They had refused or been unable to leave for many different reasons; their actions during the course of the German occupation would prove to be just as varied. Glass interweaves the experiences of some of the individuals who belonged to this unique colony of American expatriates living in Paris. Among the stories highlighted are those of Charles Bedaux, an American millionaire determined to carry on with his business affairs as usual; Sylvia Beach, owner of the famous English-language bookstore Shakespeare & Company; Clara Longworth de Chambrun, patroness of the American Library in Paris and distantly related to FDR; and Dr. Sumner Jackson, the American Hospital’s chief surgeon. These fascinating tales reflect the complicated network of choices—passive compromise, outright collaboration, patient retreat, and active resistance—that existed for Americans caught in the German web.

     ****************************** The Crew, based on interviews with Ken Cook, the crew's sole surviving member, recounts the wartime exploits of the members of an Avro Lancaster crew between 1942 and the war's end. Gloucestershire-born bomb aimer Ken Cook, hard-bitten Australian pilot Jim Comans, Navigator Don Bowes, Upper Gunner George Widdis, Tail Gunner 'Jock' Bolland, Flight Engineer Ken Randle and Radio Operator Roy Woollford were seven ordinary young men living in extraordinary times, risking their lives in freedom's cause in the dark skies above Hitler's Reich. From their earliest beginnings – in places as far apart as a Cotswold village and the suburbs of Sydney – through the adventure of training in North America and the dread and danger of the forty-five bombing raids they flew with 97 Squadron, David Price describes the crew's wartime experiences with human sympathy allied to a secure technical understanding of one of the RAF's most iconic aircraft. The drama and anxiety of individual missions – to Kassel, Munich and Augsburg as well as Berlin – is evoked with thrilling immediacy; while the military events and strategic decisions that drove the RAF's area bombing campaign against Nazi Germany are interwoven deftly with the narrative of the crew's operational careers. ****************************** Reviews: 'A sensitive account of the bomber's life ... Price has given the bomber offensive a human face. This book [...] has a heart and soul' The Times. 'A fascinating and fast-paced account of the exploits of an Avro Lancaster bomber crew from 97 Squadron RAF' The Herald. 'A remarkable insight into the bravery, determination and skill of British Bomber Command crews during WWII' Waterstones.

    208 pp. 15,000 print.From the Hardcover edition.

    A WWII thrill ride.” ―Kirkus Reviews  An unforgettable and thrilling tale of two WWII American bomber pilots who forged an unexpected friendship in the flak-filled skies over Nazi Germany. The air battle over Nazi Germany in WWII was hell above earth. It lasted three years and cost 125,000 Allied aircrew men, including 26,000 Americans from the US Army's Eighth Air Force in England, their lives. For bomber crews, every day they flew was like D-Day, exacting tremendous amounts of emotional uncertainty and trauma. Some men, like twenty-year-old U.S. Captain Werner Goering, accepted this, even thrived on and welcomed the adrenaline rush. They knew that death could come in a variety of ways: an unlucky flak burst, Luftwaffe fighters that could appear anywhere at any time, or pilot error while flying less than twenty feet apart. Werner Goering was an exceptional pilot. He was also the nephew of Herman Goering, leading member of the Nazi party and Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe. When Werner qualified to become a bomber commander in 1942, J. Edgar Hoover issued a top secret order to ensure that if his plane was downed for any reason over Nazi-occupied Europe, someone would be there in the cockpit to shoot Captain Werner Goering dead. The FBI and the American military would not prevent Werner from serving his American homeland in war, but neither would they risk the propaganda coup that his desertion, or even his live capture, would represent for Nazi Germany. So in early 1943, FBI agents fanned out across the United States to find a man capable of and willing to shoot Werner dead in the cockpit, and one who could then get the plane back home. They found Jack Rencher, a tough, insular, B-17 instructor in Yuma, Arizona, who also happened to be one of the Army's best pistol shots. That Jack and Werner became unlikely friends is just one more twist in Hell Above Earth, one of the most incredible untold tales to come out of WWII.

    Navy history. In only 76 days of combat, Blackburn's Jolly Rogers downed a record 154 enemy warplanes, and Blackburn himself emerged as one of VF-17’s leading aces with eleven aerial combat victories to his credit. A complete history of the squadron from its commissioning in January 1943 to its disbanding in April 1944—including a harrowing account of the squadron’s intense, winning campaign against the Japanese over the northern Solomon Islands and Fortress Rabaul—this book offers a fascinating look at Blackburn’s approach to organizing, training, and leading his pilots—thirteen of whom, the author included, became air aces.

    Acting as a British representative, Neil was tasked with negotiating and overcoming the countless culture clashes that existed between the two allies. From encountering unfamiliar planes and uncomfortable attitudes towards the British to meeting the King of Yugoslavia and General George Patton and falling in love, Neil's time with the Americans was anything but dull. As the Allies pushed east, Neil commandeered an abandoned Spitfire as his own personal aeroplane. Erasing any evidence of its provenance and stripping it down to bare metal, it became the RAF's only silver Spitfire. Love affair and culture clashes on hold, he took the silver Spitfire into battle alongside his US comrades until - with the war's end - he was forced to make a difficult decision. Faced with too many questions about the mysterious rogue fighter, he contemplated increasingly desperate measures to offload it, including bailing out mid-Channel. He eventually left the Spitfire at Worthy Down, never to be seen again. 'The Silver Spitfire' is the first-hand, gripping story of Neil's heroic experience as an RAF fighter pilot and his reminiscences with his very own personal Spitfire.

    We must find and destroy her."This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization deemed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France.Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.

    It was the only infantry division in the armies of the British Empire that accompanied Monty from during Alamein to BerlinAfter the 1940 disaster at St Vale'ry when many were killed or captured, the re-formed 51st were a superlative division, brilliantly inspired and led. The 'Highway Decorators' (after their famous HD cypher) fought with consummate success through North Africa and Tunisia and from Normandy into the heart of Germany. Blooded at Alamein - where they suffered over 2000 casualties - they pursued the Afrika Korps via Tripoli and Tunis fighting fierce battles along the way. They lost 1,500 men helping to liberate Sicily. Back to the UK for the second front, the Highlanders battled their way through Normandy bocage, the break-out to the Seine, triumphal re-occupation of St Vale'ry, and were the first troops to cross the Rhine, fighting on to Bremen and Bremerhaven. In the eleven months fighting in NW Europe in 1944 and 1945 the Highlanders suffered more than 9000 casualties.

    And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennial question Did FDR know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor?By temperament and character, no American president was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. He once remarked, "I never let my right hand know what my left hand does." Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends. FDR was also spied against. Roosevelt's Secret War presents evidence that the Soviet Union had a source inside the Roosevelt White House; that British agents fed FDR total fabrications to draw the United States into war; and that Roosevelt, by yielding to Churchill's demand that British scientists be allowed to work on the Manhattan Project, enabled the secrets of the bomb to be stolen. And these are only a few of the scores of revelations in this constantly surprising story of Roosevelt's hidden role in World War II.From the Hardcover edition.

    Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.But there was one part of Obaachan’s life that had fascinated and haunted Kimi ever since the age of eleven—her gentle yet proud Obaachan had once been a prisoner, along with 112,000 Japanese Americans, for more than five years of her life. Obaachan never spoke of those years, and Kimi’s own mother only spoke of it in whispers. It was a source of haji, or shame. But what had really happened to Obaachan, then a young woman, and the thousands of other men, women, and children like her?Obaachan would meet her husband in the camps and watch her mother die there, too. From the turmoil, racism, and paranoia that sprang up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the terrifying train ride to Heart Mountain, to the false promise of V-J Day, Silver Like Dust captures a vital chapter of the Japanese American experience through the journey of one remarkable woman.Her story is one of thousands, yet is a powerful testament to the enduring bonds of family and an unusual look at the American dream.

    Bomber Command s Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur Harris, hoped to wreak Berlin from end to end and produce a state of devastation in which German surrender is inevitable . He dispatched nineteen major raids between August 1943 and March 1944 more than 10,000 aircraft sorties dropped over 30,000 tons of bombs on Berlin. It was the RAF s supreme effort to end the war by aerial bombing. But Berlin was not destroyed and the RAF lost more than 600 aircraft and their crews. The controversy over whether the Battle of Berlin was a success or failure has continued ever since. Martin Middlebrook brings to this subject considerable experience as a military historian. In preparing his material he collected documents from both sides (many of the German ones never before used); he has also interviewed and corresponded with over 400 of the people involved in the battle and has made trips to Germany to interview the people of Berlin and Luftwaffe aircrews. He has achieved the difficult task of bringing together both sides of the Battle of Berlin the bombing force and the people on the ground to tell a coherent, single story. The author describes the battle, month by month, as the bombers waited for the dark nights, with no moon, to resume their effort to destroy Berlin and end the war. He recounts the ebb and flow of fortunes, identifying the tactical factors that helped first the bombers, then the night fighters, to gain the upper hand. Through the words of the participants, he brings to the reader the hopes, fears and bravery of the young bomber aircrews in the desperate air battles that were waged as the Luftwaffe attempted to protect their capital city. And he includes that element so often omitted from books about the bombing war the experiences of ordinary people in the target city, showing how the bombing destroyed homes, killed families, affected morale and reduced the German war effort. Martin Middlebrook s meticulous attention to detail makes The Bomber Battle of Berlin one of his most accomplished book to date. Martin Middlebrook has written many other books that deal with important turning-points in the two world wars, including The First Day on the Somme, Kaiser s Battle, The Peenemunde Raid, The Somme Battlefields (with Mary Middlebrook), The Nuremberg Raid 30-21st March 1944 and Arnhem 1944 (all republished and in print with Pen and Sword). Martin Middlebrook is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives near Stroud, Gloucestershire."

    Clay Bonnyman Evans has honored that lineage with this masterful melding of military history and personal quest.”—Ron Powers, co-author of New York Times #1 bestseller Flags of Our FathersIn November 1943, Marine 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman, Jr. was mortally wounded while leading a successful assault on a critical Japanese fortification on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa, and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor. The brutal, bloody 76-hour battle would ultimately claim the lives of more than 1,100 Marines and 5,000 Japanese forces. But Bonnyman's remains, along with those of hundreds of other Marines, were hastily buried and lost to history following the battle, and it would take an extraordinary effort by a determined group of dedicated civilians to find him.In 2010, having become disillusioned with the U.S. government's half-hearted efforts to recover the "lost Marines of Tarawa," Bonnyman's grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans, was privileged to join the efforts of History Flight, Inc., a non-governmental organization dedicated to finding and repatriating the remains of lost U.S. service personnel.In Bones of My Grandfather, Evans tells the remarkable story of History Flight's mission to recover hundreds of Marines long lost to history in the sands of Tarawa. Even as the organization begins to unearth the physical past on a remote Pacific island, Evans begins his own quest to unearth and reclaim the true history of his grandfather, a charismatic, complicated hero whose life had been whitewashed, sanitized, and diminished over the decades.On May 29, 2015, Evans knelt beside a History Flight archaeologist as she uncovered the long-lost, well-preserved remains of his grandfather. And more than seventy years after giving his life for his country, a World War II hero finally came home.

     Yet, although D-Day had been a monumental success, their journey was far from over. How did the Allied forces drive back the Nazi’s from their strongly entrenched positions in northern France all the way to the German border? This is the main question that is answered with Martin Blumenson’s brilliant study, Breakout and Pursuit, which covers the period from 1st July to 11th September 1944. The allied forces had to work together to overcome tremendous difficulties as they fought against battle-hardened troops. Virtually every sort of major operation involving co-ordinated action of the combined arms is found: the grueling positional warfare of the battle of the hedgerows, the breakthrough of the main enemy position, exploitation, encirclement, and pursuit, as well as a number of actions falling under the general heading of special operations — an assault river crossing, the siege of a fortress, and night combat, among others. Blumenson states that he wished this book would be of interest to the general reader “who may be motivated by curiosity and the hope of learning in some detail about the conduct of the campaign, the expenditure of men and materiel, and the problems that face military leaders engaged in war.” Martin Blumenson was an American military historian who had been the historical officer of both the Third and Seventh Armies in World War Two. He wrote a number of prominent books on World War Two, including a biography of Patton and a number of campaign histories. He was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement from the Society of Military History in 1995. His book Breakout and Pursuit was first published in 1960 and he passed away in 2005.

    The plan nearly succeeded, and almost certainly would have, were it not for one small Belgian town and its tenacious American defenders who held back a tenfold larger German force while awaiting the arrival of General George Patton’s mighty Third Army. In this dramatic account of the 1944–45 winter of war in Bastogne, historian Peter Schrijvers offers the first full story of the German assault on the strategically located town. From the December stampede of American and Panzer divisions racing to reach Bastogne first, through the bloody eight-day siege from land and air, and through three more weeks of unrelenting fighting even after the siege was broken, events at Bastogne hastened the long-awaited end of WWII. Schrijvers draws on diaries, memoirs, and other fresh sources to illuminate the experiences not only of Bastogne’s 3,000 citizens and their American defenders, but also of German soldiers and commanders desperate for victory. The costs of war are here made real, uncovered in the stories of those who perished and those who emerged from battle to find the world forever changed.

    Shortly after this unforgettable game, many of the players and coaches left their respective colleges, entered the military, and went on to serve around the world in famous battlegrounds, from Iwo Jima and Okinawa to Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, where fate and destiny would bring them back together on faraway battlefields, fighting on the same team.Fields of Battle is a powerful story that sheds light on a little-known slice of American history where World War II and football intersect. Author Brian Curtis captures in gripping detail an intimate account of the teamwork, grit, and determination that took place on both the football and battle fields.