The Mammoth Book of How it Happened: World War II

The Mammoth Book of How it Happened: World War II
Author: Jon E. Lewis
Publisher: Robinson
Total Pages: 539
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1780337302

In his account of World War II, historian Jon Lewis has selected 300 first-hand accounts, from Heinz Guderian rolling his panzer tank into Poland to VJ Day in London and New York. More than a eyewitness chronicle, this collection gives the reader an insight into how the repercussions from the war shaped our modern world, and how nothing from geo-politics to rock 'n' roll can really be understood without considering it.

The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Naval Battles

The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Naval Battles
Author: Richard Russell Lawrence
Publisher: Running PressBook Pub
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780786712380

Shares dramatic eyewitness accounts from more than 2,500 years of naval history, from the Battle of Salamis as recorded by Thucydides in 378 B.C., to the endeavors of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, to the carrier operations of the 1991 Gulf War. Original.

The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History 2000

The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History 2000
Author: Jon E. Lewis
Publisher: Running PressBook Pub
Total Pages: 630
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780786707478

Takes a snapshot view of history from 2700 B.C. to 2000 A.D. and offers a collection of eyewitness accounts of the most memorable historical and social events taken from memoirs, diaries, letters and journals. Original.

The Mammoth Book of the Vietnam War

The Mammoth Book of the Vietnam War
Author: Jon E. Lewis
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 542
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472116070

By 1969, following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, over 500,000 US troops were ‘in country’ in Vietnam. Before America’s longest war had ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975, 450,000 Vietnamese had died, along with 36,000 Americans. The Vietnam War was the first rock ’n’ roll war, the first helicopter war with its doctrine of ‘airmobility’, and the first television war; it made napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange infamous, and gave us the New Journalism of Michael Herr and others. It also saw the establishment of the Navy SEALs and Delta Force. At home, America fractured, with the peace movement protesting against the war; at Kent State University, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on unarmed students, killing four and injuring nine. Lewis’s compelling selection of the best writing to come out of a war covered by some truly outstanding writers, both journalists and combatants, includes an eyewitness account of the first major battle between the US Army and the People’s Army of Vietnam at Ia Drang; a selection of letters home; Nicholas Tomalin’s famous ‘The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong’; Robert Mason’s ‘R&R’, Studs Terkel’s account of the police breaking up an anti-war protest; John Kifner on the shootings at Kent State; Ron Kovic’s ‘Born on the Fourth of July’; John T. Wheeler’s ‘Khe Sanh: Live in the V Ring’; Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh on the massacre at My Lai; Michael Herr’s ‘It Made You Feel Omni’; Viet Cong Truong Nhu Tang’s memoir; naval nurse Maureen Walsh’s memoir, ‘Burning Flesh’; John Pilger on the fall of Saigon; and Tim O’Brien’s ‘If I Die in a Combat Zone’.

The Last Battle

The Last Battle
Author: Cornelius Ryan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 749
Release: 2010-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1439127018

The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II

The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II
Author: Jon E. Lewis
Publisher: Running PressBook Pub
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780786710713

A firsthand history of World War II is told from the eyewitness perspectives of fighters from both sides, including reports from Erwin Rommel, Edward R. Murrow, and Primo Levi.

We Were There

We Were There
Author: Robert Fox
Publisher: Profile Books
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2010-12-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1847651895

What was it like to be there at the very moment when great events took place; when great figures strode onto the world stage; when the wonderful, the terrible, the diverting and the just plain curious happened? In this acclaimed collection of eyewitness reportage, Robert Fox brings together accounts from soldiers, journalists, poets, scientists, adventurers, chance bystanders and many more to create a vivid, compelling history of the twentieth century as it happened. Covering two world wars, revolutions, discoveries and the rise and fall of empires across the globe, We Were There reports on the defining moments of the last hundred or so years, from the turn of the last century through the Wall Street Crash and D-Day, to the Vietnam War, Tiananmen Square and 9/11. These evocative reports from around the world - by figures ranging from Vera Brittain to Neil Armstrong and Rosa Parks to the Baghdad blogger - show that the very best eyewitness reporting is as gripping as it is invaluable.

The Guns at Last Light

The Guns at Last Light
Author: Rick Atkinson
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 896
Release: 2014-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250037816

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 they fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all--the titanic battle for Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the European war's final campaign, 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. With The Guns at Last Light, the stirring #1 New York Times bestseller and final volume of this monumental trilogy, Atkinson has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West.

Counterspy

Counterspy
Author: Richard W. Cutler
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1612342892

During World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, Richard W. Cutler was an officer with the elite X-2 counterintelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and with its successor, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). Counterspy offers a rare firsthand account of the secret war against Hitler and the postwar competition with the Soviets for German intelligence assets.While with X-2, Cutler analyzed the super-secret Ultra intercepts and vetted agents about to be sent into Nazi Germany. Cutler provides an insightful overview of OSS operations during the war and their contribution to the Alliesa victory. This is also one of the few books to describe the role of the OSS and the SSU in the postwar occupation of Germany. Cutleras first job after the German surrender was to vet all of Allen Dullesas wartime sources inside Germany, who were aptly nicknamed the Crown Jewels. Just as the OSS was reorganized into the SSU, Cutler moved to Berlin, where his first task was to collect intelligence from former Nazis. Soon he became chief of counterespionage in Berlin. Soviet intelligence had already begun recruiting former German intelligence officers to spy on Americans, so Cutleras top priority was to uncover Soviet objectives and either neutralize or double their agents. Cutler reveals previously unpublished case histories of double agents against Soviet intelligence and details agentsa recruitment, missions, methods of operation, successes and failures, and fates. All of these events are recounted against the fascinating background of postwar Germany. He provides a vivid picture of the mood of the German people, how they rationalized war guilt, and how they coped with the devastation throughout the country. With photographs and a foreword by bestselling author Joseph E. Persico (Rooseveltas Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage), Counterspy is a unique account of espionage during the momentous years of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War."