Joe Pappalardo's Inferno tells the true story of the men who flew the deadliest missions of World War II, and an unlikely hero who received the Medal of Honor in the midst of the bloodiest military campaign in aviation history. There's no higher accolade in the U.S. military than the Medal of Honor, and 472 people received it for their action during World War II. But only one was demoted right after: Maynard Harrison Smith. Smith is one of the most unlikely heroes of the war, where he served in B-17s during the early days of the bombing of France and Germany from England. From his juvenile delinquent past in Michigan, through the war and during the decades after, Smith's life seemed to be a series of very public missteps. The other airmen took to calling the 5-foot, 5-inch airman "Snuffy" after an unappealing movie character. This is also the man who, on a tragically mishandled mission over France on May 1, 1943, single-handedly saved the crewmen in his stricken B-17. With every other gunner injured or bailed out, Smith stood alone in the fuselage of a shattered, nameless bomber and fought fires, treated wounded crew and fought off fighters. His ordeal is part of a forgotten mission that aircrews came to call the May Day Massacre. The skies over Europe in 1943 were a charnel house for U.S. pilots, who were being led by tacticians surprised by the brutal effectiveness of German defenses. By May 1943 the combat losses among bomb crews were a staggering 40 to 50 percent. The backdrop of Smith's story intersects with some of the luminaries of aviation history, including Curtis Lemay, Ira Eaker and "Hap" Arnold, during critical times of their storied careers. Inferno also examines Smith's life in a new, comprehensive light, through the use of exclusive interviews of those who knew him (including fellow MOH recipients and family) as well as public and archival records. This is both a thrilling and horrifying story of the air war over Europe during WWII and a fascinating look at one of America's forgotten heroes.

Sir Ernest Edward 'Weary' Dunlop was the type of rare individual who inspires others to impossible feats by example. Born and raised in Victoria, Australia, he qualified as a pharmacist and surgeon. When World War II broke out, he was appointed a surgeon to the Emergency Medical Unit, spending time in Greece and Africa before he was transferred to Java. As commanding officer and surgeon in the POW camps of the Japanese, he became a legend to thousands of Allied prisoners whose lives were saved with meager medical supplies. In those camps, at great personal risk, he recorded the deprivation and despair of the men under his command. When Weary's secret War Diaries were published in 1986, they became a best seller overnight and Sue Ebury's biography, written with his total cooperation, was released with similar success in 1994, ten months after he died. New information and time to consider the impact of Weary's life on Australian society, in schools, institutions and homes across the nation, have showed a need for this new, illustrated edition. This is new, fully updated illustrated edition of the 1994 bestseller. Original biography was written with the full cooperation of its subject. It covers Weary's remarkable life from his early childhood and medical training, to his experiences as a prisoner of war on the notorious Thai-Burma railway, to his later distinguished career as a surgeon and humanitarian. It features 100 black and white images throughout the text, including photographs, maps and drawings.

Originally published in 1940, Why England Slept was written by then-Harvard student and future American president John F. Kennedy. It was Kennedy's senior thesis that analyzed the tremendous miscalculations of the British leaders in facing Germany on the advent of World War II, and in doing so, also addressed the challenges that democracies face when confronted directly with fascist states. In Why England Slept, at the book's core, John F. Kennedy asks: Why was England so poorly prepared for the war? He provides a comprehensive analysis of the tremendous miscalculations of the British leadership when it came to dealing with Germany and leads readers into considering other questions: Was the poor state of the British army the reason Chamberlain capitulated at Munich, or were there other, less-obvious elements at work that allowed this to happen? Kennedy also looks at similarities to America's position of unpreparedness and makes astute observations about the implications involved. This re-publication of the classic book contains excerpts from the foreword to the 1940 original edition by Henry R. Luce, an American magazine magnate during that era; the foreword to the 1961 edition, also written by Luce; and a new foreword by Stephen C. Schlesinger, written in 2015. Provides fascinating insights into the young mind and worldview of then-Harvard senior John F. Kennedy via his thesis, for which he'd toured Europe, the Balkans, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s Presents both a pointed indictment of British policy leading up to World War II as well as an examination of the weaknesses, merits, and pitfalls for democratic governments based on capitalist economies Features a new foreword written by Stephen C. Schlesinger, senior fellow at the Century Foundation in New York; author of Act of Creation: The Founding of The United Nations, winner of the 2004 Harry S. Truman Book Award; former director of the World Policy Institute at the New School (1997-2006); and former publisher of the magazine The World Policy Journal