Showing titles in World War II

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.

The definitive account of General Douglas MacArthur's rise during World War II, from the author of the bestseller The Admirals. World War II changed the course of history. Douglas MacArthur changed the course of World War II. Macarthur at War will go deeper into this transformative period of his...

E. J. Jernigan's memoir offers listeners a fascinating glimpse of life as an enlisted man aboard the USS Saufley, one of the most highly decorated destroyers of World War II. It is a rarely told story of the sailors who fought the war from boiler rooms, after-steering spaces, radio shacks, and other gritty places that keep a warship going. For the author, it was a world of strong emotions and quick reactions, where men had to adapt and grow if they were to survive.

Battle Hardened: An Infantry Officer's Harrowing Journey from D-Day to VE Day tells the story of an American soldier's growth from a Second Lieutenant eager to prove his worth in battle to a skilled and resolute commander over the course of the Northern European Campaign. Craig Chapman delves deep into the personal recollections and mental state of Bill Chapman as he fought against the Nazis, enduring frontline combat and witnessing horror on a massive scale.

In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as “Maggie” to his fellow paratroopers, joined the 82d Airborne Division, his new “home” for the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains outside Naples. In October 1943, when most of the 82d departed Italy to prepare for the D-Day...

Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer told the story of the man who built the bomb. The Light of a Thousand Suns tells the story he couldn't see—the grandmother who became a shadow on stone, the doctor who crawled through the ruins searching for his wife, the children who played in radioactive snow, and the soldiers who watched their own skeletons through closed eyelids.

The exciting true story of a legendary leader and the men who fought by his side in World War II, told in his own words From the moment they hit the beaches in North Africa to their last desperate struggle at Anzio, Darby’s Rangers asked for only one thing in World War II—the chance to fight...

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.

FACING THE LION is the autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II, Simone Arnold is a young girl who delights in life – her doting parents, her loving aunts and uncles, and her grandparents at their mountain farm in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. As Simone grows into her preteen years, her parents turn from the Catholic Church and become devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Simone, too, embraces the faith. The Nazi party (the "Lion") takes over Alsace-Lorraine, and Simone's schools become Nazi propaganda machines.

They are the lone wolves of the battlefield. Tracking the enemy, lying in wait for the target to appear—then they shoot to kill. Armed with an unerring eye, infinite patience and a mastery of camouflage, combat snipers stalk the enemy with only one goal....

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.

During his life, George S. Patton Jr. starred as an Olympic athlete in the 1912 Stockholm games, chased down Mexican bandits, and led tanks into battle in World War I. But he is best remembered for his exploits in World War II. Patton’s War follows the general from the beaches of Morocco, to the fields of France, right before the birth of Third Army on the continent. In highly engaging fashion, Kevin Hymel uncovers new facts, and challenges long-held beliefs about Patton. Through extensive research of soldiers’ memoirs and interviews, Hymel adds a new dimension.

The heroic accounts of Australian Army Nursing Sisters Margaret Anderson and Vera Torney who survived the perilous evacuation of Singapore in 1942. The nursing profession is one historically filled with everyday heroes whose work often makes the difference between life and death. Yet Nursing...

In 1944, hundreds of Allied soldiers were trapped in POW camps in occupied France. The odds of their survival were long. The odds of escaping, even longer. But one man had the courage to fight the odds . . . An elite British S.A.S. operative on an assassination mission gone wrong. A Jewish New...

There are few names in the annals of military history that evoke such emotion, and in some cases controversy, as the small Belgian town of Bastogne. The 101st Airborne are the best known defenders of Bastogne, but they only constituted one third of the eventual force that saved the city from total annihilation. This book digs deeper into the defense of Bastogne, revealing more details about those indomitable "Screaming Eagles" and the other units that stood with them during that punishingly bitter cold winter of 1944/45.

>In the months before Pearl Harbor, Kerns had passed the Army's flight training admission exam with flying colors. But because he lacked a high school diploma, the Army refused to give him flying lessons. Undaunted, Private Kerns took lessons with a civilian flying school and was actually scheduled for his first solo flight on the afternoon of December 7, 1941. Notwithstanding his lack of diploma, Kerns graduated from Officer Candidate School and then completed flight training in the L-4 Piper Cub in late 1942.

There are doers and there are preachers. The people who were executing orders or abusing people in World War Two wouldn’t have been able to commit any atrocities if the country hadn’t warmed up to an inhumane narrative. That’s where propaganda came in. Propaganda has long been part of various countries and societies to make the population believe something, and to find culprits, create feelings of animosity, and glorify local leaders or military campaigns.

Leclerc, c'est un parcours, un destin et une légende. Au lieu de l'image d'Épinal du génie ou du visionnaire, l'action du général en Afrique prend plus d'ampleur, son commandement de la 2e division blindée apparaît dans toute sa complexité, son rôle dans la décolonisation est réexaminé. La description de ses relations avec l'armée, de Gaulle et sa famille achève le portrait d'un homme qui lutta contre les ennemis de la France, mais aussi contre ses propres faiblesses.

Medal of Honor recipient Jack H. Lucas’s classic memoir of his heroics at the Battle of Iwo Jima—with a foreword by Bob Dole and reissued to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the battle in 2020. On February 20, 1945, the second day of the assault on Iwo Jima—one of the bloodiest...

They performed for millions while secretly serving their nations. The audience never suspected the deadliest act was happening offstage. What if the most celebrated entertainers of the 20th century were also its most effective spies?