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Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska’s Ladd Field on a test flight. Only one ever returned:…
Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with little more than a parachute on his back when he bailed from his B-24 Liberator before it crashed into the Arctic. Alone in subzero temperatures, Crane managed to stay alive in the dead of the Yukon winter for nearly twelve weeks and, amazingly, walked out of the ordeal intact. 81 Days Below Zero recounts, for the first time, the full story of Crane’s remarkable saga. In a drama of staggering resolve with moments of phenomenal luck, Crane learned to survive in the Yukon’s unforgiving landscape. His is a tale of the human capacity to endure extreme conditions and intense lonelinessand emerge stronger than before.Behind Nazi Lines
By Denise George, Andrew Hodges. 2015
In 1944 hundreds of Allied soldiers were trapped in POW camps in occupied France The odds of their…
survival were long The odds of escaping even longer But one-man had the courage to fight the odds An elite British S A S operative on an assassination mission gone wrong A Jewish New Yorker injured in a Nazi ambush An eighteen-year-old Gary Cooper lookalike from Mobile Alabama These men and hundreds of other soldiers found themselves in the prisoner-of-war camps off the Atlantic coast of occupied France fighting brutal conditions and unsympathetic captors But miraculously local villagers were able to smuggle out a message from the camp one that reached the Allies and sparked a remarkable quest by an unlikely--and truly inspiring--hero Andy Hodges had been excluded from military service due to a lingering shoulder injury from his college-football days Devastated but determined Andy refused to sit at home while his fellow Americans risked their lives so he joined the Red Cross volunteering for the toughest assignments on the most dangerous battlefields In the fall of 1944 Andy was tapped for what sounded like a suicide mission a desperate attempt to aid the Allied POWs in occupied France--alone and unarmed matching his wits against the Nazi war machine Despite the likelihood of failure Andy did far more than deliver much-needed supplies By the end of the year he had negotiated the release of an unprecedented 149 prisoners--leaving no one behind This is the true story of one man s selflessness ingenuity and victory in the face of impossible adversityThe Pacific
By Hugh Ambrose. 2010
Penguin delivers you to the front lines of The Pacific Theater with the real-life stories behind the HBO miniseries. 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. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home. In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of the five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To deepen the story revealed in the miniseries and go beyond it, the book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as The Pacific and the brave men who fought. Some considered war a profession, others enlisted as citizen soldiers. Each man served in a different part of the war, but their respective duties required every ounce of their courage and their strength to defeat an enemy who preferred suicide to surrender. The medals for valor which were pinned on three of them came at a shocking price-a price paid in full by all. View the HBO trailer Watch a Video View a video with Hugh Ambrose Watch a Video .Battleground Atlantic
By Richard N. Billings. 2006
On June 24, 1944, U. S. Navy warplanes patrolling the Atlantic attacked and sank a Japanese submarine, the I-52. It…
was an event of enormous strategic importance. The I-52's mission was to return to Japan with the ingredients of a radiological bomb. Purchased from the Germans, this doomsday weapon-classified secret by the U. S. government for years after the war-could have contaminated vast areas of America for decades, killing millions slowly and painfully. Japan had intended to use it in an attack on the California coast until the mission was detected in an Allied intelligence coup equal to the breaking of the Enigma code. The I-52's resting place was discovered in 1995 by ship salvager Paul R. Tidwell. Author Richard N. Billings has worked with Tidwell-whose attempts to salvage the I-52's precious gold cargo continue-in bringing her secret mission to light. Finally, this is the story of how the I-52 mission may have influenced President Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.The Mascot
By Mark Kurzem. 2007
Part thriller, part psychological drama, part moral puzzle, The Mascot tells the remarkable true story of Mark Kurzem's father, Alex.…
At five years old, in 1941, Alex escaped a German execution squad in Latvia, ran into some nearby woods and, the next morning, watched his Jewish mother and siblings being shot. He survived alone amongst the trees for nearly nine months before falling into the hands of an SS unit, the soldiers of which treated him kindly and adopted him as their mascot. With his custom-made SS uniform, peaked cap and full belly, Alex went with them everywhere as they shot and raped Jews wherever they could find them. He was even used in Nazi propaganda films. . . Ultimately, after the War, he made a new life in Australia, and kept silent about his childhood secrets, not even telling his wife and sons. Was he a collaborator, or just a little boy? Nearly 60 years later he flew across the world to visit his academic son Mark at Oxford University and, from then on, tiny details, long buried in his memory, began to surface. Mark was astonished, and began to help him rediscover and unravel his past. This included a return to his original village in Latvia to search for his mother's grave, and being tailed by Mossad agents and members of the Simon Weisenthal Centre. Eventually Mark made a film called The Mascot which won Best Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival and has also written this gripping account of what he and his father have been through in order to tell the truth at last.Yalta: The Price of Peace
By S. M. Plokhy. 2011
A major new history of the eight days in February 1945 when FDR, Churchill, and Stalin decided the fate of…
the world Imagine you could eavesdrop on a dinner party with three of the most fascinating historical figures of all time. In this landmark book, a gifted Harvard historian puts you in the room with Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt as they meet at a climactic turning point in the war to hash out the terms of the peace. The ink wasn't dry when the recriminations began. The conservatives who hated Roosevelt's New Deal accused him of selling out. Was he too sick? Did he give too much in exchange for Stalin's promise to join the war against Japan? Could he have done better in Eastern Europe? Both Left and Right would blame Yalta for beginning the Cold War. Plokhy's conclusions, based on unprecedented archival research, are surprising. He goes against conventional wisdom-cemented during the Cold War- and argues that an ailing Roosevelt did better than we think. Much has been made of FDR's handling of the Depression; here we see him as wartime chief. Yalta is authoritative, original, vividly- written narrative history, and is sure to appeal to fans of Margaret MacMillan's bestseller Paris 1919.A Soldier's Dream
By William Doyle. 2011
For six months in 2006, a charismatic young U. S. Army captain and Arab linguist named Travis Patriquin unleashed a…
diplomatic and cultural charm offensive upon the Sunni Arab sheiks of Anbar province, the heart of darkness of the Iraqi insurgency. He galvanized American support for the “Sunni Awakening,” the tribal revolt against Al Qaeda that spread through the province and eventually across Iraq, a turning point that led to dramatically lower levels of violence in the country. The Awakening may not have succeeded without Patriquin, who was so beloved by Iraqis that they adopted him into their tribes and loved him as a brother. This is the true story of a man who loved Iraq, and a soldier who helped engineer the turning point of the Iraq War. It is the story of America’s T. E. Lawrence—Travis Patriquin. .Partners in Command
By Mark Perry. 2007
A unique look at the complex relationship between two of America?s foremost World War II leaders The first book ever…
to explore the relationship between George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, Partners in Command eloquently tackles a subject that has eluded historians for years. As Mark Perry charts the crucial impact of this duo on victory in World War II and later as they lay the foundation for triumph in the Cold War, he shows us an unlikely, complex collaboration at the heart of decades of successful American foreign policy?and shatters many of the myths that have evolved about these two great men and the issues that tested their alliance. As exciting to read as it is vitally informative, this work is a signal accomplishment. .To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian
By Stephen E Ambrose. 2002
In To America, Stephen E. Ambrose, one of the country's most influential historians, reflects on his long career as an…
American historian and explains what an historian's job is all about. He celebrates America's spirit, which has carried us so far. He confronts its failures and struggles. As always in his much acclaimed work, Ambrose brings alive the men and women, famous and not, who have peopled our history and made the United States a model for the world. Taking a few swings at today's political correctness, as well as his own early biases, Ambrose grapples with the country's historic sins of racism, its neglect and ill treatment of Native Americans, and its tragic errors (such as the war in Vietnam, which he ardently opposed on campus, where he was a professor). He reflects on some of the country's early founders who were progressive thinkers while living a contradiction as slaveholders, great men such as Washington and Jefferson. He contemplates the genius of Andrew Jackson's defeat of a vastly superior British force with a ragtag army in the War of 1812. He describes the grueling journey that Lewis and Clark made to open up the country, and the building of the railroad that joined it and produced great riches for a few barons. Ambrose explains the misunderstood presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, records the country's assumption of world power under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, and extols its heroic victory of World War II. He writes about women's rights and civil rights and immigration, founding museums, and nation- building. He contrasts the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout, Ambrose celebrates the unflappable American spirit. Most important, Ambrose writes about writing history. "The last five letters of the word 'history' tell us that it is an account of the past that is about people and what they did, which is what makes it the most fascinating of subjects." To America is an instant classic for all those interested in history, patriotism, and the love of writing.Holocaust: An American Understanding
By Deborah E. Lipstadt. 2016
Immediately after World War II, there was little discussion of the Holocaust, but today the word has grown into a…
potent political and moral symbol, recognized by all. In Holocaust: An American Understanding, renowned historian Deborah E. Lipstadt explores this striking evolution in Holocaust consciousness, revealing how a broad array of Americans--from students in middle schools to presidents of the United States--tried to make sense of this inexplicable disaster, and how they came to use the Holocaust as a lens to interpret their own history. Lipstadt weaves a powerful narrative that touches on events as varied as the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Stonewall, and the women's movement, as well as controversies over Bitburg, the Rwandan genocide, and the bombing of Kosovo. Drawing upon extensive research on politics, popular culture, student protests, religious debates and various strains of Zionist ideologies, Lipstadt traces how the Holocaust became integral to the fabric of American life. Even popular culture, including such films as Dr. Strangelove and such books as John Hershey's The Wall, was influenced by and in turn influenced thinking about the Holocaust. Equally important, the book shows how Americans used the Holocaust to make sense of what was happening in the United States. Many Americans saw the civil rights movement in light of Nazi oppression, for example, while others feared that American soldiers in Vietnam were destroying a people identified by the government as the enemy. Lipstadt demonstrates that the Holocaust became not just a tragedy to be understood but also a tool for interpreting America and its place in the world. Ultimately Holocaust: An American Understanding tells us as much about America in the years since the end of World War II as it does about the Holocaust itself.A Hidden Life: A Memoir of August 1969
By Johanna Reiss. 2009
In 1969, Reiss made the trip to Holland to chronicle the two years, seven months, and one day she had…
spent hiding from the Nazis. Subtle and disturbing, the book is a powerful consideration of memory, violence, and loss, told in a stunning and sparse narrative style.The resilience of the lotus
By Eugen Fischer. 2015
This story tells the sad truth about a young, displaced woman from Manchuria, her life during the Japanese invasion 1931-1945…
and some years thereafter. Told to the author in Singapore in the late seventies, it is a harrowing tale of humanity's cruelty and the horrors of war, but also a testament that life always finds a way to survive. Her strength and courage in the horrendous circumstances of war and occupation are inspirational. Like the lotus flower, the human spirit has the potential to grow in the worst environment, and emerge from the muck to bloom again as a beautiful flower. There are so many victims in a war, and once the war is over, one doesn't know their names nor find their graves. The stench of war wilts all flowers. The stench of peace lets them bloom again.Churchill's Channel War
By Robert Jackson. 2013
From the beaches of Dunkirk to the launch of Operation Overlord the Channel saw continuous action during World…
War II and was the world s most fought-over waterway In this fascinating account Robert Jackson offers a study of the Channel War from 1939-45 detailing the German threats to British shipping the use of convoys and the extensive minelaying operations as well as the Battle of Britain the use of long-range artillery and everything in between As well as offering a study of the furious Channel War battles Jackson also reveals how the Channel was essential for the launch of Churchill s famed special forces Commandos who under the cover of darkness launched raids on Occupied France as well as the Channel Islands The Channel War bought together the Royal Navy and Air Force as they both battled to defend England and prevent a much feared German invasionOnward We Charge
By H. Paul Jeffers. 2007
The true story of one of the most charismatic commanders of World War II. Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and…
the Purple Heart, and posthumously promoted to Brigadier General by President Truman, Colonel William Darby was an indisputable hero. His elite battalion of Army Rangers paved the way for Ranger success in subsequent wars-and left an unforgettable legacy in its wake. Onward We Charge takes readers from the beachheads of North Africa to the bloody campaigns of southern Italy, and to Darby's tragic death by German shrapnel just eight days before V-E Day. This is the true story of a man who held his own beside the greatest military figures in history.Panzer III vs Somua S 35
By Steven Zaloga, Richard Chasemore. 2014
This fully illustrated study pits Germany's PzKpfw III tank against France's Somua S 35 in the vast armored battles that…
opened the campaign.The armor clashes in May 1940 were the biggest the world had yet seen, as the German advances of that period came to epitomize Blitzkrieg. Nonetheless the Wehrmacht's Panzer III was well matched by the French Somua S35; the two representing very different design philosophies and yet ranking among the best designs in the world at the time.Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945
By Saul Friedlander. 2009
Nazi Germany and the Jews 1933-1945 is an abridged edition of Saul Friedl nder s definitive Pulitzer Prize-winning…
two-volume history of the Holocaust Nazi Germany and the Jews The Years of Persecution 1933-1939 and The Years of Extermination Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945 The book s first part dealing with the National Socialist campaign of oppression restores the voices of Jews who were engulfed in an increasingly horrifying reality following the Nazi accession to power Friedl nder also provides the accounts of the persecutors themselves--and perhaps most telling of all the testimonies of ordinary German citizens who in general stood silent and unmoved by the increasing waves of segregation humiliation impoverishment and violence The second part covers the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews--an official program that depended upon the cooperation of local authorities and police departments the passivity of the populations and the willingness of the victims to submit in desperate hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise A monumental multifaceted study now contained in a single volume Saul Friedl nder s Nazi Germany and the Jews 1933-1945 is an essential study of a dark and complex historyNothing Makes You Free: Writings by Descendants of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
By Melvin Jules Bukiet. 2002
A groundbreaking collection of Holocaust literature by the heirs to the greatest evil of our time. History is preserved in…
the memories of the survivors of the Holocaust and the imaginations of their children, the so-called Second Generation. Nothing Makes You Free considers the heritage of the descendants of those who faced the horrific lie that adorned the gates of many German concentration camps: "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes You Free"). In the words of this groundbreaking anthology's introduction: "Other kids' parents didn't have numbers on their arms. Other kids' parents didn't talk about massacres as easily as baseball. Other kids' parents loved them, but never gazed at their offspring as miracles in the flesh....How do you deal with this responsibility? Well, if you were a writer, you wrote." Gathered here are writings of both fiction and nonfiction, ranging from farce to fantasy to brutal realism, from an international selection of writers, including Art Spiegelman, Eva Hoffman, Peter Singer, and Carl Friedman. Contributors: Lea Aini, David Albahari, Tammie Bob, Lilly Brett, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Leon De Winter, Esther Dischereit, Barbara Finkelstein, Alain Finkielkraut, Carl Friedman, Eva Hoffman, Helena Janaczek, Anne Karpf, Alan Kaufman, Ruth Knafo Setton, Mihaly Kornis, Savyon Liebrecht, Alcina Lubitch Domecq, Gila Lustiger, Sonia Pilcer, Doron Rabinovici, Henri Raczymov, Victoria Redel, Thane Rosenbaum, Goran Rosenberg, Peter Singer, Joseph Skibell, Art Spiegelman, J. J. Steinfeld, Val Vinokurov "Nothing Makes You Free is a wide-ranging, exuberant, and altogether powerful collection. A necessary reminder of the lingering effects of the Holocaust and of all the embers--in each generation--saved from the fire."--Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of The Far Euphrates and The Illuminated Soul "What happens to a generation of writers born after but indelibly shaped by the Holocaust? From the bitterly sardonic title of Bukiet's clear-eyed and refreshingly unsentimental collection to its last words, this volume will cause all to see this past in startlingly new and unexpected ways. This is certainly not their parent's Holocaust. But in all their immense variety, dexterity, oppressed imaginativeness, pain, and wonder, these writings show how even as a 'vicarious past,' the Holocaust continues to shape both inner and outer worlds of the survivors' offspring and now, by extension, our own as well."--James E. Young, author of At Memory's Edge and The Texture of Memory "A superb anthology...tenderness mixes with rage, sorrow with bitterness, in this first-rate gathering of pieces by those who refuse to forget."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "A trenchant array...convincingly demonstrate[s] that the Second-Generation experience and the artistic vision growing from it is not merely a diluted version of the survivors' experience, but a distinct phenomenon and ethos of its own."--Miami Herald "An important book."--BooklistHuman Game
By Simon Read. 2012
In March and April of 1944, Gestapo gunmen killed fifty POWs--a brutal act in defiance of international law and the…
Geneva Conventions. This is the true story of the men who hunted them down. The mass breakout of seventy-six Allied airmen from the infamous Stalag Luft III became one of the greatest tales of World War II, immortalized in the film The Great Escape. But where Hollywood's depiction fades to black, another incredible story begins . . . Not long after the escape, fifty of the recaptured airmen were taken to killing fields throughout Germany and shot on the direct orders of Hitler. When the nature of these killings came to light, Churchill's government swore to pursue justice at any cost. A revolving team of military police, led by squadron leader Francis P. McKenna, was dispatched to pick up a trail long gone cold. Amid the chaos of postwar Germany, divided between American, British, French, and Russian occupiers, McKenna led a three-year manhunt that brought twenty-one Gestapo killers to justice. In Human Game, Simon Read delivers a clear-eyed and meticulously researched account of this often overlooked saga of hard-won justice. INCLUDES PHOTOSAn updated and expanded photographic history of the famed military aircraft and the men who flew them …
Aviation historian Norman Franks updates his classic book The Lancaster with new information and photos The Avro Lancaster was a four-engine heavy bomber that played a crucial role in World War II and this illustrated volume records the history of thirty-five of them supported by stories from aircrew members The most famous of the bombers is Queenie W5868 the only one of these Lancasters that survives now in the Bomber Command Hall at the Royal Air Force Museum in London Ton-Up Lancs delves into some of the controversies surrounding Queenie and other Lancasters and also includes detailed listings of each raid these thirty-five Lancasters flew during from 1942 through 1945 together with the names of the pilot and crew that took them on sorties all over Hitler s Third Reich and Northern Italy on support missions before and after D-Day in June 1944 and attacks on V1 rocket launch sites situated in Northern France The book also offers a view from one of the Lancaster s former skippers on what it was like to fly a bomber tour of operations in Bomber CommandThe suspenseful true story of a love that defied Nazi oppression, and a harrowing journey to freedom. In 1945, Ditha…
Bruncel was living with her parents in the small town of Lossen, in Upper Silesia. Close Jewish friends had vanished, swastikas hung from every building, and neighbors were disappearing in the middle of the night. At the same time more than fifteen hundred British and Commonwealth airmen were being marched out of Stalag Luft VII, a POW camp in the same region. Twenty-three of these prisoners managed to escape from the marching column—and by chance hobbled into Lossen. One among them, Warrant Officer Gordon Slowey, was the man Ditha was destined to meet and fall in love with. Into Enemy Arms tells the extraordinary story of Ditha and the escaped POWs she helped save. Together, they embarked on a dangerous and daring flight out of Germany. As they faced exhaustion, hunger, extreme cold, and the constant risk of discovery, Ditha and Gordon’s love for one another intensified, and so did their determination to survive and escape.