Showing titles in World War II

No Demon of Darkness is not a chronicle of violent clashes with the Luftwaffe's bombers over England; it is the tale of a young pilot and the challenges he faced in learning to fly, and in flying heavy fighters such as the Bristol Beaufighter and De Haviland Mosquito. It is also about setbacks and successes. Above all, it is about what it often meant to be an inexperienced operational pilot in wartime.

July, 1942. The North African campaign rages. The Allies have been forced to retreat from Gazala, and are being pursued through the sandy wastes by 'The Desert Fox' – Field Marshal Rommel and his Panzerarmee. The target of the enemy is Cairo – if taken, the Axis powers will control the Suez Canal and be within striking distance of the oil fields of the Middle East, tipping the war in Hitler's favour. In their way is the Eighth Army, spearheaded by the battle-hardened troops of the Ninth Australian Division and the Second New Zealand Division.

Samurai! is the gripping autobiography of Saburō Sakai, one of Japan’s most renowned fighter pilots during World War II. Co-written with Fred Saito and Martin Caidin, the book chronicles Sakai’s rise from a poor rural upbringing to becoming an elite Zero pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In 1939, the world was dragged into the most devastating conflict in human history. Empires collapsed. Entire cities burned. Tens of millions of people would never return home. World War 2: A Complete History of WWII and Its Enduring Legacy takes you on a sweeping journey through the conflict that reshaped the modern world. From the lightning strikes of Blitzkrieg in Europe to the brutal island battles of the Pacific, this audiobook explores the war through strategy, politics, and the lives of the people who endured it.

The only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA, Moe Berg has the singular distinction of having both a 15-year career as a catcher for such teams as the New York Robins and the Chicago White Sox and that of a spy for the OSS during World War II. Here, Dawidoff provides "a careful and sympathetic biography" ( Chicago Sun-Times) of this enigmatic man.

13 June, 1940. Carefully labelled, and each clutching little brown suitcases, Terry, aged seven, and his elder brother Jack, eleven, stand amid the throng of children which crowds the narrow platform at Welling station awaiting the steam engine which will pull them and their fellow evacuees across the country towards their unknown destination – and their new lives...

SAS Behind the Lines: Operations Hardy & Wallace, tells the untold story of two of the most audacious and successful Special Air Service raids of the Second World War. Summer, 1944. In the chaotic weeks after D-Day, a handful of men from Britain’s 2nd Special Air Service plunged deep into Nazi-occupied France. Their mission: cripple German supply lines, sow confusion, and keep the enemy on the run.

When Helga Schneider was four, her mother, Traudi, abandoned her to pursue her career. In 1998, Helga received a letter asking her to visit Traudi, now 90-years old, before she dies. Mother and daughter have met only once after Traudi left, on a disastrous visit where Helga first learnt the...

Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz Guderian, are largely unknown. This biographical study of four German panzer army commanders serving on the Eastern Front is based upon their unpublished wartime letters to their wives. David Stahel offers a complete picture of the men conducting Hitler's war in the East, with an emphasis on the private fears and public pressures they operated under.

Infantry men who once ridiculed and scoffed at Desmond’s simple faith and refusal to carry a weapon owed their lives to him. In the midst of a fierce firefight on Okinawa that felled approximately 75 men from the 1st Battalion, Private Doss refused to seek cover and carried his stricken comrades to safety one by one. This and other heroic acts earned him the highest honor America can bestow on one of her sons - the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Until recent years, very little was known of the tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Spain who served voluntarily in the military formations of the German army and the German Waffen-SS. In Kaisergruber's book, the listener discovers important issues of collaboration, the apparent contributions of the volunteers to the German war effort, their varied experiences, their motives, the attitude of the German High Command and bureaucracy, and the reaction to these in the occupied countries.  

British Heroes of World War II: True Stories of Individual Bravery from the Battlefields of World War II tells the incredible true stories of men and women whose bravery left a lasting impact on the Allies' victory. From covert operations behind enemy lines to heroic acts in fierce battlefield confrontations, these stories showcase the unbreakable human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity.

This book tells the story of Kazuo Odachi who—in 1943, when he was just 16 years-old—joined the Imperial Japanese Navy to become a pilot. A year later, he was unknowingly assigned to the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps—a group of airmen whose mission was to sacrifice their lives by crashing planes into enemy ships. Their call sign was "ten dead, zero alive." This book offers a new perspective on these infamous suicide pilots. It is not a chronicle of war, nor is it a collection of research papers compiled by scholars. It is a transcript of Odachi's words.

Written with flair and exuberance, Joan Rice's diary is a compelling and personal account of life and love in the Second World War. Including additional material from her husband's own diary, Sand in my Shoes is a record of one woman's coming-of-age.

An extraordinary firsthand account of the Battle of Midway by one of its key participants, timed to the 75th anniversary: American dive-bomber pilot ""Dusty"" Kleiss helped sink three Japanese warships (including two aircraft carriers), received the Navy Cross, and is credited with playing a...

"The Furhrer" delves into the complex and disturbing life of Adolf Hitler, a man who became synonymous with hatred and fear. Beginning with his early days in Linz, following his path through the Bavarian Army and the failed Putsch, and culminating in his death, the film seeks to understand the psychological trajectory of his descent into tyranny.

Col. Mark James Alexander was the only airborne officer to lead three different battalions into combat in World War II, successively commanding the 2nd and 1st Battalions, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, and the 2nd Battalion, 508 PIR, of the 82nd Airborne Division. A legend in his own time, he fought in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France, and even after being seriously wounded in Normandy, insisted on playing a role in the Battle of the Bulge.

Battle Hardened: An Infantry Officer's Harrowing Journey from D-Day to VE Day tells the story of an American soldier's growth from a Second Lieutenant eager to prove his worth in battle to a skilled and resolute commander over the course of the Northern European Campaign. Craig Chapman delves deep into the personal recollections and mental state of Bill Chapman as he fought against the Nazis, enduring frontline combat and witnessing horror on a massive scale.

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2023 'A beautiful, compelling memoir . . . Father and Son is an exquisite, sometimes lunatic tension between powerful emotions and carnage on one side, and on the other, the conventional codes of what must remain unsaid. This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous...

An interview with a British World War II soldier whose name just happens to be James Ryan (Jim). On the 6th June 1944, 19-year-old Jim Ryan, a tank driver, came ashore 3 hours after the start of what would go down in history as "D-Day". By midnight 57,000 American and 75,000 British and Canadian troops were encamped on the beachhead, pinned down by heavy German artillery fire. From boarding his landing craft hampered by terrible weather, setting off on an incredible journey to the disembarkation on Sword Beach, this is the true story of one man's personal war.