The invasion of Guadalcanal was a long, cruel holding operation fought with too little equipment and support, not enough food and ammunition, and too few men. The marines on the island were subjected to bombing raids and strafing by Japanese aircraft, bombardment by battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and land artillery, as well as being continually attacked by Japanese tanks and infantry. For five long months they were attacked day and night before being eventually relieved by Army units. Who were these men who faced overwhelming odds? And how did they survive? T. Grady Gallant, who fought at Guadalcanal himself, answers these questions in his brilliant book On Valor’s Side Gallant’s account begins with an account of the grueling training that he and his fellow marines received in places such as Parris Island, before they undertook last minute preparations in New Zealand and made the journey towards Guadalcanal. It is a fascinating work that gives an eyewitness view of one of the most ferocious encounters that the United States Marines had to face through the course of the Second World War. “recreates the real-life training, fighting and comradeship of men at arms, from North Carolina to Guadalcanal.” — Kirkus Review “A great book” — Leon Uris T. Grady Gallant was a journalist, editor, columnist, author and editor. He served as a Sergeant of Special Weapons in the U.S. 1st marine Division, Fleet Marine Force 1941-1945, in the assault at Guadalcanal, and served a second tour with the 4th marine Division, Fleet Marine Force and was in the assault and Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. His book On Valor’s Side was first published in 1963 and he passed away in 2009.

    Caught there by the outbreak of the Second World War, he was unable to return to his parents for seven years. In due course, he was called to serve in an anti-aircraft battery and in the National Labour Service. Just after his eighteenth birthday, he was sent to the Russian Front with the elite Paratrooper and Tank Division, Hermann Göring. He lived through an amazing series of events, escaping death many times and was one of the few survivors of his division when the war ended. In this narrative of his early life, John Stieber describes how he went from a carefree childhood through increasing hardships, until every day of his life became a challenge for survival.

    Significant events such as the Reichstag fire and the Kristallnacht pogrom are examined in detail, but the focus remains largely on the resourceful, resilient Berliners themselves as they deal with increasing hardship and danger. In the background of the narrative, one can virtually hear the almost incessant--and alarmingly effective--propaganda broadcasts by the Nazi minister of information, Joseph Goebbels. The authors relate the unfolding events in Hitler's underground headquarters, where his lieutenants continued to jockey for position even as old men and boys were rounded up in the streets above for a last-ditch stand against the approaching Soviet army. Finally, Read and Fisher describe the orgy of rape that began when the Red Army breached the city's defenses, the scope of which is conveyed by the statistics: more than 90,000 women and girls sought medical treatment for rape in Berlin in 1945." - Publishers Weekly"The British team of Read and Fisher ( Kristallnacht , LJ 10/15/88, and The Deadly Embrace , LJ 11/15/89) turn their attention to the bombing of Berlin by the British and Americans and how the Russian Army fought its way toward and through Berlin in 1945. The authors intend no startling new interpretations or profound analysis. Instead, they offer vignettes, often based on diaries, to describe life in Berlin late in the war. They also retell the story of fanatical Nazi leaders and of the Wehrmacht's desperate efforts to defend the city. The result is a highly readable and, at the same time, sophisticated and reliable narrative history. One objection: no good reason exists to call the Oder-Neisse "the ancient frontier of the German empire." - Library Journal

     HITLER'S GLADIATOR is the life of German general Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, who rose from private soldier in the kaiser's army to command of an SS Panzer Army in the closing stage""Clear and detailed . . . most scholarly." —- "The Sunday Times" (London)"An enlightened portrait of both Dietrich and his Germany." —- "Soldier Magazine"

    This empire dominates western Europe from 800 until 1806, when it is defeated by Napoleon. The Second Reich: All of Germany is united behind Prussia under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, victor of the Franco-Prussian War. Only Germany's defeat in World War I can break the power of the second German empire.What was the Third Reich?In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany after convincing other members of the Reichstag that the Nazi party was better for the country than their feared rivals, the Communists. Within the year, the President of the German Republic will be dead, and Hitler will declare himself supreme leader of Germany.But how did it happen?The Third Reich: Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, World War II and The Last German Empire takes you on a guided tour of German history for the last thousand years. You'll study the constitution of the Weimar republic and the Treaty of Versailles, and come to understand why Hitler believed it was crucial to build a new Nazi empire that was second to no one other nation in Europe in terms of military development. You'll learn how Hitler used the rhetoric of racism and nationalism to transform himself from a democratically elected member of government into a dictator whose word was law.Most importantly, you'll learn how those changes paved the way to World War II and the atrocities of the Holocaust.

    On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their prewar hostility toward--and suspicion of--one another. The veneer of civility between the Western allies and the Soviets was to break down in spectacular fashion in Berlin. Rival systems, rival ideologies, and rival personalities ensured that the German capital became an explosive battleground.The warring leaders who ran Berlin's four sectors were charismatic, mercurial men, and Giles Milton brings them all to rich and thrilling life here. We meet unforgettable individuals like America's explosive Frank "Howlin' Mad" Howley, a brusque sharp-tongued colonel with a relish for mischief and a loathing for all Russians. Appointed commandant of the city's American sector, Howley fought an intensely personal battle against his wily nemesis, General Alexander Kotikov, commandant of the Soviet sector. Kotikov oozed charm as he proposed vodka toasts at his alcohol-fueled parties, but Howley correctly suspected his Soviet rival was Stalin's agent, appointed to evict the Western allies from Berlin and ultimately from Germany as well.Throughout, Checkmate in Berlin recounts the first battle of the Cold War as we've never before seen it. An exhilarating tale of intense rivalry and raw power, it is above all a story of flawed individuals who were determined to win, and Milton does a masterful job of weaving between all the key players' motivations and thinking at every turn. A story of unprecedented human drama, it's one that had a profound, and often underestimated, shaping force on the modern world - one that's still felt today.

    On June 6, 1944, on Omaha Beach, however, these proud Virginians who carried the legacy of the famed Stonewall Brigade showed the regular army and the world what true valor really was. In this moving World War II memoir, the author captures the day-to-day comings and goings of GI Joe from pre--World War II National Guard days through induction, training, deployment overseas, and more training.All leads up to D-Day and Normandy on June 6, 1944, when Sergeant Bob Slaughter came across Omaha Beach with Company D of the 116th Infantry. This was the beginning of his long march to final victory in Europe, a march that would take him and his fellow soldiers of Company D, at least those who survived, to Holland, the Bulge, and on into Germany itself.

    Caught between the giants of the Soviet Union and the Third Reich, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia became pawns in the desperate battle for control of Eastern Europe throughout the course of World War II. This is a story of conquest and exploitation, of death and deportation and the fight for survival both by countries and individuals. The three states were repeatedly occupied -- by the Soviet Union in 1939, by Germany in 1941, and again by the Soviet Union in 1944-45. In each case, local government organizations and individuals were forced to choose between supporting the occupying forces or forming partisan units. Many would be caught up in the bitter fighting in the region and, in particular, in the huge battles for the Courland bridgehead during Operation Bagration when hundreds of thousands of soldiers would fight and die in the last year of the war. Over 300,000 Soviet troops would be lost during the repeated assaults on the 'Courland Cauldron' before 146,000 German and Latvian troops were finally forced to surrender. No mercy was shown and all Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians who fought for Germany were executed. By the end of the war, death and deportation had cost the Baltic States over 20 percent of their total population and the iron curtain would descend on the region for over four decades. Using numerous first-hand accounts and detailed archival research, Prit Buttar weaves a magisterial account of the bitter fighting on the Eastern Front and the three small states whose fates were determined by the fortunes and misfortunes of war.

    His family was among the few who worked underground to resist Nazi rule. Then came the day he was drafted into Hitler's army and shipped out to fight on the Eastern front as part of the German infantry―in spite of his having confessed his own Jewish ancestry. Thus begins the incredible journey of a nineteen year old thrust unwillingly into an unjust war, who must use his smarts, skills, and bare-knuckled determination to stay alive in the trenches, avoid starvation and exposure during the brutal Russian winter, survive more than one Soviet labor camp, and somehow find his way back home. Unlikely Warrior is Rauch's true account of this extraordinary adventure.

     The Nazis resisted fiercely at every opportunity. Nijmegen, Arnhem, the Huertgen Forest, the battles along the Channel coast and the River Scheldt, at Aachen, across the Ardennes and in the Saar - each battleground presented its own challenges and even after seventy years the controversies remain. Who was really responsible for the failure at Nijmegen, the destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem and the failure of Operation Market Garden? Why was Montgomery threatened with the sack when he had just retrieved Bradley's failure in the Battle of the Bulge? Was General Eisenhower's command strategy either workable or wise, and did Bradley and Patton undermine it? How much of a part did the media and politics have to play in these post-Normandy battles? In this masterly account of the 1944 post-Normandy campaign, Robin Neillands tells us what really happened in the long-drawn-out and costly struggle for the Rhine. With careful research and clear, lively accounts of the complex battles Neillands focuses on the triumphs and tribulations that faced those in command. It is one of the finest books on WWII, from one of Britain's most widely respected historians. Robin Neillands is the author of several acclaimed works on the First World War including ‘The Great War Generals on the Western Front’, ‘Attrition: The Great War on the Western Front, 1916’ and ‘The Old Contemptibles’. Praise for Robin Neillands: ‘One of Britain’s most readable historians’ – Birmingham Post ‘Immensely readable … a blast of fresh air’ – The Spectator ‘Informed and explicit, this is military history at its best’ – Western Daily Press ‘Neilland’s willingness to call a spade a spade will catch the popular imagination. His central argument is hard to fault’ – Literary Review Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    Before Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, there was 1924. This was the year of Hitler's final transformation into the self-proclaimed savior and infallible leader who would interpret and distort Germany's historical traditions to support his vision for the Third Reich. Everything that would come -- the rallies and riots, the single-minded deployment of a catastrophically evil idea -- all of it crystallized in one defining year. 1924 was the year that Hitler spent locked away from society, in prison and surrounded by co-conspirators of the failed Beer Hall Putsch. It was a year of deep reading and intensive writing, a year of courtroom speeches and a treason trial, a year of slowly walking gravel paths and spouting ideology while working feverishly on the book that became his manifesto: Mein Kampf. Until now, no one has fully examined this single and pivotal period of Hitler's life. In 1924, Peter Ross Range richly depicts the stories and scenes of a year vital to understanding the man and the brutality he wrought in a war that changed the world forever.

    This book reveals little-known information about regular people living under the bleak, macabre and bizarre reality of the Nazi dictatorship.

    In this revealing new biography, author Martin Kitchen disputes Speer’s lifelong assertions of ignorance and innocence, portraying a far darker figure who was deeply implicated in the appalling crimes committed by the regime he served so well.   Kitchen reconstructs Speer’s life with what we now know, including information from valuable new sources that have come to light only in recent years, challenging the portrait presented by earlier biographers and by Speer himself of a cultured technocrat devoted to his country while completely uninvolved in Nazi politics and crimes. The result is the first truly serious accounting of the man, his beliefs, and his actions during one of the darkest epochs in modern history, not only countering Speer’s claims of non-culpability but also disputing the commonly held misconception that it was his unique genius alone that kept the German military armed and fighting long after its defeat was inevitable.

    Bomber Command s Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur Harris, hoped to wreak Berlin from end to end and produce a state of devastation in which German surrender is inevitable . He dispatched nineteen major raids between August 1943 and March 1944 more than 10,000 aircraft sorties dropped over 30,000 tons of bombs on Berlin. It was the RAF s supreme effort to end the war by aerial bombing. But Berlin was not destroyed and the RAF lost more than 600 aircraft and their crews. The controversy over whether the Battle of Berlin was a success or failure has continued ever since. Martin Middlebrook brings to this subject considerable experience as a military historian. In preparing his material he collected documents from both sides (many of the German ones never before used); he has also interviewed and corresponded with over 400 of the people involved in the battle and has made trips to Germany to interview the people of Berlin and Luftwaffe aircrews. He has achieved the difficult task of bringing together both sides of the Battle of Berlin the bombing force and the people on the ground to tell a coherent, single story. The author describes the battle, month by month, as the bombers waited for the dark nights, with no moon, to resume their effort to destroy Berlin and end the war. He recounts the ebb and flow of fortunes, identifying the tactical factors that helped first the bombers, then the night fighters, to gain the upper hand. Through the words of the participants, he brings to the reader the hopes, fears and bravery of the young bomber aircrews in the desperate air battles that were waged as the Luftwaffe attempted to protect their capital city. And he includes that element so often omitted from books about the bombing war the experiences of ordinary people in the target city, showing how the bombing destroyed homes, killed families, affected morale and reduced the German war effort. Martin Middlebrook s meticulous attention to detail makes The Bomber Battle of Berlin one of his most accomplished book to date. Martin Middlebrook has written many other books that deal with important turning-points in the two world wars, including The First Day on the Somme, Kaiser s Battle, The Peenemunde Raid, The Somme Battlefields (with Mary Middlebrook), The Nuremberg Raid 30-21st March 1944 and Arnhem 1944 (all republished and in print with Pen and Sword). Martin Middlebrook is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives near Stroud, Gloucestershire."

    But "Odessa" was nothing more than a myth. Now, in Nazis on the Run, historian Gerald Steinacher provides the true story of how the Nazis escaped their fate.Steinacher not only reveals how Nazi war criminals escaped from justice at the end of the Second World War, fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports, but he also highlights the key roles played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the major powers. The book takes a hard look at the International Committee of the Red Cross, proving that identification papers issued by the Red Cross made it possible for thousands of Nazis, war criminals, and collaborators - including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengale - to slip through the hands of justice and to find refuge in North and South America, Spain, and the Near East. Steinacher underscores the importance of the South Tyrol as a "ratline" from Germany to Italy and also reveals that many figures in the Catholic Church - sometimes knowingly, other times unwittingly - were involved in large-scale Nazi smuggling, often driven by the fear of an imminent communist takeover of Italy. Finally, the book documents how the Counter Intelligence Corps (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited former SS men to advise U.S. intelligence agencies and smuggled them out of Soviet-occupied areas of Austria and Eastern Europe into Italy and on to South America.Based on extensive research in newly opened archives, Nazis on the Run is the first book to provide a complete picture of this little-known story of justice denied.