Military World War Ii

In this riveting, informative, and entertaining book, Stelzer draws on previously untapped material, diaries of guests, and a wide variety of other sources to tell of some of the key dinners at which Churchill presided before, during, and after World War II.

Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war’s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people - from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict’s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s suicide in the bunker.

In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.

Basil St. Florian is an accomplished agent in the British Army, tasked with dozens of dangerous missions for crown and country across the globe. But his current mission, going undercover in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, might be his toughest assignment yet. He will be searching for an ecclesiastic manuscript that doesn't officially exist, one that genius professor Alan Turing believes may hold the key to a code that could prevent the death of millions and possibly even end the war.

On the afternoon of January 16, 1942, three men boarded a TBD Devastator aircraft - a low-wing, single-engine torpedo-bomber - for an antisubmarine patrol flight. Although it was to be a relatively short flight, they became lost...

He had to sit in a segregated rail car on the journey to army basic training in Mississippi in 1943. But two years later, the 20-year-old African American from New York was at the controls of a P-51, prowling for Luftwaffe aircraft at 5,000 feet over the Austrian countryside. This is the remarkable true story of Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr., one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. Award-winning aviation writer Philip Handleman re-creates the harrowing action and heart-pounding drama of Stewart's combat missions....

For seven decades, our understanding of World War II has been shaped by a standard narrative built on conventional wisdom, propaganda, the dramatic but narrow experiences of soldiers on the ground, and an early generation of historians. For his new history, James Holland has spent over 12 years unearthing new research, recording original testimony, and visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible.

The first in a series of books, I Somehow Survived is an extraordinary collection of true stories giving testimony to those who survived World War II. Based on interviews with numerous veterans from across the spectrum of wartime experience, the book documents and reflects upon one of the most gruesome times in history. From anti-partisan warfare in the French mountains and atrocities in East Prussia to the experience of a Norwegian concentration camp, the accounts include rarely heard stories from a range of people caught up in the war.

The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Third Reich in January 1945. Frenzied by their terrible experiences with Wehrmacht and SS brutality, they wreaked havoc - tanks crushing refugee columns, mass rape, pillage, and unimaginable destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred; more than seven million fled westward from the fury of the Red Army. It was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known.

In a lifetime shaped by politics, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proved himself a master manipulator of Congress, the press, and the public. But when war in Europe and Asia threatened America's shores, FDR found himself in a world turned upside down, where his friends became his foes, his enemies his allies. To help wage democracy's first "total war", he turned to one of history's most remarkable triumvirates.

The United States Navy won such overwhelming victories in 1944 that had the Navy faced a different enemy the war would have been over at the conclusion of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. However, in the moment of victory on October 25, 1944, the US Navy found itself confronting an enemy that had been inconceivable until it appeared. The kamikaze, meaning 'divine wind' in Japanese, was something Americans were totally unprepared for; a violation of every belief held in the West.

On the day that Roswell K. Doughty graduated from Boston University, he also received a commission as a second lieutenant in the army of the United States of America. It was not until 1942 that he was called to active duty—to face some of the toughest fighting of the Second World War. He subsequently saw action in North Africa, then at the disastrous Salerno landings in Italy - where the Allied divisions involved suffered 4,000 casualties—about which the author reveals that suspected intelligence breaches led to the Allies' plans becoming known to the Germans.

During the summer of 1940, Hitler's Germany appeared unstoppable. The Nazis were masters of mainland Europe, in alliance with Stalin's Russia, and only the English Channel prevented an immediate invasion. Britain stood alone. Operation Sealion examines just how realistic the German threat of invasion was. The author studies the plans, the available capability and resources, and the Germans' record in Norway and, later, Crete. The author weighs these against the state of Britain's defenses and the relative strengths of the land, air, and naval forces.

In just four weeks in the summer of 1941 the German Wehrmacht wrought unprecedented destruction on four Soviet armies, conquering central Ukraine and killing or capturing three quarters of a million men. This was the Battle of Kiev - one of the largest and most decisive battles of World War II and, for Hitler and Stalin, a battle of crucial importance. For the first time, David Stahel charts the battle's dramatic course and aftermath.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This was a remarkable turnaround for a navy that only began to modernize in 1868. The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed, and how effective they were in battle.

Between 1942 and 1945, a group of ordinary citizens formed a network to smuggle Dutch Jews and others targeted by the Nazis south into France, via Paris, and then to Switzerland. This network became known as the Dutch-Paris Escape Line, eventually growing to include 300 people and expanding its reach into Spain. Led by Jean Weidner, a Dutchman living in France, many lacked any experience in clandestine operations or military tactics, and yet they became one of the most effective resistance groups of the Second World War.

In this companion to the HBO miniseries - executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman - Hugh Ambrose reveals the intertwined odysseys of four US Marines and a US Navy carrier pilot during World War II. Between America's retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur's airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance fought the key battles of the war against Japan.

Jens Müller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III in March 1944 - the break that later became the basis for the famous film The Great Escape. In this vivid, informative memoir, Müller details what life in the camp was like, how the escapes were planned and executed, and the story of his personal breakout and success reaching the RAF Leuchars base in Scotland.

The product of a lifetime's reflection, The Last Escaper is Peter Tunstall's unforgettable memoir of his days in the British Royal Air Force and as one of the most celebrated British POWs of World War II.

Since the secret of Bletchley Park was revealed in the 1970s, the work of its codebreakers has become one of the most famous stories of the Second World War. But cracking the Nazis' codes was only the start of the process. Thousands of secret intelligence workers were then involved in making crucial information available to the Allied leaders and commanders who desperately needed it.