Kernan served in many battles and was aboard the Hornet when it was sunk by torpedoes in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.“One of the most arresting naval autobiographies yet published.”—Sir John Keegan“An honest story of collective courage, evocative, well-written, and fixed before the colors fade.”—Kirkus Reviews“[Kernan] recounts a wonderful and exciting American story about a poor farm boy from Wyoming who enlisted in the Navy. . . .[He] has written eight other books. I will go back and read them all.”—John Lehman, Air & Space“Details . . . make the moment vivid; that is what it was like, on the Hornet in its last hours.”—Samuel Hynes, New York Times Book Review

    The Führer has just survived another assassination attempt. But Germany is losing the war. Stauffenberg's attempted assassination and coup originated from inside the government and military. Is the Nazi Party about to turn on itself? Order must be restored and the High Command is calling for blood. Max Hoffmann is enlisted, under Hitler’s instruction, to carry out an investigation. The disillusioned detective has a problem though; he knows that as soon as the investigation starts, his own treason against the Party might be uncovered. As it becomes clear that Hoffman has not been a "good Nazi" he decides to go on the run, mere hours ahead of the SS Agents who are sent to arrest him. As a fugitive, Hoffman only has one objective: to fight one last battle against the people that turned against him, his friends and his family - and against one man in particular. ‘Into Darkness’ is a superb historical thriller, which sheds light not only upon the end days of the Third Reich but also upon one man, trying to serve his country and conscience.

    Classified for over half a century for political reasons, this is the full account of Operation Halyard, a story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery.

    Widely hailed as a masterpiece, this volume remains the first history of World War II to provide a truly global account of the war that encompassed six continents. Starting with the changes that restructured Europe and its colonies following the First World War, Gerhard Weinberg sheds new light on every aspect of World War II. Actions of the Axis, the Allies, and the Neutrals are covered in every theater of the war. More importantly, the global nature of the war is examined, with new insights into how events in one corner of the world helped affect events in often distant areas.

    The Turn of the Tide is a fascinating nuts-and-bolts account of the strategic factors that led to Allied victory. Kennedy reveals how the leaders’ grand strategy was carried out by the ordinary soldiers, scientists, engineers, and businessmen responsible for realizing their commanders’ visions of success.In January 1943, FDR and Churchill convened in Casablanca and established the Allied objectives for the war: to defeat the Nazi blitzkrieg; to control the Atlantic sea lanes and the air over western and central Europe; to take the fight to the European mainland; and to end Japan’s imperialism. Astonishingly, a little over a year later, these ambitious goals had nearly all been accomplished. With riveting, tactical detail, The Turn of the Tide reveals how.Kennedy recounts the inside stories of the invention of the cavity magnetron, a miniature radar “as small as a soup plate,” and the Hedgehog, a multi-headed grenade launcher that allowed the Allies to overcome the threat to their convoys crossing the Atlantic; the critical decision by engineers to install a super-charged Rolls-Royce engine in the P-51 Mustang, creating a fighter plane more powerful than the Luftwaffe’s; and the innovative use of pontoon bridges (made from rafts strung together) to help Russian troops cross rivers and elude the Nazi blitzkrieg. He takes readers behind the scenes, unveiling exactly how thousands of individual Allied planes and fighting ships were choreographed to collectively pull off the invasion of Normandy, and illuminating how crew chiefs perfected the high-flying and inaccessible B-29 Superfortress that would drop the atomic bombs on Japan.The story of World War II is often told as a grand narrative, as if it were fought by supermen or decided by fate. Here Kennedy uncovers the real heroes of the war, highlighting for the first time the creative strategies, tactics, and organizational decisions that made the lofty Allied objectives into a successful reality. In an even more significant way, The Turn of the Tide has another claim to our attention, for it restores “the middle level of war” to its rightful place in history.From the Hardcover edition.

    How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years?In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials—personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence—to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people—from infantrymen and tank commanders on the Eastern front to civilians on the home front—to vivid life. While most historians identify the German defeat at Stalingrad as the moment when the average German citizen turned against the war effort, Stargardt demonstrates that the Wehrmacht in fact retained the staunch support of the patriotic German populace until the bitter end.Astonishing in its breadth and humanity, The German War is a groundbreaking new interpretation of what drove the Germans to fight—and keep fighting—for a lost cause.

     The Battle of the Coral Sea was a major naval conflict which took place a month before the Battle of Midway. Because Midway is regarded as the turning point in the war in the Pacific, Coral Sea is seldom given the respect it deserves. This view fails to take into account the strategic victory that the Allies enjoyed over their powerful, more experienced Japanese foe. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Battle to Save Australia ✓ Battle Plans ✓ The Invasion of Tulagi ✓ The Fog of War ✓ The Last Day of the Battle And much more! Pearl Harbor was only the beginning; in order to achieve its goal of becoming the dominant power in the Pacific, the Japanese knew that they had to finish the destruction of the American fleet. The supply lines that extended between the United States and Australia were an obstacle that the Imperial Japanese Navy intended to remove. But, unknown to the Japanese, the Americans had broken the Japanese code. Upon learning that the Japanese planned to invade Port Moresby in New Guinea as an initial step in isolating Australia, Admiral Jack Fletcher and the American fleet, which included the carriers Yorktown and Lexington, raced to the Coral Sea. When the Japanese arrived, the Allies were waiting to engage in the battle that would, for the first time in World War II, force the Japanese to turn back without achieving their goals.

    Day and night, Britain and the United States unleashed massive fleets of bombers to kill and terrorize occupied Europe, destroying its cities. The grisly consequences call into question how “moral” a war the Allies fought.The Bombers and the Bombed radically overhauls our understanding of World War II. It pairs the story of the civilian front line in the Allied air war alongside the political context that shaped their strategic bombing campaigns, examining the responses to bombing and being bombed with renewed clarity.The first book to examine seriously not only the well-known attacks on Dresden and Hamburg but also the significance of the firebombing on other fronts, including Italy, where the crisis was far more severe than anything experienced in Germany, this is Richard Overy’s finest work yet. It is a rich reminder of the terrible military, technological, and ethical issues that relentlessly drove all the war’s participants into an abyss.

    In the tradition of the best narrative storytellers, he brings together newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews to tell the story of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and second-stringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat but changed how the world viewed the United States, and set in motion the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and to America's victory in the Cold War.On June 24, 1948, intent on furthering its domination of Europe, the Soviet Union cut off all access to West Berlin, prepared to starve the city into submission unless the Americans abandoned it. Soviet forces hugely outnumbered the Allies', and most of America's top officials considered the situation hopeless. But not all of them.Harry Truman, an accidental president, derided by his own party; Lucius Clay, a frustrated general, denied a combat command and relegated to the home front; Bill Tunner, a logistics expert downsized to a desk job in a corner of the Pentagon; James Forrestal, a secretary of defense beginning to mentally unravel; Hal Halvorsen, a lovesick pilot who had served far from the conflict, flying transport missions in the backwater of a global war—together these unlikely men improvised and stumbled their way into a uniquely American combination of military and moral force unprecedented in its time.This is the forgotten foundation tale of America in the modern world, the story of when Americans learned, for the first time, how to act at the summit of world power—a masterful and exciting work of historical narrative, and one with strong resonance for our time.

    To reconstruct the tumultuous hundred days between Yalta and the fall of Berlin, John Toland traveled more than 100,000 miles in twenty-one countries and interviewed more than six hundred people—from Hitler’s personal chauffeur to Generals von Manteuffel, Wenck, and Heinrici; from underground leaders to diplomats; from top Allied field commanders to brave young GIs. Toland adeptly weaves together these interviews using research from thousands of primary sources. When it was first published, The Last 100 Days made history, revealing after-action reports, staff journals, and top-secret messages and personal documents previously unavailable to historians. Since that time, it has come to be regarded as one of the greatest historical narratives of the twentieth century.

    In this shocking and hauntingly beautiful book, historian Childers paints an entirely new picture of the aftermath of World War II in America.

    Hitler is dead, and the Third Reich little more than smoking rubble. No GI wants to be the last man killed in action against the Germans. But for cigar-chewing, rough-talking, hard-drinking, hard-charging Captain Jack Lee and his men, there is one more mission: rescue fourteen prominent French prisoners held in an SS-guarded castle high in the Austrian Alps. It’s a dangerous mission, but Lee has help from a decorated German Wehrmacht officer and his men, who voluntarily join the fight.Based on personal memoirs, author interviews, and official American, German, and French histories, The Last Battle is the nearly unbelievable story of the most improbable battle of World War II — a tale of unlikely allies, bravery, cowardice, and desperate combat between implacable enemies.

    Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.

    An extraordinary series of events, fastidiously researched here, saved the city from what Hitler wanted to leave to the Allies "nothing but a field of ruins."

    But the undertaking would prove to be anything but straightforward, and the story of Rabaul’s destruction remains one of the most gripping of World War II’s Pacific Theater. In Target: Rabaul, award-winning military historian Bruce Gamble expertly narrates the Allied air raids against the stronghold: the premature celebrations by George Kenney and Gen. Douglas MacArthur; the bequeathing of authority to Adm. “Bull” Halsey; the unprecedented number of near-constant air battles that immediately followed; the Japanese retreat to Truk Lagoon in 1944; and their ultimate surrender to Allied forces in August 1945. This amazing story, one that profiles the bravery and resolve of the Allies in the horrific Pacific battleground, is the turbulent conclusion to an acclaimed trilogy from one of today’s most talented nonfiction military authors.