In a makeshift laboratory built on a golf course in Maryland, chemist Stanley Lovell led a secret team of scientists that developed the secret gadgets and weapons of the Second World War. Their 'Dirty Tricks Department' was the real-life equivalent of James Bond's legendary Q Branch. If a spy or saboteur needed a forged passport for cover, a silent pistol for executions, an incendiary device for starting fires, or a cyanide pill to kill themselves with before being captured alive, the scientists created it. Moreover, they developed poisons to assassinate foreign leaders, chemical and biological weapons to deploy against enemy soldiers, and truth drugs to interrogate prisoners of war. The Dirty Tricks Department is the first book to focus on the daring, exciting, and often tragic exploits of the men and women who made and used these devices. Lovell and his team exerted a disproportionally large influence on history. Not only were they integral to the Allied victory, but they left a dark legacy that has, until now, gone mainly unacknowledged.

After World War II, thousands of Japanese throughout Asia were put on trial for war crimes. Examination of postwar trials is now a thriving area of research, but Sharon W. Chamberlain is the first to offer an authoritative assessment of the legal proceedings convened in the Philippines. These were trials conducted by Asians, not Western powers, and centered on the abuses suffered by local inhabitants rather than by prisoners of war. Her impressively researched work reveals the challenges faced by the Philippines, as a newly independent nation, in navigating issues of justice amid domestic and international pressures. Chamberlain highlights the differing views of Filipinos and Japanese about the trials. The Philippine government aimed to show its commitment to impartial proceedings with just outcomes. In Japan, it appeared that defendants were selected arbitrarily, judges and prosecutors were biased, and lower-ranking soldiers were punished for crimes ordered by their superior officers. She analyzes the broader implications of this divergence as bilateral relations between the two nations evolved and contends that these competing narratives were reimagined in a way that, paradoxically, aided a path toward postwar reconciliation.

The string of military defeats during 1942 marked the end of British hegemony in Southeast Asia, finally destroying the myth of British imperial invincibility. The Japanese attack on Burma led to a hurried and often poorly organized evacuation of Indian and European civilians from the country. The evacuation was a public humiliation for the British and marked the end of their role in Burma."The Evacuation of Civilians from Burma" investigates the social and political background to the evacuation, and the consequences of its failure. Utilizing unpublished letters, diaries, memoirs and official reports, Michael Leigh provides the first comprehensive account of the evacuation, analyzing its source in the structures of colonial society, fractured race relations and in the turbulent politics of colonial Burma.

Allied Fighters 1939-45 offers an highly-illustrated guide to Allied fighter aircraft that fought in Europe during World War II. Featuring all the main models flown by the Allied air forces from 1939 to 1945, the book offers a wealth of detail, including unit markings, organization, numbers of aircraft flown by campaign and exhaustive specifications for each model. The book is arranged first by country and then chronologically by campaign so that every aspect of the air war in Europe is covered. The guide features fighters from throughout World War II, including early models, such as the Morane Saulnier MS.406C.1, Hawker Hurricane Mk I and Fokker D XXI, and the most advanced fighters of the period, such as the Lavochkin La-7, P-51K Mustang and Gloster Meteor Mk I.The book also covers aircraft that were used for air-to-air combat (Supermarine Spitfire), ground attack (P-47 Thunderbolt), bomber escort (P-51B Mustang), night defence (Bristol Beaufighter) and photographic reconnaissance (P-38 Lightning). Packed with more than 200 profiles and dozens of archive photographs of every major Allied fighter aircraft, Allied Fighters 1939-45 is a core reference volume for modellers and World War II aviation enthusiasts.

In a remote village, high in the snow-capped mountains of southern Poland, during the worst winter of World War II, a beautiful polish woman presiding over the village peasants, a brute of a partisan leader, and an outlaw priest with a mysterious past, are hiding a ragtag band of Jewish children escaped from an accidental death train wreck. During a Bible lesson, the priest, who is actually a Jewish doctor disguised as a man of the cloth, tells the children the Old Testament story of Elisha. "God sent His special 'War Angels' to protect the children of Israel from the attacking Syrian army" he said. The children ask the priest to pray with them for 'War Angels', like in the Bible story, to protect them from the relentless Nazi madman searching for their capture. Miraculously, an American B-17 bomber carrying a tough crew of battered flyers from a deep penetration raid over Germany, crash lands directly next to the village. The children and villagers renew their faith in God, believing the Americans to be; the answer to prayer, and...'The War Angels'. In the end, most realized, only the hand of God could have brought all these people, and seemingly unrelated threads of circumstance into that perilously precise moment in time. Together, through their heroic faith, they persevere against the onslaught of evil Satanic forces

During World War II, Allied casualty rates in the air were high. Of the roughly 125,000 who served as aircrew with Bomber Command, 59,423 were killed or missing and presumed killed-a fatality rate of 45.5%. With odds like that, it would be no surprise if there were as few atheists in cockpits as there were in foxholes; and indeed, many airmen faced their dangerous missions with beliefs and rituals ranging from the traditional to the outlandish. Military historian S. P. MacKenzie considers this phenomenon in Flying against Fate, a pioneering study of the important role that superstition played in combat flier morale among the Allies in World War II. Mining a wealth of documents as well as a trove of published and unpublished memoirs and diaries, MacKenzie examines the myriad forms combat fliers' suspicions assumed, from jinxes to premonitions. Most commonly, airmen carried amulets or talismans-lucky boots or a stuffed toy; a coin whose year numbers added up to thirteen; counterintuitively, a boomerang. Some performed rituals or avoided other acts, e.g., having a photo taken before a flight. Whatever seemed to work was worth sticking with, and a heightened risk often meant an upsurge in superstitious thought and behavior. MacKenzie delves into behavior analysis studies to help explain the psychology behind much of the behavior he documents-not slighting the large cohort of crew members and commanders who demurred. He also looks into the ways in which superstitious behavior was tolerated or even encouraged by those in command who saw it as a means of buttressing morale. The first in-depth exploration of just how varied and deeply felt superstitious beliefs were to tens of thousands of combat fliers, Flying against Fate expands our understanding of a major aspect of the psychology of war in the air and of World War II.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND "NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in WW II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.
Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.
Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.

United States Army Center of Military History publication, CMH Pub 12-3-1. 2nd edition.Photographs selected and text written by Kenneth E. Hunter. Mary Ann Bacon, editor. This book deals with the European Theater of Operations, covering the period from build up in Britain through V-E Day.

Did Hitler mean to pursue global conquest once he had completed his mastery of Europe? In this startling reassessment of Hitler's strategic aims, Duffy argues that he fully intended to bring the war to America once his ambitions in the Eurasian heartland were achieved. Detailed here for the first time are the Third Reich's plans for a projected series of worldwide offensives using the new secret weapons emerging from wartime research. Duffy also recounts other Axis schemes to attack American cities through the use of multi-stage missiles, submarine launched rockets, and suicide missions against ships in the New York harbor. Taken together, these plans reveal just how determined the Axis powers were to attack the United States. Whether German forces could actually reach America has been long debated. What is certain is that Wehrmacht planners explored various options. In 1942 a secret plan was submitted to Hermann Goring for the use of long-range bombers against targets across the globe. The scheme, prepared by a select group within the Luftwaffe, is believed to be the result of direct discussions with Hitler. Long rumored to exist, this document was recently discovered in the military archives in Freiburg. This account provides the first detailed analysis of the plan and places it in the context of Germany's global war objectives.

During World War II, author Dale J. Satterthwaite was a B-25 pilot who flew more than seventy missions over Italy and France in 1944. "Truth Flies with Fiction," his memoir, presents a truthful, firsthand account of the missions and adventures of the real Catch-22 airmen.

A personal tale full of humor and tragedy, this memoir provides insight into the life of a B-25 bomber pilot, as well as the experience of being part of an elite and highly decorated bomb group. Satterthwaite was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross twice, the Presidential Unit Citations twice, and the Air Metal eight times.

Told through journal entries and letters written home to Satterthwaite's fiancee, Eleanor, "Truth Flies with Fiction" includes dozens of photos showing the airplanes in action, including the aftermath of the Vesuvius eruption that destroyed eight-eight airplanes at the Pompeii airbase. With a unique perspective, this firsthand account explains the equipment, missions, and tactics of World War II airmen and brings their experiences to life."

Controlling Sex in Captivity is the first book to examine the nature, extent and impact of the sexual activities of Axis prisoners of war in the United States during the Second World War. Historians have so far interpreted the interactions between captors and captives in America as the beginning of the post-war friendship between the United States, Germany and Italy. Matthias Reiss argues that this paradigm is too simplistic. Widespread fraternisation also led to sexual relationships which created significant negative publicity, and some Axis POWs got caught up in the U.S. Army's new campaign against homosexuals. By focusing on the fight against fraternisation and same-sex activities, this study treads new ground. It stresses that contact between captors and captives was often loaded with conflict and influenced by perceptions of gender and race. It highlights the transnational impact of fraternisation and argues that the prisoners' sojourn in the United States also influenced American society by fuelling a growing concern about social disintegration and sexual deviancy, which eventually triggered a conservative backlash after the war.

Exiled Emissary is a biography of the colorful life of George H. Earle, III - a Main Line Philadelphia millionaire, war hero awarded the Navy Cross, Pennsylvania Governor, Ambassador to Austria and Bulgaria, friend and supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, humanitarian, playboy, and spy. Rich in Casablanca-style espionage and intrigue, Farrell's deeply personal study presents FDR and his White House in a new light, especially when they learned in 1943 that high-ranking German officials approached Earle in Istanbul to convey their plot to kidnap Hitler and seek an armistice. When FDR rejected their offer, thereby prolonging World War II, his close relationship with Earle became most inconvenient, resulting in Earle's exile to American Samoa. Earle eventually returned to the United States, renewing his warnings about communism to President Truman, who underestimated the threat as a "bugaboo." Now, over four decades following Earle's death, Farrell has uncovered newly declassified records that give voice to his warnings about a threat we now know should have never been dismissed.