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War Stories of the Battle of the Bulge
by Michael Green James D. Brown“Told by those who lived during . . . Hitler’s last gasp attack in the West . . . a riveting book for anybody with an interest in the Second World War.” —CurledUpThe powerful German counteroffensive operation codenamed “Wacht am Rhein” (Watch on the Rhine) launched against the American First Army in the early morning hours of December 16, 1944, would result in the greatest single extended land battle of World War II. To most Americans, the fierce series of battles fought in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and Luxembourg that winter is better known as the Battle of the Bulge. Here are the first-person stories of the American soldiers who repelled the powerful German onslaught that had threatened to turn the tide of battle in Western Europe during World War II.
War Stories of the Green Berets
by Hans HalberstadtThis military history shares firsthand accounts of the frontlines of wars and conflicts around the globe from members of the US Army Special Forces.The US Army Special Forces, more familiarly known as the Green Berets, are the elite fighting force of the United States military. Their experiences in covert operations and unconventional warfare have been a part of American military action since the 1950s. Author Hans Halberstadt has collected first-hand recollections of dozens of Green Berets, past and present, who spent time on the battlefields of Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, and other conflicts. Their harrowing stories are told here, providing rare insight into the world of the Green Beret.Originally published in 1994, this edition of War Stories of the Green Berets includes nearly one hundred pages of new material. It is fully updated to include post-Vietnam War conflicts, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
War Stories of the Infantry: Americans in Combat, 1918 to Today
by Michael Green James D. Brown"I love the infantry," famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle said, "because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end they are the guys that wars can't be won without."This book tells the stories of these soldiers. From the muddy trenches of France in World War I to the arid landscape of Iraq, War Stories of the Infantry immerses the reader in the immediate drama of combat as American infantrymen, Army and Marine Corps, have experienced it. In its pages, infantrymen tell of their struggles with the enemy, the terrain, and the weather, as well as their own fears and doubts in battle. In the humid heat of a faraway jungle, in the bone-chilling cold of a Korean mountaintop, we endure what they endure, see what they see--as they rout the enemy, open their eyes in a field hospital, or suffer the indignities of a POW camp. These are the stories of the largely unsung heroes who do the lion’s share of fighting and dying for their country while protecting the freedoms and liberties that many of us take for granted.
War Stories of the Tankers: American Armored Combat, 1918 to Today
by Michael GreenThis military history chronicles nearly a century of armored combat through firsthand accounts of soldiers from WWI to Iraq.Starting with the century’s first tanks as they entered no-man’s-land during World War I, War Stories of the Tankers continues through a century of military conflict, all the way to Operation Desert Storm. Here are the stories of green American tankers taking on massive and well-armored German Tigers and fighting through a screaming sea of Red Chinese soldiers in Korea. And here also are the personal tales of American tankers defending Western Europe from the threat of Soviet tanks during the Cold War.From the American soldiers who pitted their tanks against the Viet Cong in the jungles of Southeast Asia to those who put their lives on the line in the streets of Baghdad, these are the heroes of our time, taking that rare moment to tell us what it is like to face the enemy in tank warfare.
War Story
by Derek RobinsonFresh from school in June 1916, Lieutenant Oliver Paxton's first solo flight is to lead a formation of biplanes across the Channel to join Hornet Squadron in France.Five days later, he crash-lands at his destination, having lost his map, his ballast and every single plane in his charge. To his C.O. he's an idiot, to everyone else--especially the tormenting Australian who shares his billet--a pompous bastard.This is 1916, the year of the Somme, giving Paxton precious little time to grow from innocent to veteran.
War Story
by Derek RobinsonFresh from school in June 1916, Lieutenant Oliver Paxton's first solo flight is to lead a formation of biplanes across the Channel to join Hornet Squadron in France. Five days later, he crash-lands at his destination, having lost his map, his ballast and every single plane in his charge. To his C.O. he's an idiot, to everyone else - especially the tormenting Australian who shares his billet - a pompous bastard. This is 1916, the year of the Somme, giving Paxton precious little time to grow from innocent to veteran.
War Story
by Derek RobinsonFresh from school in June 1916, Lieutenant Oliver Paxton's first solo flight is to lead a formation of biplanes across the Channel to join Hornet Squadron in France. Five days later, he crash-lands at his destination, having lost his map, his ballast and every single plane in his charge. To his C.O. he's an idiot, to everyone else - especially the tormenting Australian who shares his billet - a pompous bastard. This is 1916, the year of the Somme, giving Paxton precious little time to grow from innocent to veteran.
The War Story Of Dillwyn Parrish Starr
by Louis Starr Dillwyn Parrish StarrDillwyn Parrish Starr led a short life but he lived it at a tremendous speed, when the First World War broke out he was a star American Football Player and scholar at Harvard. However spurred on by his convictions he sailed to the U.K. in a rush and signed up for service as soon as possible; thereafter he saw a great deal of fighting with the Royal Navy Armored car detachment. However as the war stagnated to the static bloody fighting in the trenches he felt compelled to transfer to the prestigious Grenadier Guards in the British Army. Always heavily engaged Dillwyn fought with great courage in both Flanders and on the Gallipoli campaign, before falling to the overwhelming fire of the Germans at Ginchy during the infernal Somme battle in 1916. His letters are a vivid memento to a man who was universally respected even in a regiment with such high standards as the Grenadiers Guards, cheerful and upbeat snuffed out too soon in the hell of World War One.
War, Strategy and Intelligence (Studies in Intelligence)
by Michael I. HandelInvestigating the logic, conduct and nature of war on the highest political and strategic levels, these essays put less emphasis on operational and tactical aspects. They look at the impact of technology on warfare, the political nature of war and the limits of rational analysis in studying war.
War, Strategy, and Military Effectiveness
by Williamson MurrayThis collection of articles represents Professor Williamson Murray's efforts to elucidate the role that history should play in thinking about both the present and the future. They reflect three disparate themes in Professor Murray's work: his deep fascination with history and those who have acted in the past; his fascination with the similarities in human behavior between the past and the present; and his belief that the study of military and strategic history can be of real use to those who will confront the daunting problems of war and peace in the twenty-first century. The first group of essays addresses the relevance of history to an understanding of the present and to an understanding of the possibilities of the future. The second addresses the possible direct uses of history to think through the problems involved in the creation of effective military institutions. The final group represents historical case studies that serve to illuminate the present.
War, Strategy and the Modern State, 1792–1914 (Warfare, Society and Culture)
by Carl Cavanagh HodgeThis book is a comparative study of military operations conducted my modern states between the French Revolution and World War I. It examines the complex relationship between political purpose and strategy on the one hand, and the challenge of realizing strategic goals through military operations on the other. It argues further that following the experience of the Napoleonic Wars military strength was awarded a primary status in determining the comparative modernity of all the Great Powers; that military goals came progressively to distort a sober understanding of the national interest; that a genuinely political and diplomatic understanding of national strategy was lost; and that these developments collectively rendered the military and political catastrophe of 1914 not inevitable yet probable.
War Stuff: The Struggle For Human And Environmental Resources In The American Civil War (Cambridge Studies On The American South )
by Joan E. CashinIn this path-breaking work on the American Civil War, Joan E. Cashin explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and material resources necessary to wage war. This war 'stuff' included the skills of white Southern civilians, as well as such material resources as food, timber, and housing. <P><P>At first, civilians were willing to help Confederate or Union forces, but the war took such a toll that all civilians, regardless of politics, began focusing on their own survival. Both armies took whatever they needed from human beings and the material world, which eventually destroyed the region's ability to wage war. In this fierce contest between civilians and armies, the civilian population lost. <P>Cashin draws on a wide range of documents, as well as the perspectives of environmental history and material culture studies. This book provides an entirely new perspective on the war era. Discusses the conduct of both Union and Confederate soldiers towards civilians in the South.<P> Will appeal to political historians and readers who are interested in wartime divisions inside the white Southern population.<P> Considers gender dynamics in the interactions between soldiers and female civilians.
War Tactic
by Don PendletonProfit Pirates Tensions between China and the Philippines are on the rise, and a series of pirate attacks on Filipino ports and vessels only makes things worse. Phoenix Force discovers that the pirates are armed with American weapons. As they struggle to neutralize the threat on the sea, Able Team must hunt down the mastermind behind the attacks before the United States is forced into war. Stony Man The best military fighters and cyber techs from around the world, the Stony Man teams are on the front lines of America's war against terror, wherever it takes them. These elite black ops warriors put their lives on the line in the name of freedom.
The War That Came Early: The Big Switch (The War That Came Early #3)
by Harry TurtledoveIn this extraordinary World War II alternate history, master storyteller Harry Turtledove begins with a big switch: what if Neville Chamberlain, instead of appeasing Hitler, had stood up to him in 1938? Enraged, Hitler reacts by lashing out at the West, promising his soldiers that they will reach Paris by the new year. They don't. Three years later, his genocidal apparatus not fully in place, Hitler has barely survived a coup, while Jews cling to survival. But England and France wonder whether the war is still worthwhile.Weaving together a cast of characters that ranges from a brawling American fighter in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain to a woman who has seen Hitler's evil face-to-face, Harry Turtledove takes us into a world shaping up very differently in 1941. The Germans and their Polish allies have slammed into the gut of the Soviet Union in the west, while Japan pummels away in the east. In trench warfare in France, French and Czech fighters are outmanned but not outfought by their Nazi enemy. Then the stalemate is shattered. In England, Winston Churchill dies in an apparent accident, and the gray men who walk behind his funeral cortege wonder who their real enemy is. The USSR, fighting for its life, makes peace with Japan--and Japan's war with America is about to begin.A sweeping saga of human passions, foolishness, and courage, of families and lovers and soldiers by choice and by chance, The Big Switch is a provocative, gripping, and utterly convincing work of alternate history at its best. For history buffs and fans of big, blood-and-guts fiction, Harry Turtledove delivers a panoramic clash of ideals as powerful as armies themselves.From the Hardcover edition.
The War That Came Early: West and East (The War That Came Early #2)
by Harry TurtledoveIn 1938, two men held history in their hands. One was Adolf Hitler. The other was British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who, determined to avoid war at any cost, came to be known as "the great appeaser." But Harry Turtledove, the unrivaled master of alternate history, has launched a gripping saga that springboards from a different fateful act: What if Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler? What would the Nazis' next move have been? And how would the war--which Hitler had always regretted waiting eleven months to start--have unfolded and changed our world?Here, Turtledove takes us across a panorama of conflict fueled by ideology and demagoguery. Nations are pitted against nations, alliances are forged between old enemies, ordinary men and women are hurled into extraordinary life-and-death situations. In Japanese-controlled Singapore, an American marine falls in love with a Russian dance hall hostess, while around him are heard the first explosions of Chinese guerilla resistance. On the frontlines of war-ravaged rural France, a weary soldier perfects the art of using an enormous anti-tank gun as a sniper's tool--while from Germany a killer is sent to hunt him down. And in the icy North Atlantic, a U-boat bearing an experimental device wreaks havoc on British shipping, setting the stage for a Nazi ground invasion of Denmark. From an American woman trapped in Germany who receives safe passage from Hitler himself to a Jewish family steeped in German culture and facing the hatred rising around them, from Japanese soldiers on the remote edge of Siberia to American volunteers in Spain, West and East is the story of a world held hostage by tyrants--Stalin, Hitler, Sanjuro--each holding on to power through lies and terror even in the face of treacherous plots from within.As armies clash, and as the brave, foolish, and true believers choose sides, new weapons are added to already deadly arsenals and new strategies are plotted to break a growing stalemate. But one question looms over the conflict from West to East: What will it take to bring America into this war? From the Hardcover edition.
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
by Margaret MacmillanFrom the bestselling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I. The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a golden, happy, and prosperous future. But instead, complex personalities and rivalries, colonialism and ethnic nationalisms, and shifting alliances helped to bring about the failure of the long peace and the outbreak of a war that transformed Europe and the world. The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned heads across Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the German general staff, Von Moltke the Younger; in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph, a man who tried, through sheer hard work, to stave off the coming chaos in his empire; in Russia, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife; in Britain, King Edward VII, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and British admiral Jacky Fisher, the fierce advocate of naval reform who entered into the arms race with Germany that pushed the continent toward confrontation on land and sea. There are the would-be peacemakers as well, among them prophets of the horrors of future wars whose warnings went unheeded: Alfred Nobel, who donated his fortune to the cause of international understanding, and Bertha von Suttner, a writer and activist who was the first woman awarded Nobel's new Peace Prize. Here too we meet the urbane and cosmopolitan Count Harry Kessler, who noticed many of the early signs that something was stirring in Europe; the young Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty and a rising figure in British politics; Madame Caillaux, who shot a man who might have been a force for peace; and more. With indelible portraits, MacMillan shows how the fateful decisions of a few powerful people changed the course of history. Taut, suspenseful, and impossible to put down, The War That Ended Peace is also a wise cautionary reminder of how wars happen in spite of the near-universal desire to keep the peace. Destined to become a classic in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, The War That Ended Peace enriches our understanding of one of the defining periods and events of the twentieth century.
The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
by Fred AndersonThe globe's first true world war comes vividly to life in this "rich, cautionary tale" (The New York Times Book Review) The French and Indian War -the North American phase of a far larger conflagration, the Seven Years' War-remains one of the most important, and yet misunderstood, episodes in American history. Fred Anderson takes readers on a remarkable journey through the vast conflict that, between 1755 and 1763, destroyed the French Empire in North America, overturned the balance of power on two continents, undermined the ability of Indian nations to determine their destinies, and lit the "long fuse" of the American Revolution. Beautifully illustrated and recounted by an expert storyteller, The War That Made America is required reading for anyone interested in the ways in which war has shaped the history of America and its peoples.
The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium
by Barry StraussThe gripping story of one of history&’s most important and yet little-known wars, the campaign culminating in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, whose outcome determined the future of the Roman Empire.Following Caesar&’s assassination and Mark Antony&’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar&’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt&’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian&’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium. Octavian prevailed and subsequently defeated Antony and Cleopatra, who eventually committed suicide. The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire&’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra&’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire&’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt. In this riveting and exciting history, Barry Strauss, ancient history authority, describes this consequential battle with the drama and expertise that it deserves. The War That Made the Roman Empire is essential history that features three of the greatest figures of the ancient world.
The War That Saved My Life
by Kimberly Brubaker BradleyTen-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn't waste a minute--she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan--and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?
War, the American State, and Politics since 1898
by Robert P. Saldin"This book examines major foreign conflicts from the Spanish-American War through Vietnam, arguing that international conflicts have strong effects on American political parties, elections, state development, and policymaking. First, major wars expose and highlight problems requiring governmental solutions or necessitating emergency action. Second, despite well-known curtailments of civil liberties, wars often enhance democracy by drawing attention to the contributions of previously marginalized groups and facilitating the extension of fuller citizenship rights to them. Finally, wars affect the party system. Foreign conflicts create crises - many of which are unanticipated - that require immediate attention, supplant prior issues on the policy agenda, and engender shifts in party ideology. These new issues and redefinitions of party ideology frequently influence elections by shaping both elite and mass behavior"--
The War The Infantry Knew, 1914-1919: A Chronicle Of Service In France And Belgium
by Capt. J. C. DunnMemoirs of British medical officer J. C. Dunn during World War I: "The first duty of a battalion medical officer in War is to discourage the evasion of duty...not seldom against one's better feelings, sometimes to the temporary hurt of the individual, but justice to all other men as well as discipline demands it.""Sometimes, through word of mouth and shared enthusiasm, a secret book becomes famous. The War the Infantry Knew is one of them. Published privately in a limited edition of five hundred copies in 1938, it gained a reputation as an outstanding account of an infantry battalion's experience on the Western Front."--Daily Telegraph"I have been waiting for a long time for someone to republish this classic. It is one of the most interesting and revealing books of its type and is a genuinely truthful and fascinating picture of the war as it was for the infantry"--John Keegan'A remarkably coherent narrative of the battalion's experiences in diary form...a moving historical record which deserves to be added to the select list of outstanding accounts of the First World War"--Times Literary Supplement"A magnificent tour de force, the length of three ordinary books."--London Review of Books
War Through Children's Eyes: The Soviet Occupation of Poland and the Deportations, 1939–1941 (Hoover Archival Documentaries)
by Jan T. Gross Irena Grudzinska-Gross Jan Tomasz GrossOn September 17, 1939, two weeks after the German invasion of Poland, Soviet troops occupied the eastern half of Poland and swiftly imposed a new political and economic order. Following a plebiscite, in early November the area was annexed to the Ukraine and Belorussia. Beginning in the winter of 1939–40, Soviet authorities deported over one million Poles, many of them children, to various provinces of the Soviet Union. After the German attack on the USSR in summer 1941, the Polish government in exile in London received permission from its new-found ally to organize military units among the Polish deportees and later to transfer Polish civilians to camps in the British-controlled Middle East. There the children were able to attend Polish-run schools.The 120 essays translated here were selected from compositions written by the students of these schools. What makes these documents unique is the perception of these witnesses: a child's eye view of events no adult would consider worth mentioning. In simple language, filled with misspellings and grammatical errors, the children recorded their experiences, and sometimes their surprisingly mature understanding, of the invasion and the Societ occupation, the deportations eastward, and life in the work camps and kolkhozes. The horrors of life in the USSR were vivid memories; privation, hunger, disease, and death had been so frequent that they became accepted commonplaces. Moreover, as the editors point out in their introductory study, these Polish children were not alone in their suffering. All the nationalities that came under Soviet rule shared their fate.
War Through Italian Eyes: Fighting for Mussolini, 1940-1943 (Routledge Studies in Second World War History)
by Alexander HenryThere is a popular notion that the Italian armed forces of the Second World War were an inferior fighting force. Despite the vast numbers taken prisoner, detailed studies of the experiences of these soldiers remain relatively uncommon and the value of this group to furthering our understanding of the Italian experience of war under Fascism is also rarely acknowledged. The existence in the National Archives of hundreds of pages of transcripts of covert British surveillance of Italian POWs has made it possible to engage with their experiences and opinions in much greater depth. The euphemistically termed ‘Special Reports’ present historians with a unique insight into how all levels of Italian soldiery viewed Fascist Italy’s experience of war, 1940-1943. This book examines reactions to Italian political leadership, the progress of the war, as well as Italian soldiers’ ‘everyday’ views on sex, war, the enemy, death, food, their allies, bravery, race, and killing. These fascinating documents reveal the complexity of the outlook of these men, which persistent – and influential – national stereotypes and historiographical trends fail to acknowledge.
War Time: First World War Perspectives on Temporality (Routledge Studies in First World War History)
by Louis Halewood Adam Luptak Hanna SmythThe International Society for First World War Studies’ ninth conference, ‘War Time’, drew together emerging and leading scholars to discuss, reflect upon, and consider the ways that time has been conceptualised both during the war itself and in subsequent scholarship. War Time: First World War Perspectives on Temporality, stemming from this 2016 conference, offers its readers a collection of the conference’s most inspiring and thought-provoking papers from the next generation of First World War scholars. In its varied yet thematically-related chapters, the book aims to examine new chronologies of the Great War and bring together its military and social history. Its cohesive theme creates opportunities to find common ground and connections between these sub-disciplines of history, and prompts students and academics alike to seriously consider time as alternately a unifying, divisive, and ultimately shaping force in the conflict and its historiography. With content spanning land and air, the home and fighting fronts, multiple nations, and stretching to both pre-1914 and post-1918, these ten chapters by emerging researchers (plus an introductory chapter by the conference organisers, and a foreword by John Horne) offer an irreplaceable and invaluable snapshot of how the next generation of First World War scholars from eight countries were innovatively conceptualising the conflict and its legacy at the midpoint of its centenary.
A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War
by Williamson Murray Allan R. MillettIn the course of the twentieth century, no war looms as profoundly transformative or as destructive as World War II. Its global scope and human toll reveal the true face of modern, industrialized warfare. Now, for the first time, we have a comprehensive, single-volume account of how and why this global conflict evolved as it did. A War To Be Won is a unique and powerful operational history of the Second World War that tells the full story of battle on land, on sea, and in the air. Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett analyze the operations and tactics that defined the conduct of the war in both the European and Pacific Theaters. Moving between the war room and the battlefield, we see how strategies were crafted and revised, and how the multitudes of combat troops struggled to discharge their orders. The authors present incisive portraits of the military leaders, on both sides of the struggle, demonstrating the ambiguities they faced, the opportunities they took, and those they missed. Throughout, we see the relationship between the actual operations of the war and their political and moral implications. A War To Be Won is the culmination of decades of research by two of America's premier military historians. It avoids a celebratory view of the war but preserves a profound respect for the problems the Allies faced and overcame as well as a realistic assessment of the Axis accomplishments and failures. It is the essential military history of World War II-from the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to the surrender of Japan in 1945-for students, scholars, and general readers alike.