True Military

The riveting true story of Dudley Buck - American scientist, government agent, and Cold War hero - whose pioneering work with computer chips placed him firmly in the sights of the KGB.

In the middle of World War II, Nazi military intelligence discovered a seemingly easy way to win the war for Adolf Hitler. The three heads of the Allied forces - Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin - were planning to meet in Tehran in October, 1943. Under Hitler's personal direction, the Nazis launched "Operation Long Jump", an intricate plan to track the Allied leaders in Tehran and assassinate all three men at the same time. Historian Bill Yenne retells the incredible, globe-spanning story of the most ambitious assassination plot ever thwarted.

Sir Maurice Oldfield was one of the most important British spies of the Cold War era. A farmer's son from a provincial grammar school, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn't come to the role via the traditional route. Oldfield was the voice of British Intelligence in Washington at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and was largely responsible for keeping the UK out of the Vietnam War. Working his way to the top, he took on the job of rebuilding confidence in the British Secret Service in the wake of the Cambridge spies scandal.

Wilhelm Canaris was appointed by Hitler to head the Abwehr (the German secret service) 18 months after the Nazis came to power. But Canaris turned against the Fuhrer and the Nazi regime, believing that Hitler would start a war Germany could not win. In 1938 he was involved in an attempted coup, undermined by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In 1940 he sabotaged the German plan to invade England, and fed General Franco vital information that helped him keep Spain out of the war.

In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America's imagination. A "spirit photographer", William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation. Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons. It took a circus-like trial of Mumler on fraud charges to expose a fault line of doubt and manipulation.

For Bill Fulton, being a soldier was his identity. After an involuntary medical discharge, Fulton was adrift until he started a military surplus store in Anchorage, where he also took on fugitive recovery missions. He took pride in his business. His life was happy and full. But when a customer revealed he planned to attack a military recruiting station, Fulton had to make a choice: turn a blind eye and hope for the best or risk his safety, his reputation, and his business by establishing contact with his customers' archnemesis: the FBI.

Susan Ronald reveals in this stranger-than-fiction-tale how Hildebrand Gurlitt succeeded in looting in the name of the Third Reich, duping the Monuments Men and the Nazis alike. As an "official dealer" for Hitler and Goebbels, Hildebrand Gurlitt became one of the Third Reich's most prolific art looters. Yet he stole from Hitler, too, allegedly to save modern art. Hitler's Art Thief is the untold story of Hildebrand Gurlitt, who stole more than art - he stole lives, too.

What is war really like? Here are stories of sacrifices and massacres, of battles fought on horseback and in the trenches, at sea and on land. Find out about the savage school teacher who betrayed his students to the Roman soldiers, the American hero who led his country to independence only to be abandoned after the battle was won, and the football game between two fierce enemies that halted the First World War for a day. Discover how people survive in times of war in these incredible but true war stories.

Over 50 ago, I was a Harvard-trained pediatrician drafted as a Navy Flight Surgeon, thrust into the Vietnam War and onto the front lines, stationed in Dong Ha, leading up to the massive Tet Offensive.

David Burnett takes listeners into a unique world of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. His journey starts in a conventional army unit where he feels unfulfilled. This lack of fulfillment drives David to pursue his dream of becoming an MH-47G Chinook helicopter crew chief in the best and most secretive aviation unit in the world. David faces hurdles and set backs trying to achieve, but he is more determined than ever. He is trained and ready to deploy with the 160th, and it is nothing short of intense.

An incredible, rare glimpse into the inner world of Nazi espionage. World War II seems to provide an endless supply of amazing true stories of heroism in the face of mortal danger. This true account of an MI6 agent's kidnapping and survival is a real-life spy thriller, and one worth knowing. On November 9, 1939, Captain Sigismund Payne Best and other members of Britain's ultra-secret Z service sat near a cafe in Venlo, The Netherlands, waiting to meet with whom supposedly-sound intelligence told them would be German resistance leaders.

This is Mitka’s account of facing the past, confronting his captors, connecting with lost relatives, and finding peace in the rediscovery of his origins. For Mitka, this also meant reclaiming his Jewish heritage - a journey that gave him a new sense of purpose and freedom from the lingering effects of trauma that had filled his life to that point. By the end, Mitka’s Secret is less a story of survival and more one of redemption and transformation - from hidden suffering to abundant joy.

For 32 days, they were chased across the mountains as they headed for the coast and a rendezvous with a Royal Navy launch waiting to spirit the general to Cairo. Rick Stroud, whose Phantom Army of Alamein won plaudits for its meticulous research and its lightness of touch in the telling, brings these same gifts to bear in this new project.

John McCorkle was a young Missouri farmer of Southern sympathies. After serving briefly in the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard, he became a prominent member of William Clarke Quantrill's infamous guerrillas, who took advantage of the turmoil in the Missouri-Kansas borderland to prey on pro-Union people. McCorkle displayed an unflinchingly violent nature while he participated in raids and engagements including the massacres at Lawrence and Baxter Springs, Kansas; and Centralia, Missouri.

A Plausible Man unfolds as a historical detective story, as Susanna Ashton combs obscure records for evidence of Jackson's remarkable flight from slavery to freedom, his quest to liberate his enslaved family, and his emergence as an international advocate for abolition. This fresh and original work takes us through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the restoration of white supremacy-where we last glimpse Jackson losing his freedom again on a Southern chain gang.

Historian Jonathan W. White tells the riveting story of Appleton Oaksmith, a swashbuckling sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-nineteenth century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most importantly, the book depicts the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade.

A month after her 24th birthday, Lt. Mary Elizabeth Balster collapses among the rubble of a shelled supply room. On the night of November 30, 1944, holed up in the Heinrich Himmler Barracks in Morhange, France, Lt. Balster's evac receives a typical patient load, but this time one of the admissions is a 19-year-old tanker she'd nursed back to health five months before in Normandy. The charge nurse on Surgical gently informs the lieutenant that the private is critical.

The United States Naval Academy has no monopoly on heroes—naval, marine, or otherwise. But over the last 10 years, the most popular living author of American sea fiction has spent thousands of hours researching for Shipmate, the Academy's magazine. The extraordinary personal stories of adventure and courage he's collected span American history, from the Mexican War to the War on Terror.

Toto Koopman - beautiful, mixed-race, bisexual Vogue cover girl in 1930s Paris and lover of the all-powerful press baron and wartime cabinet minister Lord Beaverbrook. Coco Chanel, brilliant couturier and parfumier, rich beyond dreams and friend of Winston Churchill, the greatest-ever Briton. Both the toast of Parisian and London high society.

When John Wilkes Booth fired his Derringer point-blank into President Abraham Lincoln's head, he set in motion a series of dramatic consequences that would upend the lives of ordinary Washingtonians and Americans alike. In a split second, the story of a nation was changed. During the hours that followed, America's future would hinge on what happened in a cramped back bedroom at Petersen's Boardinghouse, directly across the street from Ford's Theatre.