He provides shattering glimpses of the horror and chaos of the war, as well as profound insights into everyday life in the Wehrmacht.Five Years, Four Fronts chronicles the combat experiences of Grossjohann and his men as they triumphantly roll across Poland, France, and the sunny steppes of the Ukraine, only to ultimately sustain grinding defeats in the endless, freezing plains of the Soviet Union and the grim, dark Vosges Mountains of France. Grossjohann was a soldier’s soldier, respected by his men, undaunted by his superiors, and, as can be observed in this raw, brutally honest account, not afraid to call the shots as he saw them.

    As the Russians closed in on Hitler from the east and the Allies attacked from the west, American soldiers discovered a secret Nazi effort to engineer a master race of the finest purebred horses. With the support of U.S. general George S. Patton, a passionate equestrian, the Americans planned an audacious mission to kidnap these beautiful animals and smuggle them into safe territory—assisted by a daring Austrian colonel who was both a former Olympian and a trainer of the famous Lipizzaner stallions.

    Captain Rikihei Inoguchi served as senior staff officer to Vice Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, who initiated Japan's kamikaze attacks against American ships in the Philippines. Commander Tadashi Nakajima was flight operations officer for the 201st Air Group, which organized the first kamikaze special attack corps. Nakajima later served on the staff of the air fleet that launched suicide attacks against the American fleet around Okinawa. These two eyewitnesses to events surrounding the kamikaze operations provide many insights into the motivations and feelings of both the leaders and pilots of the kamikaze units.Inoguchi and Nakajima first published their account in Japanese in 1951 under the title Kamikaze Tokubetsu Kogekitai (Kamikaze Special Attack Forces), and the U.S. Naval Institute published the first English translation in 1953. Roger Pineau, a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and the co-author of several books about the war in the Pacific, reorganized the original text, retranslated some sections, and added footnotes for the version published in 1958. His thorough research, thoughtful editing, and accurate translations produced a book that for several decades has been both popular with a wide audience and valuable to historians. The 1958 version also contains a five-page preface written by Inoguchi and Nakajima in December 1957. Both Bantam (1960) and Ballantine (1968) published paperback versions that were reprinted several times, and the book has been translated to several other languages.The Divine Wind covers the kamikaze operations from October 19, 1944, the date of the formation of the first kamikaze special attack corps, to the end of the war. Inoguchi and Nakajima divide up the chapters between them, so some chapters cover the same events from each author's individual perspective. The book's events follow a rough chronological order, with Part One covering the "Birth of the Kamikaze" in which both authors participated. Parts Two and Three cover the special attack units in the Philippines and Taiwan, respectively. Part Four details the last-ditch efforts of Japan's military to launch suicide assaults against the American fleet surrounding Okinawa. The last part gives Inoguchi's reflections on the decision to use suicide tactics to wage war against the United States, and the last chapter of this part contains several letters from kamikaze pilots.

    Purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking the Allies were planning to attack Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed & the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 & the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu were very different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. A perfect team, they created an ingenious plan: equip a corpse with secret (but false) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would hopefully take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (007's creator). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis & help bring victory.Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, heroes & a corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller. Unveiling never-before-released material, Macintyre goes into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles & spies, & the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness & yesmanship.” He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley & Montagu & their improbable feats into an adventure that saved thousands & paved the way for the conquest of Sicily.

    It was the launching pad for Hitler's empire, the embodiment of his vision of a world metropolis. Berlin was also the place where Hitler's Reich would ultimately fall. Berlin suffered more air raids than any other German city and endured the full force of a Soviet siege. In Berlin at War, historian Roger Moorhouse uses diaries, memoirs, and interviews to provide a searing first-hand account of life and death in the Nazi capital -- the privations, the hopes and fears, and the nonconformist tradition that saw some Berliners provide underground succor to the city's remaining Jews. Combining comprehensive research with gripping narrative, Berlin at War is the incredible story of the city -- and people -- that saw the whole of World War II.

    Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia) was first published in the Army Quarterly in 1920. It is incredibly concise and well written. It contains all of the major analysis and conclusions of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (his book and most famous work) without the narrative of his war experiences. It is the "cliff notes" to Lawrence, written by Lawrence himself. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in World War I, the Arab world, military history, unconventional, irregular, or guerrilla warfare.

    Using superb illustrations he traces the development of the Spitfire and Hurricane, and describes the nail-biting actions of those who flew them against far superior numbers of enemy aircraft. As an added bonus, other well-known fighter aces including Johnnie Johnson, "Laddie' Lucas and Max Aitken contribute to Douglas's book, no doubt out of affection and respect.This is a really important contribution to RAF history by one of the greatest - and certainly the most famous - pilots of the Second World War.

    The Germans responded with a dizzying series of assaults, using every tool of modern warfare developed in the previous generation. Airlifted infantry, mountain troops and paratroopers were dispatched to the north, seizing Norwegian strongpoints while forestalling larger but more cumbersome Allied units.The German navy also set sail, taking a brutal beating at the hands of Britannia, while ensuring with its sacrifice that key harbors could be held open for resupply. As dive-bombers soared overhead, small but elite German units traversed forbidding terrain to ambush Allied units trying to forge inland. At Narvik, some 6,000 German troops battled 20,000 French and British, until the Allies were finally forced to withdraw by the great disaster in France, which had then gotten underway.Henrik Lunde, a native Norwegian and former U.S. Special Operations colonel, has written the most objective account to date of a campaign in which 20th-century military innovation found its first fertile playing field.REVIEWS:"While it's almost impossible to find a new book about a hitherto unexplored WWII-related subject, it's almost as unlikely to discover a new book that turns out to be the best yet written on the topic. . . . Henrik Lunde's new Hitler's Pre-Emptive War is certainly not the first book about the 1940 invasion of Norway and the battles around Narvik, but it sure looks like the best."-Stone and Stone Second World War Books"Lunde has thoroughly dissected both ground and naval battles and managed to make a complex politico-military situation clear. . . . military collections will want to acquire this excellent effort . . ."-Library Journal"Well written with an unbiased eye. . . . Every aspect is covered, with British, French, German and Norwegian viewpoints, decisions and actions all being taken fairly into account. . . . It's an interesting story and one I would recommend." - Military Modeling, 06/2009.."a detailed, well laid out history... essential reading; a must-have in your military library and a job very well done by the author."Military Model Craft International, 07/2009 "This large book will fuel debate. . . . Exhaustive research and intellectual detachment enable the author to bring objectivity and a fresh interpretation to a subject that has been until now laden with national self-justification. . . . Holds the reader's interest while progressing seamlessly from political and strategic decisions to theater operations and tactics of the various national forces engaged, including describing and analyzing combat on land, at sea, and in the air. . . . This book is a gem."-Parameters"... an excellent job of compiling research material, which can be quite challenging due to the bias of what's out there...tough to put down...well written and thoroughly researched."Internet Modeler, 08/2009"Thoroughly researched, objective and thoughtfully written... a highly recommended addition to the historiography of World War II, and sheds new light on this misunderstood campaign."Carlo D'Este, World War II Magazine, 11/2009"A very detailed look at what was the first "joint" operation of the Second World War, the highly risky and amazingly successful German invasion of Normandy in April 1940...a comprehensive account of what was one of the most complex campaigns of the war..."The NYMAS Review, Fall-Winter 2009 ".. will undoubtedly become recognized as a milestone among the books about Norway in 1940."MILITAR HISTORIA 3/2009 (Norway)

    The most popular of Lewis's twenty-seven books, Naples '44 is a landmark poetic study of the agony of wartime occupation and its ability to bring out the worst, and often the best, in human nature. In prose both heartrending and comic, Lewis describes an era of disillusionment, escapism, and hysteria in which the Allied occupiers mete out justice unfairly and fail to provide basic necessities to the populace while Neapolitan citizens accuse each other of being Nazi spies, women offer their bodies to the same Allied soldiers whose supplies they steal for sale on the black market, and angry young men organize militias to oppose "temporary" foreign rule. Yet over the chaotic din, Lewis sings intimately of the essential dignity of the Neapolitan people, whose traditions of civility, courage, and generosity of spirit shine through on a daily basis. This essential World War II book is as timely a read as ever."Norman Lewis is one of the greatest twentieth-century British writers and Naples '44 is his masterpiece. A lyrical, ironic, and detached account of a tempestuous, byzantine, and opaque city in the aftermath of war."--Will Self

    French baker Pierre Cardron led British paratroopers to his local church, where he knew two German soldiers were hiding in the confessional. Southampton telegram boy Tom Hiett delivered his first "death message"; by midday. At the sound of Allied aircraft, Werner Kortenhaus of the twenty-first Panzer Division ran to collect his still damp washing from a French laundrywoman. And injured soldiers wept in their beds in a New York hospital, knowing that their buddies lay dying on the Normandy beaches.Drawing on memoirs, diaries, letters, and oral accounts, D-Day is a purely chronological narrative, concerned less with the military strategies and more with what people were thinking and doing as D-Day unfolded, minute-by-minute. Moving seamlessly from various perspectives and stories, D-Day sets the reader in the midst of it all, compelling us to relive this momentous day in world history.