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Last Men Outt: The True Story of America's Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam
by Bob Drury Tom ClavinThe monsoon winds swirling up from the South China Sea had doubled in magnitude as Marine Staff Sergeant Mike Sullivan stood on the roof of the American Embassy, watching North Vietnamese artillery pound Saigon's airport. It was late in the afternoon of April 29, 1975, and for the past eight days the airstrip had been the busiest in the world as flight after flight of United States cargo planes ferried Vietnamese refugees, American civilians, and soldiers of both countries to safety while 150,000 North Vietnamese troops marched on the city. With Saigon now encircled and the airport bombed out, thousands were trapped.Last Men Out tells the remarkable story of the drama that unfolded over the next twenty-four hours: the final, heroic chapter of the Vietnam War as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground. It would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out--what many would call an American Dunkirk.In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and indepth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who were the last men to leave, rescued from the Embassy roof just moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that the end had come and to evacuate, these courageous men held their ground and helped save thousands of lives. They and their fellow troops on the ground and in the air had no room for error as frenzy broke out in the streets and lashing rains and enemy fire began to pelt the city. One Marine pilot, Captain Gerry Berry, flew for eighteen straight hours and had to physically force the American ambassador onto his helicopter.Drury and Clavin gained unprecedented access to the survivors, to the declassified "After-Action reports" of the operation, and to the transmissions among helicopter pilots, their officers, and officials in Saigon secretly recorded by the National Security Agency. They deliver a taut and stirring account of a turning point in American history which unfolds with the heart-stopping urgency of the best thrillers--a riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.
The Last Million: Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War
by David NasawFrom bestselling author David Nasaw, a sweeping new history of the one million refugees left behind in Germany after WWIIIn May 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of global military conflict did not cease with the German capitulation. Millions of lost and homeless concentration camp survivors, POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and Nazi collaborators in flight from the Red Army overwhelmed Germany, a nation in ruins. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate refugees and attempted to repatriate them. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained more than a million displaced persons left behind in Germany: Jews, Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and other Eastern Europeans who refused to go home or had no homes to return to. The Last Million would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, temporary homelands in exile, divided by nationality, with their own police forces, churches and synagogues, schools, newspapers, theaters, and infirmaries. The international community could not agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of debate and inaction, the International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from postwar labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept refugees for resettlement, finally passed a displaced persons bill. With Cold War fears supplanting memories of World War II atrocities, the bill granted the vast majority of visas to those who were reliably anti-Communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators and war criminals, while severely limiting the entry of Jews, who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the controversial partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany.A masterwork from acclaimed historian David Nasaw, The Last Million tells the gripping yet until now largely hidden story of postwar displacement and statelessness. By 1952, the Last Million were scattered around the world. As they crossed from their broken past into an unknowable future, they carried with them their wounds, their fears, their hope, and their secrets. Here for the first time, Nasaw illuminates their incredible history and, with profound contemporary resonance, shows us that it is our history as well.
The Last Mission
by Harry MazerIn 1944, as World War II is raging across Europe, fifteen-year-old Jack Raab dreams of being a hero. Leaving New York City, his family, and his boyhood behind, Jack uses a false I.D. and lies his way into the U.S. Air Force.From their base in England, he and his crew fly twenty-four treacherous bombing missions over occupied Europe. The war is almost over and Hitler near defeat when they fly their last mission -- a mission destined for disaster. Shot down far behind enemy lines, Jack is taken prisoner and sent to a German POW camp, where his experiences are more terrifying than anything he'd ever imagined.From the Paperback edition.
The Last Mission
by Jim Smith Malcolm McconnellA gripping account of the final American bombing mission of World War II and how it prevented a military coup that would have kept Japan in the war.How close did the Japanese come to not surrendering to Allied forces on August 15, 1945? The Last Mission explores this question through two previously neglected strands of late--World War II history, whose very interconnections could have caused a harrowing shift in the course of the postwar world. On the final night of the war, as Emperor Hirohito recorded a message of surrender for the Japanese people, a band of Japanese rebels, commanded by War Minister Anami's elite staff, burst into the palace. They had plotted a massive coup that aimed to destroy the recordings of the Imperial Rescript of surrender and issue false orders forged with the Emperor's seal commanding the widely dispersed Japanese military to continue the war. If this rebellion had succeeded, the military would have proceeded with large-scale kamikaze attacks on Allied forces, costing huge casualties and just possibly provoking the Americans to drop a third atomic bomb on Japan over Tokyo-and continue to drop more bombs as Japanese resistance stiffened.Meanwhile, in the midst of an "end-of-war" celebration on Guam, Air Force radio operator Jim Smith and his fellow crewmen received urgent orders for a bombing mission over Japan's sole remaining oil refinery north of Tokyo. As a stream of American B-29B bombers approached Tokyo, Japanese air defenses, fearing the approaching planes signaled the threat of a third atomic bomb, ordered a total blackout in Tokyo and the Imperial Palace, completely disrupting the rebels' plans. Smith and his fellow crewmembers completed the mission, and a few hours later, the Emperor announced the surrender over Japan's airwaves, dictating the end of the war.The Last Mission is an insightful piece of speculative investigation that combines narrative storytelling with historical contingency and explores how two seemingly unrelated events could have profoundly changed the course of modern history.From the Hardcover edition.
The Last Mission of Lady Jane II: The Life and Death of an 8th Air Force B-17 and Her Crew
by Lisa A. VansFurther insight into the experience for 8th Air Force bomber crews over Germany, and in German captivity. New revelations about the investigation of the murder of several American bomber crewmen by German civilians. Learn personal stories about the crewmen of Lady Jane II, including the postwar struggles of the survivors.
The Last Mission of the Wham Bam Boys: Courage, Tragedy and Justice in World War II
by Gregory A. FreemanBefore the famed Nuremberg Tribunal, there was Rüsselsheim, a small German town, where ordinary civilians were tried in the first War Crimes Trial of World War II.As the tide of World War II turned, a hitherto unknown incident set a precedent for how we would bring wartime crimes to justice: In August 1944, the 9- man crew of an American bomber was forced to bail out over Germany. As their captors marched them into Rüsselsheim, a small town recently bombed to smithereens by Allies, they were attacked by an angry mob of civilians--farmers, shopkeepers, railroad workers, women, and children. With a local Nazi chief at the helm, they assaulted the young Americans with stones, bricks, and wooden clubs. They beat them viciously and left them for dead at the nearby cemetery.It could have been another forgotten tragedy of the war. But when the lynching was briefly mentioned in a London paper a few months later, it caught the eye of two Army majors, Luke Rogers and Leon Jaworski. Their investigation uncovered the real human cost of the war: the parents and a newlywed wife who agonized over the fate of the men, and the devastating effect of modern warfare on civilian populations. Rogers and Jaworski put the city of Rüsselsheim on trial, insisting on the rule of law even amidst the horrors of war. Drawing from trial records, government archives, interviews with family members, and personal letters, highly-acclaimed military historian Gregory A. Freeman brings to life for the first time the dramatic story. Taking the reader to the scene of the crime and into the homes of the crew, he exposes the stark realities of war to show how ordinary citizens could be drawn to commit horrific acts of wartime atrocities, and the far-reaching effects on generations.
Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice
by Michel ParadisA thrilling narrative that introduces a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolitte Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined Japanese-American relations and changed legal history.In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in search of a plan. President Roosevelt, determined to show the world that our nation would not be intimidated or defeated by enemy powers, he demanded recommendations for a show of strength. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward, and led eighty young men, gathered together from the far-flung corners of Depression-era America, on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Sixteen planes in all, they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. Together, the Raiders, as they were called, did what no one had successfully done for more than a thousand years. They struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Almost immediately, The Doolittle Raid captured the public imagination, and has remained a seminal moment in World War II history, but the heroism and bravery of the mission is only half the story. In Last Mission to Tokyo, Michel Paradis reveals the dramatic aftermath of the mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese, a dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of World War II, and an international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers—in which both the United States and Japan accused the other of war crimes—that would change the face of our legal and military history. Perfect for fans of Lucky 666 and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, Last Mission to Tokyo is a thrilling war story-meets-courtroom-drama that explores a key moment in World War II.
The Last Monarch (Destroyer #120)
by James MullaneyDr. Smith thaught he was having a bad day when a former president calls him to say that the Sinanju mind washing technique given to him when he left office had worn off. When the president is kidnapped from his hospitla room by eco-terrorists before the master can redrain his memories to be delivered with a "peace bomb" to middle-eatern PLO leader, it becomes a race aginst time for Remo and Chiun to rescue the president and prevent a new rash of hostilities from erupting in the region.
The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe
by Gábor ÁgostonA monumental work of history that reveals the Ottoman dynasty's important role in the emergence of early modern EuropeThe Ottomans have long been viewed as despots who conquered through sheer military might, and whose dynasty was peripheral to those of Europe. The Last Muslim Conquest transforms our understanding of the Ottoman Empire, showing how Ottoman statecraft was far more pragmatic and sophisticated than previously acknowledged, and how the Ottoman dynasty was a crucial player in the power struggles of early modern Europe.In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Gábor Ágoston captures the grand sweep of Ottoman history, from the dynasty's stunning rise to power at the turn of the fourteenth century to the Siege of Vienna in 1683, which brought an end to Ottoman incursions into central Europe. He discusses how the Ottoman wars of conquest gave rise to the imperial rivalry with the Habsburgs, and brings vividly to life the intrigues of sultans, kings, popes, and spies. Ágoston examines the subtler methods of Ottoman conquest, such as dynastic marriages and the incorporation of conquered peoples into the Ottoman administration, and argues that while the Ottoman Empire was shaped by Turkish, Iranian, and Islamic influences, it was also an integral part of Europe and was, in many ways, a European empire.Rich in narrative detail, The Last Muslim Conquest looks at Ottoman military capabilities, frontier management, law, diplomacy, and intelligence, offering new perspectives on the gradual shift in power between the Ottomans and their European rivals and reframing the old story of Ottoman decline.
Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen: A Novel
by Sarah James"Glamorous and suspenseful." —Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling authorPerhaps the best place in 1943 Hollywood to see the stars is the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed exclusively by those in show business. Murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence, new in town after a devastating breakup, definitely hopes to rub elbows with the right stars. Maybe then she can get her movie made.But Hollywood proves to be more than tinsel and glamour. When despised film critic Fiona Farris is found dead in the Canteen kitchen, Annie realizes any one of the Canteen's luminous volunteers could be guilty of the crime. To catch the killer, Annie falls in with Fiona's friends, a bitter and cynical group—each as uniquely unhappy in their life and career as Annie is in hers—that call themselves the Ambassador's Club.Solving a murder in real life, it turns out, is a lot harder than writing one for the stage. And by involving herself in the secrets and lies of the Ambassador's Club, Annie just might have put a target on her own back. "This vibrant, utterly delightful mystery expertly captures the drama, glamour and absurdity of wartime Hollywood. Sarah James's swift dialogue, dry wit and clever characters transport you into a 1940s movie, where the jokes are quick, the love affairs scandalous and the cast as charming as they are flawed." —Brianna Labuskes, author of The Librarian of Burned Books
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram
by Dang Thuy TramAt the age of twenty-four, Dang Thuy Tram volunteered to serve as a doctor in a National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) battlefield hospital in the Quang Ngai Province. Two years later she was killed by American forces not far from where she worked. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks poignantly of her devotion to family and friends, the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country. At times raw, at times lyrical and youthfully sentimental, her voice transcends cultures to speak of her dignity and compassion and of her challenges in the face of the war’s ceaseless fury.The American officer who discovered the diary soon after Dr. Tram’s death was under standing orders to destroy all documents without military value. As he was about to toss it into the flames, his Vietnamese translator said to him, “Don’t burn this one. . . . It has fire in it already.” Against regulations, the officer preserved the diary and kept it for thirty-five years. In the spring of 2005, a copy made its way to Dr. Tram’s elderly mother in Hanoi. The diary was soon published in Vietnam, causing a national sensation. Never before had there been such a vivid and personal account of the long ordeal that had consumed the nation’s previous generations.Translated by Andrew X. Pham and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Frances FitzGerald, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is an extraordinary document that narrates one woman’s personal and political struggles. Above all, it is a story of hope in the most dire of circumstances—told from the perspective of our historic enemy but universal in its power to celebrate and mourn the fragility of human life.
The Last Night In London
by Karen WhiteA captivating story of friendship, love and betrayal – and finding hope in the darkness of war.London, 1939. Beautiful and ambitious Eva Harlow and her American best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can&’t believe her luck – she&’s getting everything she ever wanted. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. As Eva struggles to protect everything she holds dear, all it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever.London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. Maddie, healing from past trauma and careful to close herself off to others, finds herself drawn to both Precious and to Colin, Precious&’ enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious&’ haunting past – and the secrets she swore she&’d never reveal … 'This book had everything I adore: interwoven storylines, a thrilling mystery, beautiful friendships and a little bit of love.' Natasha Lester, bestselling author of The Paris Secret
The Last Odyssey: A Thriller (Sigma Force Novels #15)
by James RollinsTo save the world and our future, Sigma Force must embark on a dangerous odyssey into an ancient past whose horrors are all too present in this page-turning thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins that combines cutting-edge science, historical mystery, mythology, and pulse-pounding action.For eons, the city of Troy—whose legendary fall was detailed in Homer’s Iliad—was believed to be myth, until archaeologists in the nineteenth century uncovered its ancient walls buried beneath the sands. If Troy was real, how much of Homer’s twin tales of gods and monsters, curses and miracles—The Iliad and The Odyssey—could also be true and awaiting discovery?In the frozen tundra of Greenland, a group of modern-day researchers stumble on a shocking find: a medieval ship buried a half-mile below the ice. The ship’s hold contains a collection of even older artifacts—tools of war—dating back to the Bronze Age. Inside the captain’s cabin is a magnificent treasure that is as priceless as it is miraculous: a clockwork gold map imbedded with an intricate silver astrolabe. The mechanism was crafted by a group of Muslim inventors—the Banū Mūsā brothers—considered by many to be the Da Vincis of the Arab world—brilliant scientists who inspired Leonardo’s own work.Once activated, the moving map traces the path of Odysseus’s famous ship as it sailed away from Troy. But the route detours as the map opens to reveal a fiery river leading to a hidden realm underneath the Mediterranean Sea. It is the subterranean world of Tartarus, the Greek name for Hell. In mythology, Tartarus was where the wicked were punished and the monstrous Titans of old, imprisoned.When word of Tartarus spreads—and of the cache of miraculous weapons said to be hidden there—tensions explode in this volatile region where Turks battle Kurds, terrorists wage war, and civilians suffer untold horrors. The phantasmagoric horrors found in Homer’s tales are all too real—and could be unleashed upon the world. Whoever possesses them can use their awesome power to control the future of humanity.Now, Sigma Force must go where humans fear to tread. To prevent a tyrant from igniting a global war, they must cross the very gates of Hell.
The Last of Africa's Cold War Conflicts: Portuguese Guinea and its Guerilla Insurgency
by Al J. VenterThis detailed combat history sheds light on the significant yet overlooked guerilla campaigns in what would become Angola and Guinea-Bissou.Portugal was the first European country to colonize Africa. It was also the last to leave, almost five centuries later. During what Lisbon called its “civilizing mission” the Portuguese weathered numerous insurrections, but none as severe as the guerrilla war first launched in Angola in 1961 and two years later in Portuguese Guinea. Both the Soviets and the Cubans believed that because the tiny colony of Guinea had no resources, Lisbon would soon capitulate. But the 11-year struggle became the empire’s most strenuous attempt to retain colonial power. Though it was overshadowed by the conflict in Vietnam, the Soviet-led guerrilla campaign in Portuguese Guinea set the scene for the wars that followed in Rhodesia and present-day Namibia.
The Last of the 357th Infantry: Harold Frank's WWII Story of Faith and Courage
by Mark HagerFor those who loved Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers and E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed. Drawing on toughness and skills forged in hardscrabble Depression-era North Carolina, Bronze Star recipient and expert B.A.R. rifleman Harold Frank invades Normandy, fights Germans, and endures a grueling stint in a German POW camp where he witnesses the fire-bombing of Dresden.From D-Day to Dresden with a Crack Shot B.A.R. Rifleman D-Day 1944: twenty-year-old PFC Harold Frank had moved as one with his battalion onto the shores of Utah Beach, pushing into France to cut off and blockade the pivotal Nazi-occupied deep-water port of Cherbourg. As a recognized crack shot with WW II's iconic American automatic rifle, Frank fought bravely across the bloody hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula. During the most intense fighting, Frank was ambushed and wounded in a deadly, nine-hour firefight with Germans. Taken prisoner and with a bullet lodged under one arm, Frank found himself dumped first in a brutal Nazi POW concentration camp, then shipped to a grueling work camp on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany, where the young PFC was exposed to the vengeance of a crumbling Nazi regime, the menace of a rapidly advancing Russian military—and the danger of thousands of Allied bombers screaming overhead during the firebombing of Dresden. Historian Mark Hager builds on hundreds of hours of interviews with Harold Frank, sharing the intimate and heart-pounding account of Frank&’s journey as a child of the Great Depression to the bloody shores of the D-Day invasion, into the bowels of Nazi Germany, and back to the U.S. where as a young man Harold would spend years resolutely dealing with the lingering effects of starvation rations while determinedly building a new life—a life always mindful of the legacy of his POW experience and his faithful service in America&’s hard-fought war against Nazi aggression.
The Last of the 39-ers: The Extraordinary Wartime Experiences of Squadron Leader Alfie Fripp
by Sean FeastThe story of the RAF pilot and POW shot down in 1939—including his role in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III—is told in this intimate WWII biography. While on a reconnaissance sortie over Germany in 1939, Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Alfie Fripp was shot down by the Luftwaffe and taken prisoner. The longest-serving British prisoner of war, he was also the last of the surviving &“39-ers&” when he died in 2012. His wartime years were spent in numerous camps, including the infamous Stalag Luft III, where he took an active role in the prison break immortalized by the film The Great Escape. Fripp also served during the interwar period and returned to service after being released in 1945. Before he died, Fripp, began working with aviation historian Sean Feast on his memoirs. Feast has now combined copious research with Fripp&’s candid account and personal photographs to produce this lively and authoritative biography.
The Last of the Bengal Lancers
by Francis IngallOne of the last of the famed Bengal Lancers, Brigadier Ingall has spent most of his life in India and Pakistan. When he first went to India in 1929, all the officers were English and all the enlisted men were Indian (Hindu, Sikh and Moslem). India was part of theBritish Empire and the Army was basically involved with hunting down outlaw bands of horsemen and keeping them in order. One of his first experiences there was leading a charge on horseback (swords in hand) of the 5th D.C.O. Lancers in the battle of karawal near the Khyber Pass. Later, in the Second World War, he commanded the 6th Lancers in a drive through northern Italy. By this time he had traded their horses for light armour (manufactured by General Motors), but the hazards were no less great. In one 2-hour punch, Ingall's forces cut a swathe through the remnants of the three German Divisions and penetrated 50 miles into enemy territory. For this he won the DSO. He was also awarded an OBE by King George VI for his service as founder and head of the Pakistan Military Academy which he was invited to found by no less person then Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself. Ingall serves as the academy's Commandment until 1951. Since then he has revisited the area several times as an honoured guest of the state, In 1982 he was appointed Honorary Council General of Pakistan , in California, where he now lives, by it's president General Zia-ul-Haq , who described Ingall as 'one of the founding fathers or our army.' During his many years in India and Pakistan he knew and worked with with the areas most important dignitaries such as Lord Mountbatten and Lord Ismay, Gandhi and Nehru. This is an autobiography full of incident and humour which will delight not only the old and bold but but all those who enjoy reading about the last days of the Raj.
Last of the Blue and Gray: Old Men, Stolen Glory, and the Mystery That Outlived the Civil War
by Richard A. SerranoIn the late 1950s, as America prepared for the Civil War centennial, two very old men lay dying. Albert Woolson, 109 years old, slipped in and out of a coma at a Duluth, Minnesota, hospital, his memories as a Yankee drummer boy slowly dimming. Walter Williams, at 117 blind and deaf and bedridden in his daughter's home in Houston, Texas, no longer could tell of his time as a Confederate forage master. The last of the Blue and the Gray were drifting away; an era was ending. Unknown to the public, centennial officials, and the White House too, one of these men was indeed a veteran of that horrible conflict and one according to the best evidence nothing but a fraud. One was a soldier. The other had been living a great, big lie.
The Last of the Cockleshell Heroes: A World War Ii Memoir (Pen & Sword Select)
by Bill Sparks Michael MunnThis is not just the story of what was perhaps the most daring raid undertaken by the commandos during the war, but it is also the true and remarkable account of a desperate escape by Marine Sparks and Major 'Blondie' Hasler across German-occupied France. For nearly three months, while they desperately sought assistance from the suspicious French Resistance and dodged German soldiers at every turn, Sparks and Hasler found themselves avoiding capture and certain death.
Last of the Cold War Spies
by Roland PerryThe most damaging spy network of the Cold War, the infamous Cambridge Spy Ring, comprised several influential British citizens-and one American, Michael Straight. While a student at Cambridge University in the 1930s, Straight fell in with the circle of notorious spies, including the infamous Kim Philby. For the next several decades, Michael Straight led the secret life of a secret agent: While working at the State Department, he passed intelligence reports to a Russian agent; while running his family's magazine, The New Republic, he funded several Communist fronts; and while serving U.S. presidents, he continued to meet with Soviet agents around the world. Despite Straight's 1963 "confession" to the F.B.I. that his covert activity ceased in 1941, investigative journalist and author Roland Perry has unearthed a different story-the full and complete portrait of Michael Straight, last of the Cold War spies.
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War
by Richard Rubin&“Before the Greatest Generation, there was the Forgotten Generation of World War I . . . wonderfully engaging&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). &“Richard Rubin has done something that will never be possible for anyone to do again. His interviews with the last American World War I veterans—who have all since died—bring to vivid life a cataclysm that changed our world forever but that remains curiously forgotten here.&” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 In 2003, eighty-five years after the end of World War I, Richard Rubin set out to see if he could still find and talk to someone who had actually served in the American Expeditionary Forces during that colossal conflict. Ultimately he found dozens, aged 101 to 113, from Cape Cod to Carson City, who shared with him at the last possible moment their stories of America&’s Great War. Nineteenth-century men and women living in the twenty-first century, they were self-reliant, humble, and stoic, never complaining, but still marveling at the immensity of the war they helped win, and the complexity of the world they helped create. Though America has largely forgotten their war, you will never forget them, or their stories. A decade in the making, The Last of the Doughboys is the most sweeping look at America&’s First World War in a generation, a glorious reminder of the tremendously important role America played in the &“war to end all wars,&” as well as a moving meditation on character, grace, aging, and memory. &“An outstanding and fascinating book. By tracking down the last surviving veterans of the First World War and interviewing them with sympathy and skill, Richard Rubin has produced a first-rate work of reporting.&” —Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia &“I cannot remember a book about that huge and terrible war that I have enjoyed reading more in many years.&” —Michael Korda, The Daily Beast
Last of the Few: The Battle of Britain in the Words of the Pilots Who Won It
by Max ArthurAfter the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler's inevitable invasion attempt. For the German army to land across the channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skies-the Royal Air Force would have to be broken. So every day throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties. Greatly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the pilots of RAF Fighter Command scrambled as many as five times a day, and civilians watched skies crisscrossed with the contrails from the constant dogfights between Spitfires and Me-109s. Britain's very freedom depended on the outcome of that summer's battle: Its air defenses were badly battered and nearly broken, but against all odds, "The Few," as they came to be known, bought Britain's freedom-many with their lives. More than a fifth of the British and Allied pilots died during the Battle of Britain. These are the personal accounts of the pilots who fought and survived that battle. Their stories are as riveting, as vivid, and as poignant as they were seventy years ago. We will not see their like again.
Last of the Lancasters
by Martin W. Bowman'The Lancasters looked like enormous deadly black birds going off into the night; somehow they looked different when they came back. The planes carried from this field 117,000 pounds of high explosives and the crews flew all night to drop the load as ordered. Now the trains would not run between France and Italy for a while, not on those bombed tracks anyhow. Here are the men who did it, with mussed hair and weary faces, dirty sweaters under their flying suits, sleep-bright eyes, making humble comradely little jokes and eating their saved-up chocolate bars' Martha GellhornThis riveting and highly intriguing collection of pilot and civilian reminiscences works to commemorate the spirit of the almighty Lancaster bomber. Each chapter is dedicated to a unique individual or group of individuals who took part in its history in some capacity. Be they pilot, civilian, or journalist, each played their own part and their accounts offer a host of fascinating insights. Episodes featured include the battle for Munich and the Nuremburg and Berlin Raids. Stories of PoWs downed in their Lancasters and captured in enemy territory also feature, communicating a real sense of peril experienced behind enemy lines. Two sections of fascinating black and white photographs supplement and complete this trawl through the history of the Lancaster bomber and the men and women who witnessed its glory days.
Last of the Pirates: The Search for Bob Denard
by Samantha WeinbergThis riveting book gives an account of an intrepid young woman's eccentric quest, as Samantha Weinberg pursues one of the last of a dying breed: an elusive French mercenary who plied his trade, ruthlessly, throughout the African continent. The Comoros are small specks in the Indian Ocean, four volcanic islands known for their beauty and for ylang-ylang, an exotic flower whose extract is widely used in French perfumes. For many years they were also the home of Bob Denard, who arrived by way of Katanga, the Congo, Yemen, Angola, Biafra, Gabon, and Benin. Once in the Comoros, he overthrew two presidents in three years. In 1989 he, too, was overthrown, and then he disappeared. Last of the Pirates is a thrilling story of beauty, intrigue, cruelty, and murder: a book about an exotic place few of us have ever imagined, and about a murderous, machista culture that aimed to transform it.
The Last of the Seven: A Novel of World War II
by Steven HartovA spellbinding novel of World War II based on the little-known history of the X Troop—a team of European Jews who escaped the Continent only to join the British Army and return home to exact their revenge on Hitler&’s military.A lone soldier wearing a German uniform stumbles into a British military camp in the North African desert with an incredible story to tell. He is the only survivor of an undercover operation meant to infiltrate a Nazi base, trading on the soldiers&’ perfect fluency in German. However, this man is not British-born but instead a German Jew seeking revenge for the deaths of his family back home in Berlin.As the Allies advance into Europe, the young lieutenant is brought to recover in Sicily. There he is recruited by a British major to join the newly formed X Troop, a commando unit composed of German and Austrian Jews training for a top secret mission at a nearby camp in the Sicilian hills. They are all &“lost boys,&” driven not by patriotism but by vengeance.Drawing on meticulous research into this unique group of soldiers, The Last of the Seven is a lyrical, propulsive historical novel perfect for readers of Mark Sullivan, Robert Harris and Alan Furst.