A soldier is badly wounded in a mobile, fast-moving theatre of war. Without rapid surgery, he will die. There are no helicopters to move him out to a hospital.
This was the problem faced by the military medical authorities in the Second World War. Their solution: take the medical services to the wounded They set up mobile ambulance units, field dressing stations and blood transfusion units, all based on trucks so that they could move swiftly to keep up with the troops.
They also set up field surgical units, which were mobile operating rooms based on three trucks and managed by the surgeons themselves. They operated in everything from tents to wine cellars, abandoned schoolhouses and hospitals to monasteries and cathedrals. Working often in conditions that would be condemned in modern hospitals, they did whatever it took to save lives.
This is the story of one such unit, the 2nd Canadian Field Surgical Unit under the command of the young surgeon Rocke Robertson: from its set-up and training in England to the historic Allied landings in Sicily; through the killing grounds of central Sicily and southern Italy to the horrific Battle of Ortona on Italy's Adriatic coast. Operating in stifling heat and raw cold, fighting off dust, flies, exhaustion and malaria, they dealt with wounds and patient loads that stretched their imagination, ingenuity and strength to the breaking point.
These units were the precursors of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) in the Korean War, where the wounded soldiers were transferred swiftly and smoothly by helicopter to a medical facility set up behind the lines.
Written by Rocke Robertson's son, this is a vivid and intimate account of a field surgical unit in action - saving lives while bullets fly.

This is the most comprehensive account of the Air Forces in Malta during Word War II. Malta was a vital base from which Allied aircraft could inflict serious damage on the crucial Axis supply route to Rommel in North Africa. In order to secure that route, the might of the Luftwaffe and Italian Air Forces were thrown together against the tiny island, affecting not just the defending servicemen and women, but the entire population. This book vividly describes how the fighters, bombers, torpedo, and reconnaissance aircraft of the RAF and FAA took the fight to the enemy and triumphantly succeeded with every odd stacked against them.

G.I. Resister has to do with a nation so deeply cleaved by the ill-fated and unjust war in Vietnam that a generation later the United States has only just begun to heal. Perrin's story is a part of that, both in the hurt and the healing.

On December 19, 1944, Gene Garrison turned nineteen. He spent his birthday in a muddy foxhole, listening to the cries of wounded comrades while exploding artillery shells sent shrapnel raining down on him and the enemy prepared to attack. It was his first day in combat. "Unless Victory Comes" recounts Garrison's journey as he was transformed from a fresh-faced kid from the farmlands of Ohio into a hardened soldier fighting for survival. From his baptism under fire, to the bitter fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, to the end of the war on the Czechoslovakian border, Gene Garrison witnessed the war from the ground up. This is the story of one young man, far from home, surrounded by strangers, facing death yet never losing hope that he would live to see his family again.

Told by the grandson of the head of the family, this is the gripping odyssey of another Frank family from the deceptively good life of Berlin in the 1920s, through the rise of Hitler and their flight to apparently safe Holland, the nightmarish ordeal of their thousand-day-long "submersion" in a small apartment in The Hague, to the joy and pain of liberation and their final journey to America, the same route Anne Frank might have taken had she not been betrayed. Based on personal testaments, records, and family interviews, the book describes their life behind closed curtains in constant fear of discovery. In 1945, after many adventures and appalling vicissitudes, they finally emerged to face the uncertainties of postwar Holland and the promise of the New World. Both a history and a memoir, this extensively researched book gives the first account of the war in Holland, the occupation, and the resistance (including the Jewish resistance) to be published for several years. Despite that resistance, and the help of the Dutch citizens who sheltered their Jewish neighbors, most of Dutch Jewry was destroyed.

"From Pusan to Panmunjom" is the candid and revealing wartime memoir of the soldier who, at the age of thirty-two, became South Korea's first four-star general. It brings an unprecedented perspective to a cataclysmic war.

On an early morning in the fall of 1942, Kemp McLaughlin's group set out for a raid on a French target. Immediately after dropping its bombs, McLaughlin's plane was hit. A huge fire burned a four-foot hole in his wing, his waist gunner bailed out, his radio operator was wounded, the plane lost all oxygen, and his pilot put on a parachute and sat on the escape hatch, waiting for the plane to explode. And this was only McLaughlin's first sortie. McLaughlin went on to pilot the mission command plane on the second raid against Schweinfurt, the largest air raid in history, which resulted in the destruction of 70 percent of German ball bearing production capability. McLaughlin also participated in the bombing of heavy water installations in Norway. The Mighty Eighth in WWII also includes the stories of downed pilots in France and Holland who traveled under the cover of night through the countryside, evading the Nazis who had seen their planes go down. As a group leader, McLaughlin was responsible for the planning and execution of air raids, forced to follow the directives of senior (and sometimes less informed) officers. His position as one of the managers of the massive sky trains allows him to provide unique insight into the work of maintenance and armament crews, preflight briefings, and off-duty activities of the airmen. No other memoir of World War II reveals so much about both the actual bombing runs against Nazi Germany and the management of personnel and material that made those airborne armadas possible.

This book is a collection of fifteen love stories of war heroes. Each story depicts the greatest example of patriotism and bravery with its characters drawing strength from their women. The book is an experiment to prove that the biggest source of energy that makes daring war heroes is actually love. It is a testimony of the existence of the most sensitive minds inside tough bodies. Certain delicate issues are addressed and natural solutions offered. The stories are replete with profound emotions and the smooth flow of events that touch the hearts of the readers.

"Soldier Stories" chronicles the multi-dimensional drama of people who endured the shock and awe of war―and whose spirits triumphed over it.

• A priest in the infamous Bataan Death March who kept others alive with his faithful recitation of the Lord's Prayer
• The journey to faith by a skeptical B-17 copilot lost at sea
• A young American widow caught in the "Dresden Inferno" who survived the firestorm with her three children
• The lesson of post-war forgiveness learned by a British soldier tortured by the Japanese
• A rowdy, Arizona cowboy who achieved World War I flying ace status in a matter of weeks
• And many more

"Soldier Stories' "true, soul-stirring accounts of those who have risen to the challenge of unimaginable circumstances will inspire you no matter what obstacles you may face.

This distinctive volume contains twenty first-person narrative essays from Holocaust survivors who were children at the time of the atrocity. As children aged two to sixteen, these authors had different experiences than their adult counterparts and also had different outlooks in understanding the events that they survived. While most Holocaust memoirs focus on one individual or one country, ""And Life Is Changed Forever"" offers a varied collection of compelling reflections. The survivors come from Germany, Poland, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Italy, Greece, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Latvia, and Czechoslovakia. All of the contributors escaped death, but they did so in myriad ways. Some children posed as Gentiles or were hidden by sympathizers, some went to concentration camps and survived slave labor, some escaped on the Kindertransports, and some were sent to endure hardships in a ""safe"" location such as Siberia or unoccupied France. While each essay is intensely personal, all speak to the universal horrors and the triumphs of all children who have survived persecution. ""And Life Is Changed Forever"" also focuses on what these children became - teachers, engineers, physicians, entrepreneurs, librarians, parents, and grandparents - and explores the impact of the Holocaust on their later lives.

The classic tale of battle, roguery, and capture from the Army of Northern Virginia. From his looting of farmhouses during the Gettysburg campaign and robbing of fallen Union soldiers as opportunity allowed to his five arrests for infractions of military discipline and numerous unapproved leaves, John O. Casler's actions during the Civil War made him as much a rogue as a Rebel. Though he was no model soldier, his forthright confessions of his service years in the Army of Northern Virginia stand among the most sought after and cited accounts by a Confederate soldier. First published in 1893 and significantly revised and expanded in 1906, Casler's Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade recounts the truths of camp life, marches, and combat. Moreover, Casler's recollections provide an unapologetic view of the effects of the harsh life in Stonewall's ranks on an average foot soldier and his fellows. A native of Gainesboro, Virginia, with an inherent wanderlust and thirst for adventure, Casler enlisted in June 1861 in what became Company A, 33rd Virginia Infantry, and participated in major campaigns throughout the conflict, including Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Captured in February 1865, he spent the final months of the war as a prisoner at Fort McHenry, Maryland. His postwar narrative recalls the realities of warfare for the private soldier, the moral ambiguities of thievery and survival at the front, and the deliberate cruelties of capture and imprisonment with the vivid detail, straightforward candor, and irreverent flair for storytelling that have earned ""Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade"" its place in the first rank of primary literature of the Confederacy. This edition features a new introduction by Robert K. Krick chronicling Casler's origins and his careers after the war as a writer and organizer of Confederate veterans groups.

In 1941, before America entered World War II, determined young LeRoy Gover signed on with Britain's Royal Air Force to fly the plane of his dreams, the fast, sleek Spitfire. When America joined the fight, he transitioned to the powerful P-47 Thunderbolt. Former USAF pilot and aviation historian Philip D. Caine has skillfully selected from the young flyer's letters and diary entries to create a vivid portrait of the kind of man who helped win the war. A story of great courage, Spitfires, Thunderbolts, and Warm Beer is a testament to the many other brave men who served.

Rare recollections of combat and camaraderie from the Army of the Potomac. Thomas W. Hyde, a native of Maine who rose rapidly through the Union ranks and eventually received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Antietam, published his portrait of the Army of the Potomac in 1894. More than a mere personal remembrance, ""Following the Greek Cross"" tells the story of an illustrious army unit and offers rare glimpses into the Northern perspective on the war and its significance in U.S. history. One of the most cited - and most difficult to find - Union memoirs, this volume returns to print with an expanded edition featuring new information about the author, more than a dozen photographs, and a complete index. Hyde began his military career in 1861 as a major of the Seventh Maine Infantry Regiment. When that unit became part of the Sixth Corps of the massive Army of the Potomac, Hyde was promoted to a staff post. He served on the staffs of several prominent Union officers, including John Sedgwick and Horatio G. Wright, major generals who between them commanded the Sixth Corps in several important campaigns in the Virginia theater. Hyde's unit was also among those who followed General Lee's army into Pennsylvania and fought at Gettysburg. In his correspondence Hyde writes engagingly about the war, his fellow soldiers, strategy and tactics, and daily life in the Union forces. He elaborates on their motivation for fighting, the strength of their camaraderie, and their unflagging determination to preserve the Union. Eric J. Mink's new introduction provides fresh insights on Hyde's origins, perspectives, and postwar achievements, which include the establishment of one of North America's most important shipyards, in Hyde's hometown of Bath, Maine.

'There may be dark days ahead and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield. But, we can only do the right thing as we see the right, and reverently commit our cause to God. If, one and all, we keep resolutely faithful to it, ready for whatever service or sacrifice it may demand, then, with God's help, we shall prevail. May He bless and keep us all.' Those words, haltingly delivered by King George VI on 3 September 1939 and broadcast to the world, are still occasionally quoted in radio programs and newspaper or magazine articles. This is not a story for children in the Hans Christian Andersen mould. It is a 'story' worth the telling about children. How, as pawns, they may be rolled over in the mud of the political feeding frenzies of world leaders mad for power. And how a nation's future, its children, may be subverted; degraded; education disrupted; potential destroyed exposing fearful, wasteful aspects of postwar economic recovery. Threading through the events of one war, World War II, is a plain tale of a child evacuee escaping the London blitz - and perhaps worse, if the imminence of invasion by gloating shock troops of Nazi elite is taken into account. postwar writers. In that context, the story raises questions posed by history. The story's main title is chosen for two reasons. America no longer feels insecurely isolationist. Just less secure. In a world where national boundaries increasingly count for little more than lines on a map, its child population could also suffer evacuation to safer zones if a land war affected the country internally. For nothing now is beyond imagination in terms of terrorism in the name of culture, not a country. The second reason: As a child evacuee to America in a global political climate not unlike the present, the author chose an option. He would avoid the horrors which ultimately proved the lot of Europe's children had Britain not missed being overrun by a whisker. Winston Churchill hesitated over relinquishing British children to different cultures. Visiting New York three weeks after 'nine-eleven'; aware of the city's spontaneous official and citizen response among numbing scenes, was to return to the London blitz, to the 1940s - even the smell was there. This is a story about courage and a family's ultimate triumph.

"Wake Island Pilot" is the story of John F. Kinney - hero, POW escapee, and aviation pioneer. It contains the first full-length account of a successful escape by a Marine captured in one of the great battles of World War II. Within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese struck the small U.S. garrison on Wake Island. As his squadron's engineering officer, young pilot John F. Kinney used all his considerable ingenuity to oversee the cannibalization of crippled planes for spare parts when he himself was not in the air fighting off the Japanese assault. His gallant efforts helped enable the desperate Marine and Navy defenders to hold out for an incredible two weeks, a truly epic struggle. After the island's inevitable surrender, Kinney was a Japanese prisoner in China for the next three and a half years. During this time, he put his amazingly inventive mechanical skills to work, creating from scratch numerous items, including a radio, to improve his fellow POWs' situation. Toward the end of the war, Kinney escaped from a prison train and, with the assistance of both Nationalist and Communist Chinese troops, made his way to an American airfield. He was thus one of the few Americans to escape from Japanese captivity outside the Philippines. General Kinney's subsequent Marine Corps career was equally distinguished: He flew fighters in the Korean War and helped develop the classic A4-D Skyhawk.

The 95th Bomb Group (H) achieved fame as the first unit to strike Berlin in a daylight raid and as the only combat group in Europe to win three Presidential Distinguished Unit Citations for courage and daring. B-17s Over Berlin is a unique compilation of vivid personal tales of the legendary 95th, told by the surviving crewmen themselves and the English villagers who knew them. Crashes, captures, thrilling escapes - these are the true stories of the furious air combat over Germany, Norway, and Poland that helped turn the tide of World War II.

After the fall of the Philippines in 1942 - and after leading the last horse cavalry charge in U.S. history - Ed Ramsey refused to surrender. Instead, he joined the Filipino resistance and rose to command more than 40,000 guerrillas. The Japanese put the elusive American leader at the top of their death list. Rejecting the opportunity to escape, Ramsey withstood unimaginable fear, pain, and loss for three long years. "Lieutenant Ramsey's War" chronicles a remarkable true story of courage and perseverance.

Set both in the present and in the dust-laden reaches of Angola in 1976, Buried in the sky is an album of stories about men and women and war. To the strains of the music of Bob Dylan and in long periods of boredom and inactivity, South Africa's soldiers tried to make sense of a war they could not see. The author, himself a conscript at that time, allows his comrades to tell their stories. We get to know Manie Dippenaar, whose hunting trip threatened to turn into an international incident; Private Smith, the boy from the Bluff who had love and hate tattooed on his knuckles and chose a novel way to roast a chicken as his means of revenge on a bad tempered major; Morphine Sister, who handled a gun like a mamba; and Spek, the surfer-boy who dreamed only of catching the next big wave.

In the author's words, taken from the preface:
"I went on active duty on the first day of July 1943, and was discharged in March 1946. Between those dates I experienced the frightening, the pathetic, the moving, the ridiculous, the funny and the unbelievable, all to a degree I would not have thought possible.
Just short of my twenty-second birthday I entered the Army a bookish, somewhat introverted person. For what happened then, read on."
A remarkable story of courage, resourcefulness, tragedy and humor, Blood and Candles is unlike any other account of World War II that has ever been published.
The author's combat duty lasted for seven months during which he served as a runner or scout, sometimes finding himself alone behind enemy lines. Once he was even captured by the Americans and was almost shot as a German spy posing as an American. How he got out of that jam and many others will keep the reader fascinated from cover to cover.
While the climax of the book describes some of the most intense combat of the war, in which almost everyone around him was killed or seriously wounded, the author's experiences during basic training and after the War, attending the Sorbonne under the auspices of the Army, are equally fascinating.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's heroic opposition to Hitler in 1944 cost him his life. In this intriguing, well-paced tale of a journalistic coup, Marshall, the first to discover the real events behind Rommel's death, tells how he learned the facts from Rommel's widow and delves into the great general's background and death. He arrived at his conclusions based on his intimate knowledge of men on Rommel's staff and his access to Rommel's papers, including letters from the general to his wife. Here, for the first time in paperback, is the exciting story of how the world learned about the way the "Desert Fox" met his death.

The late James Mahoney went overseas in the spring of 1944 as the leader of one of the four bomb squadrons in a B-24 bomb group (the original 492nd) which endured extraordinary losses for 89 days of operation before being disbanded. The enduring mystery of why such an exceptionally well qualified and prepared group suffered so singularly is one of many significant themes he addresses in his 52 vignettes. Mahoney was reassigned to a bomb group with much better luck (the 467th), and finished the war as their Deputy Commander.
As both a 'man among men' and a recognized natural leader, he was positioned to note character and ability, and took it as his charge to develop both of these in the course of administering to the technical and demanding business of a combat organization comprising 3,000 souls.
Later in life, wanting to make sense of what he experienced and to record the terrific sacrifice of his peers, he distilled and organized his memories. Overcoming his natural reticence to show his hand emotionally, and fearful that grisly accounts might register as sensational horror instead of sobering lesson, he labored carefully to build for his readers a rich context for his 'war stories'.
These memoirs take the reader through the methodology and equipment of aviation and strategic bombing in the era before stand-off weaponry, when hundreds of planes at a time, each with ten-man crews, flew in unpressurized planes through flak and fighter filled skies for hours at a time at 40 degrees below zero, to bomb targets in Hitler-occupied Europe.
He introduces the reader to his acquaintances and friends, commanders and charges - a range of memorable rascals, unforgettableheroes, and ordinary mortals showing their true mettle and courage under dire circumstances.
Jim Mahoney's account of his 13 months in combat is an engaging mix of timeless morals and enduring humor. The big themes are laid out with common sense, while the practical joke, the stroke of genius, or personal quirk are offered as clear windows to the host of characters and their relationships. These certainly capture the fact and flavor of the daylight bombing campaign over northern Europe and make a contribution to the historical record, but they also transcend that specific time and place, drawing the readers in any era into human drama, played out in all of its variety in the pressure-cooker of wartime.
The son's contribution has been to document some of the more unusual aspects of his father's account, so that these can be received as more than just precious memoir - as contributions to the historical record.This has entailed many interviews, travel to remnants of his father's Rackheath and North Pickenham bases in East Anglia, and contemplation of the horrible effectiveness of aerial bombardment on several of the Mighty Eighth Air Force's 'ground zeros' in Germany.
Additionally, the son supplies the reader with a variety of material designed to make the dated technology of aviation in its 20th century adolescence more understandable, and to put into broader contexts the struggles to control European airspace and weaken the foe through costly strategic bombardment.Tables and an extensive WW II timeline give a framework for understanding American involvement and the role of air power. A comprehensive glossary of terms makes the aviation and military lingo clear, and hisbibliography will equip the motivated reader to delve deeper.
Photographs from 'then' and 'now' bring the reader along on the son's odyssey, retracing the father's steps and honoring the sacrifices of survivors and the fallen alike.
A foreword by Brigadier General Robin Olds, USAF (Ret.), fighter leader in three wars and a WW II ace, adds important insight to the riddle of why survivors of grisly combat action are typically so tight-lipped about their experience.
Reluctant Witness is the combined effort of a pragmatic realist and a hardened optimist. This rich account of one witness's experience is offered to a general audience of conscientious citizens everywhere, with encouragements to never let their guard down and enable the tyrant, or ever despair of their ability, when committed to what is just and fair, to set things right. Widespread appreciation of the waste and senselessness of war impells practical efforts to 'wage peace'.

Reviews "These highly-detailed memoirs of the CO of the 788th Bomb Squadron, flying B-24 Liberators from Rackheath at much the same time as our very 'own' Crew 5294. The account was completed by Lt Col Mahoney's son, Brian H. Mahoney and is a fine testament to both man and era."
- as reviewed in Fly Past, Britain's Top-Selling Aviation Monthly
January 2002 edition
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"At last, a book that tells what war in the air in WW II flying from England in American bombers was really like. Reluctant Witness is a brilliant and wholly appropriate title, describing as it does the brutality of war seen from very close quarters, in the cockpit and from the ground. James J. Mahoney saw death anddestruction all around him but the everlasting impression of the book is the wonderful detail and the vivid picture of incidents and events, some seemingly inconsequential at first, and the impact of war on ordinary men thrust into active service against an implacable foe. The descriptions and unfolding tales of the aerial endeavours of the 492nd and 467th Bomb Groups amid flak, fear, and fighters draws comparison with such writings as "I Saw Regensburg Destroyed." My particular favourites are 'Threes' and 'Ticket Punchers'. The first details the incredible coincidence/fate "call it what you will" that befell those with the 28-type Parachute. The latter tells of the sky pilots the chaplains, and the effect one had on the group when Al Shower tried to impose his strict discipline to remedy the soaring VD rate. Ironically, for a group that led in bombing accuracy and adhered to saluting and disciplinary regimes imposed by the iron will of the CO, the 467th led the tables in VD! The chapter explains why Shower's attempts to limit the spread were undermined. At the other end of the scale chapters such as Zero/Zero and Ferguson's Crew reveal starkly the grim and grisly reality behind bland statistics. The whole thrust of this book is directed towards man's inhumanity to man, not dull statistics and meaningless PR. We have both Messrs. James and Brian Mahoney to thank for the opportunity to enrich our understanding and education of the US Army Air Forces in WW2."
-Martin W. Bowman, renowned British author of over 60 military and aviation titles ----------------------------------

..."I just could not put your book down; you and father have written what I consider one of the finestrecords ever seen. Just finished it this morning and will start all over as I enjoyed it so much.We could almost feel your father in the room with us. Just wish we had talked with him a lot, lot more."
-David Hastings, Chair, Board of Governors of the Second Air Division Memorial Trust ----------------------------------

..." After two readings through of RELUCTANT WITNESS I find it to be an excellent accounting of that war and location. Of particular interest to me were the stories concerning events which occurred, there, following my rotation back to the States, such as hauling gas to Patton in France. Also extremely interisting are the management techniques used to develop 'Lead Crews' and other means and strategies which gave the 467th BG the best bombing record in the 8th at the war's end... Both authors can feel justly proud of the book!"
-Dick Bastien, an original 492nd co-pilot ----------------------------------

..." I received the book from Trafford a few days ago and have finished first reading. I have ordered one for a son in Austin, TX. I am now revisiting parts to refresh my memory. I was very surprised that JJM remembered me as our crew had no difficulty or real memorable times... I wish you great success with the book and thank for doing this thing for a lot of us survivors of the 492nd an 467th."
-Sgt. "Andy" Anderson, radio operator on the Carl Johnson crew ----------------------------------

..."I got a copy of Reluctant Witness. What an awesome book!! Just to be able to read your Dad's memories and memoirs plus your added analysis and info is incredible. I carry it around with me all the time in my briefcase bag and read through itboth at home and at work when I have time. Also find myself re-reading things again and again it's just so interesting!"
-Harry D. Greene, son of a 492nd BG veteran ----------------------------------

Rather than being a conventional regimental history, Fighting Tigers instead picks out fourteen classic actions and campaigns fought by men of the Leicestershire (later Royal Leicestershire) Regiment. These are some of the actions in which the bravery and determination of 'The Tigers' shone through most clearly. The book also illustrates the bonds of kinship which within a family regiment such as the Leicesters are extremely strong, with several generations serving at different times, and surnames often recurring. The book covers the Boer War, First World War, Second World War, Korean War and the 'undeclared' war in Borneo in 1963. The actions covered include Ladysmith and the Somme via the evacuation at Dunkirk to the jungles of Burma, and thence to the hills of Korea, along the way charting the characters and the commanders of various battalions, and chronicling the Honours and decorations which were gained.

As 1914 drew to a close, little did anyone in Australia know that four years of warfare lay ahead. Mothers could not forsee the anguish they would suffer, nor wives and sweethearts their heartbreak. Young men had little idea of the grim reality of war as they marched off to do their patriotic duty for King and country.