. . has written the outstanding history of the Soviet-German war in English, or, for that matter, any language. The research alone is breathtaking. Erickson has mastered all the Russian sources and compared them with the German records. . . . He has shed light on many heretofore murky matters.”—Reid Beddow, Washington Post Book World“Masterly. . . . A vividly detailed yet comprehensive account of the decisive Eastern-front battleground.”—Christopher Hudson, London Evening Standard“The outstanding book on the Soviet war in any language.”—A. J. P. Taylor, Observer“This authoritative book by a first-class military historian is easily read.”—Philip Warner, Daily Telegraph

    Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the waves could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence."The campaign against Hitler's warships would continue into the dying days of the World War II and involve everything from massive battleships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.

    The year was 1940, the occasion a preparedness parade, the helmets actually those of the 1917-1918 style. Yet to a small boy catching his first glimpse of Americas army as well as the metallic headgear seemed to represent old wars rather than new, a military past yet more remote than the Mexican border skirmishes for which the troopers in fact were outfitted.Thus begins this brilliant study of the American-led campaign for Europe in World War II. It is an analysis of command at both the strategic and the tactical level. All the complex ingredients of nations at war the burdens of history, the impact of technology, the roles of personalities, the confusions of the battlefield are presented in a powerful narrative which is as pleasurable to read as it is deeply founded in scholarship.The portraits of Field Marshal Montgomery and of Iikes lieutenants Omar N. Bradley, Jacob L. Devers, Courtney H. Hodges, George S. Patton, Jr., Alexander M. Patch, William H. Simpson, Leonard T. Gerow, J. Lawton Collins, and Matthew B. Ridgway, among others are the first detailed treatments that many of these leaders have received. Every major strategic and tactical decision in every battle of the American offensive is covered in detail with maps and careful descriptions of key terrain features, including many personal insights drawn from diaries kept at the American army group and army headquarters.This is a major and grippingly told reassessment of the leadership and the fighting capabilities of the Allied forces in climactic battles of World War II.Contents:PrefacePart One: The Armies1. The American Army2. Weapons and Divisions3. The View of the Far Shore4. By Air and by SeaPart Two: Normandy5. The Beach6. Cherbourg and Caumont7. The Bocage8. Cobra9. The Crossroads South of AvranchesPart Three: France10. The Short Envelopment11. The Riviera the the Rhone12. The Seine13. The Meuse14. The Twin Tyrants: Logistics...15...and TimePart Four: The Disputed Middle Ground16. Holland17. Attack in the Ardennes (I)18. Lorraine (I)19. The Reich Frontiers20. Autumn Interlude21. Lorraine (II)22. Alsace23. Huertgen Forest and Roer Plain24. On the Eve of a Breakthrough25. The Breakthrough26. The Doctrinal Response27. The Precarious Balance28. The Battles of Christmastide29. Attack in the Ardennes (II)30. "Inadequate Means’Part Five: Germany31. The Eifel32. Two Tumors Excised: Colmar and the Roer Dams33. To the Rhine34. The Crossing of the Rhine35. Eastward from the Rhine36. The Legions on the Rhine37. The Ruhr38. Berlin39. The National Redoubt40. The Elbe, the Moldau, and the Brenner PassEpilogueNotes and SourcesIndexReviews:“The publication of Eisenhower's Lieutenants is an event of significance in American military writing. . . . admirable . . . clearly the product of exhaustive, painstaking research." —The New York Times Book Review " . . . the best account we have of the World War II campaigns from Normandy to the Elbe." —American Historical Review " . . . precisely informative and broadly rewarding." — Kirkus Reviews " . . . an outstanding and highly recommended work." —Journal of American History " . . . by the dean of American military historians . . . " — Washington Post Bookworld” “I had thought I knew everything about World War II that I would ever want to know. I was wrong. Reading Eisenhower's Lieutenants was a wonderfully enriching experience. I learned more than I ever would have thought possible. This will unquestionably become one of the great classics of American military history.” — Stephen E. Ambrose

    ‘A rich and heartfelt tribute to this most iconic British machine.  By focussing on the men (and women) who flew the Spitfire, John Nichol has brought a fresh and powerful perspective to the story.  And by recording their bravery, humility, camaraderie, tragedy and sheer joy in flying their beloved Spits he has done them - and us - a valuable service’ Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 606 'A superb and compelling book. Brilliantly written with some incredible and astonishing stories; it is gripping, moving, emotional and sometimes humorous – just perfect' Squadron Leader (Ret) Clive Rowley, former Officer Commanding RAF Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight   'A superb journey through the remarkable tale of that British icon, the Spitfire. Brilliantly and engagingly written, this is the most readable story of the aircraft and her pilots that I have ever had the pleasure to read in a period spanning some forty-odd years of personal study and research. Truly stunning.' Andy Saunders, Editor, Britain at War Magazine. 'This is not just a tale of heroism in the skies . . . This is a tale of victory . . . Magnificently told in lip-biting detail’ – Daily Mail (The Red Line)   The perfect complementary narrative to the bestselling memoir by Geoffrey Wellum – First Light.   Achtung , Spitfire! The iconic Spitfire found fame during the darkest early days of World War II. But what happened to the redoubtable fighter and its crews beyond the Battle of Britain, and why is it still so loved today? In late spring 1940, Nazi Germany’s domination of Europe had looked unstoppable. With the British Isles in easy reach since the fall of France, Adolf Hitler was convinced that Great Britain would be defeated in the skies over her southern coast, confident his Messerschmitts and Heinkels would outclass anything the Royal Air Force threw at them. What Hitler hadn’t planned for was the agility and resilience of a marvel of British engineering that would quickly pass into legend – the Spitfire. Bestselling author John Nichol’s passionate portrait of this magnificent fighter aircraft, its many innovations and updates, and the people who flew and loved them, carries the reader beyond the dogfights over Kent and Sussex. Spanning the full global reach of the Spitfire’s deployment during WWII, from Malta to North Africa and the Far East, then over the D-Day beaches, it is always accessible, effortlessly entertaining and full of extraordinary spirit.                                 Here are edge-of-the-seat stories and heart-stopping first-hand accounts of battling pilots forced to bail out over occupied territory; of sacrifice and wartime love; of aristocratic female flyers, and of the mechanics who braved the Nazi onslaught to keep the aircraft in battle-ready condition.

    Officers and men lined the rails, watching in stunned silence. The twisted, smoldering superstructure of the Arizona was still aflame, and there was a stench of charred wood and fuel oil in the air."Morale went to nothing just about then," said an officer on one of the escorting cruisers. "We were sick and shocked. We couldn't believe that this had happened to us." Through the night, the crew of the Enterprise, under the command of Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, took on fuel, provisions, and ammunition. Before dawn it was back at sea.The Enterprise was just one of the carriers that won the war in the Pacific. Here is the extraordinary story of the men and ships that turned the tide of the war.

    For a period of nearly six years, the German U-boat force attempted to blockade and isolate the British Isles in hopes of forcing the British out of the war, thereby thwarting both the Allied strategic air assault on German cities and Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Occupied France. Fortunately for the Allies, the U-boat force failed to achieve either of these objectives, but in the attempt they sank 2,800 Allied merchant ships, while the Allies sank nearly 800 U-boats. On both sides, tens of thousands of sailors perished.     For decades, an authoritative and definitive history of the Battle of the Atlantic could not be attempted, since London and Washington agreed to withhold all official code-breaking and U-boat records in order to safeguard the secrets of code breaking in the postwar years. The accounts that did appear were incomplete and full of false conclusions and errors of fact, often leaving the entirely wrong impression that the German U-boats came within a whisker of defeating the Allies, a myth that is finally laid to rest in this account.     Clay Blair, acclaimed author of the bestselling naval classic Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, has drawn from the official records as well as the work of German, British, American, and Canadian naval scholars. Never before has Hitler's U-boat war been chronicled with such authority, fidelity, objectivity, and detail. The result is this magnificent and monumental work, crammed with vivid and dramatic scenes of naval actions and dispassionate but startling new revelations, interpretations, and conclusions about all aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic.

    But the voice on the airwaves was not the familiar one of Joseph Stalin; it was the voice of his deputy, Molotov. Paralyzed by Hitler's unexpected move, Stalin disappeared completely from public view for the crucial ten days of war on the Eastern Front. In this taut, hour-by-hour account, Constantine Pleshakov draws on a wealth of information from newly opened archives to elucidate the complex causes of the Soviet leader's reaction, revealing the feared despot's unrealized military stratagems as well as his personal vulnerabilities, while also offering a new and deeper understanding of Russian history.

    They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan -- as the ordinary Russian soldier was called -- remain a mystery. We know something about hoe the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought.Drawing on previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with veterans, and private letters and diaries, Catherine Merridale presents the first comprehensive history of the Soviet Union Army rank and file. She follows the soldiers from the shock of the German invasion to their costly triumph in Stalingrad, where life expectancy was often a mere twenty-four hours. Through the soldiers' eyes, we witness their victorious arrival in Berlin, where their rage and suffering exact an awful toll, and accompany them as they return home full of hope, only to be denied the new life they had been fighting to secure.A tour de force of original research and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed, badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army. In the process Merridale restores to history the invisible millions who sacrificed the most to win the war.

    Thousands of Screaming Eagles–101st Airborne Division paratroopers–descend from the sky over Holland, dropping deep behind German lines in a daring daylight mission to seize and secure the road leading north to Arnhem and the Rhine. Their success would allow the Allied army to advance swiftly into Germany. The Screaming Eagles accomplish their initial objectives within hours, but keeping their sections of “Hell’s Highway” open takes another seventy-two days of fierce round-the-clock fighting against crack German troops and tank divisions.Drawing on interviews with more than six hundred paratroopers, George E. Koskimaki chronicles, with vivid firsthand accounts, the dramatic, never-before-told story of the Screaming Eagles’ valiant struggle. Hell’s Highway also tellsof the Dutch citizens and members of the underground who were liberated after five years of Nazi oppression and never forgot America’s airborne heroes. This renowned force risked their lives for the freedom of a small country . . . and the world.

    But Hitler's armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit the spoils of war. That role belonged to Joseph Stalin. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have unleashed Armageddon, but as celebrated historian Sean McMeekin shows, the conflicts that emerged were the result of Stalin's maneuverings, orchestrated to unleash a war between capitalist powers in Europe and between Japan and the Anglo-American forces in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the United States and Britain's self-defeating strategy of supporting Stalin and his armies at all costs allowed the Soviets to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.A groundbreaking reassessment, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the roots of the current world order.

    Bartov focuses on the barbaric struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union--where the vast majority of German troops fought--to show how the savagery of war reshaped the army into Hitler's image.