An in-depth look at the evolution of America's top-secret plan to wrest control of the Pacific from Japan and destroy its economic and military might.

    Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking head of CBS News in Europe; Averell Harriman, the hard-driving millionaire who ran FDR’s Lend-Lease program in London; and John Gilbert Winant, the shy, idealistic U.S. ambassador to Britain. Each man formed close ties with Winston Churchill—so much so that all became romantically involved with members of the prime minister’s family. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Lynne Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and reluctant American public to back the British at a critical time. Deeply human, brilliantly researched, and beautifully written, Citizens of London is a new triumph from an author swiftly becoming one of the finest in her field.

    Moving chronologically through the conflict, Max Hastings charts the successes and failures of allied and axis forces, espionage and counterespionage.Observing how the evolution of electronic communications dramatically increased the possibilities and significance of these secret battles, this is the story of intelligence beyond Bletchley to the FBI, Russia and the spies of axis dictatorships. For the first time since his best-selling ‘All Hell Let Loose’, Max Hastings returns to the Second World War, this time to chronicle its second, untold story.

    The first book by a top-ranking American navy officer to answer these questions: : Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor? How did they inflict so much damage? What went wrong in our system?

    

     Samuel Blyth was the youthful commander of His Britannic Majesty's brig Boxer, and William Burrows, younger still, commanded the USS Enterprise. Both men valued honor over life and death, and on this day their commitment would be put to the ultimate test.The battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise would be the only major sea engagement of the War of 1812 witnessed by people on land, and, though it lasted less than an hour, was a brutal contest whose outcome was uncertain. When the cannon smoke cleared, good men had been lost, and the U.S. Navy's position in the war had changed.In Knights of the Sea, David Hanna brings to vivid life a lost era-a time when sailing vessels exchanged broadsides and naval officers considered it the highest honor to harness the wind to meet their foes. This history pays tribute to the young commanders on either side, a vanishing breed who would come to be standard bearers of courage and fortitude, and would be immortalized in words by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Includes Illustrations Throughout The battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise came to represent for those who witnessed it, lived through it, and remembered it something more than a military turning point-it became emblematic of a maritime era that would soon be gone forever.

    For the besieged American defenders of Bastogne, time was running out.... Hitler’s forces had pressed in on the small Belgian town in a desperate offensive designed to push back the Allies, starting the Battle of the Bulge. So far the U.S. soldiers had managed to repel waves of attackers and even a panzer onslaught. But as their ammunition dwindled, the weary paratroopers of the 101st Airborne could only hope for a miracle—a miracle in the form of General George S. Patton and his Third Army. More than a hundred miles away, Patton, ordered to race his men to Bastogne, was already putting in motion the most crucial charge of his career. Tapped to spearhead his counterstrike against the Wehrmacht was the 4th Armored Division, a bloodied but experienced unit that had fought and slogged its way across France. But blazing a trail into Belgium meant going up against some of the best infantry and tank units in the German Army. Failure to reach Bastogne in time could result in the overrunning of the 101st—a catastrophic defeat that could turn the tide of the war and secure victory for the Nazis. In Patton at the Battle of the Bulge, Army veteran and historian Leo Barron explores one of the most famous yet little told clashes of the war, a vitally important chapter in one of history’s most legendary battles.

     Attu was the westernmost island in the Aleutian chain, located one thousand miles from Alaska, and subject to brutal weather all year round. Prior to the war it had been home to two Americans and forty-five Aleut hunters and their families, but in June 1942 the Japanese had seized the island and now had over two-thousand troops on the barren island threatening the security of the U.S. mainland. The Battle of the Komandorski Islands in the Bering Sea on March 26, 1943, cleared the way for attempt to retake the island of Attu. Code-named Operation Landgrab, the U.S. military planned for the invasion to take place in May. Army planners had initially thought this would be a quick operation, but instead of being a short invasion it dragged on for over two weeks. The Japanese had realized that their options were limited and so launched a last-ditch banzai charge against the American frontline that was suffering from brutal Arctic conditions, equipment failures and food shortages. Although the U.S. military was able to recapture the island it had cost the lives of over five hundred American soldiers. Robert J. Mitchell, Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond’s book The Capture of Attu provides fascinating insight into this ferocious conflict. Part One of the book provides an overview of the military campaign while Part Two provides personal narratives of the soldiers who fought. This book attempts to put the reader on the battlefield with the ground soldier. Men who fought on Attu, officers and enlisted men, told their stories to Lieutenant Robert J. Mitchell of the 32d Infantry, one of the regiments engaged. These stories tell of the discomforts and perils, the failures and successes, the fear and courage, the many fights between small groups and the occasional humor, of which battle consists. Robert J. Mitchell served as a lieutenant in the US Army's 7th Infantry Division in World War II, being stationed on Attu Island off of Alaska as well as other areas of the Pacific. He was shot in the chest while on Attu and carried the bullet for the rest of his life. While recuperating, he wrote the stories of the other men in his hospital tent. For this he was made an aide to the general in charge of media for the rest of the war. He passed away in 1992. His co-authors Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond also served on Attu and passed away in 1946 and 1999 respectively. Their book The Capture of Attu was first published in 1944.

    Winston Churchill was not only the war's greatest leader, he was the free world's singularly eloquent voice of defiance in the face of Nazi tyranny, and it's that voice that animates this six-volume history. Remarkable both for its sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it begins with The Gathering Storm; moves on to Their Finest Hour, The Grand Alliance, The Hinge of Fate, and Closing the Ring; and concludes with Triumph and Tragedy.

    With the conquest of Australia a very real possibility, the stakes were high. Their target: the Japanese-held Soloman Islands, in particular the southern island of Guadalcanal.Hamstrung by arcane pre-war thinking and a bureaucratic mind-set, the US Navy had to adapt on the fly in order to compete with the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, whose ingenuity and creativity thus far had fostered the creation of its Pacific empire. Starting with the amphibious assault on Savo Island, the campaign turned into an attritional struggle where the evenly matched foes sought to grind out a victory.Following on from his hugely successful book Rising Sun, Falling Skies, Jeffrey Cox tells the gripping story the first Allied offensive of the Pacific War, as the Allies sought prevent Japan from cutting off Australia and regaining dominance in the Pacific.

    It is primarily a story to share with family and friends about my personal involvement in the conflict and the turbulent decade of the 60s and does not attempt to question the politics of the era. It begins with a brief description of my quest to gain admittance to the United States Air Force Academy, my four years at the Academy, and the subsequent year of pilot training. I flew three different types of aircraft in combat and the book provides insight into the training that took place for the C-130 Hercules, the F-105 Thunderchief, and the A-1 Skyraider. Each of the three tours in combat over Laos and Vietnam is described with emphasis on the more memorable flights including a bailout in the A-1 and the final crash on takeoff that ended my active duty Air Force career. My time in various hospitals is described at the end of the book and the epilogue tells briefly of my life after retirement from the United States Air Force. The book has been described as a combination of Band of Brothers, Top Gun, and Forrest Gump.

    S. 12th Army Group in the European Campaign. By the spring of 1945, this group contained 1,300,000 men--the largest exclusively American field command in U.S. history. Mild mannered, General Bradley was a dedicated mentor, the creator of the Officer Candidate School system, and a methodical tactician who served through World War II. Then, as a five-star general, he lifted the Veterans Administration from corruption and inefficiency to a model government agency, served as U.S. Army chief of staff, first chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and head of NATO. Alan Axelrod applies his signature insight and compelling prose to the life, strategy and legacy of the general who remains the model for all commanders today as the man who revolutionized the National Guard, shaped the US army’s focus on the individual soldier, and emphasized cooperation and coordination among the military services--a cornerstone of modern U.S. military doctrine.

    Submarines are thrilling beasts, and Edward Young tells of four years' adventures in them in a good stout book with excitement on every page. He writes beautifully, economically and with humour, and in the actions he commands he manages to put the reader at the voice-pipe and the periscope so that sometimes the tension is so great that one has to put the book down'. The Sunday Times.

    agents in the trunk of a Chevy, were drafted into service in WWII -- and heroically succeeded in setting the stage for Patton's epic invasion of North Africa.     The largest amphibious invasion force ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean set sail from Virginia for North Africa in November 1942.  Operation Torch was the true beginning of the liberation of Europe since control of Northwestern Africa — Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia -- gave the Allies a base on the Mediterranean for the coming invasion of southern Europe.  The prime objectives of the Moroccan invasion, headed by General George Patton, were the port city of Casablanca and an airfield 60 miles northeast of the city, which had the only concrete runways in the region.  Unfortunately, the field was located a dozen miles up a shallow, twisting Moroccan river that wound its way down from the Atlas Mountains to the Atlantic.  Patton needed five hundred tons of highly volatile airplane fuel and nine hundred tons of bombs delivered to that Moroccan airport to supply his planned air campaign against Casablanca, but he faced a major challenge: the river was too shallow for any available transport ship in the entire Allied fleet.  As the clock ticked down on the invasion, the War Department searched every harbor and cove in the Atlantic and only at the last moment turned up the Contessa, a salt-caked, rust-stained Honduran-registered civilian freighter that had spent most of her undistinguished career hauling bananas and honeymooners from New Orleans to the river port harbors of the Caribbean.  But at least she would be capable of hauling heavy cargo in shallow waters.      Twelve Desperate Miles tells the incredible story of the Contessa’s role in the opening salvo of World War II.  This unremarkable ship, crewed by seamen from twenty-six different nations and eighteen sailors pulled from the Norfolk County jail, became the focus of the first invasion of the war as it was rushed to Virginia at the insistence of George Patton and quickly retrofitted for war.  Too late to join the safety of the massive convoy sailing for Africa, the Contessa set out on her own through the U-Boat-infested waters of the Atlantic to the shores of Morocco, where she faced her final and most daunting challenge: the twelve mile voyage up the shallow and well-defended Sebou River, carrying an explosive cocktail of gasoline and bombs in her holds.      In Twelve Desperate Miles, veteran history writer Tim Brady chronicles one of the great untold stories of the war.  This surprising and entertaining account of the baptism of American forces on the Western Front is a mix of Moroccan intrigue, portraits of some of the great figures of the war (Patton, Eisenhower, Marshall, General Lucian Truscott) at its outset, snapshots of the daily workings of the colorful crew of a merchant ship, along with a thrilling account of the invasion of French Morocco. Twelve Desperate Miles offers a unique and fascinating picture of the war in its opening moments.

    In The Price of Admirality, leading military historian John Keegan illuminates the history of naval combat by expertly dissecting four landmark sea battles, each featuring a different type of warship: the Battle of Trafalgar, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, the Battle of Midway in World War II, and the long and arduous Battle of the Atlantic."The best military historian of our generation."--Tom Clancy"The Price of Admirality stands alongside Mr. Keegan's earlier works in its power to impart both the big and little pictures of war."--The New York Times