Showing titles in World War II

In 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska's Ladd Field on a routine flight to test their hastily retrofitted B-24 Liberator in harsh winter conditions. The mission ended in a crash that claimed all but one - Leon Crane. With little more than a parachute for cover and an old Boy Scout knife in his pocket, Crane now found himself alone in subzero temperatures. Crane knew that his chance of survival dropped swiftly with each passing day. This is his story.

In the enormous literature of the Second World War, there are surprisingly few accounts of fighting in the southwest Pacific, fewer still by common infantrymen. This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is rare indeed, follows a foot soldier’s career from basic training to mustering out. It takes the listener into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines during the long campaign to win the war against Japan.

General George S. Patton remains a household name to this day even though he died decades ago. Not only was he a brilliant military commander, he was also a forceful personality and a flamboyant human being whose strong character led him through many difficulties. This biography aims to tell Patton's story in a captivating manner that will bring him to life for the education and enjoyment of young and old.

West Point's class of 1915 is the academy's most important in history. The cadets of the United States Military Academy, West Point, are intimately twined with the country's history. The graduating class of 1915, the class the stars fell on, was particularly noteworthy. Of the 164 graduates that year, 59 (36 percent) attained the rank of general, the most of any class.

Telling the rousing story of a Jewish boy who fled persecution and returned to prosecute the Nazi oppressors, Walter Wolff's daughter Nina has reconstructed these events from family lore and her father’s own cache of more than 700 wartime letters and 200 photographs, which he revealed to her shortly before he died.

In June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Lyudmila Pavlichenko left her university studies and ignored the offer of a position as a nurse to become one of Soviet Russia's 2,000 female snipers. Less than a year later, she had 309 recorded kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. She was withdrawn from active duty after being injured. She was also regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort.

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.

Het verhaal van Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema blijft mensen fascineren, nu met de musical over zijn leven en de grootse herdenking van de bevrijding is zijn biografie meer dan populair. "Soldaat van Oranje" is niet alleen een spannend verhaal maar ook een historisch document over de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Prins Bernhard schreef niet voor niets over dit boek: "Ik ben erbij geweest, en zo was het." "Soldaat van Oranje" is een van de beroemdste boeken over de Tweede Wereldoorlog.

Einst erfolgreiche Kochbuch-Autorin, verliert die Wiener Jüdin Alice Urbach unter den Nationalsozialisten Heimat, Familie und Karriere. Sie flieht nach England, wo sie sich als Dienstbotin durchschlägt und später ein Flüchtlingsheim für jüdische Mädchen leitet. Mit Kochunterricht versucht sie ihre Schützlinge von den Kriegswirren abzulenken. Nach dem Krieg geht Alice nach New York, gibt Kochkurse in San Francisco und stellt im amerikanischen Fernsehen ihre besten Rezepte für Mehlspeisen und Tafelspitz vor.

On the morning of August 15, 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin flew the last combat mission of World War II out of Iwo Jima. Today, Captain Yellin is a sharp, engaging, 93-year-old veteran whose story is brought to life by best-selling author Don Brown.

From historian and columnist in Leatherneck and Armor magazines, this is the exciting, personal account of a marine fighter squadron in the South Pacific during the critical days of 1943, when the tide turned against the Japanese. Based on individual interviews and wartime documents, this is a thrilling narrative of the marines who lived, and died, during the toughest battles of the entire war.

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.

How did a Black child, growing up in segregationist Mississippi during the early 1900s, become the commander of the Imperial Ethiopian Air Corps during the brutal Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935? In this gripping, never-before-told tale, biographer Thomas E. Simmons brings to life Robinson’s outstanding success in becoming a pilot, his expertise in building and assembling his own working aircraft, his influence on the establishment of a school of aviation at Tuskegee Institute, and his wartime service.

Scottish-born but a Queenslander to the bone, Jock McLaren was a true Australian hero. As a prisoner, he escaped twice, first from Changi and later from the infamous Sandakan POW camp in Borneo. After paddling a dugout canoe across open sea, he fought for two years with American-led Filipino guerrillas, his exploits so audacious the Japanese put a price on his head.

In January 1940, navy nurse Dorothy Still eagerly anticipated her new assignment at a military hospital in the Philippines. Her first year abroad was an adventure. She dated sailors, attended dances, and watched the sparkling evening lights from her balcony. But as 1941 progressed, signs of war became imminent. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Dorothy and the other nurses braced for a direct assault. In that frantic dash, Dorothy transformed from a navy nurse to a war nurse. Along with the other women on the nursing staff, she provided compassionate, tireless, critical care.

In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as "Maggie" to his fellow paratroopers, joined the 82nd Airborne Division, his new "home" for the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains outside Naples.

Der Großvater erzählt dem Enkel vom Krieg - so wie er ihn erlebt hat - ohne Umschweife und verklärten Pathos. Die Fehler der Herrschenden werden stets von den einfachen Leuten mit Blut bezahlt. Das war schon zu allen Zeiten so. Nicht anders erging es einem steirischen Bergbauernsohn, der, in der Blüte seiner Jugend stehend, in den Fleischwolf der Ostfront geschmissen wurde. Das in einer Phase, wo der Krieg für das Dritte Reich so gut wie verloren war. Im Greisenalter erinnert sich der Bergbauernsohn an jene dunklen Stunden zurück, die ihn Zeit seines Lebens verfolgt haben.

In 1944 and 1945, Tom Faulkner was a B-24 pilot flying out of San Giovanni airfield in Italy as a member of the 15th Air Force of the US Army Air Forces. Only 19 years old when he completed his 28th and last mission, Tom was one of the youngest bomber pilots to serve in the US Army Air Forces during World War II. Between September 1944 and the end of February 1945, he flew against targets in Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia.

This second of three volumes of Patton’s War picks up where the first one left off, examining General George S. Patton’s leadership of the U.S. Third Army. The book follows Patton’s contributions to both the Normandy and Brittany campaigns—the closing of the Falaise Pocket in Normandy, and racing to the port cities in Brittany. It ends with Patton and his corps rescuing the besieged town of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge. As he did in the preceding volume, Hymel relies not only on Patton’s diaries and letters, but countless veteran interviews, sur­veys, and memoirs.

Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma explores the relationship between American General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell and British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten in the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI) and the South East Asia Command (SEAC) between October 1943 and October 1944, within the wider context of Anglo-American relations during World War II. Jonathan Templin Ritter discusses the military, political, and diplomatic aspects of Anglo-American cooperation, the personalities involved, and where British and American policies both converged and diverged over Southeast Asia.