Download or read book Bizarre Tales from World War II written by William Breuer and published by Castle Books. This book was released on 2008-05-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ernest Hemingway stalks U-Boats. A Belgian woman halts the Panzers. Adolf Hitler plays Santa Claus. If you think these are tall tales, guess again. More than 140 of the most bizarre, curious, and downright strange incidents from World War II are documented here based on personal interviews, archives and declassified documents.
Download or read book Unexplained Mysteries 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 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As combat veterans and high commanders know, logic is often a stranger in wartime." --William B. Breuer, in The annals of World War II are mined with captivating cases of strange coincidences, ominous premonitions, and baffling mysteries. Now, William Breuer's painstaking research has yielded over 100 fascinating historical accounts, including: The mysterious fire on the Normandie . . . Who really was behind the eerily efficient destruction of the famed ocean liner? The ominous "Deadly Double" advertisement in The New Yorker . . . Was it a coded leak to Japanese and German spies announcing the upcoming bombing of Pearl Harbor? The botched Nazi kidnapping of the Duke of Windsor . . . How did a serendipitous series of events save the duke from Hitler's grasp (and the Allied forces from a crippling strategic setback)? The curious sinking of the Tang . . . How did this deadliest of U.S. submarines come to meet such an unexpected and mysterious end? "Anyone interested in twists of fate should find this book fascinating." --Library Journal "While away a few hours or spend a few minutes at a time enjoying this collection of inexplicable, mysterious, and strange tales." --Nashville Banner
Download or read book Weird War Two Strange Facts and Tales from the World s Weirdest Conflict written by M. J. Trow and published by BLKDOG Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to the wonderfully weird World War Two... The Second World War is the bloodiest on record. It was the first total war in history when civilians; men, women and children were in the front line as never before. With so many millions involved, the rumour machine went into overdrive, tall stories built on fear of the unknown. With so much at stake, boffins battled with each other to build ever more bizarre weapons to out-gun the enemy. Nazi Germany alone had so many government-orchestrated foibles that they would be funny if they were not so tragic. Parachuting sheep? Pilot pigeons? Rifles that fire round corners? Men who never were? You will find them all in these pages, the weird, wonderful and barely believable of World War Two
Download or read book Strange and Obscure Stories of World War II written by Don Aines and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here are overlooked or forgotten tales from the world's greatest conflict. These are stories of courage, daring, and stupidity, some of which would challenge the imaginations of Hollywood scriptwriters. Some of the many true tales that author Donald Aines recounts include: • He would never be cast as a dashing war hero, but a cast member of "The Addams Family" television show volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs the Army Air Force had to offer. • The US Navy's deadliest submarine claimed an unexpected victim with its last torpedo, and led to one of the war's most harrowing tales of survival. • Bob Hoover's escape from a German stalag would have made a great movie. • British commando "Mad Jack" Churchill earned his nickname, arming himself to fight a 20th century war with a 15th century attitude and weapons. • The Germans and Japanese wasted precious resources developing weapons more dangerous to the users than their enemies. • The GI who stole the voices of his victims, and other Allied and Axis serial killers. Within the pages of Strange and Obscure Stories of World War II,the reality of war trumps fiction.
Download or read book The Strange Case of Hellish Nell written by Nina Shandler and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-03-25 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 23, 1944, as the Allied Forces were preparing for D-Day, Helen Duncan -- "Nell" to her six children and four grandchildren and "Hellish Nell" to her detractors -- stood in the dock of Britain's highest criminal court accused of witchcraft! At the time of her arrest, Helen Duncan was Britain's most controversial psychic, a celebrity medium with a notorious reputation. During her seances, she channeled spirits who spoke from the world beyond, and on a few occasions, her "spirit" seemed to know too much: Helen's seances were accurately revealing top-secret British ship movements. Intelligence authorities wanted "Hellish Nell" silenced. Using diaries, personal papers, interviews, and declassified documents, Nina Shandler resurrects this strange episode and explores the unanswered questions surrounding the trial: Did "Hellish Nell" channel spirits of the dead who gave away wartime secrets? Was she a calculating charlatan or the innocent target of obsessive wartime secrecy? Why did the Director of Public Prosecutions try her as a witch, and not a spy? Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, The Strange Case of Hellish Nell is a true crime tale laced with psychic phenomena and wartime intrigue.
Download or read book Forgotten Heroes of World War II written by Thomas E. Simmons and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II was the defining event of the twentieth century. For everyone it was a time of confusion, fear, destruction, and death on a scale never before seen. Much has been written of the generals, campaigns, and battles of the war, but it was young, ordinary American kids who held our freedom in their hands as they fought for liberty across the globe. Forgotten Heroes of World War II offers a personal understanding of what was demanded of these young heroes through the stories of rank-and-file individuals who served in the navy, marines, army, air corps, and merchant marine in all theaters of the war. Their tales are told without pretense or apology. At the time, each thought himself no different from those around him, for they were all young, scared, and miserable. They were the ordinary, the extraordinary—the forgotten.
Download or read book Haunted World War II written by Matthew L. Swayne and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ON HALLOWED AND HAUNTED GROUND Discover the paranormal legacy of the Second World War. In this book, you will encounter dozens of phenomena in the European and Pacific theaters as well as historic locations in the US where the spirits of the dead are unable—or unwilling—to let the past go. The ghost of an admiral gives a tour of the USS Lexington Tourists at Dieppe are haunted by the terrifying sounds of battle A full-body apparition appears at Schofield Barracks Ghost tanks are witnessed patrolling the Russian front Phantom footsteps shock the guards at Hickam Air Force Base Ghostly soldiers knock on doors at Iwo Jima A spirit-sailor keeps eternal watch at Pearl Harbor This book also shares fascinating stories of supernatural warfare. Learn about wizards and witches in England casting spells to hold the Germans at bay; Dion Fortune and the Fraternity of the Inner Light working magic in support of the Allies; and Aleister Crowley waging a psychic campaign to capture high-ranking Nazi, Rudolf Hess. Haunted World War II explores the high strangeness and haunted aftermath of the most devastating clash of nations in living history.
Download or read book Vanished written by Wil S. Hylton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a mesmerizing storyteller, the gripping search for a missing World War II crew, their bomber plane, and their legacy. In the fall of 1944, a massive American bomber carrying eleven men vanished over the Pacific islands of Palau, leaving a trail of mysteries. According to mission reports from the Army Air Forces, the plane crashed in shallow water—but when investigators went to find it, the wreckage wasn’t there. Witnesses saw the crew parachute to safety, yet the airmen were never seen again. Some of their relatives whispered that they had returned to the United States in secret and lived in hiding. But they never explained why. For sixty years, the U.S. government, the children of the missing airmen, and a maverick team of scientists and scuba divers searched the islands for clues. With every clue they found, the mystery only deepened. Now, in a spellbinding narrative, Wil S. Hylton weaves together the true story of the missing men, their final mission, the families they left behind, and the real reason their disappearance remained shrouded in secrecy for so long. This is a story of love, loss, sacrifice, and faith—of the undying hope among the families of the missing, and the relentless determination of scientists, explorers, archaeologists, and deep-sea divers to solve one of the enduring mysteries of World War II.
Download or read book Savage Continent written by Keith Lowe and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years... The end of the Second World War in Europe is one of the twentieth century's most iconic moments. It is fondly remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, danced, drank and made love until the small hours. These images of victory and celebration are so strong in our minds that the period of anarchy and civil war that followed has been forgotten. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted - such as the police, the media, transport, local and national government - were either entirely absent or hopelessly compromised. Crime rates were soaring, economies collapsing, and the European population was hovering on the brink of starvation. In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent still racked by violence, where large sections of the population had yet to accept that the war was over. Individuals, communities and sometimes whole nations sought vengeance for the wrongs that had been done to them during the war. Germans and collaborators everywhere were rounded up, tormented and summarily executed. Concentration camps were reopened and filled with new victims who were tortured and starved. Violent anti-Semitism was reborn, sparking murders and new pogroms across Europe. Massacres were an integral part of the chaos and in some places – particularly Greece, Yugoslavia and Poland, as well as parts of Italy and France – they led to brutal civil wars. In some of the greatest acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands, often with the implicit blessing of the Allied authorities. Savage Continent is the story of post WWII Europe, in all its ugly detail, from the end of the war right up until the establishment of an uneasy stability across Europe towards the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is a frightening and thrilling chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post WWII Europe for years to come.
Download or read book Top Secret Tales of World War II written by William B. Breuer and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2008-04-21 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Acclaim for TOP SECRET TALES of World War II "A book for rainy days and long solitary nights by the fire. If there were a genre for cozy nonfiction, this would be the template."-Publishers Weekly "Perfect for the curious and adventure readers and those who love exotic tales and especially history buffs who will be surprised at what they didn't know. Recommended for nearly everyone."-Kirkus Reviews This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct. In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage-in all its forms-as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you'll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations, and bribes and blackmailing-with frequently startling revelations about the secret wars behind both the battlefields and the headlines.
Download or read book The History of Soviet Airborne Forces written by David M. Glantz and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1994 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical record of the development and use of airborne forces has hitherto been blurred by neglect, secrecy and misinformation. This book uncovers the truth and sets the record straight. Using newly released and formerly classified Soviet archival sources and German sources never before seen in the West, the work provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the performance of Soviet airborne forces in peace and war.
Download or read book The Longest Day written by Cornelius Ryan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unparalleled, classic work of history that recreates the battle that changed World War II—the Allied invasion of Normandy. The Longest Day is Cornelius Ryan’s unsurpassed account of D-Day, a book that endures as a masterpiece of military history. In this compelling tale of courage and heroism, glory and tragedy, Ryan painstakingly recreates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany. This book, first published in 1959, is a must for anyone who loves history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.
Download or read book The Rising Tide written by Jeff Shaara and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This is Jeff Shaara at his best, giving us another superb [and] historically grounded novel of one of the most dramatic struggles of World War II.”—George McGovern Utilizing the voices of the conflict’s most heroic figures, some immortal and some unknown, Jeff Shaara tells the story of America’s pivotal role in World War II: fighting to hold back the Japanese conquest of the Pacific while standing side-by-side with her British ally, the last hope for turning the tide of the war against Germany. As British and American forces strike into the soft underbelly of Hitler’s Fortress Europa, the new weapons of war come clearly into focus. In North Africa, tank battles unfold in a tapestry of dust and fire unlike any the world has ever seen. In Sicily, the Allies attack their enemy with a barely tested weapon: the paratrooper. As battles rage along the coasts of the Mediterranean, the momentum of the war begins to shift, setting the stage for the Battle of Normandy. The first book in a trilogy about the military conflict that defined thetwentieth century, The Rising Tide is an unprecedented and intimate portrait of those who waged this astonishing global war. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jeff Shaara's The Steel Wave. Praise for The Rising Tide “[A] sprawling tale thoroughly researched and told withmeticulous detail . . . All that’s missing is the smell of gunpowder.”—MSNBC online “Masterful.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “The Rising Tide imparts the actual sights, sounds and dialogue from the grounds of 1940s Sicily and North Africa.”—New York Daily News
Download or read book Commando written by James Owen and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 1940: As Britain's soldiers limped home from Dunkirk, a maverick Army officer was already devising a bold plan to hit back at the enemy. His idea was to revolutionise military thinking and change the face of warfare for ever. Relying as much on stealth and guile as on courage and stamina, the Commandos brought to the battlefield the skills of the guerrilla. Trained by an unconventional band of experts, and led by a big-game hunter, a film star, a Highland chief and an eccentric wielding a bow and arrow, they became the spearhead of the Allied drive for victory. Weaving together official documents, new research and veterans' own accounts, Commando reveals for the first time the exhilarating full story of WWII's most formidable fighting force.
Download or read book A Blind Goddess written by James R. Benn and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: March, 1944: US Army Lieutenant Billy Boyle, back in England after a dangerous mission in Italy, is due for a little R&R, and also a promotion. But the now-Captain Boyle doesn't get to kick back and enjoy his leisure time because two upsetting cases fall into his lap at once. The first is a personal request from an estranged friend: Sergeant Eugene "Tree" Jackson, who grew up with Billy in Boston, is part of the 617th Tank Destroyers, the all-African American battalion poised to make history by being the US Army's first combatant African American company. But making history isn't easy, and the 617 faces racism at every turn. One of Tree's men, a gunner named Angry Smith, has been arrested for a crime he almost certainly didn't commit, and faces the gallows if the real killer isn't found. Tree knows US top brass won't care about justice in this instance, and asks Billy if he'll look into it. But Billy can't use any of his leave to investigate, because British intelligence agent Major Cosgrove puts him on a bizarre and delicate case. A British accountant has been murdered in an English village, and he may or may not have had some connection with the US Army—Billy doesn't know, because Cosgrove won't tell him. Billy is supposed to go into the village and investigate the murder, but everything seems fishy—he's not allowed to interrogate certain key witnesses, and his friends and helpers keep being whisked away. Billy is confused about whether Cosgrove even wants him to solve the murder, and why. The good news is the mysterious murder gives Billy an excuse to spend time in and around the village where Tree and his unit are stationed. If he's lucky, maybe he can get to the bottom of both mysteries—and save more than one innocent life.
Download or read book The Spy Who Spent the War in Bed written by William B. Breuer and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare treat for World War II history buffs and fans of the strange, absurd, and unexplained Acclaimed military historian William Breuer takes readers on a trip through the looking glass to acquaint them with the weirder side of World War II. Featuring a cast of characters including double- and triple-agents, femme fatales, fearless leaders, and men at arms, The Spy who Spent the War In Bed is a collection of seventy concise, vividly rendered tales of war, ranging from laugh-out-loud funny, to inspiring, to just-plain-bizarre. For instance, there's the one about how reputed Irish Republican Army members in New York conned Nazi intelligence out of a small fortune. There's also a thrilling account of how four American newsmen bagged an entire German platoon. And there's the haunting tale of the "Mystery Plane," an experimental aircraft that took off on a short test flight over England one sunny afternoon in 1938 and simply vanished into a cloudless summer sky. This book draws on personal interviews, official archives, and declassified documents, as well as the vast literature on World War II.
Download or read book Unexplained Mysteries of World War II written by William Breuer and published by Castle Books. This book was released on 2008-05-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Loss of life, destruction, unending pain and misery - the results of war never seem to make sense. War defies logic. Having searched through stacks of periodicals, military reports, interviews, and other publications, author William Breuer has come up with over one hundred such illogical events, and presents them in Unexplained Mysteries of World War II. From popular mysteries to barely believable happenings, Breuer sheds light on the absurdity of war from a different angle. The book is broken down into multiple sections, and delves into mysteries like: Who torched the Normandie in New York Harbor? Did a New Yorker ad warn of Pearl Harbor? Did Churchill have a “feeling” that saved his life? Ernest Hemingway lives to tell about switching seats. The night when an American and Japanese soldier accidentally shares a foxhole overnight. A U-boat gives a battleship a piggyback ride in the Atlantic.
