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"In this riveting book, Jack Sacco tells the realistic, harrowing, at times horrifying, and ultimately triumphant tale of an American…
GI in World War II as seen through the eyes of his father, Joe Sacco--farm boy from Alabama who was flung into the chaos of Normandy and survived the terrors of the Bulge. As part of the 92nd Signal Battalion and Patton's famed Third Army, Joe and his buddies found themselves at the forefront of the Allied push through France and Germany. After more than a year of fighting, but still only twenty years old, Joe had become a hardened veteran. Yet nothing could have prepared him and his unit for the horrors behind the walls of Germany's infamous Dachau concentration camp. They were among the first 250 American troops into the camp, and it was there that they finally grasped the significance of the Allied mission...." -- Provided by publisher
Crossing the Line: The inside story of murder, lies and a fallen hero
By Nick McKenzie. 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 WALKLEY BOOK AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 ABIA…
GENERAL NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE 2024 DANGER AWARD FOR TRUE CRIME'There is no doubt the truth would have been concealed and our concerns buried without Nick McKenzie's relentless pursuit of justice.' SAS Afghanistan veteranWar is brutal. But there are lines that should never be crossed. In mid-2017, whispers of executions, and cover-ups within Australia's most secretive and elite military unit, the SAS, reached Walkley Award-winning journalist Nick McKenzie. He and Chris Masters began an investigation that would not only reveal shocking truths about Ben Roberts-Smith VC but plunge the reporters into the defamation trial of the century.For five years, McKenzie led the investigation, waging an epic battle for the truth to be acknowledged. His fight to reveal the real face of Australia's most famous and revered SAS soldier and examine evidence of bullying, intimidation, war crimes and murder would take him across Australia and to Afghanistan. As he unearthed the secrets Ben Roberts-Smith had thought he'd long ago buried, McKenzie had to deal with death threats, powerful forces intent on destroying his career and attempts to silence brave SAS soldiers, who had witnessed their famous comrade commit unspeakable acts. McKenzie would break the stories that proved the man idolised by the public, politicians, the media and leading business leaders was a myth. His efforts would help deliver justice to Roberts-Smith's victims and their families.Explosive and meticulously researched, Crossing the Line shares the powerful untold story of how a small group of brave soldiers and two determined reporters overcame a plot to suppress one of the greatest military scandals in Australian history.'Extraordinary . . . Riveting . . . An insight into the finest investigative journalism in this country' LAW INSTITUTE JOURNAL
The New York Times–bestselling first-hand account of a Delta Force commando’s hunt for the Al-Qaida leader in the months after…
9/11.The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world—an operation of such magnitude that it couldn’t be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America’s supersecret counterterrorist unit formally known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the elite and mysterious unit Delta Force.Told by senior ranking military officer Dalton Fury, this is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden in late 2001, mere months after the September 11th attacks on the United States were carried out on his orders.In this rare look inside the shadowy world of Delta Force, Fury details just how close US bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing bin Laden, and exactly why he slipped through their fingers.
Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor
By Ronald Drabkin. 1936
"A beguiling tale of espionage and double-dealing in the years leading up to World War II. ... Strap in for…
a narrative that demands a suspension of disbelief—and richly rewards it." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review); Best Books of February SelectionThe untold story of the World War I hero who became a fixture of high society in Golden Age Hollywood—all while acting as a double agent for the Japanese Empire as it prepared to attack Pearl HarborFrederick Rutland’s story is a rags-to-riches coup for the ages—a lower-class boy from England bootstraps his way up the ranks of the British military, becoming a World War I pilot, father of the modern aircraft carrier, cosmopolitan businessman, and Hollywood A-list insider. He oversaw this small empire from his mansion on the fabled Bird Streets of Beverly Hills. Snubbed for promotion in the Royal Air Force due to little more than jealousy and class politics, Rutland—to all appearances—continued to spin gold from straw, living an enviably lavish lifestyle that included butlers, wild parties, private clubs, and newsworthy living . . .. . . and it was all funded by the Japanese Empire.Beverly Hills Spy reveals the story of Rutland’s life of espionage on behalf of the Axis, selling secrets about fleet and aircraft design to the Japanese Imperial Navy that would be instrumental in its ability to attack Pearl Harbor, while collecting a salary ten times larger than the best-paid Japanese admirals. Based on recently declassified FBI files and until-now untranslated documents from Japanese intelligence, Ronald Drabkin brings the scope of this unforgettable tale into full focus for the first time. Rutland hides in plain sight, rubbing elbows with Amelia Earhart and hosting galas and fundraisers with superstars like Charlie Chaplin and Boris Karloff, while simultaneously passing information to Japan through spy networks across North and Central America. Countless opportunities to catch Rutland in the act are squandered by the FBI, British Intelligence, and US Naval Intelligence alike as he uses his cunning and charm to misdirect and cast shadows of doubt over his business dealings, allowing him to operate largely unfettered for years.In the end, whether he fully intends to or not, Rutland sets in motion world events that are so monumental, their consequences are still being felt today. Beverly Hills Spy is a masterpiece of research on spy craft, a shocking narrative about an unknown but pivotal figure in history, and brings new information to light that helps us understand how Pearl Harbor happened—and how it could have been prevented.
The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner
By Douglas Waller. 2025
From Douglas Waller, New York Times bestselling author of Wild Bill Donovan, an intimate and expertly researched biography of little-known…
early CIA leader Frank Wisner, whose behind-the-scenes influence on Cold War policy--and hundreds of highly secret anti-Soviet missions--resonates with the international crises we see today. Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely hidden from Congress and the public-- Wisner masterminded some of the CIA&’s most daring and controversial operations in the early years of the Cold War, commanding thousands of clandestine agents around the world. Following an early career marked by exciting escapades as a key World War II spy under General William &“Wild Bill&” Donovan, Wisner quickly rose through the postwar intelligence ranks to lead a newly created top-secret unit tasked--under little oversight--with overseeing massive propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, subversion, and guerrilla operations all over the world, including such daring initiatives as the CIA-backed coups in Iran and Guatemala. But simultaneously, Wisner faced a demon few at the time understood: bipolar disorder. When this debilitating disease resulted in his breakdown and transfer to a mental hospital, the repercussions were felt throughout Washington&’s highest levels of power. Waller&’s sensitive and exhaustively researched biography is the riveting story of both Frank Wisner as a national figure who inspired a cadre of future CIA secret warriors, and also an intimate and empathetic portrait of a man whose harrowing struggle with bipolar disorder makes his impressive accomplishments on the world stage even more remarkable.
Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and A Forever Promise Forged in World War II
By Robert M. Edsel. 2025
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER&“An intimate, moving look at the war that extracts deep meaning from the carnage and loss.&” –…
Publishers WeeklyWhat happens when you lose your freedom and the people who eventually get it back for you are no longer alive to thank? Remember Us, by Robert Edsel—#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Monuments Men—begins in the pre-dawn hours of Hitler&’s invasion of Western Europe on May 10, 1940, when his forces rolled into the small rural province of Limburg in the Netherlands shattering more than 100 years of peace. Their freedom gone, the Dutch lived through four-and-a-half years of occupation until American forces reached Limburg in September 1944, the last portion of Western Europe liberated by the Allies before their advance on Nazi Germany slammed to a halt.Like The Monuments Men, Remember Us is an ensemble piece that follows twelve main characters over a six-year span, zeroing in on ordinary people including Frieda van Schäik, a teenager who falls in love with an American soldier; Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole, the first member of the 101st Airborne to receive the Medal of Honor; and Sergeant Jeff Wiggins of the 960th Quartermaster Service Company, who escaped the poverty and racism of Alabama for yet another indignity—digging graves.Drawing on never-before-seen letters, diaries, and other historical records, Edsel shows the painful price of freedom, on the battlefields and inside American homes. In this rich, dramatic, and suspenseful story, he captures both the horrors of war and the transcendent power of gratitude, showing the extraordinary measures the Dutch have taken to thank their liberators. Remember Us is exactly the book we need—a reminder that grief is universal, that humanity knows no national or racial boundaries, and that we all want to be remembered, somehow, someway, by somebody.
The first biography of MSgt. John C. Woods, infamous US Army hangman of the Nuremberg trials MacLean meticulously separates fact…
from the mythology surrounding this enigmatic figure This is a follow-on book to The Fifth Field, winner of the 2013 Richard G. Trefry Award from the Army Historical Foundation

The SS-Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger": A Memoir
By Rolf Michaelis. 2013
A rare look inside the Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger," the SS anti-partisan unit notorious for atrocities in Poland and Russia during World…
War II. These memoirs were written by a former member of the unit from its formation in 1940 to the end of the war and took part in nearly all its operations. A first hand account of the brutal and barbaric methods used by Dirlewanger against partisans – methods that appalled even some SS commanders – are revealed here in this memoir. SS-Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger" was originally manned by convicted poachers, however as the war progressed replacements were found by emptying prisons and filling the ranks with more hardened criminals. Here are the chilling recollections of a soldier in the SS-Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger" during the Polish and Russian campaigns, the 1944 Warsaw uprising and the final battles near Berlin.
Wilfried Sonnenthal's Memories of the Waffen-SS: An SS Radioman with the SS-Karstwehr-Bataillon Remembers
By Rolf Michaelis, Wilfried Sonnenthal. 2016

Rangers Led the Way: WWII Army Rangers in Their Own Words
By Chris Ketcherside, George Despotis. 2020

SAS: My Trial By Fire: True Stories and Life Lessons from SAS Selection
By Des Powell. 2025
Des Powell left school with no qualifications and little in the way of formal education. At nineteen he signed up…
to join the Parachute Regiment.Famously, the Paras is home to the UK military's second-toughest training regime after the SAS. Des Powell knows all about both. In fact, Des knows SAS selection better than anyone because he's done it twice. In SAS: Trial by Fire he tells the story of those gruelling tests: how Para training turned him into a soldier but, more crucially, how the SAS process turned him into a member of the elite.Des describes exactly what it takes to be an elite special forces operator. From raw recruit to trained fighting machine - including the heart-breaking moment he was forced to withdraw, only to begin the process again - Des shares the details of his personal journey, itself a tale of prevailing against almost overwhelming odd. He teaches us valuable life skills by taking us deep into the training regime itself: fitness, navigation, endurance, weapons and combat training, survival techniques in hostile climates, the terrifying jungle phase, the dark arts of escape and evasion, the secret of surviving interrogation.No one's lifted the lid on what it takes to join the SAS and become the best of the best. Until now.Praise for Bravo Three Zero'A must read. Honesty, integrity and real experience that puts you in the thick of the action.' Billy Billingham'The story that needed to be told' Jason Fox'The attention to detail is unbelievable' Tim Lovejoy'Thrilling' Express
SAS: My Trial By Fire: True Stories and Life Lessons from SAS Selection
By Des Powell. 2025
Des Powell left school with no qualifications and little in the way of formal education. At nineteen he signed up…
to join the Parachute Regiment.Famously, the Paras is home to the UK military's second-toughest training regime after the SAS. Des Powell knows all about both. In fact, Des knows SAS selection better than anyone because he's done it twice. In SAS: Trial by Fire he tells the story of those gruelling tests: how Para training turned him into a soldier but, more crucially, how the SAS process turned him into a member of the elite.Des describes exactly what it takes to be an elite special forces operator. From raw recruit to trained fighting machine - including the heart-breaking moment he was forced to withdraw, only to begin the process again - Des shares the details of his personal journey, itself a tale of prevailing against almost overwhelming odd. He teaches us valuable life skills by taking us deep into the training regime itself: fitness, navigation, endurance, weapons and combat training, survival techniques in hostile climates, the terrifying jungle phase, the dark arts of escape and evasion, the secret of surviving interrogation.No one's lifted the lid on what it takes to join the SAS and become the best of the best. Until now.Praise for Bravo Three Zero'A must read. Honesty, integrity and real experience that puts you in the thick of the action.' Billy Billingham'The story that needed to be told' Jason Fox'The attention to detail is unbelievable' Tim Lovejoy'Thrilling' Express
Roadside: My Journey to Iraq and the Long Road Home
By Dylan Park-Pettiford. 2025
A military memoir by a biracial child of refugees and survivors, Roadside is about life and death, about family lost…
and gained, and about America, as a dream and a reality. It's about the roads one takes to leave home and find it again. As a half-Black, half-Korean kid in Campbell, California, Dylan Park-Pettiford never really fit in, so he and his little brother Rory became joined at the hip. But after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, swept up in patriotism, Dylan enlisted in the US Air Force and was sent to Iraq, and the brothers were separated. There Dylan's days alternated between boredom and terror, and rare moments of levity and learning came thanks to an Iraqi boy named Brahim. Like Rory, Brahim was wise beyond his years, and he and Dylan bonded as much over rap music as about life. Over the following year, Dylan would bring Brahim food and toiletries to keep him going; Brahim would bring intel to keep Dylan and his friends alive. When they said goodbye at the end of Dylan's tour of duty, he knew it was for the last time. Or was it? Dylan returned to a world that had moved on without him. He would go through a soul-crushing divorce, a bout of homelessness, and struggles with prescription drugs, alcohol, and his own mental health. Eventually, he caught a few breaks and overcame the odds—until the violence Dylan thought he'd left in the Middle East followed him home.Just when his life was at its darkest, fate intervened again, but this time to orchestrate an impossible reunion. In a world marred by a seemingly endless wave of negativity, this story of love, loss, and brotherhood may offer a faint glimmer of hope as we face an uncertain future.
The reason why
By Cecil Woodham Smith. 1971
A fascinating study of the tragic farce that was the charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War of…
1854. Bringing to light the mismanagement, the fatal pride and obstinacy that led to disaster, Woodham-Smith gives us a picture of a vanished world, in which heroism and military glory guaranteed an immortality impossible in a more cynical age. Adult. Some violence
The Sketchbook War: Saving the Nation's Artists in World War II
By Richard Knott. 2013
During the Second World War, British artists produced over 6,000 works of war art, the result of a government scheme…
partly designed to prevent the artists being killed. This book tells the story of nine courageous war artists who ventured closer to the front line than any others in their profession.Edward Ardizzone, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Anthony Gross, Thomas Hennell, Eric Ravilious, Albert Richards, Richard Seddon and John Worsley all travelled abroad into the dangers of war to chronicle events by painting them. They formed a close bond, yet two were torpedoed, two were taken prisoner and three died, two in 1945 when peacetime was at hand. Men who had previously made a comfortable living painting in studios were transformed by military uniforms and experiences that were to shape the rest of their lives, and their work significantly influenced the way in which we view war today.Portraying how war and art came together in a moving and dramatic way, and incorporating vivid examples of their paintings, this is the true story behind the war artists who fought, lived and died for their art on the front line of the Second World War.
From the bestselling author of Shoot for the Moon and A Terrible Glory comes the dramatic story of the courageous paratroopers…
and glidermen of the 82nd Airborne, who risked their lives to seize and secure a small, centuries-old bridge in France that played a pivotal role in the success of D-Day.In June 1944, German and American forces converged on an insignificant bridge a few miles inland from the invasion beaches. If taken by the Nazis, the bridge might have gone down in history as the reason the Allies failed on D-Day.The narrow road over it was each side&’s conduit to victory. Continued Nazi control over the bridge near an old manoir known as La Fière—one of only two bridges in the region capable of supporting tanks and other heavy armor—would allow the Germans to reinforce their defenses at Utah Beach, one of the five landing areas chosen for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Nazi-held Europe. But because control of the bridge was also essential to moving U.S. troops inland and off the beach, it could not simply be destroyed: it had to be taken—and held—by the Allies.This was part of the formidable mission of the 82nd Airborne, whose lightly armed but superbly trained troopers had dropped behind—and into—German lines five hours before the seaborne assault on Utah. While blocking enemy reinforcements, they had to seize and secure avenues of approach from the beaches to the interior of Normandy, including two bridges over the modest Merderet River and the key crossroads village of Sainte Mère Église. Failure would give Hitler enough time, and the opportunity, to build up the resources necessary to defeat the invasion and turn the tide for the Nazis. The village was taken early on D-Day, and the 82nd endured repeated attacks by much larger German forces. But the bridge at La Fière became a bloody three-day standoff against tanks and artillery that culminated in a near-suicidal charge across it and the narrow 500-yard causeway beyond—straight into the teeth of a fierce German defense ordered to hold it to the last man.
VE Day: The People's Story
By Russell Miller. 2020
Drawing from first-hand interviews, diaries and memoirs of those involved in the VE Day celebrations in 1945, VE Day: The…
People’s Story paints an enthralling picture of a day that marked the end of the war in Europe and the beginning of a new era. VE Day affected millions of people in countless ways, and the voices in this book – from both Britain and abroad, from civilians and service men and women, from the famous and the not-so-famous – provide a valuable social picture of the times. Mixed with humour as well as tragedy, rejoicing as well as sadness, regrets of the past and hopes for the future, VE Day is an inspiring record of one of the great turning points in history.
Alan Turing Decoded: The Man They Called Prof
By Dermot Turing. 2021
‘A cracking read. ’Nick Smith, Engineering and TechnologyAlan Turing was an extraordinary man who crammed into his 42 years the…
careers of mathematician, codebreaker, computer scientist and biologist. He is widely regarded as a war hero grossly mistreated by his unappreciative country, and it has become hard to disentangle the real man from the story. It is easy to cast him as a misfit, the stereotypical professor. But actually Alan Turing was never a professor, and his nickname ‘Prof’ was given by his codebreaking friends at Bletchley Park. Now Dermot Turing has taken a fresh look at the influences on his uncle’s life and creativity, and the creation of a legend. He discloses the real character behind the cipher-text, answering questions that help the man emerge from his legacy: how did Alan’s childhood experiences influence him? How did his creative ideas evolve? Was he really a solitary genius? What was his wartime work after 1942, and what of the Enigma story? What is the truth about the conviction for gross indecency, and did he commit suicide? In Alan Turing Decoded, Dermot’s vibrant and entertaining approach to the life and work of a true genius makes this a fascinating and authoritative read.
Gulag to Spitfire: A Polish Serviceman's Fight to Survive in the Second World War
By Andrew Hubert von Staufer. 2024
Stalin is quoted as saying 'One man's death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths is a statistic'. This is the…
story of a man who was determined to be neither. Kazimierz Tomasz 'Tomek' Hubert was 17 when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Despite his young age, he was quickly deported to the Vorkuta Gulag in the Arctic Circle, for the crime of being the son of a military governor. Here he would survive torture, starvation and even the threat of cannibalism, before he managed to escape and set off on a 6,000km walk to freedom. In this moving tale of endurance against all odds, Andrew Hubert von Staufer traces his father's footsteps from the gulags of Siberia to flying Spitfires in air battles against the Luftwaffe. This is a remarkable account of the Second World War and its long-reaching impact.