Download or read book World War Two Bookshelf written by James F. Dunnigan and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike any conflict before or since, World War II was a truly worldwide war, with dozens of nations participating in significant battles in virtually every corner of the globe. In this definitive guide, military analyst James F. Dunnigan chooses fifty titles out of the many thousands of books published on the subject as being the most worthy of a place in your library. He includes incisive commentary on such important volumes as General George S. Patton Jr.'s classic tome War As I Knew It -- a personal and brutally honest narrative of the famed leader's march across Western Europe -- and Studs Terkel's acclaimed oral history A Good War, with its riveting day-to-day accounts of the fighting men of many nations.
Download or read book Hidden History written by Gerry Docherty and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Think you know about British history and the causes of the First World War? Think again. This fascinating and gripping study of events at the turn of the Twentieth Century is a remarkable insight into how political and social factors that we widely accept to be the causes of The Great War, were really just a construct put together by a very small, but powerful, political elite... 'Thought-provoking . . . Docherty and Macgregor do not mince their words . . . their arguments are powerful' -- Britain at War 'Simply astonishing' -- ***** Reader review 'Very illuminating' -- ***** Reader review 'You simply MUST read this book' -- ***** Reader review 'This is a page-turner' -- ***** Reader review *********************************************************************************** Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for the First World War. It reveals how accounts of the war's origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity. For ten years, they plotted the destruction of Germany as the first stage of their plan to take control of the world. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was no chance happening. It lit a fuse that had been carefully set through a chain of command stretching from Sarajevo through Belgrade and St Petersburg to that cabal in London. Our understanding of these events has been firmly trapped in a web of falsehood and duplicity carefully constructed by the victors at Versailles in 1919 and maintained by compliant historians ever since. The official version is fatally flawed, warped by the volume of evidence they destroyed or concealed from public view. Hidden History poses a tantalising challenge. The authors ask only that you examine the evidence they lay before you . . .
Download or read book The Secret History of World War II written by Neil Kagan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From spy missions to code breaking, this richly illustrated account of the covert operations of World War II takes readers behind the battle lines and deep into the undercover war effort that changed the course of history. From the authors who created Eyewitness to World War II and numerous other best-selling illustrated reference books, this is the shocking story behind the covert activity that shaped the outcome of one of the world's greatest conflicts--and the destiny of millions of people. National Geographic's landmark book illuminates World War II as never before by taking you inside the secret lives of spies and spy masters; secret agents and secret armies; Enigma machines and code breakers; psychological warfare and black propaganda; secret weapons and secret battle strategies. Seven heavily illustrated narrative chapters reveal the truth behind the lies and deception that shaped the 'secret war'; eight essays showcase hundreds of rare photos and artifacts (many never before seen); more than 50 specially created sidebars tell the stories of spies and secret operations. Renowned historian and top-selling author Stephen Hyslop reveals this little-known side of the war in captivating detail, weaving in extraordinary eyewitness accounts and information only recently declassified. Rare photographs, artifacts, and illuminating graphics enrich this absorbing reference book"--
Download or read book Roosevelt s Secret War written by Joseph E. Persico and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-10-22 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations. Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations: -FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor -A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to the Oval Office -Roosevelt knew before any other world leader of Hitler's plan to invade Russia -Roosevelt and Churchill concealed a disaster costing hundreds of British soldiers' lives in order to protect Ultra, the British codebreaking secret -An unwitting Japanese diplomat provided the President with a direct pipeline into Hitler's councils Roosevelt's Secret War also describes how much FDR had been told--before the Holocaust--about the coming fate of Europe's Jews. And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennial question Did FDR know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor? By temperament and character, no American president was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. He once remarked, "I never let my right hand know what my left hand does." Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends. FDR was also spied against. Roosevelt's Secret War presents evidence that the Soviet Union had a source inside the Roosevelt White House; that British agents fed FDR total fabrications to draw the United States into war; and that Roosevelt, by yielding to Churchill's demand that British scientists be allowed to work on the Manhattan Project, enabled the secrets of the bomb to be stolen. And these are only a few of the scores of revelations in this constantly surprising story of Roosevelt's hidden role in World War II.
Download or read book The Secret War written by Max Hastings and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Monumental." --New York Times Book Review NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II—intelligence—showing how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome. Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.
Download or read book The Ghost Army of World War II written by Rick Beyer and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way—ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously.” —Tom Brokaw The first book to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives—now updated with new material. In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—artists, designers, architects, and sound engineers, including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Every move they made was top secret, and their story was hushed up for decades after the war's end. Hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs, along with maps, official memos, and letters, accompany Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles’s meticulous research and interviews with many of the soldiers, weaving a compelling narrative of how an unlikely team carried out amazing battlefield deceptions that saved thousands of American lives and helped open the way for the final drive to Germany. The stunning art created between missions also offers a glimpse of life behind the lines during World War II. This updated edition includes: A new afterword by co-author Rick Beyer Never-before-seen additional images The successful campaign to have the unit awarded a Congressional Gold Medal History and WWII enthusiasts will find The Ghost Army of World War II an essential addition to their library.
Download or read book Secret Weapons of World War II written by William B. Breuer and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007-08-24 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Acclaim for Secret Weapons of World War II "Breuer has produced yet another collection of rip-roaring tales. . . . A delightful addition to the niche that Breuer has so successfully carved out." -Publishers Weekly "It is Breuer's portrayal of the competition for technological superiority between the Allies and the Nazis that grabs the reader and shows the significance of each wartime discovery and invention." -State Journal-Register, Springfield, Illinois In the fast-paced, suspenseful Secret Weapons of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer chronicles the clandestine battle that occurred between the brilliant scientists and codebreakers of the Allies and the Axis powers. Re-creating the covert missions, hoaxes, spying, conspiracies, and electronic sleuthing, Breuer deftly uncovers the spectacular feats of the fascinating men and women who determined the outcome of the war-providing an unprecedented look at the least-known operations and plots conducted by both sides.
Download or read book The Secret War written by George C. Chalou and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1995-12 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proceedings of the first major scholarly conference on the OSS, which was in existence from 1941 through 1945. Includes 24 papers presented by veterans and historians of the OSS. Offers new insights into the activities and importance of the U.S.'s first modern national intelligence agency. Discusses: the U.S. on the brink of war; the operations of the OSS at the headquarters level and in the field throughout Western Europe, the Balkans, and Asia. Also explores the legacy of the OSS. Contributors include: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., William Colby, Walt W. Rostow, Robin Winks, and Aline, Countess of Romanones.
Download or read book Secret Casualties of World War Two written by Simon Webb and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of friendly fire on civilians during the London Blitz and the attack on Pearl harbor exposes the unknown horror behind these iconic WWII events. The London Blitz and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have ascended to the level of myth for Britain and America. Yet both of these artfully constructed narratives of heroic resistance to aerial bombardment conceal the massacre of citizens by the very militaries charged with protecting them. In Britain, thousands of civilians were killed when the army shelled London and other cities to prevent residents from fleeing the German bombs. At Pearl Harbor, American warships fired their heavy guns at the city of Honolulu with devastating results. Simon Webb begins this volume with an overview of bombing and anti-aircraft guns from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 through to the First World War. He then reveals the casualties which friendly fire from heavy artillery inflicted upon British and American civilians during World War Two. In the case of the British, these deaths were a deliberate part of a shockingly cynical policy. There were times during the German bombing of London when more people were being killed by British shells than by enemy bombs.
Download or read book Secret Soldiers written by Philip Gerard and published by Dutton Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Secret Solders" reveals how an extraordinary group of American artists, designers, and engineering wizards became America's unsung heroes of the Second World War. Photo inserts.
Download or read book Secrets of Victory written by Michael S. Sweeney and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-01-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, the civilian Office of Censorship supervised a huge and surprisingly successful program of news management: the voluntary self-censorship of the American press. In January 1942, censorship codebooks were distributed to all American newspapers, magazines, and radio stations with the request that journalists adhere to the guidelines within. Remarkably, over the course of the war no print journalist, and only one radio journalist, ever deliberately violated the censorship code after having been made aware of it and understanding its intent. Secrets of Victory examines the World War II censorship program and analyzes the reasons for its success. Using archival sources, including the Office of Censorship's own records, Michael Sweeney traces the development of news media censorship from a pressing necessity after the attack on Pearl Harbor to the centralized yet efficient bureaucracy that persuaded thousands of journalists to censor themselves for the sake of national security. At the heart of this often dramatic story is the Office of Censorship's director Byron Price. A former reporter himself, Price relied on cooperation with--rather than coercion of--American journalists in his fight to safeguard the nation's secrets.
Download or read book The Secret History of Soldiers written by Tim Cook and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.
Download or read book X Troop written by Leah Garrett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH "This is the incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now." —Wall Street Journal “Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees—a top-secret band of brothers—who waged war on Hitler.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and The Liberator The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. “Garrett’s detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge.”—Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler’s Furies
Download or read book The Great Secret The Classified World War II Disaster that Launched the War on Cancer written by Jennet Conant and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of a chemical weapons catastrophe, the cover-up, and how one American Army doctor’s discovery led to the development of the first drug to combat cancer, known today as chemotherapy. On the night of December 2, 1943, the Luftwaffe bombed a critical Allied port in Bari, Italy, sinking seventeen ships and killing over a thousand servicemen and hundreds of civilians. Caught in the surprise air raid was the John Harvey, an American Liberty ship carrying a top-secret cargo of 2,000 mustard bombs to be used in retaliation if the Germans resorted to gas warfare. When one young sailor after another began suddenly dying of mysterious symptoms, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Alexander, a doctor and chemical weapons expert, was dispatched to investigate. He quickly diagnosed mustard gas exposure, but was overruled by British officials determined to cover up the presence of poison gas in the devastating naval disaster, which the press dubbed "little Pearl Harbor." Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Dwight D. Eisenhower acted in concert to suppress the truth, insisting the censorship was necessitated by military security. Alexander defied British port officials and heroically persevered in his investigation. His final report on the Bari casualties was immediately classified, but not before his breakthrough observations about the toxic effects of mustard on white blood cells caught the attention of Colonel Cornelius P. Rhoads—a pioneering physician and research scientist as brilliant as he was arrogant and self-destructive—who recognized that the poison was both a killer and a cure, and ushered in a new era of cancer research led by the Sloan Kettering Institute. Meanwhile, the Bari incident remained cloaked in military secrecy, resulting in lost records, misinformation, and considerable confusion about how a deadly chemical weapon came to be tamed for medical use. Deeply researched and beautifully written, The Great Secret is the remarkable story of how horrific tragedy gave birth to medical triumph.
Download or read book Freedom Betrayed written by George H. Nash and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herbert Hoover's "magnum opus"—at last published nearly fifty years after its completion—offers a revisionist reexamination of World War II and its cold war aftermath and a sweeping indictment of the "lost statesmanship" of Franklin Roosevelt. Hoover offers his frank evaluation of Roosevelt's foreign policies before Pearl Harbor and policies during the war, as well as an examination of the war's consequences, including the expansion of the Soviet empire at war's end and the eruption of the cold war against the Communists.
Download or read book Top Secret Tales of World War II written by William Breuer and published by Chartwell Books. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winston Churchill once remarked that the secret warfare waged in World War II equaled "the most fantastic inventions of romance and melodrama." William Breuer vividly confirms that assessment with these compelling accounts of Allied and Axis intelligence throughout World War II. Here are riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, saboteurs, sleepers, and moles, giving fresh perspectives on the best-known interceptions and deceptions of the war-the breaking of the German code Enigma and the Japanese code Purple, Operation Overlord's successful disguise of the D-Day invasion-as well as little-known feats of civilian bravado in the face of danger. Meet Sidney Cotton, a British businessman and aviator who took the Luftwaffe's General Albrecht Kesselring aloft for a test flight at a German air show and then coolly snapped valuable reconnaissance photographs after handing the controls over to the Nazi officer. Shadow the covert armada that shipped the foundation of Great Britain' s financial security- including $2.5 billion in gold-from London to the Bank of Canada in Ottawa, without suffering a single loss from U-boats at the height of the Battle for the Atlantic. Discover how U.S. taxpayers footed the bill for a successful Nazi propaganda effort that was documented in the Congressional Record, published by the Government Printing Office, and mailed on a congressman's postal privileges. Witness a German military spy so inept he carried his World War I medals on his mission, and another so bold that he advertised for industry secrets in the pages of Popular Aviation magazine. He paid twenty dollars each for the numerous-and significant-replies that poured in. Drawn extensively from personal interviews, private correspondence, trial records, and declassified documents from official archives, this engrossing volume provides detailed, frequently startling revelations about the secret wars fought.
Download or read book Ritchie Boy Secrets written by Beverley Driver Eddy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1942, the U.S. Army began recruiting immigrants, the children of immigrants, refugees, and others with language skills and knowledge of enemy lands and cultures for a special military intelligence group being trained in the mountains of northern Maryland and sent into Europe and the Pacific. Ultimately, 15,000 men and some women received this specialized training and went on to make vital contributions to victory in World War II. This is their story, which Beverley Driver Eddy tells thoroughly and colorfully, drawing heavily on interviews with surviving Ritchie Boys. The army recruited not just those fluent in German, French, Italian, and Polish (approximately a fifth were Jewish refugees from Europe), but also Arabic, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish, and other languages—as well as some 200 Native Americans and 200 WACs. They were trained in photo interpretation, terrain analysis, POW interrogation, counterintelligence, espionage, signal intelligence (including pigeons), mapmaking, intelligence gathering, and close combat. Many landed in France on D-Day. Many more fanned out across Europe and around the world completing their missions, often in cooperation with the OSS and Counterintelligence Corps, sometimes on the front lines, often behind the lines. The Ritchie Boys’ intelligence proved vital during the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge. They helped craft the print and radio propaganda that wore down German homefront morale. If caught, they could have been executed as spies. After the war they translated and interrogated at the Nuremberg trials. One participated in using war criminal Klaus Barbie as an anti-communist agent. Meanwhile, Ritchie Boys in the Pacific Theater of Operations collected intelligence in Burma and China, directed bombing raids in New Guinea and the Philippines, and fought on Okinawa and Iwo Jima. This is a different kind of World War II story, and Eddy tells it with conviction, supported by years of research and interviews.
