Download or read book Twelve Desperate Miles written by Tim Brady and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of how a rusty New Orleans banana boat staffed with a most unlikely and diverse crew was drafted into service in WWII—and heroically succeeded in setting the stage for Patton's epic invasion of North Africa. The largest amphibious invasion force ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean set sail from Virginia in November 1942 with the aim of capturing Casablanca and a crucial airfield northeast of the city. Unfortunately, the airfield was located a dozen miles up a twisting Morrocan river, too shallow for any ship in the entire Allied fleet. As the invasion neared, the War Department turned up the Contessa, a salt-caked Honduran-registered civilian freighter that had spent most of her career hauling bananas and honeymooners. This unremarkable ship, crewed by seamen from twenty-six different nations, eighteen sailors pulled from the Norfolk County jail, and a French harbor pilot spirited out of Morroco by OSS agents, became the focus of the opening salvo of World War II. Too late to join the massive convoy sailing for Africa, the Contessa set out on her own through the U-boat-infested waters of the Atlantic to the shores of Morocco, where she faced her most daunting challenge: the twelve-mile voyage up the well-defended Sebou River, carrying an explosive cocktail of airplane fuel and nine hundred tons of bombs in her holds. Twelve Desperate Miles is a surprising and entertaining account of one of the great untold stories of the war.
Download or read book Three Ordinary Girls written by Tim Brady and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The book's teenage protagonists and their bravery will enthrall young adults, who may find themselves inspired to take up their own causes.” —Washington Post An astonishing World War II story of a trio of fearless female resisters whose youth and innocence belied their extraordinary daring in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. It also made them the underground’s most invaluable commodity. May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it’s entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad. Smart, fiercely political, devoted solely to the cause, and “with nothing to lose but their own lives,” Hannie, Truus, and Freddie took terrifying direct action against Nazi targets. That included sheltering fleeing Jews, political dissidents, and Dutch resisters. They sabotaged bridges and railways, and donned disguises to lead children from probable internment in concentration camps to safehouses. They covertly transported weapons and set military facilities ablaze. And they carried out the assassinations of German soldiers and traitors–on public streets and in private traps–with the courage of veteran guerilla fighters and the cunning of seasoned spies. In telling this true story through the lens of a fearlessly unique trio of freedom fighters, Tim Brady offers a fascinating perspective of the Dutch resistance during the war. Of lives under threat; of how these courageous young women became involved in the underground; and of how their dedication evolved into dangerous, life-threatening missions on behalf of Dutch patriots–regardless of the consequences. Harrowing, emotional, and unforgettable, Three Ordinary Girls finally moves these three icons of resistance into the deserved forefront of world history.
Download or read book His Father s Son written by Tim Brady and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., a fortunate son who proved himself on the battlefields of two world wars. General Omar Bradley said of him, “I have never known a braver man or a more devoted soldier.” But for much of his life, Theodore Roosevelt’s son Ted seemed born to live in his father’s shadow. With the same wide smile, winning charm, and vigorous demeanor, Ted possessed limitless potential, with even the White House within his reach. In the First World War, Ted braved gunfire and gas attacks in France to lead his unit into battle. Yet even after returning home a hero, he was unable to meet the expectations of a public that wanted a man just like his father. A diplomat, writer, and man of great adventure, Ted remained frustrated by his lack of success in the world of politics, witnessing instead the rise of his cousin, Franklin, to the office that had once seemed his for the taking. Then, with World War II looming, Ted reenlisted. In his mid-fifties with a gimpy leg and a heart condition, he was well past his prime, but his insistence to be in the thick of combat proved a vital asset. Paired with the irascible Terry de la Mesa Allen Sr., Ted soon distinguished himself as a front-line general in a campaign that often brought him into conflict with another hard fighter, George Patton. On D-Day, Ted became the oldest soldier and the only general in the Allied forces to storm the beach in the first wave, hobbling across the sand with his cane in one hand and a pistol in the other. His valor and leadership on Utah Beach became the stuff of legends—and earned him the Medal of Honor. His Father's Son delves into the life of a man as courageous, colorful, and unwavering as any of the Roosevelt clan, and offers up a definitive portrait of one of America’s greatest military heroes. INCLUDES PHOTOS
Download or read book Nothing to Lose written by Lee Child and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2008-06-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher! “Explosive and nearly impossible to put down.”—People Two small towns in the middle of nowhere: Hope and Despair. Between them, nothing but twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher can’t find a ride, so he walks. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets are four hostile locals, a vagrancy charge, and an order to move on. They’re picking on the wrong guy. Reacher is a hard man. No job, no address, no baggage. Nothing at all, except hardheaded curiosity. What are the secrets that Despair seems so desperate to hide? With just one ally—a mysterious woman cop from Hope—and many enemies, Reacher goes up against a whole town, hunting the rich man at its core, cracking open his terrifying agenda, asking the question: Who has the edge—a man with everything to gain, or a man with nothing to lose?
Download or read book 12 21 written by Dustin Thomason and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2012 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly before December 21, 2012, a CDC expert encounters a confounding medical mystery, and a talented Mayan scholar comes into possession of a priceless codex with terrifying implications for modern civilization.
Download or read book The Bomber Boys written by Travis L. Ayres and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True tales of heroism and the men who fought and died in the skies of World War II Europe. In World War II, there were all too many ways for a fighting man to die. But no theater of operations offered more fatal choices than the skies above Nazi-occupied Europe. Inside of a B-17 Bomber, thousands of feet above the earth, death was always a moment away. From the hellish storms of enemy flak and relentless strafing of Luftwaffe fighters, to mid-air collisions, mechanical failure, and simple bad luck, it’s a wonder any man would volunteer for such dangerous duty. But some very brave men did. Some paid the ultimate price. Some made it home. But in the end, all would achieve victory. Here, author Travis L. Ayres has gathered a collection of previously untold personal accounts of combat and camaraderie aboard the B-17 Bombers that flew countless sorties against the enemy, as related by the men who lived and fought in the air—and survived. They are stories of heroism, sacrifice, miraculous survival and merciless warfare. But they should all be remembered... INCLUDES PHOTOS
Download or read book To Kingdom Come written by Robert J. Mrazek and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The breathtaking, never-before-told, true story of a historic air force bombing mission in 1943 Germany. On September 6, 1943, three hundred and thirty-eight B-17 "Flying Fortresses" of the American Eighth Air Force took off from England, bound for Stuttgart, Germany, to bomb Nazi weapons factories. Dense clouds obscured the targets, and one commander's critical decision to circle three times over the city—and its deadly flak—would prove disastrous. Forty-five planes went down that day, and hundreds of men were lost or missing. Focusing on first-person accounts of six of the B-17 airmen, award-winning author Robert Mrazek vividly re-creates the fierce air battle—and reveals the astonishing valor of the airmen who survived being shot down, and the tragic fate of those who did not.
Download or read book The Pope at War written by David I. Kertzer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-17 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with discoveries, this is the dramatic story of Pope Pius XII's struggle to response to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Nazi domination of Europe.The Pope at War is the third in a trilogy of books about Pope Pius XII's response to the rise of Fascism and Nazism. It tells the dramatic story of Pope Pius XII's struggle to respond to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the ongoing Nazi attempts to exterminate the Jews of Europe. It is the first book dealing with the war to make extensive use of the newly opened Vatican archives for the war years. It is based, as well, on thousands of documents from the Italian, German,French, British, and American archives. Among the many new discoveries brought to light is the discovery that within weeks of becoming pope in 1939, Pius XII entered into secret negotiations with Hitler through Hitler's emissary, a Nazi Prince who was married to the daughter of the King of Italy and who was veryclose to Hitler. The negotiations were kept so secret that not even the German ambassador to the Holy See was informed of them. The book also offers new insight into the thinking behind Pius XII's decision to maintain good relations with the German government during the war, including keeping the Germans happy while they occupied Rome in 1943-1944. And throughout, David I. Kertzer shows the active role of the Italian Church hierarchy in promoting the Axis war while the pope, who as bishop ofRome was responsible for the Italian hierarchy, offered his silent blessings and cast his public speeches in such a way that both sides could claim support for their cause.
Download or read book Call Me Burroughs written by Barry Miles and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the 60s youth counterculture. In Call Me Burroughs, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century-and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs's life and examine his long-term cultural legacy. Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, Call Me Burroughs is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject.
Download or read book Thirteen Days to Midnight written by Patrick Carman and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2010-04-02 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are indestructible. Three whispered words transfer an astonishing power to Jacob Fielding that changes everything. At first, Jacob is hesitant to use the power, unsure of its implications. But there's something addictive about testing the limits of fear. Then Ophelia James, the beautiful and daring new girl in town, suggests that they use the power to do good, to save others. But with every heroic act, the power grows into the specter of a curse. How to decide who lives and who dies? In this nail-biting novel of mystery and dark intrigue, Jacob must walk the razor thin line between right and wrong, good and evil, and life and death. And time is running out. Because the Grim Reaper doesn't disappear. . . . He catches up.
Download or read book 438 Days written by Jonathan Franklin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history. For fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes. Based on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and interviews with his colleagues, search and rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life and the remote islanders who nursed him back to health, this is an epic tale of survival. Print run 75,000.
Download or read book Mirror Dance written by Lois McMaster Bujold and published by Baen Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The exciting follow-up to Brothers in Arms. Miles Vorkosigan is in trouble. His brother, a cloned stranger formed from tissue stolen from Miles when he was a child, wants to murder and replace him. Unfortunately, Mark has learned that without Miles, he is . . . nothing.
Download or read book The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Oprah s Book Club 2 0 Digital Edition written by Ayana Mathis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction. A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream.
Download or read book Skeletons on the Zahara written by Dean King and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2004-02-16 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: b.A masterpiece of historical adventure, ISkeletons on the Zahara The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub -- and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate battle for survival in the face of human hostility, starvation, dehydration, death and despair. Captured, robbed and enslaved, the sailors were dragged and driven through the desert by their new owners, who neither spoke their language nor cared for their plight. Reduced to drinking urine, flayed by the sun, crippled by walking miles across burning stones and sand and losing over half of their body weights, the sailors struggled to hold onto both their humanity and their sanity. To reach safety, they would have to overcome not only the desert but also the greed and anger of those who would keep them in captivity. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes and a gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.
Download or read book When the Mississippi Ran Backwards written by Jay Feldman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Jay Feldmen comes an enlightening work about how the most powerful earthquakes in the history of America united the Indians in one last desperate rebellion, reversed the Mississippi River, revealed a seamy murder in the Jefferson family, and altered the course of the War of 1812. On December 15, 1811, two of Thomas Jefferson's nephews murdered a slave in cold blood and put his body parts into a roaring fire. The evidence would have been destroyed but for a rare act of God—or, as some believed, of the Indian chief Tecumseh. That same day, the Mississippi River's first steamboat, piloted by Nicholas Roosevelt, powered itself toward New Orleans on its maiden voyage. The sky grew hazy and red, and jolts of electricity flashed in the air. A prophecy by Tecumseh was about to be fulfilled. He had warned reluctant warrior-tribes that he would stamp his feet and bring down their houses. Sure enough, between December 16, 1811, and late April 1812, a catastrophic series of earthquakes shook the Mississippi River Valley. Of the more than 2,000 tremors that rumbled across the land during this time, three would have measured nearly or greater than 8.0 on the not-yet-devised Richter Scale. Centered in what is now the bootheel region of Missouri, the New Madrid earthquakes were felt as far away as Canada; New York; New Orleans; Washington, DC; and the western part of the Missouri River. A million and a half square miles were affected as the earth's surface remained in a state of constant motion for nearly four months. Towns were destroyed, an eighteen-mile-long by five-mile-wide lake was created, and even the Mississippi River temporarily ran backwards. The quakes uncovered Jefferson's nephews' cruelty and changed the course of the War of 1812 as well as the future of the new republic. In When the Mississippi Ran Backwards, Jay Feldman expertly weaves together the story of the slave murder, the steamboat, Tecumseh, and the war, and brings a forgotten period back to vivid life. Tecumseh's widely believed prophecy, seemingly fulfilled, hastened an unprecedented alliance among southern and northern tribes, who joined the British in a disastrous fight against the U.S. government. By the end of the war, the continental United States was secure against Britain, France, and Spain; the Indians had lost many lives and much land; and Jefferson's nephews were exposed as murderers. The steamboat, which survived the earthquake, was sunk. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards sheds light on this now-obscure yet pivotal period between the Revolutionary and Civil wars, uncovering the era's dramatic geophysical, political, and military upheavals. Feldman paints a vivid picture of how these powerful earthquakes made an impact on every aspect of frontier life—and why similar catastrophic quakes are guaranteed to recur. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards is popular history at its best.
Download or read book Memory Boy written by Will Weaver and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ash is still falling from the sky two years after a series of globally devastating volcanic eruptions. Sunlight is as scarce as food, and cities are becoming increasingly violent as people loot and kill in order to maintain their existence. Sixteen-year-old Miles Newell knows that the only chance his family has of surviving is to escape from their Minneapolis suburban home to their cabin in the woods, As the Newells travel the highways on Miles' supreme invention, the Ali Princess, they have high hopes for safety and peace. But as they venture deeper into the wilderness, they begin to realize that it's not only city folk who have changed for the worse.
Download or read book The Twelve Mile Straight written by Eleanor Henderson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] superb novel whose roots can be traced to Harper Lee and Carson McCullers”—from the New York Times–bestselling author of Ten Thousand Saints (O, The Oprah Magazine). Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: in a house full of secrets, two babies—one light-skinned, the other dark—are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper’s daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm’s inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured. Despite the prying eyes and curious whispers of the townspeople, Elma begins to raise her babies as best as she can, under the roof of her mercurial father, Juke, and with the help of Nan, the young black housekeeper who is as close to Elma as a sister. But soon it becomes clear that the ties that bind all of them together are more intricate than any could have ever imagined. As startling revelations mount, a web of lies begins to collapse around the family, destabilizing their precarious world and forcing all to reckon with the painful truth. Acclaimed author Eleanor Henderson has returned with a novel that combines the intimacy of a family drama with the staggering presence of a great Southern saga. Tackling themes of racialized violence, social division, and financial crisis, The Twelve-Mile Straight is a startlingly timely, emotionally resonant, and magnificent tour de force. “Henderson immerses you in characters worthy of Flannery O’Connor . . . A masterful piece of storytelling.” —The Seattle Times
