5Established in 1898 in the heart of Paris on Place Vendôme, the Hôtel Ritz instantly became an icon of the city frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risqué flappers, politicians, playboys, and princes. When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, it was the only luxury hotel of its kind allowed in the occupied city by order of Adolf Hitler.Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in fin de siècle Paris. At its center, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is an extraordinary chronicle of life at the Ritz during wartime, when the Hôtel was simultaneously headquarters to the highest-ranking German officers, such as Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, and home to exclusive patrons, including Coco Chanel. Mazzeo takes us into the grand palace's suites, bars, dining rooms, and wine cellars, revealing a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue, as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery, where refugees were hidden in secret rooms, a Jewish bartender passed coded messages for the German resistance, and Wehrmacht officers plotted to assassinate the Führer. Yet, as she makes clear, not everyone at the Ritz in the spring of 1940 would survive to the war's end.Rich in detail, illustrated with black-and-white photos, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is a remarkable look at this extraordinary place and the people and events that made it legend; the crucible where the future of post-war France-and all of post-war Europe-was transformed.

    However, within that operation were episodes of heroism that still remain unsung.On September, 17, 1944, the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, floated down across the Dutch countryside, in the midst of German forces, and proceeded to fight their way to vital bridges to enable the Allied offensive to go forward. The 101st Airborne was behind them; the British 1st Airbourne was far advanced. In the 82nd s sector the crucial conduits needed to be seized.The Germans knew the importance of the bridge over the Waal River at Nijmegen as well as James Gavin and his 82nd troopers did. Thus began a desperate fight for the Americans to seize it, no matter what the cost. The Germans would not give, however, and fought tenaciously in the town and fortified the bridge. On September 20 Gavin turned his paratroopers into sailors and conducted a deadly daylight amphibious assault in small plywood and canvas craft across the Waal River to secure the north end of the highway bridge in Nijmegen. German machine guns and mortars boiled the water on the crossing, but somehow a number of paratroopers made it to the far bank. Their ferocity thence rolled up the German defenses, and by the end of day the bridge had fallen. This book draws on a plethora of previously unpublished sources to shed new light on the exploits of the Devils in Baggy Pants by Dutch author and historian Frank van Lunteren. A native of Arnhem the site of The Bridge too Far the author draws on nearly 130 interviews he personally conducted with veterans of the 504th, plus Dutch civilians and British and German soldiers, who here tell their story for the first time. REVIEWS "Through years of painstaking research and close contact with 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment veterans, Frank van Lunteren has added much to our understanding of Market Garden. On these pages, the human story comes to life, sometimes tragic, sometimes amusing, but always poignant and compelling." John C. McManus, Ph.D., Author of SEPTEMBER HOPE: THE AMERICAN SIDE OF A BRIDGE TOO FAR and THE DEAD AND THOSE ABOUT TO DIE, D-DAY: THE BIG RED ONE AT OMAHA BEACH It is rare to find such an engrossing book as Frank van Lunteren s The Battle of the Bridges. Anyone who wants to read firsthand experiences of one of the most amazing actions in the western European Theater of the Second World War must get this book. Doug McCabe, curator of the Cornelius Ryan Collection Battle of the Bridges provides an exhaustively researched account of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment s exploits during Operation Market Garden. The legendary crossing of the Waal river to seize the Nijmegen bridges is covered in exceptional detail. Steven Zaloga, Author of US Airborne Divisions in the ETO" and his most recent "The Devil's Garden: Rommel's Desperate Defense of Omaha Beach on D-Day""

    Tuchman won the Pulitzer Prize for Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 in 1972. She uses the life of Joseph Stilwell, the military attache to China in 1935-39 and commander of United States forces and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942-44, to explore the history of China from the revolution of 1911 to the turmoil of World War II, when China's Nationalist government faced attack from Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents. Her story is an account of both American relations with China and the experiences of one of our men on the ground. In the cantankerous but level-headed Vinegar Joe, Tuchman found a subject who allowed her to perform, in the words of The National Review, one of the historian's most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography of a man with a fascinating epic story.

    Using a variety of resources, the Tusas are able to thoroughly layout new information from the trial. This was the closure for many to World War II, and it was one of the greatest judicial accomplishements. The Tusas provide a clear history of the events and fresh insight to what happened during the trial.

    This narrative captures the perspectives of leading politicians and war commanders, journalists, civilians, and ordinary soldiers, offering gripping eyewitness accounts of heroism, defeat, suffering, and triumph. This is one of the first historical studies of World War II that describes the Holocaust as an integral part of the war. It also covers maneuvers, strategies, and leaders operating in European, Asian, and Pacific theatres. In addition, this book brings in survivor testimonies of occupation, survival behind enemy lines, and the experience of minority groups such as the Roma in Europe, to offer a comprehensive account of the war’s impact on individuals on both sides. This is a sweeping narrative of one of the most deadly wars in history, which took almost forty million lives, and irrevocably changed countless more.

    Under the command of U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, the Normandy landings were the culmination of three years’ planning and the most ambitious combined amphibious and airborne assault ever attempted. Its success marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.Drawing on the Imperial War Museum’s vast Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of D-Day tells the full story of this turning point of the war. From the build up in Britain of a vast invasion force, to the deception measures taken to try to fool the Germans into believing the invasion would take place elsewhere.Featuring remarkable, often untapped first-hand testimonies, Forgotten Voices of D-Day is the definitive oral history of a defining turning point in history.

    This was exciting enough but only a taste of what was to come. The Japanese advance into Burma threatened India and, along with many thousands of British and Colonial troops, Lowry found himself fighting in the Arakan region, where he earned a further Mention in Despatches. Conditions were appalling and the fighting was bitter by any standards. At one point his Battalion was cut off by the Japs for three weeks but surrender was never an option. Yet even worse was to come as the Battalion was thrown into the thick of the action at Kohima which is rated as the most desperate defensive action for the campaign. In one week 173 members of his Battalion were lost. All this is vividly described in this fascinating and inspiring memoir which will enthrall its readers.

    Taylor caused a storm of outrage with this scandalous bestseller. Debunking what were accepted truths about the Second World War, he argued provocatively that Hitler did not set out to cause the war as part of an evil master plan, but blundered into it partly by accident, aided by the shortcomings of others. Fiercely attacked for vindicating Hitler, A.J.P. Taylor's stringent re-examination of the events preceding the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939 opened up new debate, and is now recognized as a brilliant and classic piece of scholarly research. 'Highly original and penetrating...No one who has digested this enthralling work will ever be able to look at the period again in quite the same way'

    The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counterespionage and counterterrorism. The book describes how MI5 has been managed, what its relationship has been with government, where it has triumphed, and where it has failed. In all of this no restriction has been placed on the judgments made by the author. "Defend the Realm "also adds significantly to our knowledge of many celebrated events and notorious individuals and definitively lays to rest a number of persistent myths.""Above all, it shows the place of this previously extremely secretive organization within the United Kingdom. Few books could make such an immediate and extraordinary increase to our understanding of British history over the past century.

    A member of Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame, Shames saw combat in some of the most ferocious battles of World War II. From jumping behind the lines of Normandy on D-Day with the 101st Airborne Division, to the near victory of Operation Market Garden, to the legendary stand at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, Shames fought his way across Europe and into Germany itself.In Airborne Shames and writer Ian Gardner (Tonight We Die As Men) tell the gripping true story of what it was like to be at the spear point of World War II in Europe. Neither the book nor TV series of Band of Brothers ever showed the real Ed Shames. Although he started as a private, combat soon forged Shames into a tough and inspired leader who would win a battlefield commission in Normandy. Seeming always to be where the fighting was, his two goals were to prevail in each fight against the Germans, and to keep his men alive. “Shames, you are the meanest, roughest son of a bitch I've ever had to deal with. But you brought us home,” was what he considered to be the highest compliment he received from one of his men.Even though he was wounded in the Ardennes, Ed Shames never stopped fighting until Germany surrendered and the war was won. He has never stopped being a warrior.

    The story of the Warsaw Rising from the the leading British authority on the history of Poland.

    There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced."        In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today."At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another distinctive generation, the Baby Boomers. A grateful nation made it possible for more of them to attend college than any society had ever educated, anywhere. They gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. As they now reach the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. They have so many stories to tell, stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn't think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too. "This book, I hope, will in some small way pay tribute to those men and women who have given us the lives we have today--an American family portrait album of the greatest generation."                In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear George Bush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learned about life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book who found fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), friends for life.         Through these and other stories in The Greatest Generation, you'll relive with ordinary men and women, military heroes, famous people of great achievement, and community leaders how these extraordinary times forged the values and provided the training that made a people and a nation great.From the Hardcover edition.

    The harrowing true tale of seven escaped Soviet prisoners who desperately marched out of Siberia through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India.

    A convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships is ploughing through icy, submarine-infested North Atlantic seas during the most critical days of World War II, when the German submarines had the upper hand and Allied shipping was suffering heavy losses. In charge is Commander George Krause, an untested veteran of the U.S. Navy. Hounded by a wolf pack of German U-boats, he faces 48 hours of desperate peril trapped on the bridge of the ship. Exhausted beyond measure, he must make countless and terrible decisions as he leads his small fighting force against the relentless U-boats.

    Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war, and one community’s monumental contribution to that effortPraise for The Mathews Men“The German U-Boat war against American merchant men was deadly and dramatic—in World War II, the U.S. Merchant Marine had twice the fatality rate of the U.S. Navy. William Geroux has unearthed a fascinating tale of one small coastal town caught in the thick of the fight, and he tells it with a sharp reporter’s eye and a real feel for the heroic men who went down to the sea in ships.” —Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon and Sea of ThunderMathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery—but it sent one of the largest concentrations of sea captains and U.S. merchant mariners of any community in America to fight in World War II. The Mathews Men tells that heroic story through the experiences of one extraordinary family whose seven sons (and their neighbors), U.S. merchant mariners all, suddenly found themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of the U-boats bearing down on the coastal United States in 1942.             From the late 1930s to 1945, virtually all the fuel, food and munitions that sustained the Allies in Europe traveled not via the Navy but in merchant ships. After Pearl Harbor, those unprotected ships instantly became the U-boats’ prime targets. And they were easy targets—the Navy lacked the inclination or resources to defend them until the beginning of 1943. Hitler was determined that his U-boats should sink every American ship they could find, sometimes within sight of tourist beaches, and to kill as many mariners as possible, in order to frighten their shipmates into staying ashore.             As the war progressed, men from Mathews sailed the North and South Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and even the icy Barents Sea in the Arctic Circle, where they braved the dreaded Murmansk Run. Through their experiences we have eyewitnesses to every danger zone, in every kind of ship. Some died horrific deaths. Others fought to survive torpedo explosions, flaming oil slicks, storms, shark attacks, mine blasts, and harrowing lifeboat odysseys—only to ship out again on the next boat as soon as they'd returned to safety.            The Mathews Men shows us the war far beyond traditional battlefields—often the U.S. merchant mariners’ life-and-death struggles took place just off the U.S. coast—but also takes us to the landing beaches at D-Day and to the Pacific. “When final victory is ours,” General Dwight D. Eisenhower had predicted, “there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine.” Here, finally, is the heroic story of those merchant seamen, recast as the human story of the men from Mathews.