Charles Glass—renowned journalist and author of the critically acclaimed Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation—delves deep into army archives, personal diaries, court-martial records, and self-published memoirs to produce this dramatic and heartbreaking portrait of men overlooked by their commanders and ignored by history. Surveying the 150,000 American and British soldiers known to have deserted in the European Theater, The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II tells the life stories of three soldiers who abandoned their posts in France, Italy, and Africa. Their deeds form the backbone of Glass’s arresting portrait of soldiers pushed to the breaking point, a sweeping reexamination of the conditions for ordinary soldiers. With the grace and pace of a novel, The Deserters moves beyond the false extremes of courage and cowardice to reveal the true experience of the frontline soldier. Glass shares the story of men like Private Alfred Whitehead, a Tennessee farm boy who earned Silver and Bronze Stars for bravery in Normandy—yet became a gangster in liberated Paris, robbing Allied supply depots along with ordinary citizens. Here also is the story of British men like Private John Bain, who deserted three times but never fled from combat—and who endured battles in North Africa and northern France before German machine guns cut his legs from under him. The heart of The Deserters resides with men like Private Steve Weiss, an idealistic teenage volunteer from Brooklyn who forced his father—a disillusioned First World War veteran—to sign his enlistment papers because he was not yet eighteen. On the Anzio beachhead and in the Ardennes forest, as an infantryman with the 36th Division and as an accidental partisan in the French Resistance, Weiss lost his illusions about the nobility of conflict and the infallibility of American commanders. Far from the bright picture found in propaganda and nostalgia, the Second World War was a grim and brutal affair, a long and lonely effort that has never been fully reported—to the detriment of those who served and the danger of those nurtured on false tales today. Revealing the true costs of conflict on those forced to fight, The Deserters is an elegant and unforgettable story of ordinary men desperately struggling in extraordinary times.

    Using eye-witness accounts from tank crews and infantry, Ken Tout reveals how on 7 August 1944 a combined Canadian and British force sent four armoured columns south of Caen to close the Falaise gap. Caen had been an objective of the British forces assaulting Sword Beach on D-Day. However, the German defences were strongest in this sector, and most of the German reinforcements sent to Normandy were committed to the defence of the city.Driving through the night, the British tanks reached their objectives behind German lines and linked up with their Canadian colleagues.The elite Wittman Troop counter-attacked with Tiger tanks, the most feared weapon of the Normandy campaign, only to be wiped out for minimal Allied loss. Operation Totalize I was a stunning success and sealed the fate of the German forces now encircled and trapped in the Falaise Pocket.Ken Tout served with the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry during the Second World War, fighting in Sherman tanks and seeing action in Operation ‘Totalize I’. Tout’s books have attracted many plaudits and have been described as Second World War classics. 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.

    British and American troops were poised to cross the River Rhine in the west, while in the East the vast Soviet war machine was steam-rolling the soldiers of the Third Reich back towards the capital, Berlin. Even in retreat, the German Army was still a force to be reckoned with and vigorously defended every last bridge, castle, town and village against the massive Russian onslaught. Tony Le Tissier has interviewed a wide range of former German Army and SS soldiers to provide ten vivid first-hand accounts of the fighting retreat that, for one soldier, ended in Hitler's Chancellery building in the ruins of Berlin in April 1945. The dramatic descriptions of combat are contrasted with insights into the human dimension of these desperate battles, reminding the reader that many of the German soldiers whose stories we read shared similar values to the average British 'Tommy' or the American GI and were not all crazed Nazis. Illustrated with photographs of the main characters and specially commissioned maps identifying the location and course of the battles, With Our Backs to Berlin is a fascinating read for anyone who is interested in the final days of the Second World War.

    She was only a young girl of 22 at the time that she was captured by German soldiers, and the events of her life since then, provide a picture of what it was like to experience the horror of the Holocaust first hand. You will find out about: - • What is was like to Run for your Life • Living in the Ghetto in Poland • Experiencing a Concentration Camp • Being an unwilling subject for Medical Experiments • How she Survived in the Death Camp • The Chance of Life after the Holocaust The Holocaust forever affected the Jewish community. It tore apart families and caused immense suffering and pain. In this book, you will find out about what it was like to experience torture every day, being part of a death march, living in a concentration camp and being captured. Read this book for FREE on Kindle Unlimited - Download NOW This book celebrates the memories of Regina, bringing to life the horrors of the holocaust. This is so that there can be remembrance, and for the voices of the Jewish to be heard. It is also an account celebrating hope, and how this can change life. Just scroll to the top of the page and select the Buy Button. Download Your Copy TODAY

    

    Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the OVERLORD campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge. Drawing freshly on widespread archives and on the testimonies of eye-witnesses, Holland relates the extraordinary planning that made Allied victory in France possible; indeed, the story of how hundreds of thousands of men, and mountains of materiel, were transported across the English Channel, is as dramatic a human achievement as any battlefield exploit. The brutal landings on the five beaches and subsequent battles across the plains and through the lanes and hedgerows of Normandy--a campaign that, in terms of daily casualties, was worse than any in World War I--come vividly to life in conferences where the strategic decisions of Eisenhower, Rommel, Montgomery, and other commanders were made, and through the memories of paratrooper Lieutenant Dick Winters of Easy Company, British corporal and tanker Reg Spittles, Thunderbolt pilot Archie Maltbie, German ordnance officer Hans Heinze, French resistance leader Robert Leblanc, and many others.For both sides, the challenges were enormous. The Allies confronted a disciplined German army stretched to its limit, which nonetheless caused tactics to be adjusted on the fly. Ultimately ingenuity, determination, and immense materiel strength--delivered with operational brilliance--made the difference. A stirring narrative by a pre-eminent historian, Normandy '44 offers important new perspective on one of history's most dramatic military engagements and is an invaluable addition to the literature of war.

    This sampler contains the story of Operation Judgement; believed to be one of the most incredible raids of World War Two.Six raids that changed the course of history...Operation Judgement: one of the most spectacular efforts of World War Two, where obsolete British biplanes attacked the Italian fleet in Taranto.Operation Archery: the first true combined operation carried out by all three British forces. THis successful raid persuaded Hitler that the Allies were planning a full scale invasion.Operation Biting: a cross-Channel raid into France that was the first major attack by the British Airborne Division and its first battle honour.Operation Gunnerside: a dramatic demolition assault on Hitler's atomic bomb plant in Norway.Operation Chariot: 'the greatest raid of all': the British amphibious attack on the Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France.Operation Deadstick: the story of the first Allies into the fray on D-Day, tasked with seizing and holding two bridges to prevent an armoured German counter-attack.

    Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne" and, later, as a soldier with French forces during three years (1951-1954) in the Tonkin area, Vietnam. Paul recounts his time at the Sennheim military training base, where he was introduced to the rigorous discipline of body and mind: he then goes back to 1940, during the German invasion of France, when he was still a boy in Lorraine, hinting at his motivations for enlisting with the Waffen SS. He reveals his and many young soldiers' exciting and often humorous escapades at Greifenberg, his first love with a German girl helping refugees, his experiences and feelings during the combats at Korlin, during the strenuous defense of Kolberg, while regrouping at Neustrelitz and at the German defeat. With a companion he ends up at a castle delivering a group of women camp prisoners to a Russian officer, living in disguise among enemy soldiers until he escapes and surrender to the Americans. After his sentence, imprisonment, evasions and military service in Morocco, Paul is sent to fight in defense of bases north of Hanoi, Vietnam. He survives three years of fierce combats, assaults, ambushes, night patrols, fatal traps and mortal risks but, deep down, he compares his service with the Waffen SS during the last year of war with the inefficiency of the French Expeditionary Force in the Far East and comes out deeply frustrated. At almost 26, he has fought and lost in two wars, both against the communists, be they Soviet or Viet-Minh. Unemployed, and with the ideals of a 'Nouvelle Europe' in pieces, he briefly joins the French Foreign Legion, his last hope, but in the end choses another path. This is a unique memoir, packed with incident and recounting the story of one individual caught up in a series of life-changing events."

    But having risked everything to write, she refuses to be silenced and leaps at the chance to become a correspondent in war-torn France.Already entrenched in the thoroughly male arena of war reporting is feisty American photojournalist Danni Bradford. Together with her best friend and partner, Andy, she is determined to cover the events unfolding in Normandy. And to discover the whereabouts of Andy’s flighty sister, Vogue model Chloe, who has followed a lover into the French Resistance.When trailblazing efforts turn to tragedy, Danni, Ella and Chloe are drawn together, and soon form a formidable team. Each woman is determined to follow her dreams ‘no matter what’, and to make her voice heard over the noise of war.Europe is a perilous place, with danger at every turn. They’ll need to rely on each other if they are to get their stories back, and themselves out alive. Will the adventure and love they find be worth the journey of their lives?

    The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang first started appearing in real numbers in 1943, at the climax of the Allied campaign in World War II. Able to fly long ranges, it was the perfect escort, keeping bombers protected all the way from Allied bases in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific to a variety of Axis industrial targets and military installations and back. The Mustang would go on to provide pivotal air support on D-Day, and by the end of the war, the P-51 would be responsible for nearly half of all enemy aircraft shot down.In The Fight in the Clouds, aviation writer and EAA Warbirds of America editor James P. Busha draws on interviews conducted with dozens of veteran P-51 pilots to trace the progress of war through the men’s exciting, chronologically organized experiences. You’ll encounter:Mustangs tangling with Soviet-built YaksA Mustang ace shooting down an Me 262 StormbirdAn epic long-range battle over the Pacific OceanAnd a score of other riveting accounts underscoring the P-51’s versatility and its vital importance to the Allied victoryBolstered by Busha’s own commentary and historical analysis, along with a gallery of rare black-and-white period photographs, The Fight in the Clouds offers a cockpit-seat view of one of WWII’s most celebrated aircraft and the men who bravely flew it into harm’s way.

    Vividly evoking the confusion, horror and comradeship of war - from the killing fields of Normandy bocage, through house-to-house fighting in shattered Flemish towns, to the final Rhine crossing - Lion Rampant is a powerful, authentic and moving story, telling with extraordinary clarity how the author, his fellow officers and the men of his company lived through one of the most bitter campaigns in history.

    Beginning with first-hand accounts of the reaction to Chamberlain's declaration of war in 1939, Kershaw portrays the many aspects of war through the words of those who were there, from the sailors of the little ships of Dunkirk to German soldiers preparing for Operation 'Sea Lion'. He takes us from the nightly horrors of the Blitz to battles in the limitless desert of North Africa, and from jungle war in Burma to Lancaster bombers over Germany and the beaches of Normandy. Featuring new interviews with veterans and civilians from Britain, the Commonwealth and Germany as well as diaries, letters, and first-hand accounts, this is a testimony to the remarkable men and women who lived through the Second World War -- whose refusal to surrender changed them, and Britain, forever.

    In December 1944, during the bloody Battle of the Bulge, teams of German commandos disguised as American soldiers slipped behind the US front lines. Riding in captured US jeeps, they committed sabotage, sowed confusion and caused paranoia among American troops. Word quickly spread that the undercover commandos were out to kill US General Eisenhower. Popular legend has made the false flag operation out to be a skilled and menacing ploy with cunning German spies speaking American English. Their commander, propaganda hero SS Lt. Col. Otto Skorzeny, seemed a mastermind. But the reality was much different, and all the more deadly. The planning and training were slapdash, the mission desperate, its chances slim to none. Sitting Ducks is a fast read equaling about 49 print pages.

    In his very personal account, Bttger relates in a sober and realistic manner the fighting and experiences on and behind the front. He details his involvement in battles across Europe in honest terms. He describes vividly the cruelty and senselessness of war, along with the injustices and irritations of army life. The author was by no means a hero: he admits that he volunteered for the Wehrmacht to avoid sitting his school leaving exams (but obtain his Abitur leaving certificate). He also concedes that he lied about his health in an attempt to avoid being sent to the Eastern Front and was determined to stay alive at all cost.The book features almost 200 photographs taken by the author during the war and includes images taken in action.

    Twenty-one Nazi leaders were charged with crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity - and with having a common plan or conspiracy to commit those crimes. It was the first time judges and members of the judiciary had been charged with enforcing immoral laws. Doctors too stood in the dock for the many hideous medical experiments conducted in concentration camps, while members of the death squads were tried for the indiscriminate murder of civilians. The Nuremberg Trails brought closure to the Second World War.