Imperious, headstrong, and vain, MacArthur matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific—the first in the history of warfare—secured America’s triumph in World War II and changed the course of history. In The Most Dangerous Man in America, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour. As Perry shows, Franklin Roosevelt and a handful of MacArthur’s subordinates made this feat possible, taming MacArthur, making him useful, and finally making him victorious. A gripping, authoritative biography of the Pacific Theater’s most celebrated and misunderstood commander, The Most Dangerous Man in America reveals the secrets of Douglas MacArthur’s success—and the incredible efforts of the men who made it possible.

    More than 1,100 of them would be dead by journey’s end... The son of a Kentucky sharecropper and an enlistee in the Navy’s medical corps, Myers arrived in Manilla shortly before the bombings of Pearl Harbor and the other six targets of the Imperial Japanese military. While he and his fellow corpsmen tended to the bloody tide of soldiers pouring into their once peaceful Naval hospital, the Japanese overwhelmed the Pacific islands, capturing 78,000 POWs by April 1942. Myers was one of the first captured.After a brutal three-year encampment, Myers and his fellow POWs were forced onto an enemy hell ship bound for Japan. Suffocation, malnutrition, disease, dehydration, infestation, madness, and simple despair claimed the lives of nearly three quarters of those who boarded "the beast".Myers survived.A compelling account of a rarely recorded event in military history, this is more than Estel Myers’ true story—this is an homage to the unfailing courage of men at war, an inspiring chronicle of self-sacrifice and endurance, and a tribute to the power of faith, the strength of the soul, and the triumph of the human spirit. "An inspiring look at one of World War II's darkest hours." —James Bradley, Author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys "A searing chronicle." —Kirkus Reviews"The Belly of the Beast (is)...a searing tribute...(to) America in its bleakest hour." —Senator John McCain, author New York Times bestseller Faith of My Fathers

    history. The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942. One of the Manhattan Project’s secret cities, it didn’t appear on any maps until 1949, and yet at the height of World War II it was using more electricity than New York City and was home to more than 75,000 people, many of them young women recruited from small towns across the South. Their jobs were shrouded in mystery, but they were buoyed by a sense of shared purpose, close friendships—and a surplus of handsome scientists and Army men!But against this vibrant wartime backdrop, a darker story was unfolding. The penalty for talking about their work—even the most innocuous details—was job loss and eviction. One woman was recruited to spy on her coworkers. They all knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The shocking revelation: the residents of Oak Ridge were enriching uranium for the atomic bomb.Though the young women originally believed they would leave Oak Ridge after the war, many met husbands there, made lifelong friends, and still call the seventy-year-old town home. The reverberations from their work there—work they didn’t fully understand at the time—are still being felt today. In The Girls of Atomic City, Denise Kiernan traces the astonishing story of these unsung WWII workers through interviews with dozens of surviving women and other Oak Ridge residents. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, this is history and science made fresh and vibrant—a beautifully told, deeply researched story that unfolds in a suspenseful and exciting way.

    Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks, for troops to carry in their pockets and their rucksacks, in every theater of war.Comprising 1,200 different titles of every imaginable type, these paperbacks were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy; in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific; in field hospitals; and on long bombing flights. They wrote to the authors, many of whom responded to every letter. They helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity. They made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. When Books Went to War is an inspiring story for history buffs and book lovers alike.

    Offering a record of one of the pivotal events of World War II, as told through the personal accounts of the German and Soviet soldiers who fought in it, this book features photographs from the Battle of Stalingrad, from both sides of the front.

    Carter participated in every major campaign that the 504th was involved with from Sicily in 1943 to the end of the war in Germany in May of 1945.

    Joe Rochefort, the Officer in Charge of Station Hypo the U.S. Navy's decrypt unit at Pearl Harbor and his key role in breaking the Imperial Japanese Navy's main code before the Battle of Midway. It brings together the disparate threads of Rochefort's life and career, beginning with his enlistment in the Naval Reserve in 1918 at age 17 (dropping out of high school and adding a year to his age). It chronicles his earliest days as a mustang (an officer who has risen from the ranks), his fortuitous posting to Washington, where he headed the Navy's codebreaking desk at age 25, then, in another unexpected twist, found himself assigned to Tokyo to learn Japanese.This biography records Rochefort's surprising love-hate relationship with cryptanalysis, his joyful exit from the field, his love of sea duty, his adventure-filled years in the '30s as the right-hand man to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, and his reluctant return to codebreaking in mid-1941 when he was ordered to head the Navy's decrypt unit at Pearl (Station Hypo). The book focuses on Rochefort's inspiring leadership of Hypo, recording first his frustrating months in late 1941 searching for Yamamoto's fleet, then capturing a guilt-ridden Rochefort in early 1942 mounting a redemptive effort to track that fleet after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor . It details his critical role in May 1942 when he and his team, against the bitter opposition of some top Navy brass, concluded Midway was Yamamoto's invasion target, making possible a victory regarded by many as the turning point in the Pacific War. The account also tells the story of Rochefort's ouster from Pearl, the result of the machinations of key officers in Washington, first to deny him the Distinguished Service Medal recommended by Admiral Nimitz, then to effect his removal as OIC of Hypo. The book reports his productive final years in the Navy when he supervises the building of a floating drydock on the West Coast, then, back in Washington, finds himself directing a planning body charged with doing spade work leading to the invasion of Japan. The Epilogue narrates the postwar effort waged by Rochefort's Hypo colleagues to obtain for him the DSM denied in 1942--a drive that pays off in 1986 when President Reagan awards him the medal posthumously at a White House ceremony attended by his daughter and son. It also explores Rochefort's legacy, primarily his pioneering role at Pearl in which, contrary to Washington's wishes, he reported directly to Commander in Chief, US Fleet, providing actionable intelligence without any delays and enabling codebreaking to play the key role it did in the Battle of Midway. Ultimately, this book is aimed at bringing Joe Rochefort to life as the irreverent, fiercely independent and consequential officer that he was. It assumes his career can't be understood without looking at his entire life. It seeks to capture the interplay of policy and personality, and the role played by politics and personal rifts at the highest levels of Navy power during a time of national crisis. This bio emerges as a history of the Navy's intelligence culture.

    W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about the possible use of atomic weapons in response to China's entry into the war, Truman replied testily, "The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of the weapons, as he always has." This suggested that General Douglas MacArthur, the willful, fearless, and highly decorated commander of the American and U.N. forces, had his finger on the nuclear trigger. A correction quickly followed, but the damage was done; two visions for America's path forward were clearly in opposition, and one man would have to make way.Truman was one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Heir to a struggling economy, a ruined Europe, and increasing tension with the Soviet Union, on no issue was the path ahead clear and easy. General MacArthur, by contrast, was incredibly popular, as untouchable as any officer has ever been in America. The lessons he drew from World War II were absolute: appeasement leads to disaster and a showdown with the communists was inevitable--the sooner the better. In the nuclear era, when the Soviets, too, had the bomb, the specter of a catastrophic third World War lurked menacingly close on the horizon.The contest of wills between these two titanic characters unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of a faraway war and terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin's blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur's forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, " The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era."

    But what of the sailors who manned the landing craft, going back and forth under fire with nowhere to take cover, their craft the special targets of enemy gunners?In this book, Ken Wiley, a Coast Guardsman on an Attack Transport in the Pacific, relates the intricate, often nerve wracking story of how the United States projected its power across 6,000 miles in the teeth of fanatical Japanese resistance. Each invasion was a swirl of moving parts, from frogmen to fire support, transport mother ships to Attack Transports, the smaller Higgins boats (LCVPs), and during the last terrifying stage the courageous men who would storm the beaches.The author participated in the campaigns for the Marshall Islands, the Marianas the Philippines and Okinawa, and with a precise eye for detail relates numerous aspects of landing craft operations, such as ferrying wounded, that are often discounted. He conveys the terror and horrors of war, as well as, on occasion, the thrill, while not neglecting the humor and cameraderie of wartime life.An exciting book, full of harrowing combat action, Lucky 13 also provides a valuable service in expanding our knowledge of exactly how World War II's massive amphibious operations were undertaken.

    This expanded second edition includes over 250 rare historical photographs, maps and images and over 10,000 more words.Winner of Book of the Year in War & Military by the Foreword Indies Review board. Amazon best-seller in four categories and a solid 5-star rating, one of the highest of any book in its categories.

    Beginning with an essay that examines Churchill's rise and strategic cast of thought, the book goes on to provide an intimate portait of each general. Black-and-white photographs.

    Two weeks later LIFE magazine published that image. It became one of the most famous WWII photographs in history (and the most celebrated photograph ever published in the world's dominant photo-journal), a cherished reminder of what it felt like for the war to finally be over. Everyone who saw the picture wanted to know more about the nurse and sailor, but Eisenstaedt had no information and a search for the mysterious couple's identity took on a dimension of its own. In 1979 Eisenstaedt thought he had found the long lost nurse. And as far as almost everyone could determine, he had. For the next thirty years Edith Shain was known as the woman in the photo of V-J Day, 1945, Times Square. In 1980 LIFE attempted to determine the sailor's identity. Many aging warriors stepped forward with claims, and experts weighed in to support one candidate over another. Chaos ensued.For almost two decades Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi were intrigued by the controversy surrounding the identity of the two principals in Eisenstaedt's most famous photograph and collected evidence that began to shed light on this mystery. Unraveling years of misinformation and controversy, their findings propelled one claimant's case far ahead of the others and, at the same time, dethroned the supposed kissed nurse when another candidate's claim proved more credible. With this book, the authors solve the 67-year-old mystery by providing irrefutable proof to identify the couple in Eisenstaedt's photo. It is the first time the whole truth behind the celebrated picture has been revealed.The authors also bring to light the couple's and the photographer's brushes with death that nearly prevented their famous spontaneous Times Square meeting in the first place. The sailor, part of Bull Halsey's famous task force, survived the deadly typhoon that took the lives of hundreds of other sailors. The nurse, an Austrian Jew who lost her mother and father in the Holocaust, barely managed to escape to the United States. Eisenstaedt, a World War I German soldier, was nearly killed at Flanders.For more information on the book, go to www.thekissingsailor.com