With the German Luftwaffe flying overhead, he had entered it in the midst of the Blitz. He would stay in Britain for the next four months. With his distinctive writing style, that would later earn him a Pulitzer Prize, he vividly depicts Great Britain in her darkest hour. With France defeated and America not yet in the war, the future did not look bright for Churchill’s country. Yet, as Pyle finds out, this was not a country resigned to defeat, instead it was carrying on as best it could, determined that it would not buckle under the pressure of Hitler’s aerial raids. He spends much time in London where he sees the city, “ringed and stabbed with fire,” but also travels the length and breadth of the country, from some areas that have hardly been affected like Edinburgh, to others like Coventry that suffered greatly under the bombardment. Pyle’s inquisitive nature leads him to spend time with dockworkers of Glasgow, R.A.F. pilots in a bomber station, miners of Wales, policemen of London and families across the nation to uncover how the ordinary men and women were coping under the pressure. Ernie Pyle in England is a fascinating account of Britain during one of its darkest periods, and how with amazing resilience the British people survived. Ernest Taylor Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist. As a roaming correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain he earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary people, including the likes of Harry Truman. He was killed on Iejima in the Pacific theater of war during the Battle of Okinawa on April 18, 1945. This book was first published in 1941.

    Nicknamed "tin cans" or "greyhounds," destroyers were fast escort and attack ships that proved indispensable to America's military victories. Beginning with destroyers' first incarnation as torpedo boats in 1874 and ending with World War II, author Clint Johnson shares the riveting stories of the Destroyer Men who fought from inside a "tin can"—risking death by cannons, bombs, torpedoes, fire, and drowning. The British invented destroyers, the Japanese improved them, and the Germans failed miserably with them. It was the Americans who perfected destroyers as the best fighting ship in two world wars. Tin Cans & Greyhounds compares the designs of these countries with focus on the old, modified World War I destroyers, and the new and numerous World War II destroyers of the United States.  Tin Cans & Greyhounds details how destroyers fought submarines, escorted convoys, rescued sailors and airmen, downed aircraft, shelled beaches, and attacked armored battleships and cruisers with nothing more than a half-inch of steel separating their crews from the dark waves.

    Yet its story is not fully known. In Auschwitz, Laurence Rees reveals new insights from more than 100 original interviews with Auschwitz survivors and Nazi perpetrators who speak on the record for the first time. Their testimonies provide a portrait of the inner workings of the camp in unrivalled detail—from the techniques of mass murder, to the politics and gossip mill that turned between guards and prisoners, to the on-camp brothel in which the lines between those guards and prisoners became surprisingly blurred.Rees examines the strategic decisions that led the Nazi leadership to prescribe Auschwitz as its primary site for the extinction of Europe's Jews—their "Final Solution." He concludes that many of the horrors that were perpetrated in Auschwitz were driven not just by ideological inevitability but as a "practical" response to a war in the East that had begun to go wrong for Germany. A terrible immoral pragmatism characterizes many of the decisions that determined what happened at Auschwitz. Thus the story of the camp becomes a morality tale, too, in which evil is shown to proceed in a series of deft, almost noiseless incremental steps until it produces the overwhelming horror of the industrial scale slaughter that was inflicted in the gas chambers of Auschwitz

     The Nazis resisted fiercely at every opportunity. Nijmegen, Arnhem, the Huertgen Forest, the battles along the Channel coast and the River Scheldt, at Aachen, across the Ardennes and in the Saar - each battleground presented its own challenges and even after seventy years the controversies remain. Who was really responsible for the failure at Nijmegen, the destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem and the failure of Operation Market Garden? Why was Montgomery threatened with the sack when he had just retrieved Bradley's failure in the Battle of the Bulge? Was General Eisenhower's command strategy either workable or wise, and did Bradley and Patton undermine it? How much of a part did the media and politics have to play in these post-Normandy battles? In this masterly account of the 1944 post-Normandy campaign, Robin Neillands tells us what really happened in the long-drawn-out and costly struggle for the Rhine. With careful research and clear, lively accounts of the complex battles Neillands focuses on the triumphs and tribulations that faced those in command. It is one of the finest books on WWII, from one of Britain's most widely respected historians. Robin Neillands is the author of several acclaimed works on the First World War including ‘The Great War Generals on the Western Front’, ‘Attrition: The Great War on the Western Front, 1916’ and ‘The Old Contemptibles’. Praise for Robin Neillands: ‘One of Britain’s most readable historians’ – Birmingham Post ‘Immensely readable … a blast of fresh air’ – The Spectator ‘Informed and explicit, this is military history at its best’ – Western Daily Press ‘Neilland’s willingness to call a spade a spade will catch the popular imagination. His central argument is hard to fault’ – Literary Review Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    He was wounded three times. He finished the war as one of the most experienced and resourceful of British tank commanders, and in later life, he set down his wartime experiences in graphic detail. His book is not only an extraordinary memoir; it is also a compelling account of the exploits of the Royal Tank Regiment throughout the conflict. As a record of the day-to-day experience of the tank crew of seventy-five years ago--of the conditions they faced and the battles they fought--it has rarely been equaled.

    He was put to work every day in a German factory, where he labored alongside Jewish prisoners from a nearby camp called Auschwitz. The stories they told him were horrifying. Eventually Avey's curiosity, kind-heartedness, derring-do, and perhaps foolhardiness drove him to suggest--and remarkably manage--switching places with two of the Jewish prisoners in order to spend a couple of harrowing days and nights inside. Miraculously, he lived to tell about it.Surely deserving of its place alongside the great World War II stories, this is an incredible tale of generosity, courage, and, for one Jewish prisoner whom Denis was able to help, survival. Amazingly, breathtakingly, it is told here for the first time.

    11/1944. The European war is drawing to a close when the British government agrees to send a brigade of 5000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine to Europe to fight the German army. Among these soldiers are Israel Carmi, a veteran of the Haganah underground, one who serves one army but whose loyalties belong to another; Johanan Peltz, raised on a vast Polish estate, he dreams of returning home as a British officer & gentleman; & Arie Pinchuk, a former student who's returned to Europe with a secret agenda--to rescue his last remaining family member: the little sister he left behind. At the Senio River, Peitz leads the troops in a daring bayonet charge into the German line. When the hand-to-hand combat is finished, the brigade emerges triumphant. At a time when Jews are being victimized, these soldiers--yellow Stars of David emblazoned on their uniform sleeves--show that a Jewish army can fight back & win. But when the war ends they witness 1sthand the horrors their people have suffered in the concentration camps, they launch a calculating campaign of vengeance, forming secret squads to identify, locate & kill Nazi officers in hiding. Their own ferocity threatens to overwhelm them until a fortuitous encounter with an orphaned girl sets the men on a course of action--rescuing Jewish war orphans & transporting them to Palestine--that will not only change their lives but also alter the course of history. Blum has written his most harrowing book to date--a story that will make headlines as well as provoke debate about the moral elements of justice, the line between good & evil, & the possibility of redemption.

    This empire dominates western Europe from 800 until 1806, when it is defeated by Napoleon. The Second Reich: All of Germany is united behind Prussia under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, victor of the Franco-Prussian War. Only Germany's defeat in World War I can break the power of the second German empire.What was the Third Reich?In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany after convincing other members of the Reichstag that the Nazi party was better for the country than their feared rivals, the Communists. Within the year, the President of the German Republic will be dead, and Hitler will declare himself supreme leader of Germany.But how did it happen?The Third Reich: Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, World War II and The Last German Empire takes you on a guided tour of German history for the last thousand years. You'll study the constitution of the Weimar republic and the Treaty of Versailles, and come to understand why Hitler believed it was crucial to build a new Nazi empire that was second to no one other nation in Europe in terms of military development. You'll learn how Hitler used the rhetoric of racism and nationalism to transform himself from a democratically elected member of government into a dictator whose word was law.Most importantly, you'll learn how those changes paved the way to World War II and the atrocities of the Holocaust.

    Dick Winters was their commander—"the best combat leader in World War II" to his men. This is his story—told in his own words for the first time.On D-Day, Dick Winters parachuted into France and assumed leadership of the Band of Brothers when their commander was killed. He led them through the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany, by which time each member had been wounded. They liberated an S.S. death camp from the horrors of the Holocaust and captured Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat. After briefly serving during the Korean War, Winters was a highly successful businessman. Made famous by Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers—and the subsequent award-winning HBO miniseries—he is the object of worldwide adulation, Beyond Band of Brothers is Winters's memoir—based on his wartime diary—but it also includes his comrades' untold stories. Virtually all this material is being released for the first time. Only Winters was present from the activation of Easy Company until the war's end. Winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, only he could pen this moving tribute to the human spirit.

    Then they became the Trümmerfrauen, or Rubble Women, as they cleared and tidied their ruined country to get it back on its feet. They were Germany's heroines. The few women tried and convicted after the war were simply the evil aberrations - the camp guards, the female Nazi elite - that proved this rule.However, Wendy Lower's research into the very ordinary women who went out to the Nazi Eastern Front reveals an altogether different story. For ambitious young women, the emerging Nazi empire represented a kind of Wild East of career and matrimonial opportunity. Over half a million of them set off for these new lands, where most of the worst crimes of the Reich would occur.Through the interwoven biographies of thirteen women, the reader follows the transformation of young nurses, teachers, secretaries and wives who start out in Weimar and Nazi Germany as ambitious idealists and end up as witnesses, accomplices and perpetrators of the genocide in Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. Hitler's Furies presents overwhelming evidence that the women in these territories actively participated in the mass murder - and some became killers. In the case of women like Erna Petri, who brought her family to her husband's impressive Polish SS estate, we find brutality as chilling as any in history.Hitler's Furies is indelible proof that we have not known what we need to know about the role of women in the Nazi killing fields - or about how it could have been hidden for seventy years. It shows that genocide is women's business as well as men's and that, in ignoring women's culpability, we have ignored the reality of the Holocaust.

    Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England. Despite near-constant British fears from August to October, the invasion never took place after first being postponed to spring 1941, before finally being abandoned entirely.Robert Forcyzk, author of Where the Iron Crosses Grow, looks beyond the traditional British account of Operation Sea lion, complete with plucky Home Guards and courageous Spitfire pilots, at the real scale of German ambition, plans and capabilities. He examines, in depth, how Operation Sea Lion fitted in with German air-sea actions around the British Isles as he shows exactly what stopped Hitler from invading Britain.

    Accepted as a RAF navigator in 1940, he was posted to 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds in the winter of 1942. There he crewed up with a pilot from Western Australia and a British crew to fly a Lancaster bomber. In No Moon Tonight he gives a profound insight into the inner lives of the men of Bomber Command and their hopes and fears in the face of mounting losses. He depicts the appalling human cost of the air war in an account which has been favorably compared to other enduring memoirs of the 1st World War, namely Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. A memorable first hand account of the air war over Germany.

    Taylor caused a storm of outrage with this scandalous bestseller. Debunking what were accepted truths about the Second World War, he argued provocatively that Hitler did not set out to cause the war as part of an evil master plan, but blundered into it partly by accident, aided by the shortcomings of others. Fiercely attacked for vindicating Hitler, A.J.P. Taylor's stringent re-examination of the events preceding the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939 opened up new debate, and is now recognized as a brilliant and classic piece of scholarly research. 'Highly original and penetrating...No one who has digested this enthralling work will ever be able to look at the period again in quite the same way'

    In it, he grapples with perhaps the most challenging questions of modern history: Why was the twentieth century history's bloodiest by far? Why did unprecedented material progress go hand in hand with total war and genocide? His quest for new answers takes him from the walls of Nanjing to the bloody beaches of Normandy, from the economics of ethnic cleansing to the politics of imperial decline and fall. The result, as brilliantly written as it is vital, is a great historian's masterwork.

    One of the formations they encountered was a similarly elite group of paratroopers, who instead of dropping from the skies fought on the defensive, giving their Allied counterparts a tremendous challenge in achieving their objectives.This is the complete wartime history of one of the largest German paratrooper regiments, 6th Fallschirmjäger, from its initial formation in the spring of 1943 to its last day at the end of the war. With numerous firsthand accounts from key members, reporting on their experiences, they describe the events of 1943-45 vividly and without compromise.These accounts reveal previously unknown details about important operations in Italy, Russia, on the Normandy Front, Belgium, Holland, the last German Parachute drop in the Ardennes, and the final battle to the end in Germany.With over 220 original photographs, many from private collections and never before published, this book fully illustrates the men, their uniforms, equipment and weapons. Also included is an appendix with maps, battle calendar, staffing plans, a list of field and post-MOB-numbers, and the Knight's Cross recipients of the regiment. Having earned the respect of the Allied forces who fought against it during World War II, this work will inform current readers of the full record of Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6, and why the Allied advance into German-held Europe was so painstaking to achieve.