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.

    The relentless and unstoppable German advances that had seen the panzers sweep hundreds of miles into Russia was finally brought to a halt. The elite German 6th Army was first fought to a standstill, then surrounded and forced to surrender.Over 1.5 million people lost their lives during the six months of fighting, many of them civilians caught up in the campaign. For the first time in the war, the German army had been defeated on the field of battle. Before Stalingrad the Russians never won; after Stalingrad they could not lose.This book looks at the titanic struggle that ended in the total destruction of the second city of the Soviet Union, the greatest battle the world has ever seen.

    His firsthand account of his wartime service gives a graphic insight into his lethal skill with a rifle and into the desperate fight put up by Soviet forces to defend Leningrad. He also records how, during the three-year siege, close members of this family died, including his wife and two sons, as well as many of his comrades in arms. He describes these often-terrible events with such honesty and clarity that his memoir is remarkable.Piluyshin, who lived in Leningrad with his family, was already 35 years old when the war broke out and he was drafted. He started in the Red Army as a scout, but once he had demonstrated his marksmanship and steady nerve, he became a sniper. He served throughout the Leningrad siege, from the late 1941 when the Wehrmachts advance was halted just short of the city to its liberation during the Soviet offensive of 1944. His descriptions of grueling front-line life, of his fellow soldiers and of his sniping missions are balanced by his vivid recollections of the protracted suffering of Leningrads imprisoned population and of the grief that was visited upon him and his family.His gripping narrative will be fascinating reading for any one who is keen to learn about the role and technique of the sniper during the Second World War. It is also a memorable eyewitness account of one mans experience on the Eastern Front.

    Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and Patton’s pledge to “throw his ass in jail” to deliver his wildly popular cartoon, “Up Front,” to the pages of Stars and Stripes. “Up Front” featured the wise-cracking Willie and Joe, whose stooped shoulders, mud-soaked uniforms, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived—and died—in it. This taut, lushly illustrated biography—the first of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin—is illustrated with more than ninety classic Mauldin cartoons and rare photographs. It traces the improbable career and tumultuous private life of a charismatic genius who rose to fame on his motto: “If it’s big, hit it.”

    Today a versatile light infantry unit deployed around the world, the 10th began in 1941 as a crew of civilian athletes with a passion for mountains and snow. In this vivid history, adventure writer Peter Shelton follows the unique division from its conception on a Vermont ski hill, through its dramatic World War II coming-of-age, to the ultimate revolution it inspired in American outdoor life.In the late-1930s United States, rock climbing and downhill skiing were relatively new sports. But World War II brought a need for men who could handle extreme mountainous conditions -- and the elite 10th Mountain Division was born. Everything about it was unprecedented: It was the sole U.S. Army division trained on snow and rock, the only division ever to grow out of a sport. It had an un-matched number of professional athletes, college scholars, and potential officer candidates, and as the last U.S. division to enter the war in Europe, it suffered the highest number of casualties per combat day. This is the 10th's surprising, suspenseful, and often touching story.Drawing on years of interviews and research, Shelton re-creates the ski troops' lively, extensive, and sometimes experimental training and their journey from boot camp to the Italian Apennines. There, scaling a 1,500-foot "unclimbable" cliff face in the dead of night, they stunned their enemy and began the eventual rout of the German armies from northern Italy.It was a self-selecting elite, a brotherhood in sport and spirit. And those who survived (including the Sierra Club's David Brower, Aspen Skiing Corporation founder Friedl Pfeifer, and Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman, who developed the waffle-sole running shoe) turned their love of mountains into the thriving outdoor industry that has transformed the way Americans see (and play in) the natural world.

    Stoically poised for battle in the spring of 1945—when even Japan’s last desperate technique of arms, the kamikaze, was running short—Yamato arose as the last magnificent arrow in the imperial quiver of Emperor Hirohito. Here, Jan Morris not only tells the dramatic story of the magnificent ship itself—from secret wartime launch to futile sacrifice at Okinawa — but, more fundamentally, interprets the ship as an allegorical figure of war itself, in its splendor and its squalor, its heroism and its waste. Drawing on rich naval history and rhapsodic metaphors from international music and art, Battleship Yamato is a work of grand ironic elegy.

    The book probes the central mystery of why a generation of the world's most able commanders and staff officers came to be seduced by Hitler, and why they failed to deflect him from his disastrous decisions.

    

    I’m gonna shoot you myself!” The men of the 77th Infantry Division couldn’t fathom why Private Desmond T. Doss would venture into the horrors of World War II without a single weapon to defend himself. “You’re nothing but a coward!” they said. But the soft-spoken medic insisted that his mission was to heal, not kill. When Desmond knelt by his bunk to pray, his fellow soldiers hurled boots and insults at him. Even his commander wanted to throw him out of the army. But when his unit arrived on the battlefield, the intrepid medic quickly proved he was no coward. One terrifying day in the vicious battle for Okinawa, dozens of Desmond’s former tormenters lay wounded and bleeding atop Hacksaw Ridge. As Japanese bullets rained down, their fate seemed hopeless. Could one unarmed man save their lives? This page-turner will keep you riveted to your seat as you discover how Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. Desmond’s dramatic true story of integrity, redemption, and heroism will inspire you to live by the courage of your convictions.

    In fact, he was one of Britain's most successful double agents, and, some say, the inspiration for James Bond. With full access to FBI and MI5 records, along with private family papers, his incredible adventures can now be told authoritatively for the first time. Recruited by the Abwehr in 1940, 27-year-old Popov immediately offered his services to the British. His code-name was Tricycle. Throughout the war he fed the Germans with a constant stream of military 'intelligence', all vetted by MI5, and came to be viewed as their most important and reliable agent in Britain. But when he was ordered by the Abwehr to the United States to report on the defences at Pearl Harbor, J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, failed to heed his warnings, distrusting all spies and detesting Popov in particular, whom he considered to be 'a moral degenerate'. Facing the danger of exposure, arrest and execution on a daily basis, Tricycle went on to build up a network known as the Yugoslav Ring, which not only delivered a stream of false information to Berlin but also supplied vital intelligence to the Allies on German rocketry, strategy and security. After the war Dusko Popov was granted British citizenship and awarded an OBE. The presentation was made, appropriately, in the cocktail bar at the Ritz.

    Douglas MacArthur's memoir spans more than half a century of modern history. His vantage point at center stage during major controversies of the twentieth century enabled him to present unique views of the conflicts in which he played a vital role. No soldier in modern time has been more admired--or reviled. Liberator of the Philippines, shogun of Occupied Japan, victor of the Battle of Inchon, the general was a national hero when suddenly relieved of his command by President Truman. His supporters believe his genius for command and ability to implement that command by strategy stand as landmarks in military history. His critics are not so kind, calling him a gigantic ego paying homage to himself in this book. Decade by decade, battlefield by battlefield, this self portrait is a moving final testament to a life of service that began at West Point and continued in Vera Cruz during the Mexican uprisings and throughout the world wars. Appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Pacific, MacArthur was the architect of the campaign to drive the Japanese from their strongholds at Bataan, Corregidor, and New Guinea. His recounting of World War II is dramatically punctuated with intimate portraits of key personalities and insights into his stand on controversial issues. Although the autobiography was written more than thirty years ago, it continues to be a valuable document of the period.

    He went on daring spy missions, was badly wounded, pioneered the use of amphibious vehicles, and masterminded the invasion of Okinawa. In Korea, he was a combat hero and invented the use of helicopters in warfare. In Vietnam, he developed a holistic strategy in stark contrast to the Army's "Search and Destroy" methods-but when he stood up to LBJ to protest, he was punished. And yet it can be argued that all of his these accomplishments pale in comparison to what he did after World War II and again after Korea: Krulak almost single-handedly stopped the U.S. government from abolishing the Marine Corps.

    Critical acclaim for The Battle for Okinawa"An indispensable account of the fighting and of Okinawa's role in the Japanese defense of the home islands." --The Wall Street Journal"A fascinating, highly intelligent glance behind the Japanese lines." --Kirkus Reviews"The most interesting of the 'last battle of the war' books." --The Washington Post."A fascinating insider's view of the Japanese command." --Dallas Morning NewsCOLONEL HIROMICHI YAHARA was the senior staff officer of the 32nd Japanese Army at Okinawa.A Military Book Club Main Selection

    One of the biggest secrets of the war, the capture of that one machine turned the tide of the war in British favour. The German U-boat attacks were crippling the nation’s ability to survive, and the key to breaking that threat was in deciphering the German’s naval Enigma code. Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park worked tirelessly to crack the code, and with the working Enigma machine they finally had their break-through moment. This book sets the story, and the Enigma cryptographers, in context – at the heart of the Battle of the Atlantic, when it reached its crescendo in the pursuit of the battleship Bismarck the week after U110 was taken. It sets Bletchley Park in its wider context too, at the heart of an intricate and maverick network of naval intelligence, tracking signals and plotting them to divert convoys around waiting U-boats, involving officers like James Bond’s future creator, Ian Fleming. It also sets out the most important context of all, forgotten in so much of the Enigma history: that Britain’s own naval code had already been cracked, and its signals were being read, thanks to the efforts of Turing’s opposite number, the German naval cryptographer, Wilhelm Tranow.An exciting and enthralling true story ‘Operation Primrose’ is an excellently researched piece on the race for naval supremacy in the Second World War. David Boyle's work has been widely praised. ‘The tone of the book may be gloomy but there is plenty of entertainment value …’ Anne Ashworth, The Times ‘Exhilarating’ Daily Mail ‘He tells these stories, on the whole persuasively and with some startling asides.’ New Statesman ‘A book that is engagingly sensitive to the sentiments of what is sometimes called “middle England”’ Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include ‘Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma’, ‘Rupert Brooke: England’s Last Patriot’, ‘Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914’, ‘Jerusalem: England’s National Anthem’, ‘Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles’, ‘Towards the Setting Sun: The Race for America’ and ‘The Age to Come’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Army enlisted man, was captured at Bataan. For nearly three and a half years, until he was liberated by the Russians in Manchuria, he remained a prisoner of war. Here is his account of this long and terrifying captivity. "It is one of the most harrowing and debilitating chronicles that I have read. . . . He describes the ordeal brilliantly; he harbors no resentments apparently, and he has emerged from an inferno of bestiality with utter serenity." — Maxwell Geismar, Saturday Review "An impressive and moving book." — David Dempsey, New York Times "His is no ordinary prisoner-of-war story; better written than most, it contains no tales of swashbuckling defiance. . . . The force of this book is its testimony to the indomitable strength of the human spirit." — Manchester Guardian "The plain narrative of this story would by itself have been fascinating, but this book is far more than a story, it is a work of art." — André Siegfried, Academie Francaise "Sidney Stewart's composed narrative is one of the most noble documents ever penned by a prisoner of war. The companions he writes about remained men to the end, until at last only one man remained; he survived to write this unforgettable, this magnificent story." — George Slocombe, New York Herald Tribune [Paris]