Asia Military

One American soldier called it "a green hell on Earth". Monsoon-soaked wilderness, debilitating heat, impassable mountains, torrential rivers, and disease-infested swamps - New Guinea was a battleground far more deadly than the most fanatical of enemy troops. Japanese forces numbering some 600,000 men began landing in January 1942, determined to seize the island as a cornerstone of the empire's strategy to knock Australia out of the war.

This deeply researched book describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At its height it involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers, while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators and, often, victims. It turned what had been a Japanese adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.

In recent years, Pakistan has changed from being a state of regional strategic significance to one of major global importance. Its geographical position and delicate religious mix, coupled with a complex political structure and its status as a nuclear power, have ensured that its actions - and inactions - have attracted close scrutiny since 9/11 and the declaration of the "War on Terror". Yet there remains widespread disagreement among political and military analysts as to the real position of this enigmatic nation.

The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo.

Nothing Ever Dies, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes. All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the best-selling novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both the Americans and the Vietnamese.

Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite many words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent and previously successful men stumbled so badly. That changes with Road to Disaster. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson.

By the spring of 1970, American troops were ordered to pull out of Vietnam. The Marines of First Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel "Wild Bill" Drumright, were assigned to cover the withdrawal of First Marine Division. The Marines of First RECON Bn operated in teams of six or seven men. Heavily armed, the teams fought a multitude of bitter engagements with a numerically superior and increasingly aggressive enemy. Michael C. Hodgins served in Company C, First RECON Bn (Rein), as a platoon leader. In powerful, graphic prose, he chronicles his experience.

In this concise account of why America used atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, J. Samuel Walker analyzes the reasons behind President Truman's most controversial decision. Delineating what was known and not known by American leaders at the time, Walker evaluates the options available for ending the war with Japan. In this new edition, Walker incorporates a decade of new research - mostly from Japanese archives only recently made available - that provides fresh insight on the strategic considerations that led to dropping the bomb.

Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: "If we lose the war, we'll be tried as war criminals."

War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States." In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War - race - while writing what John Toland has called "a landmark book...a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan."

In 1943 Winston Churchill and the British Empire needed millions of Indian troops, all of India's industrial output, and tons of Indian grain to support the Allied war effort. Such massive contributions were certain to trigger famine in India. Because Churchill believed that the fate of the British Empire hung in the balance, he proceeded, sacrificing millions of Indian lives in order to preserve what he held most dear. The result: the Bengal Famine of 1943-44, in which millions of villagers starved to death.

By midsummer 1945, Japan had long since lost the war in the Pacific. The people were not told the truth, and neither was the emperor. Japanese generals, admirals, and statesmen knew, but only a handful of leaders were willing to accept defeat. Most were bent on fighting the Allies until the last Japanese soldier died and the last city burned to the ground.

The Japanese army's brutal occupation of the city of Nanking during the 1937 Sino-Japanese War is known, for good reason, as the rape of Nanking. As they slaughtered an estimated 300,000 people, the invading soldiers raped more than 20,000 women - some estimates run as high as 80,000. Hua-ling Hu presents here the amazing untold story of the American missionary Minnie Vautrin, whose unswerving defiance of the Japanese protected 10,000 Chinese women and children.

In early 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were advancing on all fronts, humiliating Allied forces throughout the Pacific. In a matter of months, Japan had conquered an area larger than Hitler's empire at its apex. Hawaiians and Australians feared a future under Hirohito. The fate of half of mankind was hanging in the balance.

The new commander of the Company E, 52d Infantry LRRPs, Capt. George Paccerelli, was tough, but the men's new AO was brutal. Former LRRP Kregg Jorgenson provides a gripping account of ordinary men with extraordinary courage and heroism.

On November 20, 1943, the 2nd Marine Division launched the first amphibious assault of the Pacific War, directly into the teeth of powerful Japanese defenses on Tarawa. A single company of Sherman tanks, of which only two survived, played a pivotal role in turning the tide from looming disaster to legendary victory. In this unique study, Oscar Gilbert and Romain Cansiere use official documents, memoirs, and interviews with veterans to follow Charlie Company from its formation, and trace the movement, action - and loss - of individual tanks in this horrific four-day struggle.

Hired by the Tibetan government, Royal Air Force veteran Robert W. Ford put together a radio communications network for a nation that had up to this time relied on messages carried by foot over the highest mountains on the globe. More important, his radio connected the secluded nation to the outside world. When, in October, 1950, the Communist Chinese army began its march to subjugate Tibet, Ford risked his life by staying behind to send out reports over his radio to let the world know.

It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers. Then—just when they were least expecting—they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack. For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught.

Published in time for the 75th anniversary, a gripping and definitive account of the event that changed 20th-century America - Pearl Harbor - based on years of research and new information uncovered by a New York Times best-selling author.

Originally written in the fifth century, The Art of War is a masterpiece of military strategy and Chinese philosophy that has influenced countless leaders, both on the battlefield and in the boardroom. The exhortations and advice from The Art of War have echoed throughout the centuries as pieces of timeless wisdom, no matter the foe you may be facing.