Published to glowing reviews, The Last Mission of the Wham Bam Boys tells the riveting story of a nine-man American bomber crew after they were forced to bail out over Germany in August, 1944. Quickly taken prisoner by a mob of angry farmers, shopkeepers, railroad workers, women, and children, the soldiers were marched into the nearby town of Russelsheim and assaulted with stones, bricks, and wooden clubs before being left for dead at the nearby cemetery. Drawing from trial records, government archives, interviews with family members, and personal letters, author Gregory A. Freeman follows two army officers charged with investigating the murders, and brings to life the dramatic story of how the depravations of war led the citizens of a sleepy German village to commit horrific acts.

When the colonial powers divided the Great Lakes Region of Africa in the nineteenth century, new states were created based on nothing more than lines drawn on a map. Despite having their homelands in the Congo, the Banyamulenge tribe have always been perceived as foreigners in their own country. Alex's extraordinary journey begins with childhood memories of grazing cattle on the plains and mountains of South Kivu. As a teenager, living away from his family, his joy of attending school in the city is tempered by the challenges he faces as an outsider. Struggling to make sense of social, tribal and economic divisions, he witnesses the catastrophic breakdown in order that precipitates the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the subsequent violence and conflict in the region fuelled by tensions linked to Tutsi and Hutu ethnicity. As a result, tragically, he lost eleven members of his family in the violence. Not My Worst Day is a coming of age tale, set against a backdrop of nightmarish events. While pursuing an education and a dream to publicise the plight of his people, Alex must navigate the dangers of a life lived in the shadow of poverty and discrimination. His journey through the complicated realities of life in the Great Lakes Region of Africa in the 1990s is a triumph of hope, persistence and the will to succeed in his quest. It is "an essential book for anyone who wishes to know - or thinks they know - what life is really like for those caught up in the terrible wars in DRC. This is book offers an explanation of what lies behind the violence and is a moving account from a brave and resilient survivor." Linda Melvern, Investiguative Journalist. The book is "a compelling story of the triumph of humanity over ludicrous odds. This book gives a rich and unprecedented insight into the life of a community fighting for its very existence while a failing state falls apart around them." Richard Wilson, author of Titanic Express and Don't Get Fooled Again

The story that became a global sensation: Sophie, the Australian cattle dog who was lost at sea and swam six miles through shark-infested waters to a remote island where she survived in the wild for five months. It was just another day in paradise as Jan and Dave Griffith, along with their blue cattle dog, Sophie, motored out of Mackay Marina for a gorgeous weekend at sea. But when the sky suddenly darkened and the waves turned fierce, the unthinkable happened: Sophie disappeared overboard. Her heartbroken humans couldn't fathom the loss and could only hope their beloved pet didn't suffer. But this true cattle dog and devoted best friend wasn't going to give up that easily--and what followed is a remarkable tale of survival, luck, and persistence. From the first day the Griffiths set eyes on puppy Sophie through that terrible October day she was lost, to Sophie's time as a castaway and the reunion that almost didn't happen, journalist Emma Pearse recreates the incredible journey of this canine Robinson Crusoe. An inspirational story of loyalty and the resilience of the spirit, "Sophie" offers undeniable proof about the unbreakable bond between humans and our pets--and that if lost, they would do anything to come home to us.

Journey Towards the Light, tells of how Suzanne Haslam's life changed after she married a man who turned out to be an obsessive control freak, she found herself constantly humiliated, manipulated and bullied. Her husband was clever enough to make sure her family and friends never saw what was going on, and because the abuse was not physical there were no scars, which she could display as evidence. Her family accused her of imagining it all and even allowed her husband - who was working in the family business - to worm his way into their favour as the one who had been wronged. After seven years of misery, Suzanne managed to pluck up the courage to divorce her husband. However, the stress of coping with the abuse and the tension with her family drove her to a full-scale nervous breakdown and she was forced to take extended sick leave from the nursing job she loved. She sought sanctuary in a remote Spanish monastery, where she experienced a series of vivid psychic events, which ultimately showed her how she could rebuild her life.

For the most part, there was nothing particularly unusual about Jean Potter 's life. Going right to work after graduating from high school, she spent most of her career as an executive assistant in several large New York-based companies. In fact, she was working for the managing director of Bank of America in its offices on the eighty-first floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

By the Grace of God is Jean 's story from her upbringing in Brooklyn, New York, to her jobs as assistant to several high-level executives, to her courtship and marriage to a New York City fireman, to setting up a home in Battery Park City, to that horrific day when she and her co-workers had to make their way down eighty-one flights of stairs in a desperate effort to escape the collapse of the North Tower. It 's the story, too, of her husband, Dan, seeing flames erupting from the World Trade Center, and racing from Staten Island to Manhattan determined to help her, but, recognizing his duty as a fireman, stopping to help others even while he anguished over his wife 's fate.

It 's also the story of the extraordinary effect living through that day had on both of their lives having to cope with the effects of post traumatic stress disorder; moving because they could no longer live in a home haunted by three thousand ghosts; giving up their jobs, Jean because she could no longer bear working in New York City and Dan because he d been hurt in the collapse of the South Tower; and having to leave the city they had grown up in and loved. Perhaps most important, By the Grace of God is the story of how their faith enabled them to come to terms with their experience and to find a new life of love, hope, and healing.

In 1983, the freighter Marine Electric ran into a violent storm off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Despite Force 10 conditions and fifty feet waves the crew were unconcerned: the ship had survived worse. But something was wrong, the ship was beginning to break up under them; gradually it began to go down by the head, then to capsize. Within two hours the crew were in the water in a desperate struggle for their lives. Their plight sparked one of the most dramatic air-sea rescues in maritime history. Only three of the 34 crew survived the night. The ship had sunk due to a serious structural defect. The chief mate Bob Cusick discovered that the owners had lost several other ships in similar circumstances to the Marine Electric, but the sinkings had been covered up. He decided to go after the company and they in turn rounded on him, the sole surviving officer. What follows is an epic and epochal court case that left none of the participants unscarred.

Steve Haydock joined the British Army in 1972 aged 15, joining the lnfantry Junior Leaders Battalion, based in Oswestry, Shropshire. On his 18th birthday he arrived in Northern lreland to begin the first of his three tours of duty in the province, with the 1st Battalion of The Queens Lancashire Regiment. He served nine years with the QLR from Northern Ireland to Cyprus to Ghana before becoming a civilian in the mid 1980's. In 1992, after seeing the war unfold in Yugoslavia he left England to join the Croatian Army, to use his experience and skills to help the Croats fight to defend the country and win freedom from the Serbian aggressor. This is his story................

"Finding out I had cancer was like going to sleep in my own bed and suddenly waking up in the middle of a boxing ring. Out of the clear blue I am standing toe-to-toe with the Heavyweight Champion of the World, the crowd is looking on, and I am in my pajamas and don't even know how to throw a punch."

"Stepping into the Ring" is the 2002 Women of Faith(R) drama sketch by Nicole Johnson, possibly her most powerful piece of writing to date.

"Women have always had a unique fellowship of suffering," Nicole says. Where is the woman old or young who will not shed a tear and silently scream in her heart as she walks in these pages through the diagnosis of breast cancer and the devastation that ensues?

While she focuses on the specific soul-chilling crisis, Nicole offers her readers broader insights for dealing with major losses of all kinds. She extends genuine hope and much-needed rays of light to those who are mired in hopelessness and despair. A "must" read for breast cancer patients and their loved ones.

A Malaysian cargo ship on its way from Seattle, Washington to China ran aground off the coast of western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on December 8, 2004 during a brutal storm, leading to one of the most incredible Coast Guard rescue missions of all time. Two Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopters lifted off immediately from Air Station Kodiak during the driving storm in an effort to rescue the ship's eighteen crewmembers before it broke apart and sank in the freezing waters. Nine of the crew were lifted from the ship and dropped aboard a nearby Coast Guard cutter. But during attempts to save the last eight-crew members, one of the Jayhawks was engulfed by a rogue wave that broke over the bow of the ship. When its engines flamed out from ingesting water, the Jayhawk crashed into the sea. The seven-crew members from the ship who had been hoisted into the aircraft, along with the chopper's three-man crew, plunged into the bitterly cold ocean where hypothermia began to set in immediately. Interviewing all the surviving participants of the disaster and given access to documents and photos, acclaimed author Spike Walker has once again crafted a white-knuckle read of survival and death in the unforgiving Alaskan waters.

Ruth Parry relates the true story of her adventures in China before Mao Tse-Tung's Communists took over. As a single woman she had unforgettable experiences, including caring for lepers discovered in an indescribable state. With her husband Idris she moved to the India/China border, where she continued to work as a nurse missionary, living through unimaginable storms, including landslides. She believes that she and her husband were protected, kept safe through their faith in God. Further miraculous protection was given them during their subsequent adventures in Congo.

In 2004, Maggie Lane fell to her death from the cliffs at Beachy Head. While trying to come to terms with his wife's tragic death, Keith Lane sought solace by going back to the spot from which she had jumped. It was then that he spotted a woman about to take her own life and persuaded her not to go through with it. From this point on, Keith made it his mission to patrol the area in the hope of saving more lives. For nearly four years, Keith dedicated his life to helping those who felt that they had reached the point of no return. Dedicated and determined, he would be on his watch come rain or shine, whatever the circumstances - nothing fazed this remarkable man. In total, Keith has prevented a remarkable 29 people from going over the edge. In this dramatic and heart-rending book, Keith tells of his own personal despair at the loss of Maggie and how, in his darkest hour, his only wish was to join her in ending his own life; he tells of how his own existence was given meaning once more when he realised that he could help those in desperate need; he recalls with clarity and emotion those he has assisted and he tells of finding love and hope in the form of new wife Val.

Reuben Kandler was a prisoner of the Japanese for three and a half years after the fall of Singapore during the second World War during which time he worked on the Burma Railway and witnessed the suffering and death of many of his comrades. He had rarely talked about this period of his life until persuaded to do so by his son to whom he gave the series of taped interviews which form the basis of this book.

From the pilots, doctors and nurses who spread their 'mantle of safety' throughout the remote inland of Australia, as well as the men and women they treat on the ground, comes a collection of flying doctor yarns as told to master storyteller Bill 'Swampy' Marsh.

On November 18, 1958, a 623-foot limestone carrier caught in one of the most violent storms in Lake Michigan history broke in two and sank in less than five minutes. Four of the 35-person crew escaped to a small raft, to which they clung in total darkness, braving 30-foot waves and frigid temperatures. As the storm raged on, a search-and-rescue mission hunted for survivors, while the frantic citizens of nearby Rogers City, Michigan, the hardscrabble town that was home to 26 members of the Carl D. Bradley's crew, anxiously awaited word of their loved ones' fates. In Wreck of the Carl D., Michael Schumacher reconstructs the terrible accident, perilous search, and chilling aftermath for the small Michigan town so intimately affected by the tragedy."

For the first time in one volume: the bestsellers GREAT PIONEER WOMEN OF THE OUTBACK and HEROIC AUSTRALIAN WOMEN. Providing inspiration for today's women, in this book of profiles, Susanna de Vries examines what it takes to be a truly heroic Australian. Women of grit and courage, women of integrity, resilience and resourcefulness: the 21 individuals whose stories make up tHE COMPLEtE BOOK OF HEROIC AUStRALIAN WOMEN were a rare breed. they faced different tests - harshness as pioneers in outback Australia; the turmoil of war - but when encountering adversity, even death, each proved her mettle. From Olive King, who saved countless lives in the war-ravaged Balkans, to Vivian Bullwinkel, who survived the Bangka Island Massacre only to endure three tragedy-filled years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, to Jeannie Gunn, who turned her experiences of hostile outback conditions into a classic book, We of the Never-Never, these are women who displayed extraordinary determination in often terrible circumstances. the 21 women are: Georgiana Molloy, Frances ('Fanny') Bussell, Elizabeth ('Bessie') Bussell, Charlotte Cookworthy Bussell, Emma Mary Withnell, Atlanta Hope Bradshaw, Jeannie Gunn OBE, Evelyn Maunsell, Catherine Langloh Parker, Myrtle Rose White, Olive May Kelso King, Dr Agnes Elizabeth Lloyd Bennett, Dr Lilian Violet Cooper, Sister Alice Elizabeth Kitchen, Joice NanKivell Loch, Sister Sylvia Muir, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, Sister Joyce tweddell, Sister Betty Jeffrey, Mavis Parkinson, and Sister Frances May Hayman.

On January 15, 2009, a US Airways Airbus A320 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport in New York, when a flock of Canada geese collided with it, destroying both of its engines. Over the next three minutes, the plane's pilot Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger, managed to glide to a safe landing in the Hudson River. It was an instant media sensation, the "The Miracle on the Hudson", and Captain Sully was the hero. But, how much of the success of this dramatic landing can actually be credited to the genius of the pilot? To what extent is the "Miracle on the Hudson" the result of extraordinary - but not widely known, and in some cases quite controversial - advances in aviation and computer technology over the last twenty years? From the testing laboratories where engineers struggle to build a jet engine that can systematically resist bird attacks, through the creation of the A320 in France, to the political and social forces that have sought to minimize the impact of the revolutionary fly-by-wire technology, William Langewiesche assembles the untold stories necessary to truly understand "The Miracle on the Hudson", and makes us question our assumptions about human beings in modern aviation.

As a village child in the German Palatinate, Alfred Moritz could never imagine the odyssey that was about to overtake him in the European turmoil of the mid-twentieth century. Living through Kristallnacht, the mass exodus into France, and the German occupation, he escaped the fate of a million and a half Jewish children who did not survive the Holocaust. The author seeks to understand and document the persecution of those whose only crime was to be "different." The book is illustrated throughout with the author's sketches and paintings of the locations and events that marked his fugitive childhood.

It is every person's--particularly every parent's--worst nightmare. For a loved one to walk out through the front door and never to return is one of the most heartbreaking, terrifying, and harrowing experiences someone can go through. Not to know the fate of a person close to you is simply agonizing--did they choose to disappear, were they involved in an accident, or did something even worse befall them? Every day, staggering numbers of people go missing. Most return within 72 hours but there many are never seen again. Some are students who take off to distant countries without telling their parents and then disappear; some are husbands who have left to come to terms with their own problems; some are runaways, others missing parents. In this compelling book, journalist Rose Rouse is granted exclusive access to the mothers, brothers, sons, wives, sisters, and daughters of those who have vanished without trace. Rouse shares in the turmoil that they have endured in their quest to be reunited with those who have disappeared from their lives. These are amazing stories of people who have moved heaven and earth to find their loved ones.

In April 1997-98 Camilla Carr and Jon James set off as volunteers in a GBP500 Lada stacked high with toys, games, footballs, paints and a parachute. Their destination was Chechnya and their aim was to work with children who had been traumatised by war. After working for two months setting up and teaching in a rehabilitation centre and watching the children begin to smile and play again, they were kidnapped by Chechen guerrillas. There followed fourteen months of incarceration in homes that varied from a concrete box with no natural light or fresh air, to a pink trompe la oeil bedroom via a sauna and various cellars. They experienced everything from rape and mental torture to moments of compassion and kindness. They survived by using tools such as tai chi, yoga, meditation and humour; and through creating a dialogue with their captors, looking beneath their masks of fear and anger to reach the small flame of love and laughter unquenched by the demonising nature of war.

How can you forget your past when it keeps coming back to haunt you? Judy Westwater, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Street Kid, was determined to turn her back on her cruel and violent childhood. She didn't stand a chance. All too soon hope turned to fear and she knew she'd have to run again. Judy was only 11 years old when she was forced to live on the streets. Beaten, half-starved and horrifically abused, she finally escaped to a life in the circus and fell in love with one of the circus hands. But the charming man who seemed so perfect had a dark and sinister side. If she wanted to survive she had to get away. Judy fled to South Africa, taking with her her two young children. But the streets of South Africa were just as cruel. One day a man took her five-year-old daughter and her violent past was replayed in front of her eyes. Judy's incredible story of courage and determination will inspire as it will amaze.

"So Others May Live" is the untold story of the U.S. Coast Guard's quiet but resolute rescue swimmers. From deep ocean caves on the Oregon coast to the panicked and chaotic streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, here are their stunningly heroic stories. In startlingly clear and exceptional writing, Martha LaGuardia-Kotite tells twelve heroic stories of the greatest maritime rescues attempted since the program began in 1985. These feats, told through the eyes of the heroes, reveal an understanding of how and why the rescuer, with flight crew assistance, risks his or her own life to reach out to save a stranger. Covering diverse environments--oceans, hurricanes, oil rigs, caves, sinking vessels, floods, and even Niagara Falls--"So Others May Live" is truly a can't-put-it-down collection.