. Humorous, authentic and sad, it is a warts and all account of infantry soldiering in a hot and dangerous place. This is his storty.

D-Day


Al Hine - 1962
    Here is the dramatic story of that climatic battle and the men who planned and fought in it. The Normandy invasion altered the course of World War II and led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Third Reich. It is a story of courage and fear, tragedy and determination.

Here My Home Once Stood: A Holocaust Memoir


Moyshe Rekhtman - 2008
    But his iron will and quick wit allowed him to survive when all seemed lost. Staging escapes from death camps and avoiding Nazi pursuit through the frozen Ukrainian countryside-all while facing the loss of his family, famine, constant threat of capture, torture, and execution - would be a monumental task for the strongest of men. Despite his mild manners, emaciated body, and poor vision, he evaded the death squads in Nazi-occupied Ukraine for four years. Moyshe's Holocaust memoir is a remarkable example of human fortitude during a time when many welcomed an end to their suffering.

Hitter: The Life and Turmoils of Ted Williams


Ed Linn - 1993
    But the tag that really fits is Hitter. “A riveting retrospective” (Baseball americanca). Index; career statistics; photographs.

Four Weeks In May: The Loss Of " Hms Coventry "


David Hart Dyke - 2007
    By the end of April she was sailing south in the vanguard of the Task Force towards the Falklands. This is the personal testimony by the ship's captain, describing the bombing & sinking of HMS Coventry.

Ripcord: Screaming Eagles Under Siege, Vietnam 1970


Keith William Nolan - 2000
    By July, the activities of the artillery and infantry of Ripcord had caught the attention of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and a long and deadly siege ensued. Ripcord was the Screaming Eagles’ last chance to do significant damage to the NVA in the A Shau Valley before the division was withdrawn from Vietnam and returned to the United States. At Ripcord, the enemy counterattacked with ferocity, using mortar and antiaircraft fire to inflict heavy causalities on the units operating there. The battle lasted four and a half months and exemplified the ultimate frustration of the Vietnam War: the inability of the American military to bring to bear its enormous resources to win on the battlefield. In the end, the 101st evacuated Ripcord, leaving the NVA in control of the battlefield. Contrary to the mantra “We won every battle but lost the war,” the United States was defeated at Ripcord. Now, at last, the full story of this terrible battle can be told.

A Brilliant Little Operation: The Cockleshell Heroes and the Most Courageous Raid of World War 2


Paddy Ashdown - 2012
    In 1942, before El Alamein turned the tide of war, the German merchant fleet was re-supplying its war machine with impunity. So Operation Frankton, a daring and secret raid, was launched by Mountbatten's Combined Operations and led by the enigmatic 'Blondie' Hasler - to paddle 'Cockleshell' canoes right into Bordeaux harbour and sink the ships at anchor.

Rising Above: A Green Beret's Story of Childhood Trauma and Ultimate Healing


Sean Rogers - 2021
    His single mother checked into the hospital as a vibrant young woman and checked out as a full-blown opioid addict. From that day forward, Sean's life became a silent nightmare of abuse, neglect, chronic hunger, and slow, helpless withdrawal from everything and everyone he loved.In Rising Above, Green Beret Sean Rogers chronicles the toughest battle of his life: the long, painful fight to confront his darkest fears and reclaim his life. After struggling as a young man to accept the raw trauma of his past, he eventually learned to understand and embrace it, ultimately using it to become an elite Special Forces operator.Through this profoundly honest and inspiring memoir, Rogers explores what it means to make the pain of your past work for you, showing you how to harness the truth of your own reality and take control of your destiny.

Angles of Attack, An A-6 Intruder Pilot's War


Peter Hunt - 2002
    For the next six weeks, Hunt executed dozens of bombing missions into Kuwait and Iraq, including all-weather low-level attacks, A-6 Intruder missions so hazardous that they would never be flown in combat again. Whether Hunt was dropping laser-guided bombs on precision targets, supporting the Marines on the ground, or conducting attacks along the infamous “highway of death,” America’s mission was clear – to force the invading Iraqi army out of Kuwait.Operation Desert Storm - America’s first full-scale conflict since Vietnam - proved to the world that the U.S. military was still battle-ready after decades of Cold War and set the stage for military interventions for years to come. Hunt’s gripping depiction of A-6 Intruders in combat is a thought provoking account of what America asks of her military every day.This…Gulf War memoir is excellent; it really does put the reader in the cockpit...Peter Hunt’s enthusiastic account is one of the best of the type this reviewer has read in recent years. Peter Mersky, The Hook – Journal of Carrier Aviation Book Review, February 2003.

Two Years on the Alabama


Arthur Sinclair - 1989
    Alabama was the terror of the Atlantic Ocean. Built in secrecy in Liverpool, England, through the arrangement of Confederate agent Commander James Bulloch, it was built for the fledgling Confederate States Navy which was sorely in need of ships. Under the command of Raphael Semmes it would spend the next two years terrorising and attacking Union shipping to help the Confederacy break the stranglehold which it found itself in. Through these two years it completed seven highly successful expeditionary raids, and it had been at sea for 534 days out of 657, never visiting a single Confederate port. They boarded nearly 450 vessels, captured or burned 65 Union merchant ships, and took more than 2,000 prisoners without a single loss of life from either prisoners or their own crew. Fifth Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair, who served under Semmes on the Alabama for the entirety of its existence, documents a fascinating first-person account of life on board this Confederate raider. As they crisscrossed over the oceans Sinclair notes the ships they attacked, prisoners they took and various places they visited, from Brazil to South Africa. Powered by both sail and steam, the Alabama was one of the quickest ships of its era, reaching speeds of over 13 knots. But in the quest for speed there had been sacrifices, notably the lack of heavy armor-cladding and larger guns, which were to prove fatal during the Battle of Cherbourg in 1864 against the U.S.S. Kearsage. Two Years on the Alabama is an excellent account of naval operations of the confederacy during the American Civil War. It provides brilliant details into the revolutionary changes that were occurring in late-nineteenth century maritime developments. After the Alabama was sunk Sinclair was rescued by the English yacht Deerhound and taken to Southampton. He later served as an officer of the inactive cruiser CSS Rappahannock at Calais, France. Following the Civil War, he primarily lived in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was a merchant. In 1896 he published Two Years on the Alabama. Arthur Sinclair died in Baltimore in November 1925.

Hitler's Jet Plane: The Me 262 Story


Mano Ziegler - 2006
    Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, training and even served in it operationally. Could the ME 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Why did it take so long to come into service and why were hundreds of German pilots sacrificed in developing it? Why did the ME 262 prove not to be the unparalleled success claimed by Goering and why were German cities left dangerously exposed against Allied bombing campaigns? These are only some the important questions this new book answers. Mano Ziegler, born 7 June 1908, had a lifetime fascination with flight. At the age of eight, he wrote to Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the famous "Red Baron", asking to be allowed to fly with him. Richthofen even replied, telling him, "Yes, we'll fly together!". At the age of 21, he took up glider flying. He also pursued his sport of diving and was a core member of Germany's Olympic high-diving team. In 1932 and 1934 he was student world high-diving champion at the world championships in Darmstadt and Turin. When war broke out in 1939 he became a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and from 1943 until the war's end he flew the Me 163 with Erprobungskommando 16 (Operational Test Unit 16) and Jagdgeschwader 400 (Fighter Group 400). After the war he escaped from Russian captivity and - having returned to Berlin - continued to fly and write newspaper articles. In Berlin he guested as a high-wire walker with the Camilla Mayer circus troupe, walking the 24-metre high wire - without any prior training - for a newspaper article. He eventually became editor-in-chief of the Flug-Revue aviation monthly in Stuttgart and, as such, made his first supersonic flight in an English fighter aircraft in the spring of 1960. Hitler's Jet Plane fills an important gap in the history of the Luftwaffe and of aviation in general with new research which dicloses how the first ever military jet plane failed to make its mark on World War II.

One Man's War


Robert Allison - 2012
    The story begins with the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, proceeds through enlistment and flight training, and finally into action against the enemy in the Pacific. Along the way he meets an endless stream of outrageous characters and is exposed to a much larger world than he ever could have imagined as a young boy in Des Moines. He also meets his wife to be, ditches two aircraft into the Pacific Ocean, completes 54 combat missions, and is awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

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.

Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness


Craig Nelson - 2016
    Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness follows, moment by moment, the sailors, soldiers, pilots, diplomats, admirals, generals, emperor, and president as they engineer, fight, and react to this stunningly dramatic moment in world history. Beginning in 1914, bestselling author Craig Nelson maps the road to war, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and not yet afflicted with polio), attending the laying of the keel of the USS Arizona at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Writing with vivid intimacy, Nelson traces Japan’s leaders as they lurch into ultranationalist fascism, which culminates in their insanely daring yet militarily brilliant scheme to terrify America with one of the boldest attacks ever waged. Within seconds, the country would never be the same. In addition to learning the little understood history of how and why Japan attacked Hawaii, we hear an abandoned record player endlessly repeating “Sunrise Serenade” as bombs shatter the decks of the California; we feel cold terror as lanky young American sailors must anxiously choose between staying aboard their sinking ships or diving overboard into harbor waters aflame with burning ship fuel; we watch as Navy wives tearfully hide with their children in caves from a rumored invasion, and we understand the frustration and triumph of a lone American teenager as he shoots down a Japanese bomber, even as the attack destroys hundreds of US airplanes and dozens of ships. Backed by a research team’s five years of work, which produced nearly a million pages of documents, as well as Nelson’s thorough re-examination of the original evidence assembled by federal investigators, this page-turning and definitive work provides a thrilling blow-by-blow account from both the Japanese and American perspectives, and is historical drama on the grandest scale. Nelson delivers all the terror, chaos, violence, tragedy, and heroism of the attack in stunning detail, and offers surprising conclusions about the tragedy’s unforeseen and resonant consequences that linger even today.

The Battle of the Coral Sea: The History and Legacy of World War II's First Major Battle Between Aircraft Carriers


Charles River Editors - 2016
    Offshore, the large IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) minelayer Okinoshima, flagship of Admiral Shima Kiyohide, lay at anchor, along with two destroyers, Kikuzuki and Yutsuki, and transport ships. Six Japanese Mitsubishi F1M2 floatplanes also rested on the gentle, deep blue swell, marking Tulagi's future as an IJN floatplane base. The men on the beach, at inland construction sites, or aboard the Japanese ships, looked up towards the huge white cumulus clouds sailing on the ocean wind. Taken completely by surprise, the Japanese stood and stared as 13 sturdy-looking dive bombers dropped through the cumulus layer at 6,000 feet, plunging towards the IJN ships. As they streaked lower, the white star on a black disc insignia of American aircraft grew visible on the underside of each wing. As the dive bombers roared low, drowning out the soft clacking of palm-fronds agitated by the steady sea breeze, the dark capsule shapes of 1,000-lb bombs broke away from their undersides and hurtled towards the anchored ships. Amid the sudden thunder of explosions, huge fountains of white foam gushed upward, sparkling in the tropical sunlight before collapsing back into the sea. Only as the American Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers began climbing out of their attack did the Japanese finally open fire with the four anti-aircraft guns set up on the Tulagi shore. As Lieutenant Commander William Burch, leader of Scouting Five from the carrier USS Yorktown, later reported, “We took them by surprise, and they didn't start shooting at us until we pulled out […] We hopped back over Guadalcanal, and landed aboard. […] Only one plane had been hit by anti-aircraft. Its sway braces on the bomb rack were damaged. A couple of the dive bombers were attacked by a fighter on floats, but they shot him down. It was the only enemy plane we saw. What's more, I didn't see a ship sink.” (Ludlum, 2006, 70).The Japanese, attacked throughout the day, radioed this information to the IJN task forces operating in the area. The unmistakable US carrier aircraft meant an American aircraft carrier sailed nearby, surprising the Japanese, who had not expected any enemy “flattops” in the Coral Sea near Australia at that time. In fact, the airstrikes on Admiral Shima's Tulagi invasion force marked the start of the strategically important Battle of the Coral Sea. While the Battle of the Coral Sea is not as well known as other battles across the Pacific, it set a precedent by pitting enemy aircraft carriers against each other, a battle in which the rival navies themselves never sighted each other or fired a gun at each other. Instead, the fighting was done with the carriers’ aircraft, something that would become more common over time and would result in decisive actions at places like Midway just months later. Furthermore, while it was in a sense a tactical victory for the Japanese, it would end up helping blunt their aggressive push east in the Pacific, making it a crucial strategic victory for the Allies. The Battle of the Coral Sea: The History and Legacy of World War II’s First Major Battle Between Aircraft Carriers analyzes the historic battle and the strategic importance it had in the Pacific. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Battle of the Coral Sea like never before.