iBooks Top Military History Ebooks

Chart of the most popular and best selling Military History ebooks at the Apple iBookstore.

Chart list of the top Militry History ebook ebook best sellers was last updated:

History Ebook Best Sellers

Top Military History Ebook Best Sellers

1

Over the Beach - Zalin Grant Cover Art

Over the Beach

Over the Beach The Air War in Vietnam by Zalin Grant

"The Right Stuff without the hype, Yeager without the ego."—Washington Post Book World "While the jet-jockey competitiveness, the undercurrent of fear, the victories and foul-ups of jet sweeps have been described many times, few such chronicles have done it so grippingly and with such a ring of accuracy. Mr. Grant explores the emotions felt not only by the men in battle but by the wives and others left behind, and the questions the war raised in their minds. To put in larger context the war's impact on individual participants, the author periodically reviews the high-level struggles over how to fight the air war. "What is most impressive is to find an analysis so clearly stated, so seemingly on track in locating the weak spots in the policies of various political and military officials....Written in a straightforward yet stylish prose, Over the Beach carries tremendous conviction."—Richard Witkin, New York Times Book Review

2

Agent Zigzag - Ben Macintyre Cover Art

Agent Zigzag

Agent Zigzag A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben Macintyre

“Ben Macintyre’s rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.”—William Grimes, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”— Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.

3

Fall and Rise - Mitchell Zuckoff Cover Art

Fall and Rise

Fall and Rise The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff

“Better and more comprehensive than any prior account. . . . Those of us who lived through those days will find the book cathartic; those rising generations who were too young to remember 9/11, or who weren’t yet born, will find it revelatory.” — John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission and author of The Ground Truth “With his rigorous research and moral clarity, Mitchell Zuckoff has provided us with an invaluable service. He has deepened our understanding of what happened on 9/11 and recorded the voices of the victims and the survivors. What’s more, he has ensured that we never forget.” —David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon Years in the making, this spellbinding, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting narrative is an unforgettable portrait of 9/11. This is a 9/11 book like no other. Masterfully weaving together multiple strands of the events in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Fall and Rise is a mesmerizing, minute-by-minute account of that terrible day. In the days and months after 9/11, Mitchell Zuckoff, then a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote about the attacks, the victims, and their families. After further years of meticulous reporting, Zuckoff has filled Fall and Rise with voices of the lost and the saved. The result is an utterly gripping book, filled with intimate stories of people most affected by the events of that sunny Tuesday in September: an out-of-work actor stuck in an elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center; the heroes aboard Flight 93 deciding to take action; a veteran trapped in the inferno in the Pentagon; the fire chief among the first on the scene in sleepy Shanksville; a team of firefighters racing to save an injured woman and themselves; and the men, women, and children flying across country to see loved ones or for work who suddenly faced terrorists bent on murder. Fall and Rise will open new avenues of understanding for everyone who thinks they know the story of 9/11, bringing to life—and in some cases, bringing back to life—the extraordinary ordinary people who experienced the worst day in modern American history. Destined to be a classic, Fall and Rise will move, shock, inspire, and fill hearts with love and admiration for the human spirit as it triumphs in the face of horrifying events.

4

Shadow Divers - Robert Kurson Cover Art

Shadow Divers

Shadow Divers The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves. For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment. No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location. Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew. Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is at once thrilling and emotionally complex, and it is written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld. The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened, two hundred thirty feet down, in the deep blue sea. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Robert Kurson's Pirate Hunters .

5

A Rumor of War - Philip Caputo Cover Art

A Rumor of War

A Rumor of War The Classic Vietnam Memoir (40th Anniversary Edition) by Philip Caputo

The New York Times Bestseller Sidney Hillman Foundation Award Winner "Heartbreaking, terrifying, and enraging. It belongs to the literature of men at war." — Los Angeles Times Book Review The 40th anniversary edition of the classic Vietnam memoir—featured in the PBS documentary series The Vietnam Wa r by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick—with a new foreword by Kevin Powers. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author delivers a harrowing work that became a national reckoning. In March of 1965, Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history’s ugliest wars, he returned home—physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone. A Rumor of War is far more than one soldier’s story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America’s indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as the author writes, of "the things men do in war and the things war does to them."

6

The Traitors Circle - Jonathan Freedland Cover Art

The Traitors Circle

The Traitors Circle The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany—and the Spy Who Betrayed Them by Jonathan Freedland

"An astonishing true story of courage, love, and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history."—Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses From the New York Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist, an extraordinary true story of resistance, heroism and betrayal. When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth. Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo. They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe. How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap? Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny? A True Story of Espionage and Betrayal: Based on meticulous research, this account reveals the real-life spies and traitors at the heart of an anti-Nazi movement, culminating in a fateful tea party. High Society Rebels: Meet the unlikely circle of countesses, diplomats, and intellectuals who risked their privileged lives to defy Hitler, rescue Jews, and plot for a new Germany. The Solf Circle: Discover the history of the Solf Circle, a salon of dissent that became a nexus for Berlin’s anti-Nazi resistance—and the target of the Gestapo. Reads Like a Spy Thriller: Perfect for fans of Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre, this page-turning narrative combines the pacing of a thriller with the startling facts of a forgotten chapter of World War II history.

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Patton's Prayer - Alex Kershaw Cover Art

Patton's Prayer

Patton's Prayer A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II by Alex Kershaw

From Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, comes an epic story of courage, resilience, and faith during the Second World War General George Patton needed a miracle. In December 1944, the Allies found themselves stuck. Rain had plagued the troops daily since September, turning roads into rivers of muck, slowing trucks and tanks to a crawl. A thick ceiling of clouds had grounded American warplanes, allowing the Germans to reinforce. The sprint to Berlin had become a muddy, bloody stalemate, costing thousands of American lives. Patton seethed, desperate for some change, any change, in the weather. A devout Christian, he telephoned his head chaplain. “Do you have a good prayer for the weather?” he asked. The resulting prayer was soon printed and distributed to the 250,000 men under Patton’s command. “Pray when driving,” the men were told. “Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. . . . Pray for victory. . . . Pray for Peace.” Then came the Battle of the Bulge. Amid frigid temperatures and heavy snow, 200,000 German troops overwhelmed the meager American lines in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, massacring thousands of soldiers as the attack converged on a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy were lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate. A hundred miles of frozen roads to the south, Patton needed an answer to his prayer, fast, before it was too late.

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The Boys in the Light - Nina Willner Cover Art

The Boys in the Light

The Boys in the Light An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood by Nina Willner

“This beautifully braided story...reveals the best and worst of humanity. A magnificent work of narrative nonfiction, true to the past and essential for the present.”—Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of Lost in Shangri-La and 13 Hours An epic true story of the triumph of good over evil. The Boys in the Light follows the parallel journeys of Company D and Eddie Willner, the author’s father, as they are caught up on two sides of World War II. At sixteen, Eddie Willner was among the millions of European Jews rounded up by Hitler’s Nazis. He was forced into slave labor alongside his father and his best friend, Mike, and spent the next three years of his life surviving the death camps, including Auschwitz. Meanwhile, in the United States, boys only a few years older than Eddie were joining the army and heading toward their own precarious futures. Once farmers, factory workers, and coal miners, they were suddenly untested soldiers, thrust into the brutal conflicts of WWII. A company of 3rd Armored Division tankers, led by 23-year-old Elmer Hovland, quickly became battle-hardened and weary, constantly questioning whether the war was worth it. They got their answer when two emaciated boys stepped out of the woods with their tattooed arms raised. The Boys in the Light is a testament to survival against all odds, the strength of the bonds forged during war and the resilience of the human spirit. This extraordinary true story is a must-read for fans of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, and Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile.

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How to Lose WWII - Bill Fawcett Cover Art

How to Lose WWII

How to Lose WWII Bad Mistakes of the Good War by Bill Fawcett

How to Lose WWII is an engrossing, fact-filled collection from Bill Fawcett that sheds light on the biggest, and dumbest, screw-ups of the Great War. In the vein of his other phenomenal compendiums of amazing battlefield blunders, How to Lose a Battle and How to Lose a War, Fawcett focuses on some amazing catastrophic missteps of Axis and Allies alike.

10

The Aviators - Winston Groom Cover Art

The Aviators

The Aviators Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight by Winston Groom

Written by gifted storyteller Winston Groom (author of Forrest Gump), The Aviators tells the saga of three extraordinary aviators--Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle--and how they redefine heroism through their genius, daring, and uncommon courage.   This is the fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined aviation during the great age of flight. These cleverly interwoven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including daring military raids and survival-at-sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, The Greatest Generation, andFlyboys. With the world in peril in World War II, each man set aside great success and comfort to return to the skies for his most daring mission yet. Doolittle, a brilliant aviation innovator, would lead the daring Tokyo Raid to retaliate for Pearl Harbor; Lindbergh, hero of the first solo flight across the Atlantic, would fly combat missions in the South Pacific; and Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace, would bravely hold his crew together while facing near-starvation and circling sharks after his plane went down in a remote part of the Pacific. Groom's rich narrative tells their intertwined stories--from broken homes to Medals of Honor (all three would receive it); barnstorming to the greatest raid of World War II; front-page triumph to anguished tragedy; and near-death to ultimate survival--as all took to the sky, time and again, to become exemplars of the spirit of the "greatest generation."

11

The Guns of August - Barbara W. Tuchman Cover Art

The Guns of August

The Guns of August The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series by Barbara W. Tuchman

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • “A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’”— Newsweek   Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time In this landmark account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players, Tuchman’s magnum opus is a classic for the ages.   The Proud Tower, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Guns of August, and The Zimmermann Telegram comprise Barbara W. Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era

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D-Day - Stephen E. Ambrose Cover Art

D-Day

D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose

Stephen E. Ambrose’s D-Day is the definitive history of World War II’s most pivotal battle, a day that changed the course of history. D-Day is the epic story of men at the most demanding moment of their lives, when the horrors, complexities, and triumphs of life are laid bare. Distinguished historian Stephen E. Ambrose portrays the faces of courage and heroism, fear and determination—what Eisenhower called “the fury of an aroused democracy”—that shaped the victory of the citizen soldiers whom Hitler had disparaged. Drawing on more than 1,400 interviews with American, British, Canadian, French, and German veterans, Ambrose reveals how the original plans for the invasion had to be abandoned, and how enlisted men and junior officers acted on their own initiative when they realized that nothing was as they were told it would be. The action begins at midnight, June 5/6, when the first British and American airborne troops jumped into France. It ends at midnight June 6/7. Focusing on those pivotal twenty-four hours, it moves from the level of Supreme Commander to that of a French child, from General Omar Bradley to an American paratrooper, from Field Marshal Montgomery to a German sergeant. Ambrose’s D-Day is the finest account of one of our history’s most important days.

13

Nuclear War - Annie Jacobsen Cover Art

Nuclear War

Nuclear War A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize One of NPR's Books We Love One of Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Books of the Year Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize “In Nuclear War: A Scenario , Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail…Terrifying.”— Wall Street Journal There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States. Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.

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The Second World War - Antony Beevor Cover Art

The Second World War

The Second World War by Antony Beevor

A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945 . Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.

15

The Pentagon's Brain - Annie Jacobsen Cover Art

The Pentagon's Brain

The Pentagon's Brain An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen

Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times bestseller Area 51 . No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present. This is the book on DARPA -- a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

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Operation Underworld - Matthew Black Cover Art

Operation Underworld

Operation Underworld How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up to Win World War II by Matthew Black

For the first time ever the full story of how Charles “Lucky” Luciano—the U.S. Mafia boss who put the “organized” into organized crime—was recruited by U.S. Naval Intelligence in 1944 to aid the Allied war effort in the U.S. invasion of  Sicily that was a turning point in WWII. In 1942, fears were growing that New York Harbor was vulnerable to sabotage. If the waterfront was infested with German and Italian agents, the U.S. Navy needed a secret plan just as insidious to secure it. Naval intelligence officer, Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had the solution: recruit as his own spies, members of La Cosa Nostra. Pier to pier, no one terrified the longshoremen, stevedores, shopkeepers, and boat captains along the harbor better than the Mafia gangs of New York, who controlled the docks in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Haffenden was prepared to make a deal with the devil—the man who put “organized” into organized crime. Even from his cell in Dannemora State Prison, former Public Enemy #1, Charles “Lucky” Luciano still had tremendous power. Luciano was willing to wield it for Uncle Sam in exchange for a fullpardon. Haffenden, though, wanted something in return—Luciano’s contacts in Italy to track the Nazis’ movements. The victorious U.S. invasion of Sicily in July 1943 might have turned out differently without Luciano’s help. Operation Underworld is a tale of espionage and crime like no other, the unbelievable, first-ever account of the Allied war effort’s clandestine—and improbably—coalition between the Mafia and the U.S. Government to help the Allies win World War II.

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A History of Warfare - John Keegan Cover Art

A History of Warfare

A History of Warfare by John Keegan

Chosen by Time Magazine as one of the Best Books of the Year • The acclaimed author and preeminent military historian John Keegan examines centuries of human conflict. From primitive man in the bronze age to the end of the cold war in the twentieth century, Keegan shows how armed conflict has been a primary preoccupation throughout the history of civilization and how deeply rooted its practice has become in our cultures. "Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of living military historians . . . A History of Warfare is perhaps the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written."--The New York Times Book Review.

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The Day the World Came to Town - Jim Defede Cover Art

The Day the World Came to Town

The Day the World Came to Town 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim Defede

The True Story Behind the Events on 9/11 that Inspired Broadway’s Smash Hit Musical Come from Away, Featuring All New Material from the Author When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Local bus drivers who had been on strike came off the picket lines to transport the passengers to the various shelters set up in local schools and churches. Linens and toiletries were bought and donated. A middle school provided showers, as well as access to computers, email, and televisions, allowing the passengers to stay in touch with family and follow the news. Over the course of those four days, many of the passengers developed friendships with Gander residents that they expect to last a lifetime. As a show of thanks, scholarship funds for the children of Gander have been formed and donations have been made to provide new computers for the schools. This book recounts the inspiring story of the residents of Gander, Canada, whose acts of kindness after the 9/11 attacks have touched the lives of thousands of people and been an example of humanity and goodwill. This unforgettable story of compassion and community details: The Real Come from Away Story: Discover the incredible true events behind the hit Broadway musical—a story of how a small town of 10,000 people welcomed nearly 7,000 stranded passengers into their lives. Overwhelming Kindness: How striking bus drivers abandoned their picket lines, townspeople cooked feasts around the clock, and neighbors stripped their own linen closets to provide comfort for thousands of strangers. Stranded Passengers: Follow the stories of the travelers—from mayors and corporate CEOs to a state trooper and a worried mother—who found unexpected safety and friendship in the middle of nowhere. Lasting Friendships: Learn how the bonds formed during those four days led to lifelong connections, international scholarship funds, and a powerful, enduring example of goodwill in the face of terror.

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Prisoners of the Castle - Ben Macintyre Cover Art

Prisoners of the Castle

Prisoners of the Castle An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison by Ben Macintyre

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “entertaining [and] often-moving account” ( The Wall Street Journal ) of the remarkable POWs whose relentlessly creative attempts to escape a notorious Nazi prison embodied the spirit of resistance against fascism, from the author of The Spy and the Traitor “Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.”—David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs. Prisoners of the Castle traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.

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The Liberation Trilogy Box Set - Rick Atkinson Cover Art

The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

The Liberation Trilogy Box Set An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR HISTORY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The definitive chronicle of the Allied triumph in Europe during World War II, Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy, now together in one ebook bundle. Praise for An Army at Dawn: “A splendid book... The emphasis throughout is on the human drama of men at war.” —The Washington Post Book World From the War in North Africa to the Invasion of Normandy, the Liberation Trilogy recounts the hard fought battles that led to Allied victory in World War II. Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author Rick Atkinson brings great drama and exquisite detail to the retelling of these battles and gives life to a cast of characters, from the Allied leaders to rifleman in combat. His accomplishment is monumental: the Liberation Trilogy is the most vividly told, brilliantly researched World War II narrative to date.

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The Guns at Last Light - Rick Atkinson Cover Art

The Guns at Last Light

The Guns at Last Light The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson

THE NEW YORK TIMES #1 BESTSELLER One of The Washington Post 's Top 10 Books of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013 The magnificent conclusion to Rick Atkinson's acclaimed Liberation Trilogy about the Allied triumph in Europe during World War II. It is the twentieth century's unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now, in The Guns at Last Light , he tells the most dramatic story of all—the titanic battle for Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the final campaign of the European war, and Atkinson's riveting account of that bold gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Operation Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich—all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at every level, from presidents and generals to war-weary lieutenants and terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the enormous effort required to win the Allied victory. With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Atkinson's accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West.

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Stalingrad - Antony Beevor Cover Art

Stalingrad

Stalingrad The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor

The Battle of Stalingrad was not only the psychological turning point of World War II: it also changed the face of modern warfare. From Antony Beevor, the internationally bestselling author of  D-Day  and  The Battle of Arnhem. In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five-month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cost; then, in an astonishing reversal, encircled and trapped their Nazi enemy. This battle for the ruins of a city cost more than a million lives. Stalingrad conveys the experience of soldiers on both sides, fighting in inhuman conditions, and of civilians trapped on an urban battlefield. Antony Beevor has itnerviewed survivors and discovered completely new material in a wide range of German and Soviet archives, including prisoner interrogations and reports of desertions and executions. As a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering, Stalingrad is unprecedented and unforgettable. Historians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Antony Beevor's magisterial  Stalingrad  as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle.

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Masters of Death - Richard Rhodes Cover Art

Masters of Death

Masters of Death The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust by Richard Rhodes

In Masters of Death,  Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen’s role in the Holocaust. These “special task forces,” organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than 1.5 million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar. These massive crimes have been generally overlooked or underestimated by Holocaust historians, who have focused on the gas chambers. In this painstaking account, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes profiles the eastern campaign’s architects as well as its “ordinary” soldiers and policemen, and helps us understand how such men were conditioned to carry out mass murder. Marshaling a vast array of documents and the testimony of perpetrators and survivors, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and World War II.

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Hunting Eichmann - Neal Bascomb Cover Art

Hunting Eichmann

Hunting Eichmann How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

The first complete narrative of the pursuit & capture of SS Nazi officer and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, by a New York Times –bestselling author. When the Allies stormed Berlin in the last days of the Third Reich, Adolf Eichmann shed his SS uniform and vanished. Following his escape from two American POW camps, his retreat into the mountains and out of Europe, and his path to an anonymous life in Buenos Aires, his pursuers are a bulldog West German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his beautiful daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle (and whose rare surveillance photographs are published here for the first time). The capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina to stand trial is the stunning conclusion to this thrilling historical account, told with the kind of pulse-pounding detail that rivals anything you'd find in great spy fiction. Includes Mossad's Rare Surveillance Photographs Praise for Hunting Eichmann "A fantastic true spy story." — Associated Press "[Bascomb's] work is well researched, including interviews with former Israeli operatives and El Al staff who participated in the capture, as well as Argentine fascists. This is a gripping read." — Publishers Weekly "An outstanding account of a sustained and worthy manhunt." — Booklist

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The American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War - Maarten Otte Cover Art

The American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War

The American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War Meuse Argonne 1918: Breaking the Line by Maarten Otte

"An invaluable and extraordinary" account of the bloodiest battle in American military history ( Midwest Book Review ).   Although the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which began in late September 1918 and continued through to the Armistice, was not the first major action fought by the AEF, it was the greatest in which it engaged in the Great War.   The Argonne was an area that had been heavily fought over, particularly in the early part of the war; its eastern part, towards the Meuse, then became enveloped in the first great attritional battle of the war, Verdun.   Maarten Otte gives a background narrative to events before the opening of the Offensive and its development. Taking each of the US corps in turn, he then provides tours that will help the visitor to understand the fighting and the problems that were faced. This opening book on the Meuse-Argonne takes the reader, more or less, to the date when General Pershing handed over command of the US First Army to Major General Liggard in mid-October, a change in command that marked a significant improvement in the American performance as they pushed the Germans ever backwards.   The Great War battlefield of the Argonne is marked by numerous physical remains of the war, some fine (some might argue overly grandiose) monuments and by the stunning American cemetery at Romagne, the second largest in the world administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. There is much to see in a battlefield that has been largely neglected in the decades since the Second World War.

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The Secret Capture - Stephen Roskill Cover Art

The Secret Capture

The Secret Capture U-110 and the Enigma Story by Stephen Roskill

"A real-life Boy's Own escapade, telling the absorbing story about the capture of U-boat 110 in May 1941 by the Royal Navy." — Defense Focus Magazine For fifteen years after the end of the war, all official Admiralty records showed the German submarine U-110 as sunk on nine May 1941 by the surface escorts of convoy OB.318. As this book was the first to reveal, this was a deliberate deception, as the U-boat was actually captured and its contents fully investigated before being allowed to sink a day later, a fact skilfully kept from even the survivors of the submarine's crew. As the official historian of the naval war, Roskill had followed the party line when writing his authorised account, but provoked by exaggerated claims concerning a US Navy capture of a U-boat in 1944, Roskill decided to set the record straight. His narrative is prefaced by brief coverage of previous submarine captures by the Royal Navy—three Italian and one German—before covering the U-110 operation in great detail, underlining the skill and bravery of those involved. We now know that the reason for the secrecy was that the U-boat gave up valuable codebooks, charts, ciphers and, most significantly, a complete and undamaged Enigma machine. At the time of the book's first publication, Ultra was still a secret, so Roskill (who clearly knew about it) had to be discreet about the exact details of what was taken from the submarine while insisting on its crucial value to the war effort. However, a new introduction puts the capture into context, making clear its vital importance in the history of allied codebreaking in World War Two.

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The Things Our Fathers Saw the Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA-Voices of the Pacific Theater - Matthew Rozell Cover Art

The Things Our Fathers Saw the Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA-Voices of the Pacific Theater

The Things Our Fathers Saw the Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA-Voices of the Pacific Theater by Matthew Rozell

The telephone rings on the hospital floor, and they tell you it is your mother, the phone call you have been dreading. You’ve lost part of your face to a Japanese sniper on Okinawa, and after many surgeries, the doctor has finally told you that at 19, you will never see again. The pain and shock is one thing. But now you have to tell her, from 5000 miles away. — ‘So I had a hard two months, I guess. I kept mostly to myself. I wouldn't talk to people. I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do when I got home. How was I going to tell my mother this? You know what I mean?’ ~Jimmy Butterfield, WWII Marine veteran   How soon we forget. Or perhaps, we were never told. That is understandable, given what they saw.  — ‘I was talking to a shipmate of mine waiting for the motor launch, and  I saw a plane go over our ship. The fellow with me said, 'That's a Jap plane!' It went down and dropped a torpedo. Then I saw the Utah turn over.’ ~Barney Ross, U.S. Navy seaman, Pearl Harbor At the height of World War II, LOOK Magazine profiled a small American community for a series of articles portraying it as the wholesome, patriotic model of life on the home front. Decades later, author Matthew Rozell tracks down over thirty survivors who fought the war in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay.  These are the stories that the magazine could not tell to the American public.   — ‘I remember it rained like hell that night, and the water was running down the slope into our foxholes. I had to use my helmet to keep bailing out, you know. Lt. Gower called us together. He said, 'I think we're getting hit with a banzai. We're going to have to pull back. 'Holy God, there was howling and screaming! They had naked women, with spears, stark naked!’ ~Nick Grinaldo, U.S. Army veteran, Saipan By the end of 2018, fewer than 400,000 WW II veterans will still be with us, out of the over 16 million who put on a uniform. But why is it that today, nobody seems to know these stories? Maybe our veterans did not volunteer; maybe we were too busy with our own lives to ask. But they opened up to the younger generation, when a history teacher told their grandchildren to ask.  — ‘I hope you'll never have to tell a story like this, when you get to be 87. I hope you'll never have to do it.' ~Ralph Leinoff, Marine veteran Iwo Jima, to his teenage interviewer This book brings you the previously untold firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed.  — ‘After 3½ years of starvation and brutal treatment, that beautiful symbol of freedom once more flies over our head! Our POW camp tailor worked all night and finished our first American flag! The blue came from a GI barracks bag, red from a Jap comforter and the white from an Australian bed sheet. When I came out of the barracks and saw those beautiful colors for the first time, I felt like crying!’~Joe Minder, U.S. Army POW, Japan,1945 As we forge ahead as a nation, we owe it to ourselves to become reacquainted with a generation that is fast leaving us, who asked for nothing but gave everything, to attune ourselves as Americans to a broader appreciation of what we stand for.  Featuring over a dozen custom maps and never-before published veteran portraits. Extended notes and website.

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The Last Hill - Bob Drury & Tom Clavin Cover Art

The Last Hill

The Last Hill The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle That Defined WWII by Bob Drury & Tom Clavin

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's The Last Hill is the incredible untold story of one Ranger battalion's heroism and courage in World War II. They were known as “Rudder’s Rangers,” the most elite and experienced attack unit in the United States Army. In December 1944, Lt. Col. James Rudder's 2nd Battalion would form the spearhead into Germany, taking the war into Hitler’s homeland at last. In the process, Rudder was given two objectives: Take Hill 400 . . . and hold the hill by any means possible. To the last man, if necessary. The battle-hardened battalion had no idea that several Wehrmacht regiments, who greatly outnumbered the Rangers, had been given the exact same orders. The clash of the two determined forces was one of the bloodiest and most costly encounters of World War II. Castle Hill, the imposing 1320-foot mini-mountain the American Rangers simply called Hill 400, was the gateway to a desperate Nazi Germany. Several entire American divisions had already been repulsed by the last hill's dug-in defenders as—unknown to the Allies—the height was the key to Adolf Hitler's last-minute plans for a massive counterattack to smash through the American lines in what would become known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. Thus the stalemate surrounding Hill 400 could not continue. For Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, there was only one solution: Call in Rudder's Rangers. Of the 130 special operators who stormed, captured, and held the hill that December day, only 16 remained to stagger back down its frozen slopes. The Last Hill is replete with unforgettable action and characters—a rich and detailed saga of what the survivors of the 2nd Ranger Battalion would remember as “our longest day.”

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Inside Delta Force - Eric Haney Cover Art

Inside Delta Force

Inside Delta Force The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric Haney

Now the inspiration for the CBS Television drama, "The Unit." Delta Force. They are the U.S. Army's most elite top-secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions, and no book has ever taken readers inside—until now. Here, a founding member of Delta Force takes us behind the veil of secrecy and into the action-to reveal the never-before-told story of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D (Delta Force). He is a master of espionage, trained to take on hijackers, terrorists, hostage takers, and enemy armies. He can deploy by parachute or arrive by commercial aircraft. Survive alone in hostile cities. Speak foreign languages fluently. Strike at enemy targets with stunning swiftness and extraordinary teamwork. He is the ultimate modern warrior: the Delta Force Operator. In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary counterterrorist unit. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process—designed to break the strongest of men—that singles out the best of the best: the Delta Force Operator. With heart-stopping immediacy, Haney tells what it's really like to enter a hostage-held airplane. And from his days in Beirut, Haney tells an unforgettable tale of bodyguards and bombs, of a day-to-day life of madness and beauty, and of how he and a teammate are called on to kill two gunmen targeting U.S. Marines at the Beirut airport. As part of the team sent to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Haney offers a first-person description of that failed mission that is a chilling, compelling account of a bold maneuver undone by chance—and a few fatal mistakes. From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to rescuing missionaries in Sudan and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force. Inside Delta Force brings honor to these singular men while it puts us in the middle of action that is sudden, frightening, and nonstop around the world.

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Freedom's Forge - Arthur Herman Cover Art

Freedom's Forge

Freedom's Forge How American Business Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SELECTED BY THE ECONOMIST AS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR “A rambunctious book that is itself alive with the animal spirits of the marketplace.”— The Wall Street Journal Freedom’s Forge reveals how two extraordinary American businessmen—General Motors automobile magnate  William “Big Bill” Knudsen and shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser—helped corral, cajole, and inspire business leaders across the country to mobilize the “arsenal of democracy” that propelled the Allies to victory in World War II. Drafting top talent from companies like Chrysler, Republic Steel, Boeing, Lockheed, GE, and Frigidaire, Knudsen and Kaiser turned auto plants into aircraft factories and civilian assembly lines into fountains of munitions. In four short years they transformed America’s army from a hollow shell into a truly global force, laying the foundations for the country’s rise as an economic as well as military superpower. Freedom’s Forge vividly re-creates American industry’s finest hour, when the nation’s business elites put aside their pursuit of profits and set about saving the world. Praise for Freedom’s Forge “A rarely told industrial saga, rich with particulars of the growing pains and eventual triumphs of American industry . . . Arthur Herman has set out to right an injustice: the loss, down history’s memory hole, of the epic achievements of American business in helping the United States and its allies win World War II.” — The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . It’s not often that a historian comes up with a fresh approach to an absolutely critical element of the Allied victory in World War II, but Pulitzer finalist Herman . . . has done just that.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A compulsively readable tribute to ‘the miracle of mass production.’ ” — Publishers Weekly “The production statistics cited by Mr. Herman . . . astound.” — The Economist “[A] fantastic book.” — Forbes “ Freedom’s Forge  is the story of how the ingenuity and energy of the American private sector was turned loose to equip the finest military force on the face of the earth. In an era of gathering threats and shrinking defense budgets, it is a timely lesson told by one of the great historians of our time.” —Donald Rumsfeld

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Two Brothers - Ben Elton Cover Art

Two Brothers

Two Brothers by Ben Elton

Bestselling author Ben Elton's most personal novel to date, Two Brothers transports the reader to the time of history's darkest hour. Berlin 1920 Two babies are born. Two brothers. United and indivisible, sharing everything. Twins in all but blood. As Germany marches into its Nazi Armageddon, the ties of family, friendship and love are tested to the very limits of endurance. And the brothers are faced with an unimaginable choice... Which one of them will survive?

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Omaha Beach - Joseph Balkoski Cover Art

Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Joseph Balkoski

Includes maps, photos, and firsthand accounts of participants: "There is no better book on this vital chapter in American history." —Terry Copp, author of  Fields of Fire   Combining the personal recollections of soldiers with historical narrative and analysis of the actual invasion as it unfolded, this detailed description of the action at Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion of World War II comes from "the top living D-Day historian" ( USA Today ).   "Anyone who wants to know anything about Omaha Beach, where the fighting was heaviest and bloodiest, must begin with this foundational book…The research is unparalleled and comprehensive enough to satisfy even the most skeptical scholar, yet the story is absorbing. The carnage of Omaha Beach comes to life with vivid contemporary descriptions from participants and witnesses, while the whole tale is deftly steered along by Balkoski's steady narration and his sense of the battle's larger significance. 'History can provide at least a little solace that there was some meaning to it all,' he writes movingly. 'D-Day was the decisive chapter of a twentieth century  Iliad .' Indeed it was—and Balkoski is its Homer." — The Wall Street Journal   "Balkoski makes officer and enlisted-men's first-person testimony the center of this account." — Publishers Weekly   "Intensely researched and definitive." — Army  magazine   "Balkoski's depiction of 'Bloody Omaha' is the literary accompaniment to the white-knuckle Omaha Beach scene that opens Steven Spielberg's  Saving Private Ryan ." — The New York Post   "The best D-Day-related book I have read." — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Utah Beach - Joseph Balkoski Cover Art

Utah Beach

Utah Beach The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Joseph Balkoski

"A first-class history, impeccably researched and skillfully written . . . by the foremost historian of the American D-Day experience." — Naval History   Added to the invasion plan largely at the insistence of British General Bernard Montgomery, the attack at Utah Beach aimed to secure the Cotentin Peninsula and ultimately seize the port of Cherbourg. Although the assault on Utah Beach became one of the most successful American military operations of World War II, it was fraught with risk from the beginning: Not only was Utah the most isolated of the five D-Day beaches, but the airborne operation was of unprecedented size and scope. Despite the perils, American troops cascaded into that corner of Normandy from the sea and the sky, gaining a military triumph that contributed decisively to Allied success on D-Day.  With many never-before-published firsthand accounts from the men who were there; detailed maps providing minute-by-minute insight into the combat; photos; and comprehensive lists of all of Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross recipients at Utah Beach, this book, a companion to the author's  Omaha Beach , is both an engaging narrative and a tribute to the men who stormed the beaches and dropped from the sky. "Even the most seasoned historian will find something new in these pages." — Army  magazine "[A] groundbreaking analysis of the other half of America's D-Day." —Dennis Showalter, author of  Patton and Rommel

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The Bedford Boys - Alex Kershaw Cover Art

The Bedford Boys

The Bedford Boys One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice by Alex Kershaw

A gripping account of one Virginia small town's sacrifice on D-Day during World War II—"A powerful reminder of the human cost of war" ( Washington Post ). "Kershaw's book is more than just another war story; here is an in-depth account of this blue-collar town and its three,zero people. . . . Drawing on interviews with survivors and relatives, newspaper clippings, letters, and diaries, Kershaw has chronicled one community's great sacrifice." — Booklist June six, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia—population just three,zero in 1944—died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day . . . They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches in Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost—it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. The Bedford Boys is the true and intimate story of these men and the friends and families they left behind. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and relatives, as well as diaries and letters, Kershaw's book focuses on several remarkable individuals and families to tell one of the most poignant stories of World War II—the story of one small American town that went to war and died on Omaha Beach. "Accessible and moving. . . . Kershaw . . .includes combat sequences that give a vivid private's-eye view of the particular hell that was Omaha Beach, while one of the most moving portions of the book is the simultaneous arrival in Bedford of nine "We regret to inform you . . ." telegrams." — Publishers Weekly

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Mud, Blood and Poppycock - Gordon Corrigan Cover Art

Mud, Blood and Poppycock

Mud, Blood and Poppycock Britain and the Great War by Gordon Corrigan

The true story of how Britain won the First World War. The popular view of the First World War remains that of BLACKADDER: incompetent generals sending brave soldiers to their deaths. Alan Clark quoted a German general's remark that the British soldiers were 'lions led by donkeys'. But he made it up. Indeed, many established 'facts' about 1914-18 turn out to be myths woven in the 1960s by young historians on the make. Gordon Corrigan's brilliant, witty history reveals how out of touch we have become with the soldiers of 1914-18. They simply would not recognize the way their generation is depicted on TV or in Pat Barker's novels. Laced with dry humour, this will overturn everything you thought you knew about Britain and the First World War. Gordon Corrigan reveals how the British embraced technology, and developed the weapons and tactics to break through the enemy trenches.

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Lone Survivor - Marcus Luttrell & Patrick Robinson Cover Art

Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell & Patrick Robinson

Follow along a Navy SEAL's firsthand account of American heroism during a secret military operation in Afghanistan in this true story of survival and difficult choices. On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers. A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow by blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich, moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare -- and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

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The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors - James D. Hornfischer Cover Art

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer

“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthur’ s vulnerable invasion force were the Roberts and the other small ships of a tiny American flotilla poised to charge into history. In the tradition of the #1 New York Times bestseller Flags of Our Fathers, James D. Hornfischer paints an unprecedented portrait of the Battle of Samar, a naval engagement unlike any other in U.S. history—and captures with unforgettable intensity the men, the strategies, and the sacrifices that turned certain defeat into a legendary victory. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James D. Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno . Praise for The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors “One of the finest WWII naval action narratives in recent years, this book follows in the footsteps of Flags of Our Fathers . . . . Exalting American sailors and pilots as they richly deserve. . . . Reads like a very good action novel.” — Publishers Weekly “Reads as fresh as tomorrow's headlines. . . . Hornfischer's captivating narrative uses previously classified documents to reconstruct the epic battle and eyewitness accounts to bring the officers and sailors to life.” — Texas Monthly “Hornfischer is a powerful stylist whose explanations are clear as well as memorable. . . . A dire survival-at-sea saga.” — Denver Post “In The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, James Hornfischer drops you right into the middle of this raging battle, with 5-inch guns blazing, torpedoes detonating and Navy fliers dive-bombing. . . . The overall story of the battle is one of American guts, glory and heroic sacrifice.” — Omaha World Herald

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Dead Wake - Erik Larson Cover Art

Dead Wake

Dead Wake The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania “Both terrifying and enthralling.”— Entertainment Weekly “ Thrilling, dramatic and powerful. ” —NPR “ Thoroughly engrossing. ” —George R.R. Martin On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.  Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot -20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.  Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo

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The Woman Who Smashed Codes - Jason Fagone Cover Art

The Woman Who Smashed Codes

The Woman Who Smashed Codes A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies by Jason Fagone

National Bestseller  NPR Best Book of the Year “Not all superheroes wear capes, and Elizebeth Smith Friedman should be the subject of a future Wonder Woman movie.” —The New York Times Joining the ranks of Hidden Figures and In the Garden of Beasts, the incredible true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II. In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the U.S. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the "Adam and Eve" of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told. In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation’s history for forty years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizebeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler’s Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma—and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life. Fagone unveils America’s code-breaking history through the prism of Smith’s life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that would help shape modern intelligence. Blending the lively pace and compelling detail that are the hallmarks of Erik Larson’s bestsellers with the atmosphere and intensity of The Imitation Game, The Woman Who Smashed Codes is page-turning popular history at its finest.

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Five Lieutenants - James Carl Nelson Cover Art

Five Lieutenants

Five Lieutenants The Heartbreaking Story of Five Harvard Men Who Led America to Victory in World War I by James Carl Nelson

The dramatic true story of five brilliant young soldiers from Harvard, a thrilling tale of combat and heroism. "A powerful mosaic that captures the exhilaration of and horror of war. . . . Remarkably candid and literate." — Wall Street Journal Journalist James Carl Nelson's Five Lieutenants tells the story of five young Harvard men who took up the call to arms in the spring of 1917 and met differing fates in the maelstrom of battle on the Western Front in 1918. Delving deep into the motivations, horrific experiences, and ultimate fates of this Harvard-educated quintet—and by extension of the brilliant young officer class that left its collegiate and post-collegiate pursuits to enlist in the Army and lead America's rough-and-ready doughboys— Five Lieutenants presents a unique, timeless, and fascinating account of citizen soldiers at war, and of the price these extraordinary men paid while earnestly giving all they had in an effort to end "the war to end all wars." Drawing upon the subjects' intimate, eloquent, and uncensored letters and memoirs, this is a fascinating microcosm of the American experience in the First World War, and of the horrific experiences and hardships of the educated class of young men who were relied upon to lead doughboys in the trenches and, ultimately, in open battle. "For anyone who wants to know what it was really like to be a young American officer fighting in the Great War, Five Lieutenants should be required reading." —David Laskin, author of The Long Way Home "A masterpiece of storytelling." —Gregory A. Freeman, award-winning author of The Forgotten 500

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Special Forces Combat Recon Manual - U.S. Special Forces Cover Art

Special Forces Combat Recon Manual

Special Forces Combat Recon Manual (includes original 1970 and 1995 updated versions) by U.S. Special Forces

Project Delta - The Origins of LRRP, Recondo in Vietnam This document collection includes the original 1970 Combat Recon Manual by Project Delta and the 7th Special Forces updated version from 1995, plus a third book on WW2 Jungle Fighting. This is the famous "Tips of the trade" training document outlining tactical doctrine /techniques for special patrolling teams that would search for the enemy and transportation units along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Project DELTA was the first of the four Special reconnaissance (SR) units with a Greek letter formed by the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) during the Vietnam War to collect operational intelligence in remote areas of South Vietnam. Project DELTA was established at Nha Trang in 1964 and consisted of six reconnaissance hunter-killer teams each composed of two United States Special Forces (USSF) and four Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces (LLDB) and later supported by the 91st Ranger battalion. It was designated Detachment B-52, 5th Special Forces Group. DELTA's mission included operational and strategic reconnaissance into long-held Viet Cong areas and the direction of air strikes on them. They were also to conduct bomb damage assessment, conduct small scale reconnaissance and hunter-killer operations, capture and interrogate VC / NVA, tap communications, bug compounds and offices, rescue downed aircrew and prisoners of war, emplace point minefields and other booby traps, conduct psychological operations, and perform counter intelligence operations. They were to focus on base areas and infiltration routes in the border areas.   During its storied history, Project DELTA captured or destroyed numerous major enemy installations and supply routes. It was awarded numerous honors including the Valorous Unit Award, RVN Cross of Gallantry, RVN Civil Actions Honor Medal (PC) and the Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon. Project DELTA was deactivated in June of 1970. The successful Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) training program was originally established by Detachment B-52 of the 5th Special Forces Group (Project Delta). The Project Delta course was first established in May 1964 and would eventually evolve into the famous Vietnam RECONDO school. BONUS book: This ebook collection also contains a historical report on Jungle Warfare, written in 1942 just months into the Guadalcanal campaign during World War II. Via interviews with front lines Marines and Army soldiers it goes into great details of how the Japanese fought, weapons and tactical reports with specifics on what worked and what didn't. This no holds-barred feedback help U.S. military adapt and supply what our troops needed to succeed in the jungle of the Pacific war. Of note are comments from a one, Lt. Col. L.B. Puller, the legendary 'Chesty' Puller of Marine Corp fame to this very day. Keywords: jungle,reconnaissance,patrolling,infiltration,scouting,tactics,vietnam,warfare, recon, Guadalcanal

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Heart of a Soldier - James B. Stewart Cover Art

Heart of a Soldier

Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart

From Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart comes the extraordinary story of American hero Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley security director and a veteran of Vietnam and the British colonial wars in Rhodesia, who lost his life on September 11. When Rick Rescorla got home from Vietnam, he tried to put combat and death behind him, but he never could entirely. From the day he joined the British Army to fight a colonial war in Rhodesia, where he met American Special Forces’ officer Dan Hill who would become his best friend, to the day he fell in love with Susan, everything in his remarkable life was preparing him for an act of generosity that would transcend all that went before. Heart of a Soldier is a story of bravery under fire, of loyalty to one’s comrades, of the miracle of finding happiness late in life. Everything about Rick’s life came together on September 11. In charge of security for Morgan Stanley, he successfully got all its 2,700 men and women out of the south tower of the World Trade Center. Then, thinking perhaps of soldiers he’d held as they died, as well as the woman he loved, he went back one last time to search for stragglers. Heart of a Soldier is a story that inspires, offers hope, and helps heal even the deepest wounds.

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Remember Us - Robert M. Edsel Cover Art

Remember Us

Remember Us American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and A Forever Promise Forged in World War II by Robert M. Edsel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Amazon Editor’s Pick “An intimate, moving look at the war that extracts deep meaning from the carnage and loss.” – Publishers Weekly What happens when you lose your freedom and the people who eventually get it back for you are no longer alive to thank? Remember Us, by Robert Edsel—#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Monuments Men—begins in the pre-dawn hours of Hitler’s invasion of Western Europe on May 10, 1940, when his forces rolled into the small rural province of Limburg in the Netherlands shattering more than 100 years of peace. Their freedom gone, the Dutch lived through four-and-a-half years of occupation until American forces reached Limburg in September 1944, the last portion of Western Europe liberated by the Allies before their advance on Nazi Germany slammed to a halt. Like The Monuments Men, Remember Us is an ensemble piece that follows twelve main characters over a six-year span, zeroing in on ordinary people including Frieda van Schäik, a teenager who falls in love with an American soldier; Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole, the first member of the 101st Airborne to receive the Medal of Honor; and Sergeant Jeff Wiggins of the 960th Quartermaster Service Company, who escaped the poverty and racism of Alabama for yet another indignity—digging graves. Drawing on never-before-seen letters, diaries, and other historical records, Edsel shows the painful price of freedom, on the battlefields and inside American homes. In this rich, dramatic, and suspenseful story, he captures both the horrors of war and the transcendent power of gratitude, showing the extraordinary measures the Dutch have taken to thank their liberators. Remember Us is exactly the book we need—a reminder that grief is universal, that humanity knows no national or racial boundaries, and that we all want to be remembered, somehow, someway, by somebody.

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The Killing School - Brandon Webb & John David Mann Cover Art

The Killing School

The Killing School Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program by Brandon Webb & John David Mann

An insider's look at the grueling three-month training program that produces the world's deadliest snipers. As a SEAL sniper and combat veteran, Brandon Webb was tapped to revamp the US Naval Special Warfare (SEAL) Scout/Sniper School. Incorporating the latest advances in technology and ballistics software, he created an entirely new course that continues to test the skills and even the best warriors. In this revealing new book, Webb takes readers through every aspect of this training, describing how Spec Ops snipers are taught each dimension of their art. Trainees learn to utilize every edge possible to make their shot—from studying crosswinds, barometric pressure, latitude, and even the rotation of the Earth to becoming ballistic experts. But marksmanship is only one aspect of the training. Each SEAL's endurance, stealth, and mental and physical stamina are tested and pushed to the breaking point. Webb also shows how this training plays out in combat, using real-life exploits of the world's top snipers, including Jason Delgado, who led a Marine platoon in the Battle of Husaybah and made some of the most remarkable kill shots in the Iraq War; Nicholas Irving, the US Army Ranger credited with thirty-three kills in a single three-month tour in Afghanistan; and Rob Furlong, who during Operation Anaconda delivered the then-longest kill shot in history. During Webb's sniper school tenure, the course graduated some of the deadliest and most skilled snipers of this generation, including Marcus Luttrell ( Lone Survivor ), Adam Brown ( Fearless ), and Chris Kyle ( American Sniper ). From recon and stalk, to complex last-minute adjustments, and finally the moment of taking the shot, The Killing School demonstrates how today's sniper is trained to function as an entire military operation rolled into a single individual—an army of one.

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Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (Vol. 1) (Pacific War Trilogy) - Ian W. Toll Cover Art

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (Vol. 1) (Pacific War Trilogy)

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (Vol. 1) (Pacific War Trilogy) by Ian W. Toll

Winner of the Northern California Book Award for Nonfiction "Both a serious work of history…and a marvelously readable dramatic narrative." —San Francisco Chronicle On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss, a blow that destroyed the offensive power of their fleet. Pacific Crucible—through a dramatic narrative relying predominantly on primary sources and eyewitness accounts of heroism and sacrifice from both navies—tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history to seize the strategic initiative.

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Book and Dagger - Elyse Graham Cover Art

Book and Dagger

Book and Dagger How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham

The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the war At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work as part of a new WWII intelligence effort—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions. Book and Dagger draws on personal histories, letters, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war. Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story of espionage about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis—a tale that reveals the indelible power of the humanities to change the world. This riveting work of WWII history reveals: From Academia to Espionage: The untold story of how literature professors, librarians, and historians were recruited into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and trained in spycraft. Declassified Histories: The true stories of operatives like Joseph Curtiss, who turned German spies into double agents, and archivist Adele Kibre, on her secret mission in Stockholm, drawn from newly released OSS files. The Chairborne Division: A fascinating look inside the Research and Analysis branch (R&A), the OSS’s intellectual engine that transformed how intelligence was gathered and helped win the war. The Birth of the CIA: How this unlikely group of scholars laid the foundations for today’s Central Intelligence Agency, forever changing the world of espionage.

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Code Name: Lise - Larry Loftis Cover Art

Code Name: Lise

Code Name: Lise The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Featured in The New York Times , The Atlantic , Time , New York Newsday , and on Today ! “A nonfiction thriller.”— The Wall Street Journal From New York Times and international bestselling author of the “gripping” (Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Into the Lion’s Mouth comes the extraordinary true story of Odette Sansom, the British spy who operated in occupied France and fell in love with her commanding officer during World War II—perfect for fans of Unbroken , The Nightingale , and Code Girls . The year is 1942, and World War II is in full swing. Odette Sansom decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill. As they successfully complete mission after mission, Peter and Odette fall in love. All the while, they are being hunted by the cunning German secret police sergeant, Hugo Bleicher, who finally succeeds in capturing them. They are sent to Paris’s Fresnes prison, and from there to concentration camps in Germany where they are starved, beaten, and tortured. But in the face of despair, they never give up hope, their love for each other, or the whereabouts of their colleagues. In Code Name: Lise , Larry Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love—of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors and degradations. He seamlessly weaves together the touching romance between Odette and Peter and the thrilling cat and mouse game between them and Sergeant Bleicher. With this amazing testament to the human spirit, Loftis proves once again that he is adept at writing “nonfiction that reads like a page-turning novel” ( Parade ).

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Wild Bill Donovan - Douglas Waller Cover Art

Wild Bill Donovan

Wild Bill Donovan The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage by Douglas Waller

“Entertaining history…Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history.” — The New York Times Book Review A gripping, deeply researched biography of “Wild Bill” Donovan—the daring, controversial spymaster who built the OSS, shaped modern American intelligence, and transformed covert warfare during World War II. He was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, “Wild Bill” Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country’s first national intelligence agency) and the father of today’s CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan’s relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage. Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in the OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another. Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan’s intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.

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Churchill's Band of Brothers - Damien Lewis Cover Art

Churchill's Band of Brothers

Churchill's Band of Brothers WWII's Most Daring D-Day Mission and the Hunt to Take Down Hitler's Fugitive War Criminals by Damien Lewis

One of WWII’s most daring Allied D-Day missions and the hunt for Hitler’s war criminals is brought to breathtaking life by award-winning, bestselling war reporter Damien Lewis. Award-winning, bestselling author Damien Lewis explores one of WWII’s most remarkable Special Forces missions during the Normany landings on D-Day—and the extraordinary hunt that followed to take down a cadre of fugitive SS and Gestapo war criminals.   On the night of June 13th, 1944, a twelve-man SAS unit parachuted into occupied France. Their objective: hit German forces deep behind the lines, cutting the rail-tracks linking Central France to the northern coastline. In a country crawling with enemy troops, their mission was to prevent Hitler from rushing his Panzer divisions to the D-Day beaches and driving the Allied troops back into the sea. It was a Herculean task, but no risk was deemed too great to stop the Nazi assault. In daring to win it all, the SAS patrol were ultimately betrayed, captured, and tortured by the Gestapo before facing execution in a dark French woodland on Hitler’s personal orders. Miraculously, two of the condemned men managed to escape, triggering one of the most-secretive Nazi-hunting operations ever, as the SAS vowed to track down every one of the war criminals who had murdered their brothers in arms . . . all with Churchill’s covert backing.   With Nazi Germany’s lightning seizure of much of Western Europe, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had called for the formation of specially trained troops of the “hunter class.” Their purpose was to incite a reign of terror across enemy-occupied Europe. Churchill’s warriors were to shatter all known rules of warfare, taking the fight to the enemy with no holds barred. In doing so, the Special Air Service would be tested as never before during the pivotal D-Day landings, and the quest for vengeance that followed.   Breathtaking and exhaustively researched, Churchill’s Band of Brothers is based upon a raft of new and unseen material provided by the families of those who were there. It reveals the untold story of one of the most daring missions of WWII, that not only had ramifications for the war itself, but lead to the most extraordinary and gripping of aftermaths.

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The First Wave - Alex Kershaw Cover Art

The First Wave

The First Wave The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II by Alex Kershaw

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of Against All Odds, returns with an utterly immersive, adrenaline-driven account of D-Day combat.   “Meet the assaulters: pathfinders plunging from the black, coxswains plowing the whitecaps, bareknuckle Rangers scaling sheer rock . . . Fast-paced and up close, this is history’s greatest story reinvigorated as only Alex Kershaw can.” —Adam Makos, New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead and A Higher Call Beginning in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, The First Wave follows the remarkable men who carried out D-Day’s most perilous missions. The charismatic, unforgettable cast includes the first American paratrooper to touch down on Normandy soil; the glider pilot who braved antiaircraft fire to crash-land mere yards from the vital Pegasus Bridge; the brothers who led their troops onto Juno Beach under withering fire; as well as a French commando, returning to his native land, who fought to destroy German strongholds on Sword Beach and beyond. Readers will experience the sheer grit of the Rangers who scaled Pointe du Hoc and the astonishing courage of the airborne soldiers who captured the Merville Gun Battery in the face of devastating enemy counterattacks. The first to fight when the stakes were highest and the odds longest, these men would determine the fate of the invasion of Hitler’s fortress Europe—and the very history of the twentieth century.   The result is an epic of close combat and extraordinary heroism. It is the capstone Alex Kershaw’s remarkable career, built on his close friendships with D-Day survivors and his intimate understanding of the Normandy battlefield. For the seventy-fifth anniversary, here is a fresh take on World War II's longest day. Praise for The First Wave : “Masterful... readers will feel the sting of the cold surf, smell the acrid cordite that hung in the air, and duck the zing of machine-gun bullets whizzing overhead. The First Wave is an absolute triumph.” —James M. Scott, bestselling author of Target Tokyo “These pages ooze with the unforgettable human drama of history's most consequential invasion.” —John C. McManus, author of The Dead and Those About to Die

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