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The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb, Updated with a New Introduction by Richard Rhodes
by Robert SerberMore than seventy years ago, American forces exploded the first atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing great physical and human destruction. The young scientists at Los Alamos who developed the bombs, which were nicknamed Little Boy and Fat Man, were introduced to the basic principles and goals of the project in March 1943, at a crash course in new weapons technology. The lecturer was physicist Robert Serber, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s protégé, and the scientists learned that their job was to design and build the world’s first atomic bombs. Notes on Serber’s lectures were gathered into a mimeographed document titled TheLos Alamos Primer, which was supplied to all incoming scientific staff. The Primer remained classified for decades after the war. Published for the first time in 1992, the Primer offers contemporary readers a better understanding of the origins of nuclear weapons. Serber’s preface vividly conveys the mingled excitement, uncertainty, and intensity felt by the Manhattan Project scientists. This edition includes an updated introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Richard Rhodes. A seminal publication on a turning point in human history, The Los Alamos Primer reveals just how much was known and how terrifyingly much was unknown midway through the Manhattan Project. No other seminar anywhere has had greater historical consequences.
The Los Banos Prison Camp Raid - The Philippines 1945
by Gordon Rottman Johnny ShumateOn the southwest shore of Laguna de Bay in the Philippines stood the Los Banos Internment Camp. Held within were 2,147 starving POWs, surrounded by thousands of Japanese troops. As the desperate battle for Manila raged, only 130 Paratroopers could be spared for the rescue operation. Supported by Alamo Scouts, local guerrillas, and amphibious tractors, they seized the element of surprise, and rescued the POWs. It was a stunning triumph of courage and perfect timing in the face of overwhelming odds.
The Losing Role (The Kaspar Brothers)
by Steve AndersonA German actor conscripted into WWII will play the role of his life as he makes a daring escape in this espionage thriller inspired by true events. When the SS orders banned entertainer Max Kaspar to impersonate a US officer during the Battle of the Bulge, Max devises his own secret mission to escape the war and flee to America. With his career in Germany over, this plan is his big break—and his last chance. But Max&’s mission is doomed from the start. Trapped between the lines in the freezing Ardennes Forest, he must summon all of his acting talents and newfound courage to evade perilous traps laid by both sides. Inspired by a real-life 1944 operation, this gripping wartime thriller is the first book in the Kaspar Brothers series.
The Lost Airman: A True Story Of Escape From Nazi Occupied France
by Seth MeyerowitzBronx-born top turret-gunner Arthur Meyerowitz was on his second mission when he was shot down in 1943. He was one of only two men on the B-24 Liberator known as “Harmful Lil Armful” who escaped death or immediate capture on the ground. <P><P> After fleeing the wreck, Arthur knocked on the door of an isolated farmhouse, whose owners hastily took him in. Fortunately, his hosts not only despised the Nazis but had a tight connection to the French resistance group Morhange and its founder, Marcel Taillandier. Arthur and Taillandier formed an improbable bond as the resistance leader arranged for Arthur’s transfers among safe houses in southern France, shielding him from the Gestapo.
The Lost Army of Cambyses
by Paul SussmanIn 523 BC, the Persian emperor Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western desert to destroy the oracle of Amun at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in the middle of the Great Sand Sea, his army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and destroyed. Fifty thousand men were lost.
The Lost Art of Finding Our Way
by John Edward HuthLong before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Encyclopedic in breadth, weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death. Haunted by the fate of two young kayakers lost in a fogbank off Nantucket, Huth shows us how to navigate using natural phenomena-the way the Vikings used the sunstone to detect polarization of sunlight, and Arab traders learned to sail into the wind, and Pacific Islanders used underwater lightning and “read” waves to guide their explorations. Huth reminds us that we are all navigators capable of learning techniques ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated skills of direction-finding. Even today, careful observation of the sun and moon, tides and ocean currents, weather and atmospheric effects can be all we need to find our way. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 specially prepared drawings, Huth’s compelling account of the cultures of navigation will engross readers in a narrative that is part scientific treatise, part personal travelogue, and part vivid re-creation of navigational history. Seeing through the eyes of past voyagers, we bring our own world into sharper view.
The Lost Battalion
by Hollis G. AllenThe Lost Battalion, first published in 1963, is the World War Two saga of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, 36th Division, U.S. Army. This unit was made up primarily of citizen soldiers of the National Guard based in Texas. The men, en-route to the Philippines at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack are rerouted to Java (now part of Indonesia), where they take part in the defense of an air base and the city of Surabaya, something they were neither trained nor equipped to do. As their situation became hopeless, the unit surrendered to the Japanese and were transported to several camps in Japan and Manchuria, where they spent more than three years in captivity under brutal, debilitating conditions. The term “Lost Battalion” refers to the unit’s apparent disappearance as no word on its fate was received for more than two years after their capture. The author, Hollis G. Allen, then a first lieutenant, writes in a somewhat awkward style, but the book includes a host of details about the group’s experience while prisoners and of their eventual release and travels back to America. An appendix is included which lists the names and rank of the members of The Lost Battalion.
The Lost Battalion of Tet
by Charles A KrohnPublished to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, this new paperback edition brings back into print a book that became an essential source for a 2006 study of the battle by the U.S. Army s Center of Military History. It takes a critical look at what went wrong in early 1968 during one of the first engagements of Tet, when a U.S. infantry battalion was ordered to attack a large North Vietnamese force near Hue City without air or artillery support. The tragic military foul-up resulted in over 60 percent casualties for the 2d Battalion, 12th Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, when the soldiers were surrounded by the enemy and began running out of ammunition. The bold decision by battalion commander Lt. Col. Richard Sweet to break out with his remaining soldiers under cover of darkness saved this encirclement from being a total disaster. Author Charles Krohn, the unit s intelligence officer at the time, provides a much-needed analysis of what took place and fills his account with details that have been confirmed as factual by other survivors. Krohn examines the battalion s involvement in two other major attacks for lessons learned when vital systems break down lessons, he says, that are timeless and applicable anywhere. This book is published in cooperation with the Association of the United States Army.
The Lost Book of Bonn: A Novel
by Brianna LabuskesFor fans of The Rose Code and The Librarian Spy comes another literary themed historical novel from the author of The Librarian of Burned Books.Germany, 1946: Emmy Clarke is a librarian not a soldier. But that doesn’t stop the Library of Congress from sending her overseas to Germany to help the Monuments Men retrieve and catalog precious literature that was plundered by the Nazis. The Offenbach Archival Depot and its work may get less attention than returning art to its rightful owners, but for Emmy, who sees the personalized messages on the inside of the books and the notes in margins of pages, it feels just as important. On Emmy’s first day at work, she finds a poetry collection by Rainer Maria Rilke, and on the title page is a handwritten dedication: “To Annelise, my brave Edelweiss Pirate.” Emmy is instantly intrigued by the story behind the dedication and becomes determined to figure out what happened. The hunt for the rightful owner of the book leads Emmy to two sisters, a horrific betrayal, and an extraordinary protest against the Nazis that was held in Berlin at the height of the war. Nearly a decade earlier, hundreds of brave women gathered in the streets after their Jewish husbands were detained by the Gestapo. Through freezing rain and RAF bombings, the women faced down certain death and did what so few others dared to do under the Third Reich. They said no. Emmy grapples with her own ghosts as she begins to wonder if she’s just chasing two more. What she finds instead is a powerful story of love, forgiveness, and courage that brings light to even the darkest of postwar days.
The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare
by Kimberly BrockThe fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl.What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor&’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother&’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped.In the waning days of World War II, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn&’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor&’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.Praise for The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare:&“From the haunting first line, The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare transports the reader to a mysterious land, time and family . . . the captivating women of the Dare legacy must find their true inheritance hiding behind the untold secrets.&” —Patti Callahan, New York Times bestselling authorHistorical women&’s fictionStand-alone novelBook length: approximately 135,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs
The Lost Boys
by Paul ByrnesIn the First World War of 1914–1918, thousands of boys across Australia and New Zealand lied about their age, forged a parent’s signature and left to fight on the other side of the world. Though some were as young as thirteen, they soon found they could die as well as any man. Like Peter Pan’s lost boys, they have remained forever young. These are their stories.This extraordinary book captures the incredible and previously untold stories of forty Anzac boys who fought in the First World War, from Gallipoli to the Armistice. Featuring haunting images of the boys taken at training camps and behind the lines, these tales are both heartbreaking and rousing, full of daring, ingenuity, recklessness, random horror and capricious luck.A unique perspective on the First World War, The Lost Boys is military history made deeply personal, a powerful homage to youthful bravery and a poignant reminder of the sacrifice of war.
The Lost Boys
by Paul ByrnesIn the First World War of 1914-1918, thousands of boys across Australia and New Zealand lied about their age, forged a parent's signature and left to fight on the other side of the world. Though some were as young as thirteen, they soon found they could die as well as any man. Like Peter Pan's lost boys, they have remained forever young. These are their stories. This extraordinary book captures the incredible and previously untold stories of forty Anzac boys who fought in the First World War, from Gallipoli to the Armistice. Featuring haunting images of the boys taken at training camps and behind the lines, these tales are both heartbreaking and rousing, full of daring, ingenuity, recklessness, random horror and capricious luck. A unique perspective on the First World War, The Lost Boys is military history made deeply personal, a powerful homage to youthful bravery and a poignant reminder of the sacrifice of war.
The Lost Boys of Sudan
by Mark BixlerThis book is about the lost boys of Sudan. These boys were separated from their families by war, and walked to Ethiopia. They migrated to the US, which was a world beyond their wildest dreams.
The Lost Continent: The Best Book For Readers (annotated) By Edgar Rice Burroughs
by Edgar Rice BurroughsWar had devastated the entire eastern hemisphere. For two hundred years America had lived in civilized isolation, while Europe had lapsed into legend.Jefferson Turck was the first man who dared recross the 30th meridian, and like Columbus centuries before him, he landed in a New World. For Europe had become the jungle home of savage beasts and her people had banded together in bloodthirsty tribes led by barbarian queens.
The Lost Crown
by Sarah MillerOlga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. Like the fingers on a hand--first headstrong Olga; thenTatiana, the tallest; Maria the most hopeful for a ring; and Anastasia, the smallest. These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand duchesses living a life steeped in tradition abd priviledge. They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers. The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together--sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial yacht.But in a gunshot the future changes -- for these sisters and for Russia. As World War I ignites across Europe, political unrest sweeps Russia. First dissent, then disorder, mutiny -- and revolution. For Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the end of their girlhood together is colliding with the end of more than they ever imagined. At the same time hopeful and hopeless, naïve and wise, the voices of these sisters become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia. Impeccably researched and utterly fascinating, this novel by acclaimed author Sarah Miller recounts the final days of Imperial Russia with lyricism, criticism and true compassion.
The Lost Crown
by Sarah MillerOlga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. Like the fingers on a hand--first headstrong Olga; thenTatiana, the tallest; Maria the most hopeful for a ring; and Anastasia, the smallest. These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand duchesses living a life steeped in tradition abd priviledge. They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers. The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together--sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial yacht.But in a gunshot the future changes -- for these sisters and for Russia. As World War I ignites across Europe, political unrest sweeps Russia. First dissent, then disorder, mutiny -- and revolution. For Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the end of their girlhood together is colliding with the end of more than they ever imagined. At the same time hopeful and hopeless, naïve and wise, the voices of these sisters become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia. Impeccably researched and utterly fascinating, this novel by acclaimed author Sarah Miller recounts the final days of Imperial Russia with lyricism, criticism and true compassion.
The Lost Daughter: A Novel
by Gill PaulIf you loved I Am Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon you won't want to miss this novel about her sister, Grand Duchess Maria. What really happened to this lost Romanov daughter? A new novel perfect for anyone curious about Anastasia, Maria, and the other lost Romanov daughters, by the author of The Secret Wife. 1918: Pretty, vivacious Grand Duchess Maria Romanov, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the fallen Tsar Nicholas II, lives with her family in suffocating isolation, a far cry from their once-glittering royal household. Her days are a combination of endless boredom and paralyzing fear; her only respite are clandestine flirtations with a few of the guards imprisoning the family—never realizing her innocent actions could mean the difference between life and death1973: When Val Doyle hears her father’s end-of-life confession, “I didn’t want to kill her,” she’s stunned. So, she begins a search for the truth—about his words and her past. The clues she discovers are baffling—a jewel-encrusted box that won’t open and a camera with its film intact. What she finds out pulls Val into one of the world’s greatest mysteries—what truly happened to the Grand Duchess Maria?
The Lost Eleven: The Forgotten Story of Black American Soldiers Brutally Massacred in World War II
by Denise George Robert ChildNearly forgotten by history, this is the story of the Wereth Eleven, African-American soldiers who fought courageously for freedom in WWII—only to be ruthlessly executed by Nazi troops during the Battle of the Bulge. Their story was almost forgotten by history. Now known as the Wereth Eleven, these brave African-American soldiers left their homes to join the Allied effort on the front lines of WWII. As members of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, they provided crucial fire support at the Siege of Bastogne. Among the few who managed to escape the Nazi’s devastating Ardennes Offensive, they found refuge in the small village of Wereth, Belgium. A farmer and supporter of the Allies took the exhausted and half-starved men into his home. When Nazi authorities learned of their whereabouts, they did not take the soldiers prisoner, but subjected them to torture and execution in a nearby field. Despite their bravery and sacrifice, these eleven soldiers were omitted from the final Congressional War Crimes report of 1949. For seventy years, their files—marked secret—gathered dust in the National Archive. But in 1994, at the site of their execution, a memorial was dedicated to the Wereth Eleven and all African-American soldiers who fought in Europe. Drawing on firsthand interviews with family members and fellow soldiers, The Lost Eleven tells the complete story of these nearly forgotten soldiers, their valor in battle and their tragic end. INCLUDES PHOTOSFrom the Hardcover edition.
The Lost English Girl
by Julia KellyCombining &“fast-paced historical fiction with a hint of suspense&” (Booklist), this epic saga from Julia Kelly explores love, motherhood, and betrayal set against World War II.Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows what&’s expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping her strict mother&’s scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of her disapproving family. Five years later and on the eve of World War II, Viv is faced with the impossible choice to evacuate her young daughter, Maggie, to the countryside. In New York City, Joshua gives up his failing musical career to serve in the Royal Air Force and try to piece together his feelings about the family he left behind. However, tragedy strikes when Viv learns that the countryside safe haven she sent her daughter to wasn&’t immune from the horrors of war. It is only years later, with Joshua&’s help, that Viv learns the secrets of their shared past and what it will take to put a family back together again. Telling the harrowing story of England&’s many evacuated children, Kelly&’s The Lost English Girl &“will hook readers from the first page&” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
The Lost Family
by Jenna Blum'A dazzling novel of great compassion' Laura Moriarty'An extraordinary read, the kind of book that makes you sob and smile' Tatiana de Rosnay'Blum plumbs the depths of loss and love in this exquisite page-turner' PeopleIn 1960s Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha's to savor its brisket Wellington and impeccable service, and to admire its dashing owner and head chef, Peter Rashkin. With his movie-star good looks and tragic past, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, is the most eligible bachelor in town. But he has resigned himself to a solitary life. Running Masha's consumes him, as does the terrible guilt of having survived the horrors of a Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant's namesake - and two young daughters perished.Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter's guard. Though she is twenty years his junior, the two begin a passionate, whirlwind courtship. When June unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Peter proposes, believing that beginning a new family with the woman he loves will allow him to let go of the atrocities of the past, even though he cannot forget all that he has lost. But over the next twenty years, the indelible sadness of those memories will overshadow Peter, his new wife, June, and their daughter, Elsbeth, transforming them in heartbreaking and unexpected ways.The Lost Family is a charming, funny, and elegantly bittersweet study of the repercussions of loss and love that spans a generation, from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is a vivid portrait of marriage, family, and the haunting grief of World War II.
The Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier - Steadfast (The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier #10)
by Jack CampbellNew York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell's action-packed Lost Fleet series has propelled readers from deep space to the very edge of their seats. <P><P>Now Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary embarks on a thrilling new adventure to defend the Alliance and safeguard the future. Geary and the crew of the Dauntless have managed to safely escort important alien representatives to Earth. But before they can make tracks for home, two of Geary's key lieutenants vanish. The search for his missing men leads Geary on a far-flung chase, ultimately ending at the one spot in space from which all humans have been banned: the moon Europa. Any ship that lands there must stay or be destroyed--leaving Geary to face the most profound moral dilemma of his life. To make matters worse, strains on the Alliance are growing as the Syndics continue to meddle. Geary is ordered to take a small force to the border of Syndic space. But what he finds there is a danger much greater than anyone expected: a mysterious threat that could finally force the Alliance to its knees. As Geary spearheads a desperate battle to protect the Alliance against a shrewd and powerful enemy, he's left with just one question: Who are they?
The Lost Fleet: Guardian
by Jack CampbellAdmiral Geary’s First Fleet of the Alliance has survived the journey deep into unexplored interstellar space, a voyage that led to the discovery of new alien species, including a new enemy and a possible ally. Now Geary’s mission is to ensure the safety of the Midway Star System, which has revolted against the Syndicate Worlds empire—an empire that is on the brink of collapse. To complicate matters further, Geary also needs to return safely to Alliance space not only with representatives of the Dancers, an alien species, but also with Invincible, a captured warship that could possibly be the most valuable object in human history. Despite the peace treaty that Geary must adhere to at all costs, the Syndicate Worlds regime threatens to make the fleet’s journey back grueling and perilous. And even if Geary escorts Invincible and the Dancers’ representatives home unharmed, the Syndics’ attempts to spread dissent and political unrest may have already sown the seeds of the Alliance’s destruction...
The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy
by Barry CliffordAn explorer recounts historic events surrounding the sinking of a seventeenth-century, eighteen-ship French fleet, along with modern-day efforts to find it. On January 2, 1678, a fleet of French ships sank off the Venezuelan coast. This proved disastrous for French naval power in the region, and sparked the rise of a golden age of piracy. Tracing the lives of fabled pirates like the Chevalier de Grammont, Nikolaas Van Hoorn, Thomas Paine, and Jean Comte d&’Estrées, The Lost Fleet portrays a dark age, when the outcasts of European society formed a democracy of buccaneers, settling on a string of islands off the African coast. From there, the pirates haunted the world&’s oceans, wreaking havoc on the settlements along the Spanish mainland and—often enlisted by French and English governments—sacking ships, ports, and coastal towns. More than three hundred years later, writer, explorer, and deep-sea diver Barry Clifford follows the pirates&’ destructive wake back to Venezuela. With the help of a lost map, drawn by the captain of the lost French fleet, Clifford locates the site of the disaster and wreckage of the once-mighty armada.
The Lost Fleet: Victorious (The Lost Fleet #6)
by Jack CampbellThe Lost Fleet continues its perilous journey home, in this sixth book of the series. The most recent battle has been won, and it seems as though conflict may be a thing of the past for The Lost Fleet's crew. But an alien race, until now unknown to anyone, except the fleet's enemies begins to try to stake claims on space territory.
The Lost Flying Boat: A Novel
by Alan SillitoeA post-WWII adventure from the bestselling author of The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. A top-secret mission sends a crew of Royal Air Force veterans from South Africa to the subarctic Kerguelen Islands in this suspense-packed tale of lawlessness, piracy, obsession, and greed. At the helm of the Aldebaran, a huge flying boat, sits the monomaniacal Captain Bennett, a man hell-bent on unearthing a treasure buried by the Germans in the final days of World War II. And on the seaplane&’s radio is the young wireless operator Adcock, a man who listens to everything and tries to make sense of it all. The rest of the ex-soldiers on board seek either riches or adventure—but all are fleeing the frustrations and disappointments of their postwar lives. As the voyage takes dangerous turns toward natural and manmade threats, it becomes clear that Captain Bennett is keeping secrets and the Aldebaran is not alone on her quest. Adcock&’s morals are soon put to the test, machine guns are mounted on the flying boat&’s turrets, and the thirst for gold may cost the crew their lives. Classic kitchen sink realism meets high-flying adventure in this British thriller that goes beyond action and into the depths of human values and motivations in a war-damaged world. Drawing upon Alan Sillitoe&’s own wartime experiences as a wireless operator, The Lost Flying Boat is full of aerial heroics, coded messages, shattered dreams, and the will to persevere.