Showing titles in World War II

Among them was green young Lieutenant Pat Caruso who became de facto company commander when the five officers ranking him were killed or wounded. He led his rapidly diminishing force steadily forward for the next few days, when a day's gains were measured in yards. Caruso was eventually wounded himself and was evacuated. Realizing that the heroism of his comrades would be lost by the decimation of his unit, Caruso latched onto any paper he could find and filled every blank space with his memory of the fighting.

Dear Mr Bigelow is an enchanting selection of weekly 'pen-pal' letters written between 1949 and 1961 from an unmarried woman working at the Pier Approach Baths in Bournemouth, to a wealthy American widower, living on Long Island, New York. Frances Woodsford and Commodore Paul Bigelow never met, and there was no romance - she was in her forties when he died aged ninety-seven - yet their epistolary friendship was her lifeline.

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive. On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of...

Shortly after midnight on July 30, 1945, the Navy cruiser USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea. The ship had just left the island of Tinian, delivering components of the atomic bomb destined for Hiroshima. As the torpedoes hit, the Indianapolis erupted...

The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st, 6th and 44th Indian, each composed of parachutists and glider-borne troops. Wearing their distinctive maroon berets, steel helmets and Dennison smocks, they served with distinction in every major theatre of the conflict and played a starring role in some most iconic airborne operations in history.

Escaping certain death, not once but several times, lies at the core of this riveting, real-life story of an American soldier during World War II. In One Man's War: The WW II Saga of Tommy LaMore, a B-17 airman vividly details his experiences in war-ravaged Europe, from the horrific to the romantic and beyond.

Churchill fu protagonista di una eccezionale gamma di attività ed esperienze: nominato ufficiale durante il regno della regina Vittoria, partecipò alle guerre coloniali in Africa e alle prime fasi di sviluppo dell'aviazione, ma soprattutto guidò l'Impero britannico nella sua ora più buia, durante i giorni cupi e gloriosi della Seconda guerra mondiale.

Rarely has a book had such an impact on so many of us here at Ignatius Press. It is one of the most powerful and moving books we have come across. If you can only buy one book this season, this must be the one. Here is the astonishing true story of the harrowing experiences of a young German seminarian drafted into Hitler’s dreaded SS at the onset of World War II.

The inspiring story of Joe Sacco and his part in the greatest battles of World War II, from Omaha Beach to the liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. In his riveting debut, Where the Birds Never Sing, Jack Sacco recounts the realistic, harrowing, at times horrifying, and...

Alexander Rosenberg was a smart and curious teenager who spoke many languages, and lived a pampered life with his parents in a tranquil Czechoslovakian town. The rise of fascism and Nazi Germany causes his protected existence to collapse, alongside the illusion of secular Jewish assimilation in 1930s Europe. Using their last reserves of wealth and influence to escape extermination, the Rosenbergs go underground to avoid the Gestapo. Eventually exposed, captured, and taken to Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp in Germany, Alexander and his father collaborate to survive one day at a time

Virginia Hall: Most Dangerous unveils the extraordinary life of a remarkable woman who defied expectations, shattered barriers, and left an indelible mark on history. In a world dominated by conflict, espionage, and intrigue, Virginia Hall emerged as a force to be reckoned with. With unparalleled determination and unwavering courage, she overcame both physical obstacles and societal constraints to become one of the most effective and feared spies of World War II.

As the first Russian bombs drop on Oulu, Finland in early 1940 during the Winter War, Aarne Kovala is a young boy with a great love of the sea. While the war rages, Aarne takes fate into his own hands and joins the Finnish merchant marines. He spends his days delivering war materials between Finland, Poland, and Germany. But when Finland’s ties with Germany are severed after the signing of the Moscow Armistice in 1944, Aarne and his fellow sailors are arrested by the Nazis and sent by cattle car to the infamous Stutthof concentration camp deep in the Polish forest.

As Kaia sought to learn how her Estonian family survived during World War II, she discovered the compelling story of one man's brave defiance as he resisted the Soviet occupation of Estonia. During the second World War, the residents of the Baltic states fought to preserve their independence while they were brutally occupied by both the Soviet and the German armies. Many like Kaia’s family escaped at the end of the war.

Joey Jacobson, a young Jewish man from Westmount on the Island of Montreal, trained as a navigator and bomb-aimer in Western Canada. On arriving in England, he was assigned to No. 106 Squadron, a British unit tasked with the bombing of Germany. Joey Jacobson’s War tells, in his own words, why he enlisted, his understanding of strategy, tactics, and the effectiveness of the air war at its lowest point, how he responded to the inevitable battle stress, and how he became both a hopeful idealist and a seasoned airman.

Gegen das Vergessen. Theodor Plieviers Roman Stalingrad, in 26 Sprachen übersetzt und seit seinem Erscheinen ein Bestseller, ist unbestritten das bedeutendste dokumentarische Epos über den Zweiten Weltkrieg. Es verdankt seine unübertroffene Authentizität dem Umstand, dass Plievier, damals Emigrant in Moskau, die Überlebenden der 6. Armee in Gefangenenlagern interviewen konnte.

Virginia Hall left her comfortable Baltimore roots in 1931 with dreams of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, but her gender—and her wooden leg—kept her from pursuing politics. As Hitler advanced across Europe, she put her gift for languages to use with the British Special Operations Executive, a secret espionage organization. She was soon deployed to occupied France, where she located drop zones, helped prisoners of war flee to England, and secured safe houses for agents.

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.

During the course of the Second World War, the Allies mounted a series of attempts to prevent Germany from manufacturing heavy water utilizing hydroelectric plants in occupied Norway. These efforts comprised a mix of bomber and Commando raids. The overall aim was to stop Nazi Germany building a nuclear bomb. In fact, Hitler was never as close as the Allies thought, but the idea that his regime could construct and deploy such a device was the ultimate doomsday scenario, one that would have tilted the balance in favor of the Nazis.

A brilliantly vivid Second World War memoir by one of 'the Few' Spitfire fighter pilots. Following the D-Day landings, Battle of Britain hero Tom Neil was assigned as an RAF liaison to an American fighter squadron. As the Allies pushed east, Neil commandeered an abandoned Spitfire as his own personal aeroplane. Erasing any evidence of its provenance and stripping it down to bare metal, it became the RAF's only silver Spitfire. Alongside his US comrades, he took the silver Spitfire into battle until, with the war's end, he was forced to make a difficult decision.

From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II. As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special...