World War Memoir

An instant hit in the UK, this is the true account of a German shepherd who was adopted by the Royal Air Force during World War II, joined in flight missions, and survived everything from crash-landings to parachute bailouts-ultimately saving the life of his owner and dearest friend. In the winter of 1939 in the cold snow of no-man's-land, two loners met and began an extraordinary journey that would turn them into lifelong friends.

An intimate friend of Adolf Hitler’s who turned against him during the Nazi rise to power delves into the character of one of history’s most evil dictators. Of American and German parentage, Ernst Hanfstaengl graduated from Harvard and ran the family business in New York for a dozen years before returning to Germany in 1921. By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists...

As a Russian recruit in World War II, Ivan Makarov witnessed General Chuikov pull out his pistol and shoot their regimental commander as a traitor. That was on his first day at the front. Thrown into an open field to face German tanks and artillery fire, with only rifles and machine guns to defend themselves with, almost 2,000 men of his regiment were wiped out in only six days at the Eastern Front. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty.

A daredevil pilot in the famed 352nd Fighter Squadron, the author of this remarkable memoir bailed out of his burning Mustang two days after D-Day and was launched on a thrilling adventure on the ground in Occupied France.

Ten thousand Allied troops landed in the Netherlands in September 1944. This was the largest airborne invasion ever undertaken and it ended in utter disaster. Eight thousand men were killed, wounded, or captured during the Battle of Arnhem. Yet, what of those who escaped? And how did they manage it when surrounded by German troops? Leo Heaps' remarkable book, The Grey Goose of Arnhem, charts the activities of 250 men who, with the aid of Dutch Resistance, made it back across the Rhine to Allied lines.

A widening gulf between performance and accountability has caused history to be kinder to the American generals of World War II than to those of later wars. In The Generals we meet leaders from World War II to the present who rose to the occasion - and those who failed.

Inside Marine One is Colonel L'Heureux's inspiring story of a young man who dreamed of flying, trained, studied, and worked hard to become the pilot who ended up serving four US Presidents - George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. It's also a personal guided tour inside the world's most famous helicopter by a man who knows that flying machine better than any other. Inside Marine One is a great American success story of a young boy who dreamed big, worked hard, and finally flew the President of the United States as his number one passenger.

As a young band of brothers flies over German-occupied France, they come under heavy fire. Their B-17 is shot down and the airmen - stumbling through fields and villages - scatter across Europe. Some struggled to flee for safety. Others were captured immediately and imprisoned. Now, for the first time, their incredible story of grit, survival, and reunion is told. Join George as he retraces his steps to freedom and discover the amazing stories of sacrifice and survival and how 10 young American boys plus their French helpers became heroes.

In 2022, Andrew Tate went from a little-known kickboxer and failed reality TV star to a lifestyle icon for legions of men and boys, and a figure that would define a new era of misogyny. Tate started the year as a fringe internet celebrity, but by August he was the most googled man in the world. In that same month, Matt Shea and Jamie Tahsin gained access to his Bucharest compound and infamous War Room, making a documentary that would result in the first women coming forward to accuse him publicly of sexual and physical violence.

A giant in American journalism in the vanguard of "The Greatest Generation" reveals his World War II experiences in this National Geographic book. More than 100 of Cronkite's letters from 1943-45 (plus a few earlier letters) survive. They reveal surprising and little-known facts about this storied public figure in the vanguard of "The Greatest Generation". They chronicle both a great love story and a great war story.

Listen to this captivating memoir by Wilhelm Johnen who flew his first operational mission in July 1941, having completed his blind-flying training. In his first couple of years he brought down two enemy planes. The tally went up rapidly once the air war was escalated in spring 1943, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris of the RAF Bomber Command began the campaign dubbed the Battle of the Ruhr.

Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24-25, 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in Eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire - but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo.

Wayne K. Blickenstaff, known as "Blick," was a stalwart of the 350th Fighter Squadron of the 353rd Fighter Group based at Goxhill, Metfield, and Raydon, England, as part of the Eighth Air Force prosecuting the strategic air campaign against Germany. As an original cadre member, he rose steadily through the ranks to a Lieutenant Colonel and Group Operations Officer. His double "ace" status included a Me262 jet fighter and the destruction of five aircraft in one mission—giving him rare "ace in a day" status.

During the course of his time in enemy territory he broke out from a column of prisoners while having a Nazi machine gun aimed at him, fought against his captors with stolen weapons, hid in stinking manure, and even posed as a member of the Irish Republican Army in order to throw his captors off the scent of his true identity.

Porfirio Díaz. Su vida y su tiempo narra la historia de uno de los personajes más fascinantes en la historia de México. Héroe para unos, villano para otros, su vida de soldado ilustra en plenitud una novela de aventuras del siglo XIX. Es el tema que aborda La guerra. Díaz nació en un mundo donde la gente despertaba a las cuatro de la madrugada para rezar el Rosario; formó parte de la generación que derribó a sablazos aquel mundo durante la Reforma y destacó como nadie en la lucha contra la Intervención y el Imperio.

Charles de Gaulle stands among the greatest statesmen in history. Even after the official French government collapsed under the weight of Nazi Germany, de Gaulle refused to accept defeat. He and his followers were pushed into exile, but still they fought on, never losing sight of an eventual victory over their oppressors. This book delves into Charles de Gaulle’s extraordinary journey—from leading the Free French forces during World War II to playing a key role in the rebuilding of postwar France.

Mollie left school at age fourteen and became a scullery maid for a wealthy gentleman with a mansion house in London's Knightsbridge and a Tudor manor in Norfolk. Even though her days were long and grueling and included such endless tasks as polishing doorknobs, scrubbing steps, and helping with all of the food prep in the kitchen, Mollie enjoyed her freedom and had a rich life.

A complex and contradictory figure, Mussolini won the fascination of many statesmen and writers, and their wives. From his early years raised in the traditions of revolutionary Italian Socialism, to his violent execution by Communist partisans at the end of World War II, we watch Mussolini's power ambitions erode his political ideals, as he evolves from brilliant orator and journalist to empire-building dictator enforcing his authority by death squads.

By the time of her execution at thirty-six, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible for a woman in the Third Reich. As Head Overseer of the women's camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she was personally responsible for the murders of thousands. In this riveting biography, Susan J. Eischeid explores how Maria Mandl, regarded locally as "a nice girl from a good family," came to embody the very worst of humanity.

In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. At the time John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator.