Book picks similar to
From Ice Set Free: The Story of Otto Kiep by Bruce Clements
recommended-by-a-friend
recommended-by-an-author
world-war-ii
you-win-for-best-title
Admiral Halsey's Story
William F. Halsey - 1976
“Bull” Halsey earned a legendary reputation for daring and boldness as commander of the U.S. Third Fleet.
Admiral Halsey’s Story is this admiral’s record of his actions through the course of his remarkable career in the U.S. Navy. The account begins with a brief overview of his years in school and early years with the navy where he fought in the First World War and served in Mexico and Greece as he rose through the ranks to become vice admiral just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Halsey’s life was dramatically altered with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as through the next four years he rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most famous allied naval figures in the war. The events of Halsey’s life through World War Two are split into three sections in the book and are covered in wonderful detail: Firstly he uncovers the details of his command of a carrier task force in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor until May 1942. Next the book discusses his life as Commander of the South Pacific Area and its forces which lasted until June 1944. And finally the book gives an in-depth overview of the final year of the war when Halsey was commander of the U.S. Third Fleet. During the war Halsey had continually acted with bravery and speed and all of his most famous actions are covered through the book such as how he directed the campaigns in the Solomons and led the attacks on the Carolines and New Britain. “The book is pure Halsey — the personal yarn of a seagoing, fighting admiral who was forthright, honest, often brilliant, sometimes rash, but who possessed above all else, a natural modesty that enhanced his uncommon valor.” Naval War College Review “To learn what went on behind the wartime newspaper reports, her is an incomparable document. Admiral Halsey has written simply and modestly a book that will further enhance the Halsey legend.” The Saturday Review “he knew far better than armchair historians do that the best defense is a good offense. That is the legacy of Bull Halsey.” Warfare History Network William F. Halsey was an American admiral in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1943 he was made commander of the Third Fleet, the post he held through the rest of the war. He was promoted to fleet admiral in December 1945 and retired from active service in March 1947. Admiral Halsey's Story was first published in 1947 and Halsey passed away in 1959. The book was written with Lieutenant Commander J. Bryan III, USNR, who during the war had served a lieutenant commander assigned to naval air combat intelligence in the Pacific. In civilian life he was a journalist and writer who was born into the influential Bryan family of newspaper publishers and industrialists. He passed away in 1993.
Secret Sister: From Nazi-occupied Jersey to wartime London, one woman’s search for the truth
Cherry Durbin - 2015
She had given up until one day, watching the drama unfold on the television programme, Long Lost Family, her daughter suggested that maybe this was the only way she would ever find her sister.What she didn’t expect to uncover was a story of a pregnant mother fleeing Nazi-invaded Jersey, a sister left behind to survive the deprivations of the German-controlled island and a family torn apart in a time when war left so many alone. Cherry’s story, pieced together by a team of researchers, would bring her unimaginable sadness and joy, and answers where she had given up.
Fighter Group: The 352nd Blue-Nosed Bastards in World War II
Jay A. Stout - 2012
Jay Stout breaks new ground in World War II aviation history with this gripping account of one of the war's most highly decorated American fighter groups Vivid descriptions of aerial combat in P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs, along with veteran interviews and after-action reports The 352nd was part of the famed Eighth Air Force and fought in the European theater Nickname comes from the noses of the unit's planes, which were painted blue
A Letter to Jo
Joseph Sieracki - 2020
As Josephine contends with life, family, and work in Cleveland, letters from Leonard sustain her. But official censorship forces him to leave out much of the most significant action he sees.Finally, with the war coming to an end, Leonard is able to tell his full story. In a quietly beautiful letter to Josephine, Leonard writes of the loneliness he felt, the camaraderie he experienced, and the terrible violence he witnessed.Now, Josephine and Leonard's grandson Joseph Sieracki has carefully researched the battles Leonard describes and expanded the letter into a moving tale of a young man's fears and bravery far from home. Brought to heart-wrenching life by the paintbrushes of Kelly Williams (Creepy, Eerie), A Letter to Jo is at once a tender love story and harrowing battlefield memoir.
Spitfire!: The Experiences of a Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot
B.J. Ellan - 1942
At Dunkirk a year earlier, pilots had provided aerial support as the allied forces began their evacuation from France. In an attempt to answer the questions of the man on the street, Brian Lane, who wrote under the pseudonym of B. J. Ellan, tells of what it is that a fighter pilot thinks and feels when he is fighting in the skies, from the sunlit coast of Belgium to the lovely countryside of Kent. Having been with the squadron since the beginning of the war, as a flight commander and C.O., the character and bravery of the men he knew and served with are deftly rendered. Self-deprecating and richly detailed, Spitfire! is a classic Battle of Britain memoir, and one of only a few to be published in that dramatic period of history. Brian Lane (1917-1942), was an R.A.F. officer, fighter pilot and author. He was awarded the D.F.C. for bravery during the evacuation of Dunkirk, and his abilities were recognised in his promotion to Squadron Leader in September 1940. In December 1942 he failed to return from a mission over the North Sea; he was 25. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
A Nazi in the Family: The hidden story of an SS family in wartime Germany
Derek Niemann - 2015
Every day Karl Niemann commutes to work, a business manager in charge of various factories. In the evenings he returns home to life as a normal family man.For many years this was all Derek Niemann had known about his grandfather – until he made the chilling discovery that Karl had actually been an officer in the SS; and that his “business” used thousands of slave labourers in concentration camps. Suddenly, a lifetime of unsettling hints and clues fell into place.With the help of surviving relatives and hundreds of previously unknown photographs, Derek reconstructs the lives of his German forebears and uncovers the true story of what Karl did. A Nazi in the Family is an illuminating portrayal of how ordinary people can fall into the service of a monstrous regime."All families have secrets, but few are as shocking as Derek Niemann's." Culture Trip"Extraordinary." Glasgow Evening Times"Vividly captures the complex life of an ordinary man." Andrew Bomford, BBC Radio 4
Rethinking the Holocaust
Yehuda Bauer - 2000
Drawing on research he and other historians have done in recent years, he offers fresh opinions on such basic issues as how to define and explain the Holocaust; whether it can be compared with other genocides; how Jews reacted to the murder campaign against them; and what the relationship is between the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel.The Holocaust says something terribly important about humanity, says Bauer. He analyzes explanations of the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman, Jeffrey Herf, Goetz Aly, Daniel Goldhagen, John Weiss, and Saul Friedländer and then offers his own interpretation of how the Holocaust could occur. Providing fascinating narratives as examples, he deals with reactions of Jewish men and women during the Holocaust and tells of several attempts at rescue operations. He also explores Jewish theology of the Holocaust, arguing that our view of the Holocaust should not be clouded by mysticism: it was an action by humans against other humans and is therefore an explicable event that we can prevent from recurring.
Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s
Otto Friedrich - 1972
"The City of Nets," as Brecht called Berlin, before the deluge, and people who created and those who destroyed it.
Enemy of the People: The Untold Story of the Journalists Who Opposed Hitler
Terrence Petty - 2018
With leaked documents from Hitler’s political rivals, who were shocked by his violent rhetoric and fearing the worst, the Post battled Hitler for ownership of the truth.After starting with libel lawsuits and anti-press propaganda and proceeding to assaults on editors at the Post, the Nazis finally resorted to raiding the paper’s offices, shutting production down, and rounding up the staff. Enemy of the People brilliantly captures the dangerous times of Germany’s Weimar era and the courage of the free press—people driven to speak louder than the enemy himself.
The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America
James Sullivan - 2008
Yet few have addressed his contribution in the darkest hour of the civil rights movement. Telling the untold story of his historic Boston Garden concert of 1968, The Hardest Working Man also captures the magnificent achievements that made Brown a revolutionary icon of American popular culture. Acclaimed journalist James Sullivan begins his stirring account by depicting the racially charged climate of Boston in the hours after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death. Brown’s concert was slated for cancellation as police geared up for mass retaliation. After Brown butted heads with the mayor, the show was allowed to go on—and his emotional, electric performance was broadcast live on local television. Though rioting erupted in more than a hundred U.S. cities that night, Boston remained quiet. Not only bringing to life that transforming show, James Sullivan also charts Brown’s incredible rise from poverty to self-made millionaire and the pivotal voice behind the signature anthem “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud,” making The Hardest Working Man a tribute to an unforgettable concert and a rousing biography of a revolutionary musician.
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 Great Escape
Anton Gill - 2002
It was the biggest British-led break-out of the Second World War. But the men paid a high price for their bravery: of the 73 POWs re-captured, 30 were brutally executed on Hitler’s direct orders. The tireless RAF investigation into the atrocity affords us an extraordinary insight into the last hours of many of the victims and the actions of the killers. Drawing together the meticulous research carried out for the war-crimes trial, interviews with the families and friends of the murdered men and with surviving veterans of the camp, Anton Gill provides us with a definitive account of this unique event and its shocking aftermath. The sheer determination and wit involved in the lead up to the design of the greatest tunnel ever built is captured thoroughly. The tenacity of the prisoners has become the stuff of legend, as they saw through their plan to dig the longest and most sophisticated tunnel ever conceived. 'Resounds with authenticity ... a wonderful tale' - Charles Spencer, Mail on Sunday Anton Gill, only child of an English mother and a German father, worked for the English Stage Company, the Arts Council and the BBC before becoming a full-time writer in 1984. He has published over twenty books, mainly in the field of contemporary history, including The Journey Back from Hell: Conversations with Concentration Camp Survivors (winner of the H. H. Wingate Award), A Dance between Flames: Berlin between the Wars; and An Honourable Defeat: A History of the German Resistance to Hitler. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
1939 - The War That Had Many Fathers: The Long Run-Up to the Second World War
Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof - 2003
Documents from foreign ministries, and notes and memoranda from British, French, Italian and American leaders, ministers, diplomats and military commanders, prove that quite a number of countries were involved in instigating World War II. Interconnections, hitherto overlooked, are made clear. "This war", writes Schultze-Rhonhof, "had many fathers." Much in our German history from 1919 to 1939 cannot be understood without cognizance of contemporary events in other lands: actions and reactions are closely linked together. Yet it was not only contemporary events in neighboring nations which contributed to the start of the war, it was also, and not insignificantly, the joint prehistory of the disputing parties. Almost every history has a prehistory.
Rogue Warrior of the SAS: The Blair Mayne Legend
Roy Bradford - 1987
Robert Blair Mayne is still regarded as one of the greatest soldiers in the history of military special operations. He was the most decorated British soldier of the Second World War, receiving four DSOs, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion d'honneur, and he pioneered tactics used today by the SAS and other special operations units worldwide. Rogue Warrior of the SAS tells the remarkable life story of "Colonel Paddy," whose exceptional physical strength and uniquely swift reflexes made him a fearsome opponent. But his unorthodox rules of war and his resentment of authority would deny him the ultimate accolade of the Victoria Cross. Drawing on personal letters and family papers, declassified SAS files and records, together with the Official SAS Diary compiled in wartime and eyewitness accounts, this is the true story of the soldier.
Abandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival During World War II
Evelyne Tannehill - 2007
Abandoned and Forgotten is the memoir of a young girl growing up in the then-German province of East Prussia by the Baltic Sea. Orphaned at the age of nine and left to fend for herself in a hostile world, Evelyne Tannehill witnessed firsthand what happens when law and order break down and self-preservation becomes the only thing that matters. Her journey is a poignant example of how resilient the human spirit can be, even in the face of war's greatest horrors.