Showing titles in World War II

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.

The Eagle Above: Chronicles of an American Fighter Pilot is the true story of Colonel Stanley E. Corvin, Sr. who, at age 19, went to Canada in mid-1941, enlisting in the RCAF to train as a fighter pilot. In England, he was an RAF flight officer in the 121st Eagle Squadron, made up of Americans. Flying Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes, Corvin flew fighter sweeps and escorted bombers into Germany.

Tank Driver is the story of a young man’s combat initiation in World War II. Based on letters home, the sparse narrative has the immediacy of on-the-spot reporting. Ted Hartman was a teenager when he was sent overseas to drive a Sherman tank into combat to face the desperate German counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hartman gives a riveting account of the shifting tides of battle and the final Allied breakout. He tells about the concentration camps, the spectacle of defeated Germans, and the encounter with Russian soldiers in Austria that marked combat’s end.

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.

An extraordinary firsthand account of the Battle of Midway by one of its key participants, timed to the 75th anniversary: American dive-bomber pilot ""Dusty"" Kleiss helped sink three Japanese warships (including two aircraft carriers), received the Navy Cross, and is credited with playing a...

As a young man growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, Robert Morgan was a fast-driving party boy - a hell-raiser. But when his mother committed suicide upon learning she had inoperable brain cancer, Morgan's life changed dramatically. He was no longer a carefree playboy; he was a man searching for meaning. He found that meaning at the controls of an airplane, and in the flak-and fighter-filled skies over Occupied France and Nazi Germany.

The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight -- the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M. Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War...

Robert Lee Scott was larger than life. A decorated Eagle Scout who barely graduated from high school, the young man from Macon, Georgia, with an oversize personality used dogged determination to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a famed fighter pilot. First capturing national attention during World War II, Scott, a West Point graduate, flew missions in China alongside the legendary "Flying Tigers", where his reckless courage and victories against the enemy made headlines.

On the seventy-fifth anniversary, the authors of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Eleventh Day unravel the mysteries of Pearl Harbor to expose the scapegoating of the admiral who was in command the day 2,000 Americans died, report on the continuing struggle to restore his lost honor—and clear...

De danske jøder flygtede over hals og hoved i oktober 1943 og måtte de forlade deres hjem, ejendele, formue, arbejde, virksomheder osv. uden varsel. Bogen følger en række familiers skæbne og fortæller den hidtil ukendte historie om jødernes hjemkomst. Hvad skete der, mens de var væk, og hvordan blev de taget imod, da de vendte hjem i 1945? Af danskerne som medmennesker og af den danske stat. Det er fortællingen om, at Danmark også her var et særtilfælde under Holocaust, men også en rystende historie om svigt og misbrug.

Under besættelsen var det danske politi aktivt frem til 1944, hvor det blev interneret af tyskerne. De cirka 30 medlemmer arbejdede effektivt og diskret og førte til flere likvideringer af danske modstandsmænd. Niels-Birger Danielsen og Erland Leth Pedersen fortæller den rystende historie om Svend Staal-gruppen og dens mange ugerninger og forbrydelser mod deres eget folk og de frygtelige konsekvenser, deres forræderi fik for de mennesker, der satte livet på spil for deres land.

EJ Johnson's story of nine young men who overcame unbelievable odds with the 8th Air Force 490th Bomb Group flying missions over Germany during the 1944-1945 era of World War II - and lived to tell about it. After qualifying as a navigator in the Army Air Corps during World War II, E.J. Johnson went on to serve with the 490th Bomb Group of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. His crew led by Pilot Roy Hann, flew some of the most harrowing campaigns of the war including many to Berlin, the heart of the German war machine.

Med Fortrængt grusomhed. Danske SS-vagter 1941-45 dokumenteres det for første gang med udgangspunkt i hidtil ukendt materiale fra danske og udenlandske arkiver, at danske SS-frivillige deltog i krigs- og folkedrabsforbrydelser de nazistiske koncentrationslejre. Nogle danskere blev uddannet og trænet i vold direkte ved kz-lejre som Sachsenhausen, Dachau og Neuengamme, andre blev overført til vagttjeneste i kz-lejre efter at have været sårede ved fronten.

This book tells the story of Kazuo Odachi who—in 1943, when he was just 16 years-old—joined the Imperial Japanese Navy to become a pilot. A year later, he was unknowingly assigned to the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps—a group of airmen whose mission was to sacrifice their lives by crashing planes into enemy ships. Their call sign was "ten dead, zero alive." This book offers a new perspective on these infamous suicide pilots. It is not a chronicle of war, nor is it a collection of research papers compiled by scholars. It is a transcript of Odachi's words.

This biography draws heavily on the personal diaries of the subject, Robert Hichens (or ‘Hitch’ as he was universally known). After a brief description of his early life, time at Oxford, his motor racing achievements (including trophies at Le Mans in his Aston Martin), and RN training, the book focuses on his exceptional wartime experiences. Hitch was the most highly decorated RNVR officer of the war with two DSOs, three DSCs and three Mentions in Despatches. He was recommended for a posthumous VC.

One of Hitler’s most notorious henchmen, Hermann Göring was the bulldog who obediently followed orders while destroying countless lives. In his early career as the leader of the SA, also known as the Brownshirts or Stormtroopers, Göring played a pivotal role in suppressing any and all opposition to the Nazi Party. He was also implicated in the Reichstag Fire of 1933, an event that resulted in the suspension of civil liberties in Germany and greatly aided in the consolidation of Nazi control.

Between May 1944 and his return home in November 1945, Roy wrote letters almost daily to Carmela from the Pacific. As he wrote to Carmela, “One of the things that will keep us together in spirit will be the letters. We must keep them flowing in an unbroken chain.” On one hand, they are indeed love letters; on the other hand, they are historic documents. In writing Roy & Carmela, Mark Brown, Roy and Carmela’s youngest son, put together a history of the U.S. war against Japan from Roy’s unique perspective in Saipan.

Letters from a WWII Airman: How His Faith Sustained Him, is the true story of one of those men from what we acknowledge as "the "Greatest Generation". Like so many who experienced war, Ken Hathaway (1918-2001) was reluctant to talk about those experiences, but the letters and scrapbooks he left behind contained information that, when pieced together, provided a compelling story.

On April 25, 1945, the historic link-up of American and Russian soldiers at the Elbe River split Nazi Germany in half. American, Russian and German veterans tell their experiences for the 50th Anniversary of this historic event.

Arnold Döring was just 23 years old when he flew his first mission against the Soviet Union on June 21, 1941. On that day he started writing his diary. His account not only describe the technical aspects and the difficulties posed by weather and terrain, but are also filled with suspense, with detailed descriptions of bombing raids and narrow escapes from enemy fighter planes. With detached professionalism, Döring offers us thrilling, action-packed snapshots of life as a Luftwaffe pilot.