Book picks similar to
The Far Shore (Annotated) by Edward Ellsberg
history
non-fiction
ww2
world-war-ii
The Last Correspondent
Soraya M. Lane - 2020
But having risked everything to write, she refuses to be silenced and leaps at the chance to become a correspondent in war-torn France.Already entrenched in the thoroughly male arena of war reporting is feisty American photojournalist Danni Bradford. Together with her best friend and partner, Andy, she is determined to cover the events unfolding in Normandy. And to discover the whereabouts of Andy’s flighty sister, Vogue model Chloe, who has followed a lover into the French Resistance.When trailblazing efforts turn to tragedy, Danni, Ella and Chloe are drawn together, and soon form a formidable team. Each woman is determined to follow her dreams ‘no matter what’, and to make her voice heard over the noise of war.Europe is a perilous place, with danger at every turn. They’ll need to rely on each other if they are to get their stories back, and themselves out alive. Will the adventure and love they find be worth the journey of their lives?
Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man
Lynn Vincent - 2018
The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, almost three hundred miles from the nearest land, the men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive. For the better part of a century, the story of USS Indianapolis has been understood as a sinking tale. The reality, however, is far more complicated—and compelling. Now, for the first time, thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewitnesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own. It begins in 1932, when Indianapolis is christened and launched as the ship of state for President Franklin Roosevelt. After Pearl Harbor, Indianapolis leads the charge to the Pacific Islands, notching an unbroken string of victories in an uncharted theater of war. Then, under orders from President Harry Truman, the ship takes aboard a superspy and embarks on her final world-changing mission: delivering the core of the atomic bomb to the Pacific for the strike on Hiroshima. Vincent and Vladic provide a visceral, moment-by-moment account of the disaster that unfolds days later after the Japanese torpedo attack, from the chaos on board the sinking ship to the first moments of shock as the crew plunge into the remote waters of the Philippine Sea, to the long days and nights during which terror and hunger morph into delusion and desperation, and the men must band together to survive. Then, for the first time, the authors go beyond the men’s rescue to chronicle Indianapolis’s extraordinary final mission: the survivors’ fifty-year fight for justice on behalf of their skipper, Captain Charles McVay III, who is wrongly court-martialed for the sinking. What follows is a captivating courtroom drama that weaves through generations of American presidents, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, and forever entwines the lives of three captains—McVay, whose life and career are never the same after the scandal; Mochitsura Hashimoto, the Japanese sub commander who sinks Indianapolis but later joins the battle to exonerate McVay; and William Toti, the captain of the modern-day submarine Indianapolis, who helps the survivors fight to vindicate their captain. A sweeping saga of survival, sacrifice, justice, and love, Indianapolis stands as both groundbreaking naval history and spellbinding narrative—and brings the ship and her heroic crew back to full, vivid, unforgettable life. It is the definitive account of one of the most remarkable episodes in American history.
The Silent Service in World War II: The Story of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force in the Words of the Men Who Lived It
Edward Monroe-Jones - 2012
Navy had a total of 111 submarines. However, this fleet was not nearly as impressive as the number suggests. It was mostly a collection of aging boats from the late teens and early twenties, with only a few of the newer, more modern Gato-class boats. Fortunately, with the war in Europe was already two years old and friction with Japan ever-increasing, help from what would become known as the Silent Service in the Pacific was on the way: there were 73 of the new fleet submarines under construction. The Silent Service in World War II tells the story of America’s intrepid underwater warriors in the words of the men who lived the war in the Pacific against Japan. The enemy had already begun to deploy advanced boats, but the U.S. was soon able to match them. By 1943 the new Gato-class boats were making a difference, carrying the war not just to the Japanese Imperial Navy, but to the vital merchant fleet that carried the vast array of materiel needed to keep the land of the Rising Sun afloat.As the war progressed, American success in the Solomons, starting with Guadalcanal, began to constrict the Japanese sea lanes, and operating singly or in wolfpacks they were able to press their attacks on convoys operating beyond the range of our airpower, making daring forays even into the home waters of Japan itself in the quest for ever more elusive targets. Also taking on Japanese warships, as well as rescuing downed airmen (such as the grateful first President Bush), U.S. submarines made an enormous contribution to our war against Japan.This book takes you through the war as you learn what it was like to serve on submarines in combat, the exhilaration of a successful attack, and the terror of being depth-charged. And aside from enemy action, the sea itself could prove to be an extremely hostile environment as many of these stories attest. From early war patrols in obsolescent, unreliable S-boats to new, modern fleet submarines roving the Pacific, the forty-six stories in this anthology give you a full understanding of what it was like to be a U.S. Navy submariner in combat.
The Nuremberg Trial
Ann Tusa - 1984
Using a variety of resources, the Tusas are able to thoroughly layout new information from the trial. This was the closure for many to World War II, and it was one of the greatest judicial accomplishements. The Tusas provide a clear history of the events and fresh insight to what happened during the trial.
A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France
Caroline Moorehead - 2011
They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen who scrawled "V" for victory on the walls of her lycée; the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to each other, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers.Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class, as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie.In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty-nine would return to France.A Train in Winter draws on interviews with these women and their families; German, French, and Polish archives; and documents held by World War II resistance organizations to uncover a dark chapter of history that offers an inspiring portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and survival—and of the remarkable, enduring power of female friendship.
The Medic: Life and Death in the Last Days of World War II
Leo Litwak - 2001
It's the story of real people in war-friends and thieves, dreamers and killers, jokers and heroes-as well as the personal account of a young American plucked from a sheltered and comfortable life and sent to a foreign land to save the men fighting to save the world. Few books have portrayed the grit and wonder of war with such eloquence, and still fewer have shown how war looks through the eyes of a soldier whose mission was saving lives, not taking them.
We Never Lost Hope: A Holocaust Memoir and Love Story
Naomi Litvin - 2008
Told in five indelible voices, the book gives a you-are-there punch and a moving immediacy. Litvin recreates her parents' incredible love story of a Holocaust survivor and an American Jewish GI who landed at Normandy. This book reminds readers that genocide can happen anywhere but that the strength of hope endures, even in the most horrific conditions. "Naomi Litvin leaves all students of the Holocaust in her debt...every memoir adds to our knowledge, both of what happened, and of the emotions and feelings of that terrible era, and this memoir is no exception: it calls out to be read." -Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill's official biographer, and author of eighty-one books. Naomi Litvin is a freelance writer and lives in Northern California.
Art of a Jewish Woman: The True Story of How a Penniless Holocaust Escapee Became an Influential Modern Art Connoisseur
Henry N. Massie - 2012
After that, she moved in many worlds; In every one, she made her mark.Felice Massie was a student in France, caught up in the horrors of Naziism when she was 20 years old. Cut off by the war from her family living in a small village in Poland, she shifted from one country to another attempting to find a home for herself and a means to rescue her parents, brother, and sister. As the Holocaust descended on her shtetl, she arrived penniless in America. Over time she raised a family and amassed one of foremost collections of American modern art. Her boldness and resilience became a beacon of hope and inspiration for others.
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Denise Kiernan - 2013
history.
The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942. One of the Manhattan Project’s secret cities, it didn’t appear on any maps until 1949, and yet at the height of World War II it was using more electricity than New York City and was home to more than 75,000 people, many of them young women recruited from small towns across the South. Their jobs were shrouded in mystery, but they were buoyed by a sense of shared purpose, close friendships—and a surplus of handsome scientists and Army men!But against this vibrant wartime backdrop, a darker story was unfolding. The penalty for talking about their work—even the most innocuous details—was job loss and eviction. One woman was recruited to spy on her coworkers. They all knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The shocking revelation: the residents of Oak Ridge were enriching uranium for the atomic bomb.Though the young women originally believed they would leave Oak Ridge after the war, many met husbands there, made lifelong friends, and still call the seventy-year-old town home. The reverberations from their work there—work they didn’t fully understand at the time—are still being felt today. In The Girls of Atomic City, Denise Kiernan traces the astonishing story of these unsung WWII workers through interviews with dozens of surviving women and other Oak Ridge residents. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, this is history and science made fresh and vibrant—a beautifully told, deeply researched story that unfolds in a suspenseful and exciting way.
Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany
Marie Jalowicz Simon - 2014
In 1941, Marie Jalowicz Simon, a nineteen-year-old Berliner, made an extraordinary decision. All around her, Jews were being rounded up for deportation, forced labor, and extermination. Marie took off her yellow star, turned her back on the Jewish community, and vanished into the city.In the years that followed, Marie lived under an assumed identity, forced to accept shelter wherever she found it. Always on the run, never certain whom she could trust, Marie moved between almost twenty different safe-houses, living with foreign workers, staunch communists, and even committed Nazis. Only her quick-witted determination and the most hair-raising strokes of luck allowed her to survive.
The Second World War: A Complete History
Martin Gilbert - 1989
This narrative captures the perspectives of leading politicians and war commanders, journalists, civilians, and ordinary soldiers, offering gripping eyewitness accounts of heroism, defeat, suffering, and triumph. This is one of the first historical studies of World War II that describes the Holocaust as an integral part of the war. It also covers maneuvers, strategies, and leaders operating in European, Asian, and Pacific theatres. In addition, this book brings in survivor testimonies of occupation, survival behind enemy lines, and the experience of minority groups such as the Roma in Europe, to offer a comprehensive account of the war’s impact on individuals on both sides. This is a sweeping narrative of one of the most deadly wars in history, which took almost forty million lives, and irrevocably changed countless more.
Dunkirk: A Miracle of Deliverance
David Boyle - 2017
As the Germans closed in on the Allies, trapping them on the beaches of Dunkirk, it seemed the entire British army would be obliterated. Such a loss would almost certainly force the British to surrender and allow a Nazi invasion of the UK. Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay planned a mass evacuation across the English Channel, but with the Germans drawing ever closer and intense air raids from the Luftwaffe, escape seemed all but impossible. But with a combination of excellent planning, luck, and an almost inconceivable bit of help from none other than Adolf Hitler himself, Operation Dynamo was underway. Over 900 boats sailed to Dunkirk - including destroyers, ferries, fishing boats and the famous “little boats of Dunkirk” – and, across nine tense days, rescued 338,226 soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in what remains the biggest evacuation in military history. This brilliantly researched book by historian David Boyle recounts each fraught day of the famous rescue mission that Winston Churchill famously called a ‘miracle of deliverance’. Praise for David Boyle 'A wonderfully elegant and pithy reappraisal of the “miracle” that saved Britain' Saul David ‘Exhilarating’ - Daily Mail David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include ‘Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles’, ‘Towards the Setting Sun: The Race for America’ and ‘The Age to Come’.
We Were the Lucky Ones
Georgia Hunter - 2017
The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere. An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.
Road to Huertgen: Forest in Hell
Paul Boesch - 1962
“Pure unadulterated hell. That’s the only word for it. It’s hell.”
The Battle of Huertgen Forest was one of the bloodiest engagements of the Second World War. Fought between American and German forces between 19th September to 16th December it was the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought. During those three months six American Infantry Divisions — the 1st, 4th, 8th, 9th, 28th and 83rd — and part of the 5th Armored Division fought against the battle-hardened Germans. Lt. Paul Boesch provides an eyewitness account of the horrors that he and his men saw as they struggled through the rain and mud, avoiding artillery, mortars and mines. This book is a remarkable account of one of the most vicious battles in World War Two told honestly by a man who was there. “A true but little-told account of what it means to be an Infantryman.” Major General William G. Weaver “To an old soldier this book will arouse memories; to the man in uniform who has never heard a shot fired in anger this book will stimulate reflexes which are life savers when the chips are down; to the youngster who eventually will be given the opportunity and privilege of wearing the uniform of his country, this book demonstrates the heights of heroism Americans can reach under the most deadly and difficult circumstances.” Major General P. D. Ginder Paul Boesch was awarded two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts and the French Croix de Guerre for his bravery and leadership through the course of the Battle of Huertgen Forest. At the outbreak of the war he volunteered for the join the army and served with the 8th infantry Division. After the war he became a professional wrestler and promoter, most famous for his work as an announcer and promoter for Houston Wrestling. His book Road to Huertgen was first published in 1962 and he passed away in 1989.
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest
Charles Whiting - 1988
A battle that has been ignored for more than fifty years - and one that should never have been fought. From September 1944 to February 1945, eight US infantry and two US armoured divisions were thrown into the ‘green hell of Hurtgen’: fifty square miles of thick, rugged, hilly woods on the Belgian-German border, full of German soldiers in a deadly network of concrete bunkers. The butcher’s bill was high; casualty rates ran to 50 per cent and more for most rifle companies. The High Command, from the relative comfort and security of their headquarters, miles away from the forest, refused to admit there had been a mistake. Careers, and the pride of the army, were at stake. More troops were poured in and the slaughter continued, to capture an objective that had long since lost any real purpose. The Battle of Hurtgen Forest is a classic account of the price fighting men must pay for the prideful blunders of their commanders. 'A classic account of a terrible battle.' - Tom Kasey, best-selling author of 'Trade Off'. Charles Whiting (1926-2007) was one of Britain’s most prolific military writers, with over 300 books to his credit. He saw active service in the Second World War, serving in an armoured reconnaissance regiment attached to both the US and British armies. His books therefore possess the insight and authority of someone who, as a combat soldier, actually experienced the horrors of the Second World War. Charles Whiting is the author of numerous history books on the Second World War. Under the pen name of Leo Kessler he also wrote a series of bestselling military thrillers, including ‘Guns at Cassino’ and ‘Valley of the Assassins’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.