Tens of thousands of civilians perished on the dreaded Hukwang Valley trail, dubbed later by the American General Stilwell as 'the path to hell'. Colin's extraordinary journey takes him from his birthplace in Burma to Britain, and on to Bowral in NSW.

    There were three brothers, Gebhart, Heinrich, and Ernst. Heinrich grew up to become the head of Hitler’s SS, mastermind of the concentration camp system, and chief perpetrator of the Holocaust. When Katrin Himmler, Heinrich’s great-niece, was 15, one of her schoolmates asked during a history lesson if she was related to the Himmler. "Yes," she stammered, at which there was a deathly hush in the classroom and the teacher, embarrassed and unsure, quickly moved the lesson on. As she grew older, Katrin gave her family history a wide berth, but married to an Israeli whose family was confined to the Warsaw Ghetto and with a young, half-Jewish son, she realizes that she cannot evade the past so easily. Katrin Himmler’s cool but meticulous examination of the Himmler story reveals—in all its dark complexity—the gulf between the "normality" of bourgeois family life and the horrors perpetrated by one member and a more nuanced portrait of Heinrich himself emerges—not a lone evil executioner, but a middle-class family man, loved and fully supported by his respectable German family.

    From then on the Germans were forced into a long, bitter retreat that ended in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. An officer in an elite guards unit of the Red Army, Bessonov rode tanks from Kursk, through a western Russia and Poland devastated by the Germans, and right into the heart of Nazi Germany.Tank Rider is the riveting memoir of Evgeni Bessonov telling of his years of service at the vanguard of the Red Army and daily encounters with the German foe. He brings large-scale battles to life, recounts the sniping and skirmishing that tried and tested soldiers on both sides, and narrates the overwhelming tragedy and horror of apocalyptic warfare on the Eastern Front.So much of the Soviet experience of World War II remains untold, but this memoir provides an important glimpse into some of the most decisive moments of this overlooked history.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.