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.

    NBC News calls it, "A historical document of major significance." The focus is on Sir William Stephenson, Britain's urbane spy chief who inspired James Bond.

    Battling in freezing conditions, at its lowest -52℃, the descriptions of the privations are vivid and terrifying. With no winter clothes they resorted to using those taken from Soviet corpses.In 1942, fighting near Oriel, however, his battalion suffered heavy losses and was disbanded. Ill with frostbitten legs, Rehfeldt was treated in hospital and once recovered was dispatched to the Front.Following various battles (Werch, Bolchov) his battalion again suffered heavy losses and it merged. In agony from severe frostbite to his legs, Rehfeldt defied the odds and astonished his surgeon when he walked again. He was promoted from Gunner to Trained Private Soldier in 1942, and to Corporal for bravery in the field in 1943.He was awarded numerous honors including the Wound Badge and the Infantry Assault Badge.On 3 May 1945 he was captured by US Forces and held as POW for one month in a camp at Waschow before internment in Holstein from where he was released in July 1945 after agreeing to work on the land. In December 1945 he began studying veterinary medicine: his future career.This astonishing account of a man who kept bouncing back from near death is a testament to the author’s determination and sheer strength of spirit.

    In the slaughter that ensued, Rommel left behind a shaken, confused, and deeply shamed American army and a nearly collapsed Allied front. This is the full story of that massacre of youthful innocents. 31 photos. 262 pp.

    Using the memories of those at the forefront of the battle, Michael Smith reveals a gripping story.

    He also watched—while recording his experiences in his private diaries—as increasingly the gap widened between the reality of the war outside the bunker and Hitler's willful illusions of imminent victory in the face of absolute ruin.In the last catastrophic week of Hitler's regime Loringhoven, now holed up night and day in the bunker, saw the final hopes of officers and staff dissolve into drink and fade into suicidal despair. He saw, too, his chance to survive: On April 29, when all communications in the bunker broke down—and with Hitler's unexpected blessing—he left. On April 30 Hitler was dead.

     A story of combat and captivity – of courage, deception, and survival – FOR ALL IT WAS WORTH provides piercing insights into the indoctrination of the German people into Nazi ideology, and addresses the issues facing German World War II veterans. The author was born in Dresden in 1924 - the year Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was published. Growing up during the pre-War Nazi years, he joined the Hitler Jugend. Following harsh basic training, he was sent to the Eastern Front where he saw combat near Kursk. Captured by the Russians, he escaped and was transferred to the Italian Campaign. With his acquired knowledge of Italian and local conditions, he volunteered for the special forces Division Brandenburg, where he was trained in sabotage and intelligence gathering, operating behind enemy lines and wreaking havoc with the enemy's command, communication and logistical structures. Arriving on leave in Dresden during the February 1945 firebombing, he recounts the terrible aftermath (including the extrication and burial of his father from the ruins of Dresdner Bank) of one of the most devastating and controversial attacks of the Second World War. Following his return to Italy, and the subsequent capitulation of German forces, he was detained as a PoW in Northern Italy for almost two years. Battle-hardened and disillusioned, he used all his clandestine and organisational skills to initiate successful Black Market operations, while working as an interpreter for the British Army. Imprisoned in Austria as an escapee, he finally returned to a shattered Germany in 1947, where he elected to remain illegally in the US zone of Occupation. What follows is a gripping story of survival, and an insight into the hardships and privations facing the German people, leading to the Wiederaufbau. Much more than a military narrative, the author presents a candid view into the mind and soul of the German people. FOR ALL IT WAS WORTH is an account of Hitler’s Germany and its consequences – and is a remarkable document of value to post-War generations, as well as historians and students of World War II.

    One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale: across Asia (including China, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines, and of course Japan) and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it.In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much horror to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated was extraordinary, and the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the European welfare state, the United Nations, decolonization, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Social, cultural, and political "reeducation" was imposed on vanquished by victors on a scale that also had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill advised, but in hindsight, as Ian Buruma shows us, these efforts were in fact relatively enlightened, humane, and effective.A poignant grace note throughout this history is Buruma's own father's story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a laborer, and by war's end was literally hiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into "normalcy" stand in many ways for his generation's experience.A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, Year Zero is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write. It is surely his masterpiece.

    L. A.] Marshall asserted that only 15 to 25 percent of American soldiers ever fired their weapons in combat in World War II. . . .Shooting at the enemy made a man part of the “team,” or “brotherhood.” There were, of course, many times when soldiers did not want to shoot, such as at night when they did not want to give away a position or on reconnaissance patrols. But, in the main, no combat soldier in his right mind would have deliberately sought to go through the entire ear without ever firing his weapon, because he would have been excluded from the brotherhood but also because it would have been detrimental to his own survival. One of [rifle company commander Harold] Leinbaugh’s NCOs summed it up best when discussing Marshall: “Did the SOB think we clubbed the Germans to death?”

    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

    Following defeat in the Ardennes Offensive, Adolf Hitler and the German leadership faced the question of how best to use what little offensive firepower remained to them, as represented by the Sixth SS Panzer Army. Hitler’s obsession with protecting the last source of natural oil available to the Reich compelled this decision, one made against the strong opposition of his military advisers. The resulting offensive, code-named Operation Spring Awakening, was a disaster for Nazi Germany, but a boon for postwar Europe. Heavily outnumbered and lacking supplies, especially fuel, the Sixth SS Panzer Army nevertheless delayed the Red Army long enough for American and British forces to occupy much of western and southern Austria. There is, therefore, a strong likelihood the presence in Austria of Sixth SS Panzer Army saved that country from being overrun completely by the Red Army, and possibly being included in the Warsaw Pact as a Soviet satellite. Impeccably footnoted for peer review, the author hopes this will wet the reader's appetite for more detailed histories on the subject.

    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.

    They think precautions are being taken, but never check to see if they are. A key intelligence officer wants more warnings sent, but he is on the losing end of a bureaucratic battle and can’t get the message out. American sleuths have pierced Japan’s most vital diplomatic code, and Washington believes it has a window on the enemy’s soul—but it does not.In a small office at Pearl Harbor, overlooking the battleships at the heart of America’s seafaring power, the Commander of the Pacific Fleet tries to figure out how much danger he really faces. His intelligence unit has lost track of Japan’s biggest aircraft carriers, but assumes they are resting in a port far away. The admiral thinks Pearl is too shallow for torpedoes, so he never puts up a barrier. As he frets, a Japanese spy is counting the warships in the harbor and reporting to Tokyo.There were false assumptions, and racist ones: The Japanese aren’t very good aviators and they don’t have the nerve or the skill to attempt a strike so far from their home. There were misunderstandings, conflicting desires, painful choices. And there was a naval officer who, on his very first mission as captain of his very first ship, did exactly the right thing. His warning could have averted disaster, but his superiors reacted too leisurely. Japanese planes arrived moments later.Twomey’s telescoping of the twelve days leading to the attack unravels the crucial characters and moments, and produces an edge-of-your seat drama with fascinating details about America at this moment in its history. By the end, the reader understands how assumption is the root of disaster, and how sometimes a gamble pays off.

     Among these reasons, Shulman firmly places the responsibility for the magnitude of lost lives at the feet of Adolf Hitler. A combination of the Fuhrer’s military ineptness, his refusal to take advice and his unique position of power made victory in WWII much less likely for Germany. Shulman also gives an account of the major military mistakes made by the German Army — beginning a war with Russia on the eastern front, declaring war on the U.S., and the decisive losses in North Africa. Defeat in the West is an important addition to WWII military history and a must-read for those interested in the subject. “An evaluation of the causes of German defeat, analyzed from interrogations of senior German officers, and a pre-D-day study of the German army, by an officer of the Intelligence Staff of the First Canadian Army.” Kirkus Reviews "His account of the strange relations between Hitler and the German General Staff is most revealing." The Canadian Historical Review "The sources that he has utilized are impressive. They consist essentially of Anglo-American intelligence summaries, which often incorporated captured German documents, of the published records of the Nuremberg Trial, and of his own and other interrogations of German officers." Saturday Review Milton Shulman (1 September 1913 – 24 May 2004) was a Canadian author, film and theatre critic. He joined the Canadian Army in 1944 as a major and by the war's end he was an intelligence officer with the First Canadian Army. He interviewed many of the captured German generals in the following months and years including Gerd von Rundstedt and Kurt Meyer. As a result of these interviews he wrote the classic Second World War military history Defeat in the West.

    O’Keefe takes us on a heart-pounding journey at the sharp end of combat during the infamous Normandy campaign. More than 300 soldiers from the Black Watch found themselves pinned down, as the result of strategic blunders and the fog of war, and only a handful walked away. Thrust into a nightmare, Black Watch Highlanders who hailed from across Canada, the United States, Great Britain and the Allied world found themselves embroiled in a mortal contest against elite Waffen-SS units and grizzled Eastern Front veterans, where station, rank, race and religion mattered little, and only character won the day. Drawing on formerly classified documents and rare first-person testimony of the men who fought on the front lines, O’Keefe follows the footsteps of the ghosts of Normandy, giving a voice yet again to the men who sacrificed everything in the summer of 1944.