It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. John B. George’s wonderful account of his early overseas experiences as a rifleman in the Guadalcanal campaign presents the viewpoint not of a brass hat, but instead of doughboy who saw the conflict from the ground. He begins with the story of his early years in the 132nd Infantry of the Illinois National Guard, training on the ranges in various ranges across America, before he and his regiment were inducted into the United States Army just months before the terrible events at Pearl Harbor. George and his regiment landed on Guadalcanal just one day after the invasion had begun and were thrown quickly into the action to secure the beachhead and defend Lunga Point. Being a crack shot George records the many hours that he spent hidden in the bush sniping at his enemies if any opportunities arose. What makes this memoir different from others is the fact that George not only uncovers the conflicts that he witnesses and took part in but he also gives extensive information about the tactics that the U.S. military implemented as well as in depth descriptions of all the weapons that they used along with those of their enemies. “Johnny George is a fine officer and an able Infantryman. As a leader he was always capable and aggressive; as an individual rifleman he never lost an opportunity to kill or harass the enemy.” Colonel George F. Ferry, Commanding Officer of 132nd Infantry Regiment. John B. George served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1947 in the Pacific and China-Burma-India theaters and held the rank of lieutenant colonel. After this he went to Princeton and later joined the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Institute as a consultant, lecturer, and writer on African affairs. His book Shots Fired in Anger was first published in 1947 and he passed away in 2009.

    I must admit I'm not exactly the same girl you left-I'm twice as independent as I used to be and to top it off, I sometimes think I've become 'hard as nails'. . . . Also--more and more I've been living exactly as I want to . . . I do as I damn please."[These tough words from the wife of a soldier show that World War Ii changed much more than just international politics.]"From a fascinating collection of letters, filled with wonderfully distinctive human stories, Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith have shpaed a rare and brilliant book that transports the reader back in time to an unforgettable era."--Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream."This is a wonderful volume, full of admirable women struggling in a difficult situation, doing their best for their families and their country. Ah, the memories it brings back! Highly recommended for those who lived through the war, and for those who want to understand it."--Stephen E. Ambrose, author of Eisenhower and D-Day, June 6, 1944"Offering a remarkable view into the lives of ordinary women during wartime, this book will enlighten and catch at the hearts of general readers and cause historians to reconsider how women experienced World War II."-Susan M. Hartmann, author of The Home Front and Beyond."From among 25,000 of an estimated six billion letters sent overseas during World War II, Litoff and Smith have culled and skillfully edited a sampling by 400 American women. These letters, starting with one to a seaman wounded at Pearl Harbor, are compelling documents of home-front life in varied ethnic, cultural, and financial milieus. Tragic, touching, and funny, the correspondence is full of prosaic news and gossip about jobs and neighbors, along with accounts of births and intimate allusions to love-making. The stress of separation was intensified for women whose loved ones were hospitalized, or imprisoned as either conscientious objectors or security risks. Some women wrote General MacArthur and others for news of missing men or to obtain details of their deaths. Many of these heartrending documents also express acceptance-and even pride-in the sacrifices required by war."--Publishers Weekly."Other scholars of WW II have published letters written home by servicemen, but this is the first collection sampling the letters written by sisters, sweethearts, wives, and mothers, saved by thousands of servicemen. Chapters are organized around themes that were important to these women: courtship, marriage, motherhood, work, sacrifices. . . . What women tell readers in these letters about their concerns and their wartime feelings will cause historians [readers?] to rethink what has been written about the homefront."--Choice."Despite the popular appeal of Rosie the Riveter, nine out of ten mothers with children under six were not in the labor force, which helps to account for the vast outpouring of mail from the home front to 'our boys' in the European and Pacific theaters. Some couples wrote every day for four years. This is the rich historic documentation that the authors have drawn upon to create a panoramic pastiche of indefatigable, energetic, patriotic female letter writers in the war years. . . . One is struck by the hard-headed practicality of many of the letters-stories of plucky, sometimes even grumpy, coping. There are letters of growing independence, with strong and at times explicit indication that the boyfriend or husband will be facing a very different woman upon his return from the one he 'knew' when he disembarked for his own, often terrible, venture. . . . Every war leaves mothers with broken hearts. What this volume most remarkably demonstrates is just how prepared American women on the home front were for that dread eventuality."--Jean Bethke Elshtain in the Journal of American History."Fascinating and often heartbreaking letters. . . . The letters illuminate a time when sex roles were first showing the changes that would culminate in the women's movement. 'I must admit I'm not exactly the same girl you left, ' Edith Speert wrote to her husband, Victor, in 1945. 'I'm twice as independent as I used t be, and I sometimes think I've become hard as nails. I don't think my changes will affect our relationship.'. . . In the end, it is the small human dramas in these letters that stand out. Anne Gudis, miffed to distraction by her soldier-swain Sam Kramer, writes what may be the shortest Dear John on record: 'Mr. Kramer: Go to hell! With love, Anne Gudis.' A woman working at a Honolulu nightclub assures a pilot that she'll wait for him-until she's 20. The wife of an Air Corps navigator reads in a news story that only 15 of 1,500 Allied bombers were lost in a raid over Europe and later learns that her husband died in one of the 15. And a grieving mother whose son died in the Pacific asks Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in desperation, 'Please general he was a good boy, wasn't he? Did he die a hard death?'"--Smithsonian."'They made it possible for me to retain my sanity in an insane world, ' wrote one pilot about the letters his wife sent him throughout World War II. The letters contained in this collection explain the soldier's sentiments. Whether full of passionate longing for a missing sweetheart or merely detailing domestic gossip, the letters offer a rich introduction to how American women experienced the war. Since military authorities ordered soldiers not to keep any letters written them by their loved ones, the authors have done a magnificent service in obtaining letters that soldiers either surreptitiously hid or whose authors copied them before sending them on."--Library Journal.

    Hitler's Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews during the 1930s popular. Drawing on a wealth of unused archival material, principally the testimony of the killers themselves, Goldhagen takes us into the killing fields where Germans voluntarily hunted Jews like animals, tortured them wantonly, and then posed cheerfully for snapshots with their victims. From mobile killing units to the camps to the death marches, Goldhagen shows how ordinary Germans, nurtured in a society where Jews were seen as unalterable evil and dangerous, willingly followed their beliefs to their logical conclusion."Hitler's Willing Executioners is an original, indeed brilliant contribution to the...literature on the Holocaust."--New York Review of Books"The most important book ever published about the Holocaust...Eloquently written, meticulously documented, impassioned...A model of moral and scholarly integrity."--Philadelphia Inquirer

    A vital counter-interpretation of madness in women, showing how it is often a consequence of, rather than a deviation from, the traditional female role.

    Denis Barnham, a young and inexperienced flight lieutenant, spent ten hectic weeks on this indomitable island; he left a well-ordered English aerodrome for the chaos and disillusionment of Luqa. His task was to engage the overwhelming number of enemy bombers, usually protected by fighter escorts, and shoot down as many as possible. The Spitfires were bomb-scarred and battered; often they could only get two or three in the air together and the airfields were riddled with bomb craters, but they managed to keep going and they made their mark on enemy operations. The author has written a powerful account of his experiences in Malta starting with his trip out in an American aircraft carrier through the ceaseless battle and turmoil during the desperate defense of the island, until his departure by air back to England, having seen the reinforcements safely landed and the tide of battle turning. His descriptions and illustrations of the air action are thrilling, but terrifying. It is at times a very grim story but told with humor and compassion to bring, arguably, one of the best firsthand accounts of aerial combat ever written.

    Contains previously unpublished letters and photographs from the Rommel family.

    And he shows how these squads were utilized as the Nazis made two separate plans for dealing with the civilian populations they wanted to destroy. Drawing on Nuremberg Tribunal documents largely ignored until now, and on newly available material from eyewitnesses and survivors, Richard Rhodes has given us a book that is essential reading on the Holocaust the World War II.

    So how was it possible that Hitler became such an attractive figure to millions of people? That is the important question at the core of Laurence Rees' new book.The Holocaust, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the outbreak of the Second World War - all these cataclysmic events and more can be laid at Hitler's door. Hitler was a war criminal arguably without precedent in the history of the world. Yet, as many who knew him confirm, Hitler was still able to exert a powerful influence over the people who encountered him. In this fascinating book to accompany his new BBC series, the acclaimed historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees examines the nature of Hitler's appeal, and reveals the role Hitler's supposed 'charisma' played in his success. Rees' previous work has explored the inner workings of the Nazi state in The Nazis: A Warning from History and the crimes they committed in Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution. The Charisma of Adolf Hitler is a natural culmination of twenty years of writing and research on the Third Reich, and a remarkable examination of the man and the mind at the heart of it all.

    Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country.From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it's really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow is a gripping account from an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived - Tom Hanks

    Harrowing and heroic, the events of D-Day were recorded in the personal writings of those who were there. Here, Francis Crosby has compiled a comprehensive collection of previously unpublished letters, diaries, photographs, and reminiscences that tell the story of D-Day as it has never been told before.With the use of new international archives, Crosby has culled vivid and detailed eye-witness accounts from each beach, as well as perspectives from land, sea, and air. This fascinating collection includes entries from American, British, and Canadian troops, the Merchant Navy and the Royal Air Force, and newly available German materials. Also included are contemporary and retrospective reactions of women "in the know" and those whom knew from "unofficial sources" of the immediate imminence of the assault.

     From 1941 to 1944, Bignor Manor, a farmhouse in Sussex provided board and lodging for men and women of the French Resistance before they were flown by moonlight into occupied France. Barbara Bertram, whose husband was a conducting officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), became hostess for these daring agents and their pilots during their brief stopovers in their house. But who were these men and women that passed through the Bertram’s house? And what activities did they conduct whilst in France that meant that so many of them never returned? Edward Wake-Walker charts the experiences of numerous agents, such as Gilbert Renault, Christian Pineau and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, and the networks of operatives that they created that provided top-secret intelligence on German defences and naval bases, U-boats, as well as Hitler’s devastating new weapons, the V-1 and V-2 flying bombs. A House For Spies provides fascinating insight into the lives of SIS agents and their Lysander pilots who provided invaluable intelligence to Allied forces. This is a much-forgotten aspect of the Second World War that is only now being told by Edward Wake-Walker. “Utterly fascinating, very moving and funny. I couldn't have enjoyed it more.” — Hugh Grant “Edward Wake-Walker's meticulously researched chronicles of desperate resistance, audacity, duty, determination and daring are a valuable addition to the history of World War II” — Bel Mooney, Daily Mail “It kept me up at night as I wanted to know what happened to all the various characters [brought] so admirably back to life” — Russell England, Director of Bletchley Park: Codebreaking's Forgotten Genius and Operation Mincemeat

    Focuses on the 92nd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force and includes missions to the Schweinfurt ball-bearing plant and Berlin. One of the first accounts of being shot down over Sweden.The Savage Sky is as close as you can get to experiencing aerial combat while still staying firmly planted on the ground. The writing is vivid and intimate, describing the bitter cold at high altitudes, gut-wrenching fear, lethal shrapnel from flak, and German fighters darting through the bomber formation like feeding sharks.

    While there, Hersey observed a small battle upon which Into the Valley is based. While the battle itself was not of great significance, Hersey gives insightful details concerning the jungle environment, recounts conversations among the men before, during, and after battle, and describes how the wounded were evacuated as well as other works of daily heroism.

    Eisenhower modestly explains General Ike as "a son's view of a great military leader -- highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us." It is that, and more: a portrait of the greatest Allied military leader of the Second World War, by the man who knew Ike best. General Ike is a book that John Eisenhower always knew he had to write, a tribute from an affectionate and admiring son to a great father. John chose to write about the "military Ike," as opposed to the "political Ike," because Ike cared far more about his career in uniform than about his time in the White House. A series of portraits of Ike's relations with soldiers and statesmen, from MacArthur to Patton to Montgomery to Churchill to de Gaulle, reveals the many facets of a talented, driven, headstrong, yet diplomatic leader. Taken together, they reveal a man who was brilliant, if flawed; naÏve at times in dealing with the public, yet who never lost his head when others around him were losing theirs. Above all, General Ike was a man who never let up in the relentless pursuit of the destruction of Hitler. Here for the first time are eyewitness stories of General Patton showing off during military exercises; of Ike on the verge of departing for Europe and assuming command of the Eastern Theater; of Churchill stewing and lobbying Ike in his "off hours." Faced with giant personalities such as these men and MacArthur, not to mention difficult allies such as de Gaulle and Montgomery, Ike nevertheless managed to pull together history's greatest invasion force and to face down a determined enemy from Normandy to the Bulge and beyond. John Eisenhower masterfully uses the backdrop of Ike's key battles to paint a portrait of his father and his relationships with the great men of his time. General Ike is a ringing and inspiring testament to a great man by an accomplished historian. It is also a personal portrait of a caring, if not always available, father by his admiring son. It is history at its best.

    In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.