Book picks similar to
December 1941: Twelve Days that Began a World War by Evan Mawdsley
history
world-war-ii
military-history
next
In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
Doug Stanton - 2001
Interweaving the stories of survivors, Doug Stanton has brought this astonishing human drama to life in a narrative that is at once immediate and timeless. The definitive account of a little-known chapter in World War II history, In Harm's Way is destined to become a classic tale of war, survival, and extraordinary courage.On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine. An estimated 300 men were killed upon impact; close to 900 sailors were cast into the Pacific Ocean, where they remained undetected by the navy for nearly four days and nights. Battered by a savage sea, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, and dementia. The captain's subsequent court-martial left many questions unanswered: How did the navy fail to realize the Indianapolis was missing? And perhaps most amazing of all, how did these 317 men manage to survive?
The Third Reich: A New History
Michael Burleigh - 2000
The Third Reich restores a broad perspective and intellectual unity to issues that have become academic subspecialties and offers a brilliant new interpretation of Hitler's evil rule.Filled with human and moral considerations that are missing from theoretical accounts, Michael Burleigh's book gives full weight to the experience of ordinary people who were swept up in, or repelled by, Hitler's movement and emphasizes international themes-for Nazi Germany appealed to many European nations, and its wartime conduct included efforts to dominate the Continental economy and involved gigantic population transfers and exterminations, recruitment of foreign labor, and multinational armies.
The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men
Eric Lichtblau - 2014
They had little trouble getting in. With scant scrutiny, many gained entry on their own as self-styled war "refugees," their pasts easily disguised and their war crimes soon forgotten. But some had help and protection from the U.S. government. The CIA, the FBI, and the military all put Hitler's minions to work as spies, intelligence assets, and leading scientists and engineers, whitewashing their histories. For the first time, once-secret government records and interviews tell the full story not only of the Nazi scientists brought to America, but of the German spies and con men who followed them and lived for decades as ordinary citizens. Only years after their arrival did private sleuths and government prosecutors begin trying to identify the hidden Nazis. But even then, American intelligence agencies secretly worked to protect a number of their prized spies from exposure. Today, a few Nazis still remain on our soil. Investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau, relying on a trove of newly discovered documents and scores of interviews with participants in this little-known chapter of postwar history, tells the shocking and shameful story of how America became a safe haven for Hitler's men.
Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII
Chester Nez - 2011
Although more than 400 Navajos served in the military during World War II as top-secret code talkers, even those fighting shoulder to shoulder with them were not told of their covert function. And, after the war, the Navajos were forbidden to speak of their service until 1968, when the code was finally declassified. Of the original twenty- nine Navajo code talkers, only two are still alive. Chester Nez is one of them.In this memoir, the eighty-nine-year-old Nez chronicles both his war years and his life growing up on the Checkerboard Area of the Navajo Reservation-the hard life that gave him the strength, both physical and mental, to become a Marine. His story puts a living face on the legendary men who developed what is still the only unbroken code in modern warfare.
Fight to the Finish: Canadians in the Second World War, 1944-1945
Tim Cook - 2015
Cook combines an extraordinary grasp of military strategy with a deep empathy for the soldiers on the ground, at sea and in the air. Whether it's a minute-by-minute account of a gruelling artillery battle, vicious infighting among generals, the scene inside a medical unit, or the small details of a soldier's daily life, Cook creates a compelling narrative. He recounts in mesmerizing detail how the Canadian forces figured in the Allied bombing of Germany, the D-Day landing at Juno beach, the taking of Caen, and the drive south. Featuring dozens of black-and-white photographs and moving excerpts from letters and diaries of servicemen, Fight to the Finish is a memorable account of Canadians who fought abroad and of the home front that was changed forever.
Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945
Barrett Tillman - 2010
From the audacious Doolittle raid in 1942 to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, award-winning historian Barrett Tillman recounts the saga from the perspectives of American and British aircrews who flew unprecedented missions overthousands of miles of ocean, as well as of the generalsand admirals who commanded them.Whether describing the experiences of bomber crews based in China or the Marianas, fighter pilotson Iwo Jima, or carrier aviators at sea, Tillman provides vivid details of the lives of the fliers and their support personnel. "Whirlwind" takes readers into the cockpits and gun turrets of the mighty B-29 Superfortress, the largest bomber built up to that time. Tillman dramatically re-creates the sweep of wartime emotions that crews endured on fifteen-hour missions, grappling with the extreme tedium of cramped spaces and with adrenaline spikes in flak-studded skies, knowing that a bailout would put them at the mercy of a merciless enemy or an unforgiving sea.A major character is the controversial and brilliant General Curtis LeMay, who rewrote strategic bombing tactics. His command's fire-bombing missions incinerated fully half of Tokyo and many other cities, crippling Japan's industry while still failing to force surrender."Whirlwind" examines the immense logistics and construction efforts necessary to support Superfortresses in Asia and the Mariana Islands, as well as the tireless efforts of engineers to build huge air bases from scratch.It also describes the unheralded missions that American bomber crews flew from the Aleutian Islands to Japan's northernmost Kuril Islands.Never has the Japanese side of the story been so thoroughly examined. If Washington, D.C., represented a "second front" in Army-Navy rivalry, the situation in Tokyo approached a full-contact sport. Tillman's description of Japan's willfully inadequate approach to civil defense is eye-opening. Similarly, he examines the mind-set in Tokyo's war cabinet, which ignored the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, requiring the emperor's personal intervention to avert a ghastly Allied invasion.Tillman shows how, despite the Allies' ultimate success, mistakes and shortsighted policies made victory more costly in lives and effort. He faults the lack of a unified command for allowing the Army Air Forces and the Navy to pursue parochial goals at the expense of the larger mission, and he questions the premature commitment of the enormously sophisticated B-29 to the most primitive theater in India and China."Whirlwind" is one of the last histories of World War II written with the contribution of men who fought in it.With unexcelled macro- and microperspectives, "Whirlwind" is destined to become a standard reference on the war, on multiservice operations, and on the human capacity for individual heroism and national folly.
A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II
Lynne Olson - 2003
Drawing on the Kosciuszko Squadron’s unofficial diary–filled with the fliers’ personal experiences in combat–and on letters, interviews, memoirs, histories, and photographs, the authors bring the men and battles of the squadron vividly to life. We follow the principal characters from their training before the war, through their hair-raising escape from Poland to France and then, after the fall of France, to Britain. We see how, first treated with disdain by the RAF, the Polish pilots played a crucial role during the Battle of Britain, where their daredevil skill in engaging German Messerschmitts in close and deadly combat while protecting the planes in their own groups soon made them legendary. And we learn what happened to them after the war, when their country was abandoned and handed over to the Soviet Union.
A Question of Honor also gives us a revelatory history of Poland during World War II and of the many thousands in the Polish armed forces who fought with the Allies. It tells of the country’s unending struggle against both Hitler and Stalin, its long battle for independence, and the tragic collapse of that dream in the “peace” that followed. Powerful, moving, deeply involving, A Question of Honor is an important addition to the literature of World War II.
The Manhattan Project: The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Al Cimino - 2015
The atomic bombs that came out of it brought an end to the war in the Pacific, but at a heavy loss of life in Japan and the opening of a Pandora's box that has tested international relations.This book traces the history of the Manhattan Project, from the first glimmerings of the possibility of such a catastrophic weapon to the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It profiles the architects of the bomb and how they tried to reconcile their personal feelings with their ambition as scientists. It looks at the role of the politicians and it includes first-hand accounts of those who experienced the effects of the bombings.
The Things Our Fathers Saw: The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA-Voices of the Pacific Theater
Matthew A. Rozell - 2015
You’ve lost part of your face to a Japanese sniper on Okinawa, and after many surgeries, the doctor has finally told you that at 19, you will never see again. The pain and shock is one thing. But now you have to tell her, from 5000 miles away.
— ‘So I had a hard two months, I guess. I kept mostly to myself. I wouldn't talk to people. I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do when I got home. How was I going to tell my mother this? You know what I mean?’ ~Jimmy Butterfield, WWII Marine veteran
~From the author of 'The Things Our Fathers Saw' World War II eyewitness history series~ How soon we forget. Or perhaps, we were never told. That is understandable, given what they saw.
— ‘I was talking to a shipmate of mine waiting for the motor launch, and all at once I saw a plane go over our ship. I did not know what it was, but the fellow with me said, 'That's a Jap plane, Jesus!' It went down and dropped a torpedo. Then I saw the Utah turn over.’ ~Barney Ross, U.S. Navy seaman, Pearl Harbor
At the height of World War II, LOOK Magazine profiled a small American community for a series of articles portraying it as the wholesome, patriotic model of life on the home front. Decades later, author Matthew Rozell tracks down over thirty survivors who fought the war in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay.
— ‘Rage is instantaneous. He's looking at me from a crawling position. I didn't shoot him; I went and kicked him in the head. Rage does funny things. After I kicked him, I shot and killed him.’ ~Thomas Jones, Marine veteran, Battle of Guadalcanal
These are the stories that the magazine could not tell to the American public.
— ‘I remember it rained like hell that night, and the water was running down the slope into our foxholes. I had to use my helmet to keep bailing out, you know. Lt. Gower called us together. He said, 'I think we're getting hit with a banzai. We're going to have to pull back. 'Holy God, there was howling and screaming! They had naked women, with spears, stark naked!’ ~Nick Grinaldo, U.S. Army veteran, Saipan
By the end of 2018, fewer than 400,000 WW II veterans will still be with us, out of the over 16 million who put on a uniform. But why is it that today, nobody seems to know these stories? Maybe our veterans did not volunteer; maybe we were too busy with our own lives to ask. But they opened up to the younger generation, when a history teacher told their grandchildren to ask.
— ‘I hope you'll never have to tell a story like this, when you get to be 87. I hope you'll never have to do it.' ~Ralph Leinoff, Marine veteran Iwo Jima, to his teenage interviewer
This book brings you the previously untold firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed.
— ‘After 3½ years of starvation and brutal treatment, that beautiful symbol of freedom once more flies over our head! Our POW camp tailor worked all night and finished our first American flag! The blue came from a GI barracks bag, red from a Jap comforter and the whit
Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
Robert B. Stinnett - 1999
By showing that ample warning of the attack was on FDR's desk and, furthermore, that a plan to push Japan into war was initiated at the highest levels of the U.S. government, he ends up profoundly altering our understanding of one of the most significant events in American history.
The Friendless Sky: The Great Saga of War in the Air, 1914-1918
Alexander McKee - 1962
It was to be their first major war since Waterloo. Having already won international wars with Denmark and France, Britain was ready. Or so they thought … For the first time in history, the British Expeditionary Force set out to cross the Channel under the air cover. With aviation still in its infancy when the war began, with it only being five years since the first flimsy French aeroplane cross the Channel at 45 mph, the air cover provided was rather primitive. Up above the mud-soaked soldiers who fought over the devastated, trench-scarred landscape that was northern France, a new kind of war was being born. Flimsy biplanes and triplanes wheeled and spun, engines roaring, wires screaming and guns chattering. In the skies above the poppy-fields, men became aces and were cut down in their prime: Albert Ball, Jean Navarre. Max Immelmann and Manfred von Richtofen, the ‘Red Baron’. They were the legendary heroes of a whole new age. Alexander McKee was selling aviation articles to flying magazines by the age of eighteen. During the Second World War he wrote for a succession of army newspapers and later became a writer/producer for the British Forces Network. Since 1956 he has been researching and writing books on all branches of naval, military and aviation history. He instigated the excavation of the Tudor ship Mary Rose in the seabed off Portsmouth, which he describes in King Henry VIII’s Mary Rose. In all he has written nineteen books, two of his most recent successes being the books Into the Blue and Dresden 1945. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor
Jeff Shaara - 2020
The master of military fiction details the lead-up to the attack, the events of that terrible Sunday in December, and the aftermath with his signature sense of urgency and intensity. Based on voluminous research and unprecedented access to the archives at the Pearl Harbor memorial and museum in Honolulu, among many other sources, this is destined to be one of Shaara's definitive works and most enduring bestsellers.
The Nuremberg Trial
Ann Tusa - 1984
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.
War on the Eastern Front: The German Soldier in Russia 1941-1945
James Sidney Lucas - 1980
Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle.A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They were faced by the unremitting hostility of the climate, the people and even, at times, their own leadership. They saw epic battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, and yet it was a daily war of attrition which ultimately proved fatal for Hitler s ambition and the German military machine. In this classic account leading military historian James Lucas examines different aspects of the fighting, from war in the trenches to a bicycle-mounted antitank unit fighting against the oncoming Russian hordes. Told through the experiences of the German soldiers who endured these nightmarish years of warfare, War on the Eastern Front is a unique record of this cataclysmic campaign."