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Marauder: Memoir of A B-26 Pilot in Europe in World War II by Louis S. Rehr
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617 Squadron: The Dambusters at War (Memoirs from World War Two)
Tom Bennett - 1986
Behind the Darkened Glass
Rachel R. Heil - 2019
As Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party take control of the country, a young German woman returns to the country of her birth. Fleeing into the arms of her aunt, Charlotte Brookfield pays no attention to the events surrounding her as she tries to recover from a devastating discovery. Hans von Peterson is an officer in the country’s brutal SS. While courting the admiration of his superior and fighting off rivalries, Hans is sent to Berlin to accomplish a seemingly impossible task. That task has Hans crossing paths with Charlotte. Despite the odds, the two begin a love affair just as the Nazis begin to tighten their grip on the country leading to a bloody climax that will change everything.
The Hurricats: The Incredible True Story of Britain's 'Kamikaze' Pilots of World War Two
Ralph Barker - 1978
Thwarted in his plans to invade, Hitler decided he would starve Britain into submission instead. Operating in conjunction with U-Boats, long-range Condor aircraft manned by élite German airmen attacked Allied ships far beyond the range of any land-based RAF fighters, with devastating results. To counter the Luftwaffe threat, men from the RAF and Fleet Air Arm were asked to volunteer to be catapulted from the foredecks of merchant ships in specially modified Hawker Hurricanes. But with nowhere to land afterwards, it was a one-way mission. If the British fighter pilots survived combat, they would have no option but to bail out into the North Atlantic and hope they were picked up by the one of the convoy escorts. Survival was anything but certain ...
A FATEFUL CHOICE: My Survival Story
Abraham Rozenzveig - 2015
A decision is made that changes the course of his and his family’s lives, sealing their fates forever. Hiding deep in the foul swamps and murky forests of Belarus, Avramele endures abandonment and terrible loneliness. But with incredible courage for such a young child, with the help of a remarkable family and a little bit of luck, a strong willed and resilient boy emerges from his dark and painful past. Trekking across war-torn Europe, through refugee camps and an Alpine orphanage, crossing stormy seas and suffering imprisonment in Cyprus, Avramele (Abraham) reclaims his life on the shores of Israel.
Assignment: Casablanca
Peter J. Azzole - 2019
Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting.An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies. Tony is diverted from Casablanca on a brief classified fact-finding mission to a neutral country's island. That mission gets complicated and ultimately results in spy catching and another death. Returning to Casablanca, events result in Tony meeting Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.Between "Casablanca's" covers are communications intelligence, counter-intelligence, military politics, diplomatic tension, WWII history, family dynamics, and in the final analysis, a very exciting, twisting and fast moving story.
I Promised My Mother
Ludvik Wieder - 1984
And with G-d's help, he saved not only himself but also his parents and a host of friends, relatives, and strangers from almost certain death. If Ludvik Wieder's adventures were fiction, they would seem too contrived. But everything told is the unembellished truth. At the age of 26, Ludvik had it all—health, wealth, good looks, popularity, and a growing business in one of Europe's brightest capitals. Then, one dreadful Sunday in the spring of 1943, the Nazis marched into Budapest and imposed a series of repressive measures that threatened the life of every Jew in Hungary. From that day on, all that mattered was survival. Suddenly, life hung by a shred of paper— the proper “Aryan” identification. Determined to survive, Ludvik boldly entered the black market to buy those precious scraps of false identity that might save him and his loved ones from disaster. Soon he was living a double life, outwardly forsaking his Orthodox Jewish upbringing to pose as a gentile, at the same time clinging steadfastly to his beliefs, never for a moment forgetting who he was and where he came from. Soon he became a master of deception— whether it was posing as a trusted “gentile” factory employee, disguising himself as a drunken peasant, or assuming the dress and manner of a member of the Hungarian S.S. Somehow, he had the capacity to enlist the aid of an unlikely assortment of non-Jews, who helped him at the peril of their lives—among them, a peasant woman who befriended him in prison and offered her home as his haven for the duration of the war… a Hungarian Air Force officer, who “adopted” Ludvik's niece as his own illegitimate child, lent him his apartment as a hiding place and smuggled a series of vital ID papers to him… the Skid Row derelict who saved the life of Ludvik's nephew by pretending to be the boy's uncle. The book traces Ludvik's life, beginning with his placid, essentially easygoing boyhood in Czechoslovakia. Then, in 1940, after the Hungarian takeover, he was inducted into forced labor. It describes the cruelty and black humor of the labor camp, which helped him to develop the cunning and ingenuity that enabled him to sharpen his survival skills and avoid being sent to fatal service on the Russian front. The story then focuses on the Nazi occupation, culminating in Ludvik's near-execution at the hands of his Russian liberators. Armed with optimism, unswerving faith in the Almighty, and his own resourcefulness, Ludvik never let fear keep him from doing whatever was necessary to save himself and his fellow Jews. Throughout his heart-stopping adventures —and even in the darkest moments of despair, when events propelled him to the brink of suicide—Ludvik was motivated to go on by consummate devotion to his beloved mother. He knew he had to survive, for he had promised her he would.
Girl In Hiding: Remembrances of a Holocaust Survivor
Ellen-Ruth Karpowitz Song - 2017
I was locked in the attic and only the older daughter, Len, was at home. I heard her say that she did not have a key to the attic door since her mother always carried the key, and I knew trouble had come. I moved over into a large box that was pushed under the eaves that was our agreed-upon hiding spot. I closed the top as best I could and soon heard the sounds of the attic door being broken down. In came a man to search the attic. More than once I saw the shadow of the searcher over me.” In this remarkable memoir, Ellen-Ruth Karpowitz Song recounts with astonishing clarity and a touch of humor her harrowing experiences as a child hiding from The Nazis in German-occupied Holland during World War II. Shuffled from family to family over an event-filled three-year period, Ellen-Ruth recalls how her saviors repeatedly risked their own lives to shield hers from the atrocities of the time. Ellen-Ruth’s grown children also provide their thoughts on their mother’s early history, and share insights into how this knowledge has affected their own lives. An extensive Appendix includes documentation of the ordeal and a photo gallery of lives lost and those left to carry on. Featured in Steven Spielberg’s SHOAH project, Ellen-Ruth’s amazing story is a memorable testimony of the strength of the human spirit. May we never forget...
Flying the SR-71 Blackbird: In the Cockpit on a Secret Operational Mission
Richard H. Graham - 2008
Flying the SR-71 Blackbird takes readers along on an operational mission that only a few Air Force pilots have ever experienced. The Lockheed SR-71, unofficially known as the Blackbird, was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed by Lockheed Skunk Works. The aircraft flew so fast and high that not one was ever shot down, even by a missile. SR-71 pilot and instructor Colonel Richard Graham offers a rare cockpit perspective on how regular Air Force pilots and navigators transformed themselves into SR-71 Blackbird crews, turning their unique aviation talents to account in an unprecedented way.Arguably the worlds foremost expert on piloting the Blackbird, Graham details, as no one else could, what an SR-71 mission entails, from donning a pressure suit to returning to base.
FALL EAGLE ONE
Warren Bell - 2011
Nazi Germany reels from nightly battering of her cities by the RAF. Catastrophe looms at Stalingrad. With the Allies poised to invade Western Europe, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring desperately seeks to delay the invasion and slow the Red Army’s inexorable westward march. He turns to Siegfried von Rall, the “best pilot in the Luftwaffe,” to solve his dilemma. Siegfried hatches strategic air strikes designed to buy time for Germany to refine Hitler’s vaunted “Victory” weapons. Two targets galvanize his attention: Soviet hydro plants in the Urals and killing FDR. He chooses cutting-edge aircraft and a team of combat experienced experts for the missions. Göring fast-tracks detailed planning and training. In Britain, codebreaker Evan Thompson reads Siegfried’s radio messages but can’t detect his objective. The chilling truth emerges only after an Amerika-Bomber bearing “smart bombs” leaves Norway for the U.S. FALL EAGLE ONE has aerial combat, trans-Atlantic assassination flights, Eastern Front action, codebreaking at Bletchley Park, intrigue at the highest levels of the German High Command, and fast-paced wartime romance.
Hey Doc!: The Battle of Okinawa As Remembered by a Marine Corpsman
Ed Wells - 2017
This is the wartime memories of a Marine Corpsman who served in Company B, of the 6th Battalion of the 4th Regiment. He saw 100 days of continuous combat during the Battle of Okinawa, including the Battle for Sugar Loaf, and was part of the landing force that was headed to Japan when the atomic bomb dropped. These were recorded after 60 years of reflection, and are presented to honor all veterans.
Those In Peril
Margaret Mayhew - 2003
His aim is not to flee from the enemy, but to join the Resistance to fight for his beloved France. He arrives in Dartmouth and finds his way to the boarding house run by the delightful young widow Barbara Hillyard, who is trying to make a living for herself and her young evacuee Esme.
Lieutenant-Commander Alan Powell, unfit for active service after being wounded in action, is overseeing undercover operations in that part of the West Country, and he and Duval find themselves in dangerous circumstances. Alan, lonely and frustrated in his work, is drawn towards the lovely Mrs Hillyard, but she seems to have eyes only for the attractive Frenchman...
Crossing the Rhine: Breaking into Nazi Germany 1944 and 1945—The Greatest Airborne Battles in History
Lloyd Clark - 2008
In September 1944, with the Allies still celebrating their success at Normandy and eager to finish the job, thirty-five thousand U.S. and British troops parachuted into Nazi territory in the Netherlands. The controversial offensive, code named “Operation Market Garden,” was conceived by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to secure the lower Rhine—Germany’s last great natural barrier in the west—and passage to Berlin. Allied soldiers outnumbered Germans by two to one, but they were poorly armed against German Panzer tanks and suffered devastating casualties. After nine days of intense fighting, they were forced to retreat. Several months later, in March 1945, Montgomery orchestrated another airborne attack of the Rhine; this time they won and began their march into the heart of the Third Reich. Crossing the Rhine moves at a fast pace, delivers an innovative interpretation of the past, and forces us to ask ourselves just what it takes—in blood spilt, in lives lost—to win in war.
The Cruel Romance: A Novel of Love and War
Marina Osipova - 2016
With only moments left together, she places a cross around her beloveds neck and reluctantly releases him into a cruel world where nothing is certain, especially whether she will ever see him again.Days later, Germans invade her village and take over her tiny house. Serafima and her mother must comply with orders, endure abuse, and stay put, or their village will be annihilated.As World War II intertwines Serafimas and Vityas life with that of a young German violinist and a Russian intellectual, their destinies are irrevocably altered. Can they rise to the challenge of agonizing moral choices and learn to forgive and love again?
Patton at the Battle of the Bulge: How the General's Tanks Turned the Tide at Bastogne
Leo Barron - 2014
For the besieged American defenders of Bastogne, time was running out.... Hitler’s forces had pressed in on the small Belgian town in a desperate offensive designed to push back the Allies, starting the Battle of the Bulge. So far the U.S. soldiers had managed to repel waves of attackers and even a panzer onslaught. But as their ammunition dwindled, the weary paratroopers of the 101st Airborne could only hope for a miracle—a miracle in the form of General George S. Patton and his Third Army. More than a hundred miles away, Patton, ordered to race his men to Bastogne, was already putting in motion the most crucial charge of his career. Tapped to spearhead his counterstrike against the Wehrmacht was the 4th Armored Division, a bloodied but experienced unit that had fought and slogged its way across France. But blazing a trail into Belgium meant going up against some of the best infantry and tank units in the German Army. Failure to reach Bastogne in time could result in the overrunning of the 101st—a catastrophic defeat that could turn the tide of the war and secure victory for the Nazis. In Patton at the Battle of the Bulge, Army veteran and historian Leo Barron explores one of the most famous yet little told clashes of the war, a vitally important chapter in one of history’s most legendary battles.
Panzer Aces: German Tank Commanders in World War II
Franz Kurowski - 1992
Tracks rattling and engines roaring, these lethal machines engaged in some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, from the beaches of Normandy and the Ardennes Forest to the snow-encrusted Eastern Front. In this reprint of the hugely popular book, prolific author Franz Kurowski tells the gritty, action-packed stories of six of the most daring and successful officers ever to command Panzers, including Michael Wittmann, Hans Bolter, Hermann Bix, and others. Timelines mark the milestones of each officer's career.