Military World War Ii

At the beginning of 1940, Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945, Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left her people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust. Despite Hitler's grand ambitions and the successful early stages of the Third Reich's advances into Europe, Frank McDonough convincingly argues that Germany was only ever a middle-ranking power and never truly stood a chance against the combined forces of the Allies.

When President Roosevelt called for the country to be the great "Arsenal of Democracy," Detroit helped turn the tide against fascism with its industrial might. Locals were committed to the cause, putting careers and personal ambitions on hold. Factories were retooled from the ground up. Industrialist Henry Ford, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, aviator Charles Lindbergh, legendary boxer Joe Louis, future baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg and the real-life Rosie the Riveters all helped drive the city that was "forging thunderbolts" for the front lines.

Nel dicembre 1943, Vincenzo Colombo risponde alla chiamata alle armi per evitare rappresaglie contro la sua famiglia. Un'educazione fascista, un padre in Cina, i timori postbellici, qualche amore giovanile e poi l'incontro con la futura moglie sono gli ingredienti di una vita normale, tenacemente vissuta dalla parte sbagliata.

In the early years of World War II, Germany shocked the world with a devastating blitzkrieg, rapidly conquered most of Europe, and pushed into North Africa. As the Allies scrambled to counter the Axis armies, the British Eighth Army confronted the experienced Afrika Corps, led by German field marshal Erwin Rommel, in three battles at El Alamein. In the first battle, the Eighth Army narrowly halted the advance of the Germans during the summer of 1942. However, the stalemate left Nazi troops within striking distance of the Suez Canal, which would provide a critical tactical advantage to the controlling force. War historian Glyn Harper dives into the story, vividly narrating the events, strategies, and personalities surrounding the battles and paying particular attention to the Second Battle of El Alamein, a crucial turning point in the war that would be described by Winston Churchill as "the end of the beginning."

Signed on September 2, 1945 by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional". Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress.

Behind enemy lines on the island of Saipan - where firing a gun could mean instant discovery and death - the 40 Thieves killed in silence during the grueling battle for Saipan, the D-Day of the Pacific.

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.

On the morning of April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey saw what seemed to be the entire Japanese air force assembled directly above. They were about to become the targets of the largest single-ship kamikaze attack of World War II.

One of the most notorious yet least understood body of troops that fought for the Third Reich during World War II was the infamous Sondereinheit Dirlewanger, or the "Dirlewanger Special Unit." Formed initially as a company-sized formation in June 1940 from convicted poachers, it served under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger, one of the most infamous criminals in military history. After assisting in putting down the Warsaw Uprising during 1944, by November of that year it had been enlarged and retitled as the 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger.

This book is a continuation of the World War III series, an Amazon top-selling series. See what happens to America when the country refuses to surrender their forces in the Middle East and capitulate to the Caliphate’s demands. In this second installment of James Rosone and Miranda Watson’s World War III series, we discover the fate of New York City as the Islamic Republic steers a freighter into New York Harbor. Join the authors as they walk us through the final battles in Israel that will transform the Middle East for generations.

When German soldiers invaded Poland in September 1939, it began a six-year journey for then-ten-year-old Renee Salt and her mother Sala. Until their liberation in 1945, Renee and Sala were imprisoned in ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. The only light in the darkness and brutality for Renee was the unwavering grasp of her mother’s hand in hers–enduring, against all odds. It was this unbreakable bond, along with a few miracles, that kept Renee alive.

Erik Wallin served with his unit in all of these locations, and provides the listener with a fascinating glimpse into these final battles. The book is written with a "no holds barred" approach which will captivate, excite, and maybe even shock the listener - his recollections do not evade the brutality of fighting against the advancing Red Army. Twilight of the Gods is destined to become a classic memoir of the Second World War.

Audie Murphy was a desperately poor eighteen-year-old orphan when he joined the Army, nineteen when he first saw a buddy die from an enemy bullet and an enemy die from one of his own. By VE day, he had killed at least 240 Germans, had single-handedly destroyed a German tank in one battle and held off six tanks in another, and had become the most decorated soldier in American history, winning every medal his country offered, including the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The story of one of the most remarkable–and feared–British aircraft of the Second World War: the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito fighter-bomber.

In the early 1940s, during World War II, Germany’s Nazi regime expanded into neighboring European countries. In France, groups of anti-Nazi citizens, known as the French Resistance, fought to stop Germany’s reign of terror. A brave woman named Nancy Wake became one of the movement’s greatest assets as a spy.

For the first time, the truth behind the best-selling adventure narrative The Long Walk.

Since 1956, The Long Walk has been, for many, the symbol of an immense love of freedom and has become one of the greatest true-life adventure stories of all time. The harrowing story about a group of POWs who escaped a labor camp in Siberia and walked to freedom in India during WWII deeply affected thousands of its readers, and Linda Willis was one of those moved by the story. But she had questions about its authenticity.

In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.

In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose 63-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix describes what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status.

The USS Seawolf was one of the greatest submarine raiders of all time. Having narrowly avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor the Seawolf set out for the seas of the Pacific to wreak havoc on Japanese shipping. Joseph Melvin Eckberg was on the Seawolf from her maiden voyage and remained with her until January 1943. As chief radioman he was instrumental in assisting Captain Frederick Warder to find and destroy enemy targets. From the claustrophobia of being trapped under water and the overwhelming fear of depth charges to the joys of aiding the war-effort and the camaraderie on the ship.

From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge and more, here is the authorized biography of one of the most celebrated paratroopers of Easy Company, Sergeant Shifty Powers, the legendary sharpshooter from the Band of Brothers.