Book picks similar to
Eisenhower's Armies: The American-British Alliance during World War II by Niall Barr
history
wwii
american-history
military
Foot Soldier: A Combat Infantryman's War In Europe
Roscoe C. Blunt Jr. - 2000
But the brutal reality of the war as endured by combat infantrymen has remained little documented. In Foot Soldier, Roscoe C. Blunt provides an all-too-rare glimpse into the experience of fighting at the Allied front. Nineteen-year-old "Rockie" arrived on the continent in November 1944, when burnt-out U.S. vehicles still littered the beaches. His 84th Infantry Division fought at the Roer, through the Battle of the Bulge, and at the crossing of the Rhine all the way to the Elbe; he was briefly taken prisoner by an SS Panzer unit. Drawing upon his numerous letters home and the journals he scrawled in foxholes and tents, he has given us one of the most detailed, immediate accounts of the Second World War ever written, a memoir sure to take its place among the classics of war literature.
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45
Barbara W. Tuchman - 1971
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.
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
Adam Hochschild - 2016
Today we're accustomed to remembering the war through Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and Robert Capa’s photographs. But Adam Hochschild has discovered some less familiar yet far more compelling characters who reveal the full tragedy and importance of the war: a fiery nineteen-year-old Kentucky woman who went to wartime Spain on her honeymoon, a Swarthmore College senior who was the first American casualty in the battle for Madrid, a pair of fiercely partisan, rivalrous New York Times reporters who covered the war from opposites sides, and a swashbuckling Texas oilman with Nazi sympathies who sold Franco almost all his oil — at reduced prices, and on credit. It was in many ways the opening battle of World War II, and we still have much to learn from it. Spain in Our Hearts is Adam Hochschild at his very best.
The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb
Sam Kean - 2019
In the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research. Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses - dubbed the Alsos Mission - and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club.
Hiroshima
John Hersey - 1946
This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of humanity" (The New York Times).
Hell's Highway: A Chronicle of the 101st Airborne in the Holland Campaign, September-November 1944
George Koskimaki - 1989
Thousands of Screaming Eagles–101st Airborne Division paratroopers–descend from the sky over Holland, dropping deep behind German lines in a daring daylight mission to seize and secure the road leading north to Arnhem and the Rhine. Their success would allow the Allied army to advance swiftly into Germany. The Screaming Eagles accomplish their initial objectives within hours, but keeping their sections of “Hell’s Highway” open takes another seventy-two days of fierce round-the-clock fighting against crack German troops and tank divisions.Drawing on interviews with more than six hundred paratroopers, George E. Koskimaki chronicles, with vivid firsthand accounts, the dramatic, never-before-told story of the Screaming Eagles’ valiant struggle. Hell’s Highway also tellsof the Dutch citizens and members of the underground who were liberated after five years of Nazi oppression and never forgot America’s airborne heroes. This renowned force risked their lives for the freedom of a small country . . . and the world.