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Fighting with the Long Range Desert Group: Merlyn Craw MM's War 1940–1945
by Brendan O'CarrollFormed in 1940 the Long Range Desert Group was the first Allied Special Forces unit established to operate behind German and Italian lines in North Africa. Its officers and men were volunteers recruited from British and Commonwealth units. Merlyn Craw was serving with the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force when he joined the LRDG in 1941. He took part in numerous missions in the desert. The navigational driving and fighting skills of the LRDG were legendary and they were frequently responsible for transporting Stirling’s SAS detachments on raids. Merlyn’s luck ran out when he was captured on the Barce raid in September 1942, but he escaped twice, the second time making it back to Allied lines. Sent home on leave, he returned to Italy with the New Zealand Army. After a ‘disagreement’ he went AWOL and rejoined the LRDG with no questions asked, serving until the end of the war. Drawing on interviews with Merlyn and other former LRDG veterans, the author has created a vivid picture of this exceptional and highly decorated fighting man. Readers cannot fail to be impressed by the courage and ruthless determination of Merlyn Craw MM and his comrades.
Fighting with the Screaming Eagles: With the 101st Airborne from Normandy to Bastogne
by Robert BowenRobert Bowen was drafted into Company C, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, as World War II broke out, and soon afterwards found himself storming ashore amid the chaos on Utah Beach, through unfamiliar terrain littered with minefields and hidden snipers. He was wounded during the Normandy campaign but went on to fight in Holland and the Ardennes where he was captured and his "trip through hell" truly began.In each of Bowen’s campaigns, the 101st “Screaming Eagles” spearheaded the Allied effort against ferocious German resistance or, as at Bastogne, stood nearly alone against the onslaught of enemy panzers and grenadiers. His insights into life behind German lines, after his capture, provide as much fascination as his exploits on the battlefield. An introduction by the world’s foremost historian of the 101st Airborne, George Koskimaki, further enhances this classic work.Written shortly after the war, Bowen's narrative is immediate, direct and compelling. His account, one of the few by a member of a glider regiment, provides a brutal insight into the battlefields of World War II and a vivid recreation of just what life was like in an elite unit. From the horror of D-Day and the despair of captivity, to the taste of C Rations and the fear of soldiers under fire, this memoir tells the full story of one man's total war.
Fighting Words: Canada's Best War Reporting
by Mark BourrieA collection of the best journalism from Canada’s wars, from the time of the Vikings to the war in Afghanistan. Fighting Words is a collection of the very best war journalism created by or about Canadians at war. The collection spans 1,000 years of history, from the Vikings’ fight with North American Natives, through New France’s struggle for survival against the Iroquois and British, to the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Rebellions of Lower and Upper Canada, the Fenian raids, the North-West Rebellion, the First World War, the Second World War, Korea, peacekeeping missions, and Afghanistan. Each piece has an introduction describing the limits placed on the writers, their apparent biases, and, in many cases, the uses of the article as propaganda. The stories were chosen for their impact on the audience they were written for, their staying power, and, above all, the quality of their writing.
Fighting Words and Images
by Elena V. Baraban Adam Muller Stephan JaegerFighting Words and Images is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary and theoretical analysis of war representations across time periods from Classical Antiquity to the present day and across languages, cultures, and media including print, painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography.Featuring contributions from across the humanities and social sciences, Fighting Words and Images is organized into four thematically consistent, analytically rigourous sections that discuss ways to overcome the conceptual challenges associated with theorizing war representation. This collection creatively and insightfully explains the nature, origins, dynamics, structure, and impact of a wide variety of war representations.
Fighting World War Three from the Middle East: Allied Contingency Plans, 1945-1954
by Michael J. CohenThis description of Allied contingency plans for military operations in the Middle East - in the event of conflict with the Soviet Union - argues that diplomatic events and crises in the Middle East in 1945-55 are understandable only in the context of assets sought by the Allies in that region.
Fights on the Little Horn: Unveiling the Myths of Custer's Last Stand
by Gordon HarperWinner of the 2014 John Carroll Award, presented annually by The Little Big Horn Associates, as their Literary Award for the best book/monograph during the preceding year.Winner 2014 G. Joseph Sills Jr. Book AwardThis remarkable book synthesizes a lifetime of in-depth research into one of America’s most storied disasters, the defeat of Custer’s 7th Cavalry at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, as well as the complete annihilation of that part of the cavalry led by Custer himself.The author, Gordon Harper, spent countless hours on the battlefield itself as well as researching every iota of evidence of the fight from both sides, white and Indian. He was thus able to recreate every step of the battle as authoritatively as anyone could, dispelling myths and falsehoods along the way. Harper himself passed away in 2009, leaving behind nearly two million words of original research and writing. In this book his work has been condensed for the general public to observe his key findings and the crux of his narrative on the exact course of the battle.One of his first observations is that the fight took place along the Little Horn River—its junction with the Big Horn was several miles away so that the term for the battle, “Little Big Horn” has always been a misnomer. He precisely traces the mysterious activities of Benteen’s battalion on that fateful day, and why it could never come to Custer’s reinforcement. He describes Reno’s desperate fight in unprecedented depth, as well as how that unnerved officer benefited from the unexpected heroism of many of his men.Indian accounts, ever-present throughout this book, come to the fore especially during Custer’s part of the fight, because no white soldier survived it. However, analysis of the forensic evidence—tracking cartridges, bullets, etc., discovered on the battlefield—plus the locations of bodies assist in drawing an accurate scenario of how the final scene unfolded. It may indeed be clearer now than it was to the doomed 7th Cavalrymen at the time, who through the dust and smoke and Indians seeming to rise by hundreds from the ground, only gradually realized the extent of the disaster.Of additional interest is the narrative of the battlefield after the fight, when successive burial teams had to be dispatched for the gruesome task, because prior ones invariably did a poor job. Though author Gordon Harper is no longer with us, his daughter Tori Harper, along with author/historians Gordon Richard and Monte Akers, have done yeoman’s work in preserving his valuable research for the public.
The Fights on the Little Horn Companion: Gordon Harper's Full Appendices and Bibliography
by Gordon HarperA treasury of sources and supplemental information for readers of the award-winning history The Fights on the Little Horn. This volume collects and lists books, booklets, pamphlets, manuscripts, personal and family papers, newspapers, magazines, periodicals, correspondence, interviews, military and historical journals, military and government reports, and more used by Gordon Harper, author of The Fights on the Little Horn, in his extraordinary years-long research into Custer&’s Last Stand. As a companion volume to that book, or a resource for anyone interested in the history of the American West, it is a valuable and comprehensive guide.
Figureheads of the Royal Navy
by David PulvertaftThe first figureheads that were carved to represent the names of British warships appeared during the reign of Henry VIII; the last ones were carved in the early years of the twentieth century. During the intervening three hundred and fifty years it is estimated that some 5000 ships of the Royal Navy carried a figurehead of some description. This book follows the development of these diverse carvings, examining how the figurehead carvers interpreted the names and the symbolism incorporated in their designs. Evidence is drawn from a wide range of sources: contemporary ship models, ship plans, designs submitted for approval of the Navy Board and, of course, from those figureheads that have survived.Lavishly illustrated with much previously unpublished material, the book explores the wide range of subjects that were represented on the bows of Their Majesties Ships and recounts many of the stories that were told about them.The narrative is complemented by a catalogue that provides a brief description of each surviving figurehead, each carvers design drawing with its source and reference number as well as those ship plans and contemporary models that show the figureheads detail. This combination makes the book useful to a wide range of historians, researchers and anyone with an interest in Britains maritime past.
Figures in a Landscape
by Barry England'Masterful and beautifully written. Riveting and compellingly authentic. Grips you like a vice from the first page and never lets you go' Damien LewisTwo men are on the run. They have four hundred miles to go across hostile territory. Soldiers on the ground track them day and night, a helicopter circles above, life becomes a second-by-second fight for survival. Each muscle movement, drop of sweat, glance and instinct matters. Every second counts.Through long slogs across country, risky raids for supplies, moments of sheer panic, and under the intense pressure to survive, an unbreakable bond between two men is forged. This stunningly written, adrenaline-pumping novel is a little-known classic of its genre.SHORTLISTED FOR THE FIRST EVER BOOKER PRIZE IN 1969‘England's prose has the tough, spare elegance of steel scaffolding… a brilliant achievement’ The Times
Figuring Violence: Affective Investments in Perpetual War
by Rebecca A. AdelmanIn the United States, the early years of the war on terror were marked by the primacy of affects like fear and insecurity. These aligned neatly with the state’s drive toward intensive securitization and an aggressive foreign policy. But for the broader citizenry, such affects were tolerable at best and unbearable at worst; they were not sustainable. Figuring Violence catalogs the affects that define the latter stages of this war and the imaginative work that underpins them. These affects—apprehension, affection, admiration, gratitude, pity, and righteous anger—are far more subtle and durable than their predecessors, rendering them deeply compatible with the ambitions of a state embroiling itself in a perpetual and unwinnable war.Surveying the cultural landscape of this sprawling conflict, Figuring Violence reveals the varied mechanisms by which these affects have been militarized. Rebecca Adelman tracks their convergences around six types of beings: civilian children, military children, military spouses, veterans with PTSD and TBI, Guantánamo detainees, and military dogs. All of these groups have become preferred objects of sentiment in wartime public culture, but they also have in common their status as political subjects who are partially or fully unknowable. They become visible to outsiders through a range of mediated and imaginative practices that are ostensibly motivated by concern or compassion. However, these practices actually function to reduce these beings to abstracted figures, silencing their political subjectivities and obscuring their suffering. As a result, they are erased and rendered hypervisible at once. Figuring Violence demonstrates that this dynamic ultimately propagates the very militarism that begets their victimization.
The Filibusters: The Story of the Special Boat Service
by John LodwickFirst published in 1947, this novel from British author John Lodwick is an accolade to the British Special Boat Service (SBS), a commando force of some 300 men that inflicted great damage on the enemy in the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas during World War II.Founded in July 1940 by Commando officer Roger Courtney, and initially named the Folboat Troop—after the type of folding canoe employed in raiding operations—the Special Boat Service became the special forces unit of the Naval Service of the United Kingdom. Together with the Special Air Service, Special Reconnaissance Regiment and the Special Forces Support Group, they form the United Kingdom Special Forces and come under joint control of the same Director Special Forces.In The Filibusters: The Story of the Special Boat Service, Lodwick reflects his war experiences and exploits as an officer in the Special Boat Service.
Filling the Ranks: Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918
by Tim Cook Richard Holt J. L. GranatsteinManpower is the lifeblood of armies regardless of time or place. In the First World War, much of Canada’s military effort went toward sustaining the Canadian Expeditionary Force, especially in France and Belgium. The job was not easy. The government and Department of Militia and Defence were tasked with recruiting and training hundreds of thousands of men, shipping them to England, and creating organizations on the continent meant to forward these men to their units. The first book to explore the issue of manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Filling the Ranks examines the administrative and organizational changes that fostered efficiency and sustained the army. Richard Holt describes national civilian and military recruitment policies and criteria both inside and outside of Canada; efforts to recruit women, convicts, and members of First Nations, African Canadian, Asian, and Slavic communities; the conduct of entry-level training; and the development of a coherent reinforcement structure. Canada’s ability to fill the ranks with trained soldiers ultimately helped make the Corps an elite formation within the British Expeditionary Force. Based on extensive research in British and Canadian archives, Filling the Ranks provides a wealth of new information on Canada"s role in the Great War.
Filling the Ranks: Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918 (Carleton Library Series)
by Richard HoltManpower is the lifeblood of armies regardless of time or place. In the First World War, much of Canada’s military effort went toward sustaining the Canadian Expeditionary Force, especially in France and Belgium. The job was not easy. The government and Department of Militia and Defence were tasked with recruiting and training hundreds of thousands of men, shipping them to England, and creating organizations on the continent meant to forward these men to their units. The first book to explore the issue of manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Filling the Ranks examines the administrative and organizational changes that fostered efficiency and sustained the army. Richard Holt describes national civilian and military recruitment policies and criteria both inside and outside of Canada; efforts to recruit women, convicts, and members of First Nations, African Canadian, Asian, and Slavic communities; the conduct of entry-level training; and the development of a coherent reinforcement structure. Canada’s ability to fill the ranks with trained soldiers ultimately helped make the Corps an elite formation within the British Expeditionary Force. Based on extensive research in British and Canadian archives, Filling the Ranks provides a wealth of new information on Canada"s role in the Great War.
Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System
by Cindy WilliamsThe war in Iraq and the problematic military occupation of that country have called into question the adequacy of America's all-volunteer force. Politicians and others have expressed doubts about its equity and capability; some have called for the reinstatement of the draft. Yet over the past twenty years the all-volunteer military has become a technologically advanced force that has contributed to America's overall military advantage. This book analyzes current military pay and personnel policies and identifies changes needed to maintain and improve America's all-volunteer force. Filling the Ranks argues that to attract qualified and motivated volunteers, the armed forces need to offer better tangible inducements -- pay, benefits, and training -- to accompany such intangible rewards as pride in serving one's country. Many of the policies related to tangible rewards were established shortly after World War II and are no longer effective. Filling the Ranks presents detailed assessments of US military pay and personnel policies in light of the strategic, demographic, economic, and labor realities of the future. It identifies specific problems that today's military career patterns, training, pay, and benefits pose for officers and enlisted men and women in both active duty and reserve forces, discussing such issues as competition with the private sector for talent, the need to restructure compensation, and provision of family support. It offers recommendations for more flexible, adaptive, and effective policies and a blueprint for achieving them.
Film Professionals in Nazi-Occupied Europe: Mediation Between the National-Socialist Cultural “New Order” and Local Structures
by Pavel Skopal Roel Vande WinkelThis book analyses the film industries and cinema cultures of Nazi-occupied countries (1939-1945) from the point of view of individuals: local captains of industry, cinema managers, those working for film studios and officials authorized to navigate film policy. The book considers these people from a historical perspective, taking into account their career before the occupation and, where relevant, pays attention to their post-war lives. The perspectives of these historical agents” contributes to an understanding of how top-down orders and haphazard signals from the occupying administration were moulded, adjusted and distorted in the process of their translation and implementation. This edited collection offers a more dynamic and less deterministic approach to research on the international expansion of Third-Reich cinema in World War Two; an approach that strives to balance the role of individual agency with the structural determinants. The case studies presented in this book cover the territories of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the Soviet Union.
Film & Radio Propaganda in World War II (Routledge Library Editions: WW2 #9)
by K.R.M. ShortThis book, first published in 1983, brings together leading world experts on film and radio propaganda in a study which deals with each of the major powers as well as several under occupation. By examining each nations’ propaganda content and comparing its various strands of output designed for different audiences, the historian is provided with an important source of a nation’s official self-image. Total war forced governments to formulate goals consistent with the received national ideology in order to support the war effort. To this extent, much of the domestic propaganda was directed towards stimulating the population to make sacrifices with promise of a new world if the peace were won.
Filming History from Below: Microhistorical Documentaries (Nonfictions)
by Efrén CuevasTraditional historical documentaries strive to project a sense of objectivity, producing a top-down view of history that focuses on public events and personalities. In recent decades, in line with historiographical trends advocating “history from below,” a different type of historical documentary has emerged, focusing on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efrén Cuevas categorizes these films as “microhistorical documentaries” and examines how they push cinema’s capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions.Cuevas pinpoints the key features of these documentaries, identifying their parallels with written microhistory: a reduced scale of observation, a central role given to human agency, a conjectural approach to the use of archival sources, and a reliance on narrative structures. Microhistorical documentaries also use tools specific to film to underscore the affective dimension of historical narratives, often incorporating autobiographical and essayistic perspectives, and highlighting the role of the protagonists’ personal memories in the reconstruction of the past. These films generally draw from family archives, with an emphasis on snapshots and home movies.Filming History from Below examines works including Péter Forgács’s films dealing with the Holocaust such as The Maelstrom and Free Fall; documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Rithy Panh’s work on the Cambodian genocide; films about the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War such as A Family Gathering and History and Memory; and Jonas Mekas’s chronicle of migration in his diary film Lost, Lost, Lost.
The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler's Eagle's Nest - The True Story of the 101st Airborne's Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers
by Richard Killblane Jake McNieceThe author of Blitzkrieg covers one of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in an “outstanding book about naval warfare” (World War II History).When the German battleship Bismarck—a masterpiece of engineering, well-armored with a main artillery of eight 15-inch guns—left the port of Gotenhafen for her first operation on the night of May 18, 1941, the British battlecruiser Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to find her quickly, as several large convoys were heading for Britain.On May 24, Bismarck was found off the coast of Greenland, but the ensuing battle was disastrous for the British. The Hood was totally destroyed within minutes, with only three crewmen surviving, and Prince of Wales was badly damaged. The chase resumed until the German behemoth was finally caught, this time by four British capital ships supported by torpedo-bombers from the carrier Ark Royal. The icy North Atlantic roiled from the crash of shellfire and bursting explosions until finally the Bismarck collapsed, sending nearly two thousand German sailors to a watery grave.Tamelander and Zetterling’s work rests on stories from survivors and the latest historical discoveries. The book starts with a thorough account of maritime developments from 1871 up to the era of the giant battleship, and ends with a vivid account, hour by hour, of the dramatic and fateful hunt for the mighty Bismarck, Nazi Germany’s last hope to pose a powerful surface threat to Allied convoys.“Exciting story-telling . . . recreat[es] the thrill of the hunt.” —International Journal of Maritime History“[An] epic sea chase and its vivid, human details.” —World War II
El fin de la guerra de los Estados Unidos en Afganistán: Los Agentes Rusos: Libro 3 (Los Agentes Rusos #3)
by Ted HalsteadLas tropas estadounidenses abandonaron Afganistán. Pero, al igual que en Irak, pronto se vieron obligadas a regresar. Tres agentes rusos intentan detener las armas nucleares robadas a Pakistán por los talibanes. Los talibanes quieren utilizar las armas robadas para obligar a Estados Unidos a abandonar Afganistán para siempre. ¿Les permitirán los ataques nucleares en múltiples lugares de Afganistán tener éxito? ¿O podrán los agentes rusos y las fuerzas especiales estadounidenses detener a los talibanes a tiempo? "El autor se ha esforzado mucho, más que la mayoría, en justificar las acciones de cada una de las naciones implicadas, especialmente Rusia. Al menos para mí, eso le da al libro mucho más realismo y lo convierte en una historia mucho más interesante. El desarrollo de los personajes también es estupendo. Uno se involucra en la historia. Por último, como veterano de la USAF, su uso del ejército y las descripciones de las personalidades implicadas son excepcionales".
El fin de la guerra rusa en Ucrania: Los Agentes Rusos: Libro 4 (Los Agentes Rusos #4)
by Ted HalsteadAgentes rusos buscan en Ucrania una ojiva nuclear desaparecida. Estados Unidos sospecha que la ojiva no ha sido robada y que su detonación es un pretexto para que Rusia se apodere de Ucrania. ¿Encontrarán los agentes la cabeza nuclear antes de que sea utilizada y dé comienzo la Tercera Guerra Mundial? Publishers Weekly: "El impresionante cuarto thriller de los Agentes Rusos de Halstead evita las convenciones trilladas del género... Los fans de las novelas de espionaje se deleitarán".
The Final Advance, September to November 1918: September to November 1918 (British Expeditionary Force)
by Andrew RawsonThis is the story the British Expeditionary Forces part in the final days of the Advance to Victory. It starts with the massive offensive against the Hindenburg Line at the end of September 1918. Second Army launched the first of the British attacks in Flanders on the 28th, followed by Fourth Army the next day along the St Quentin Canal.Both First and Third Armies joined in, breaking the Hindenburg Line across the Lys plain and the Artois region, taking Cambrai by 10 October. The narrative then follows the advance through the battles of the River Selle and the River Sambre. It culminates with the final operations, including the actions at Maubeuge and Mons, just before the Armistice on 11 November 1918. Time and again the British and Empire troops used well-rehearsed combined arms tactics to break down German resistance as the four year conflict came to an end.Each stage of the six week long battle is dealt with equally, focusing on the most talked about side of the campaign, the BEFs side. Over fifty new maps chart the day by day progress of the five armies. Together the narrative and the maps explain the British Armys experience during the days of World War One. The men who led the advances, broke down the defences and those who were awarded the Victoria Cross are mentioned. Discover the end of the Advance to Victory and learn how the British Army reached the peak of their learning curve.
Final Answers
by Greg DinalloGreg Dinallo, the heralded author of Rockets&’ Red Glare and Purpose of Evasion, has written his most chilling and disturbing thriller yet: A novel of intrigue that explores the emotionally charged issue of Vietnam War MIAs. Final Answers is provocative, authentic, and powerful fictionAmong the 58,176 names etched on the long black wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, are names of those who never came home—of MIAs whose families are still waiting for final answers.During a business trip to Washington, a veteran, now a statistics expert, has an experience at the Memorial that will shatter his carefully constructed life with the impact of a Claymore mine. Touching the names carved in the wall, he finds one all too familiar: his own. A. Calvert Morgan understands cold, hard numbers. But how did his name get on the wall? Morgan&’s wife, Nancy, does some research for him that leads him to Kate Ackerman. Kate&’s husband had been listed as missing in action after being shot down in Laos twenty years earlier; during those years, she has joined the National League of Families and become a dedicated MIA activist.At first, Morgan believes that he is part of a bizarre military snafu—a data entry error made in the field. But when Kate guides him to the Army&’s Central Identification Lab in Hawaii, he begins to realize that his &“death&” was not an accident. In the war zone, another man took his name and serial number for his own —and then was killed. Morgan finds out that his impersonator was no ordinary GI He was, in fact, a key player in a macabre conspiracy that reaches back to the poppy fields of Laos.Morgan has set off a deadly alarm; the drug lord is still operating and has targeted him for elimination. Coming after Morgan—a man more comfortable with a computer than a handgun—the hit man commits a murder so brutal that Morgan&’s life is turned into a raging fight for survival.From the San Francisco mortuary that received the bodies of American servicemen during the war to Southeast Asia in the &’90s, Morgan is venturing into ever more violent territory. And he is not alone. Kate Ackerman has joined him on a trip to Thailand—hopeful that her husband is still alive, his fate possibly linked to those who have targeted Morgan for death.Amid Bangkok&’s steamy nightclubs and brackish, twisting canals, their quest pushes them into the jungle, across the Mekong River into Laos, where they move toward a brutal final answer to the mystery of Vietnam MIAs . . .Electrifying and filled with suspense, Final Answers confirms Greg Dinallo&’s reputation as a novelist who poses daring questions, takes extraordinary risks, and delivers searing excitement from first page to last.
The Final Archives of the Führerbunker: Berlin in 1945, the Chancellery and the Last Days of Hitler
by Paul Villatoux Xavier AiolfiCollected documents offering a look into the minds of the Third Reich’s leaders in their final days, and at Berlin following the end of World War II.In November 1945, two French officers secretly entered the Führerbunker, the air raid shelter near the Chancellery in Berlin. The bunker was the last home of Adolf Hitler; the background of the last months of his life and the war; where he married Eva Braun on April 29, 1945; and where he killed himself less than two days later.In the middle of a heap of furniture and broken objects, the two officers found hundreds of documents littering the ground. Among the documents that they retrieved were a dozen telegrams of historic importance that allow us to understand the spirit of the last leaders of the Third Reich as well as the events that took place between April 23 and 26, 1945. These and other documents are presented for the first time in this book, shown in their proper context with an expert commentary.“But although the building may have gone, troves of historic documents survived. Now, many have been published for the first time in this new visual history, an excellent guide to the horrendous final days, hours, and minutes of the Third Reich.” —Military History Matters
The Final Betrayal: MacArthur and the Tragedy of Japanese POWs
by Mark FeltonThis book examines the period between the unconditional surrender of Japan on 14 August 1945, and the arrival of Allied liberation forces in Japanese-occupied territories after 2 September 1945. The delay handed the Japanese a golden opportunity to set their house in order before Allied war crimes investigators arrived. After 14 August groups of Allied POWs were brutally murdered. Vast amounts of documentation concerning crimes were burned ahead of the arrival of Allied forces. POW facilities and medical experimentation installations were either abandoned or destroyed. Perhaps the greatest crimes were continuing deaths of Allied POWs from starvation, disease and ill-treatment after the Japanese surrender. The blame rests with the American authorities, and particularly General MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific. MacArthur expressly forbade any Allied forces from liberating Japanese occupied territories before he had personally taken the formal Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Vice Admiral Lord Mountbatten, Commanding Allied forces in Southeast Asia, protested against this policy, believing that pandering to MacArthurs vanity and ego would mean condemning many starving and sick prisoners to death. Deaths among British and Commonwealth POWs were significant as opposed to American POWs who were already largely liberated in the Philippines and elsewhere.
Final Blackout
by L. Ron HubbardTriumphant tale of heroes, honor and impossible odds. As the great World War grinds to a halt a force more sinister than Hitler's Nazis has seized control of Europe and is systematically destroying every adversary -- except one. In the heart of France a crack unit of British soldiers survive, overcoming all opposition under the leadership of a hardened military strategist highly trained in every method of combat and known only as "The Lieutenant". Ordered to return to British Headquarters, the Lieutenant is torn between obeying the politicians in London or doing what he knows is right for his country, regardless of the price.