Military Diaries

From its beginnings, America has acted out much of its history on the battlefront. Yet for the average American, little is known of the Spanish-American War. The reasons for our entry never seemed compelling - at times, yellow fever seemed more the enemy than did Spanish troops - and the United States was ill prepared for the venture. Nevertheless, this conflict served to unify a country that only 30 years before had been hopelessly divided by civil strife.

Victory and defeat, love and loss are the prevalent realities of Letters from the Greatest Generation, a remarkable and frank collection of World War II letters penned by American men and women serving overseas. Here, the hopes and dreams of the greatest generation fill each minute, and their voices ring loud and clear. "It's all part of the game. But it's bloody and rough," wrote one soldier to his wife. "Wearing two stripes now and proud as an old cat with five kittens," marked another.

The Ice Diaries tells the incredible true story of Captain William R. Anderson and his crew's harrowing top-secret mission aboard the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Bristling with newly classified, never-before-published information, The Ice Diaries takes listeners on a dangerous journey beneath the vast, unexplored Arctic ice cap during the height of the Cold War.

The Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943 were bloody and pivotal, securing the Mediterranean, capitalizing on the overthrow of Mussolini, and pinning down German troops that could have been used on the Russian Front or in France after D-Day. The men who made the Allied victories in Sicily and Italy possible - soldiers and officers, bombardiers and drivers, doctors and generals - are honored and remembered in these minutes by famed war correspondent Richard Tregaskis.

While serving as an assistant to Vice President George H. W. Bush, Chase Untermeyer concluded that the only way to learn how the US government really works was to leave the silken cocoon of the White House and seek a position in one of the departments or agencies. Inside Reagan’s Navy offers an engaging, up-close narrative of Untermeyer’s experiences in the Pentagon, interwoven with descriptions of events and people, humorous anecdotes, and telling quotations.

Carl Lavin was a high school senior when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The Canton, Ohio, native enlisted when he turned 18, a decision that would take him with the US Army from training across the United States and Britain to combat with the 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge. Home Front to Battlefront is the tale of a foot soldier who finds himself thrust into a world where he and his unit grapple with the horrors of combat, the idiocies of bureaucracy, and the oddities of life back home - all in the same day.

Niels Bøgh Andersens "Krigsdagbog" er et enestående historisk dokument over Anden Verdenskrig set fra den tyske side af fronten. Daglige begravelser, forår i Paris, vinter i 45 graders frost i Hviderusland, hjemve af den værste skuffe og alligevel små lysglimt i mørket. Niels Bøgh Andersen var en del af det danske mindretal i Sydslesvig og blev indkaldt til at kæmpe for et land, som han ikke selv så som sit fædreland. Niels Bøgh-Andersen (1908-1991) var en dansk lærer og forfatter, der i en årrække var forstander for Jaruplund Højskole.

Published for the first time in the United States, Combat Diary is the war story of Dog Battery, also known US Army Gun Battalion D. Originally only published in Germany in 1945, it tells the tale of 150 US soldiers as they arrive in England in July of 1944. The battalion arrives on the beaches of Normandy, fights through France—and ultimately into Germany—at the time of the fall of the Nazi regime. It is an intimate account of the actions and endurance of the soldiers over those seven months.

At the end of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 stripped Germany of her overseas colonies and imposed a massive reparations bill for the damage and destruction caused to France and other countries. The people of Germany, hit by hyperinflation in 1923 and by mass unemployment in 1929, desperately looked for a way out of the crisis. In these circumstances, an obscure ex-corporal with a gift for scathing oratory, Adolf Hitler, was able to lead the extremist Nazi Party was to power in 1933.

John L. Ransom was taken prisoner in 1863 when his regiment was split into two smaller forces in East Tennessee. He was placed into Andersonville Prison, formerly known as Camp Sumter. Ransom wrote a journal, published in 1881, on his experiences in the camp. Andersonville was the worst of Confederate prison camps, where hundreds of prisoners died daily. Ransom’s diary is important as it provides information on the notorious Andersonville prison camp that may not have been known otherwise.

Almost 10 times as many men died in the Civil War prison camps of the North and South as were killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. One such camp was Andersonville, where Union soldiers like Brigade Quartermaster John L. Ransom of the Ninth Michigan Cavalry, were subjected to hunger, disease, cruelty, and despair. Captured in November 1863, Ransom kept his spirits and courage up enough to survive and record this compelling true account of his experiences.

The diary and letters I wrote when I experienced the coup d'état that ousted Salvador Allende in Chile on Tuesday morning, 11 September 1973. This coup was carefully planned by the Chilean elite with the help of the CIA, and included propaganda, economic sabotage, torture, total press censorship, assassination, and a radical free market revolution leading to a gross gap between rich and poor.

After her mother's death, Robinson was thrilled to find her beloved grandfather's diaries - only to discover that he had been a Nazi. The diaries show Api, a doctor in Berlin, trying to help the wounded in bunkers without water or light. Living in the ruins, he himself was near collapse. As Robinson retraces Api's steps half a century later, she tries to come up with answers to why he joined the Nazi party and reflect on German guilt while also remembering the happiest years of her childhood with him.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. This diary of the Second World War has been able to cover all facets of the conflict and is a fundamentally empirical work, which narrates events as they occurred, rejecting value judgments, and therein lies its value: It is an insurmountable encyclopedia as an audiobook. This audiobook includes the year 1945 till the end of WW2 and a one-hour special, "Defendants in the Courtroom", which includes the Nuremberg Trials and more.

The Diary of Anne Frank is a seminal piece of twentieth-century literature. It recounts the tragic and moving story of a young Jewish teenager faced with the horrors of Nazism. In it, Anne establishes a bond with her readers that transcends both time and space, making them her friends and confidants. Readers feel a connection with each dream she had, each fear she endured, and each struggle she confronted. Her diary ended, but her story did not.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. The war was a gigantic melting pot of violence, power, and ideology that will leave an indelible scar on human history. This diary of the Second World War has been able to cover all facets of the conflict and is a fundamentally empirical work, which narrates events as they occurred, rejecting value judgments, and therein lies its value. The Second World War Diary represents a milestone in this field. This audiobook includes 12 hours, the 12 months, day by day, from January 1944 to December 1944.

The men and women honored in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation speak in this collection of letters from and about the Depression and World War II.

Digging into one's family history can reveal unusual surprises. In my case, I recently discovered my great grandfather, Jesse C. Davisson's first-hand account of his 25-year military experience during an epic period in American history. Jesse was no angel when he first joined the Army in 1893, as an ordinary young man in Philadelphia. His diary follows his subsequent adventures - from learning to ride a horse with the 7th Cavalry, and befriending Indian Scouts, to surviving ambushes, and water-boarding prisoners - all while serving in the American Indian Wars.

Lieutenant Edward Settle Godfrey was commander of K Company of the 7th Cavalry in the battalion of Captain Frederick Benteen. Godfrey was a central figure in the Reno-Benteen defense over the 25th and 26th of June, 1876. He kept a diary of the Yellowstone Expedition against the Sioux from May 17 to September 24.

Al final de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el Tratado de Versalles de 1919 despojó a Alemania de sus colonias de ultramar y le impuso una enorme factura de reparaciones por los daños y la destrucción causados a Francia y otros países. El pueblo alemán, afectado por la hiperinflación en 1923 y por el desempleo masivo en 1929, buscó desesperadamente una salida a la crisis. En estas circunstancias, un oscuro ex-coronel con un don para la oratoria mordaz, Adolf Hitler, fue capaz de llevar al poder al extremista Partido Nazi en 1933.