This poignant history of the Tuskegee Airmen separates myth and legend from fact, placing them within the context of the growth of American airpower and the early stirrings of the African American Civil Rights Movement. The "Tuskegee Airmen"-the first African American pilots to serve in the U.S. military-were comprised of the 99th Fighter Squadron, the 332nd Fighter Group, and the 477th Bombardment Group, all of whose members received their initial training at Tuskegee Army Airfield in Alabama. Their successful service during World War II helped end military segregation, which was an important step in ending Jim Crow laws in civilian society. This volume in Greenwood's Landmarks of the American Mosaic series depicts the Tuskegee Airmen at the junction of two historical trends: the growth of airpower and its concurrent development as a critical factor in the American military, and the early stirring of the Civil Rights Movement. Tuskegee Airmen explains how the United States's involvement in battling foes that represented a threat to the American way of life helped to push the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to allow African American soldiers to serve in the Army Air Corps. This work builds on the works of others, forming a synthesis from earlier studies that approached the topic mostly from either a "black struggles" or military history perspective. 16 original documents relating to the creation and performance of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, each accompanied by a brief description that provides historical context 28 short biographies of black aviation and military pioneers, important people among the Tuskegee Airmen, as well as several of the Airmen themselves A comprehensive bibliographic description of major secondary works on the Tuskegee Airmen, World War II, airpower, and black participation in the American military A glossary of specialized terms pertaining to the military, aviation, World War II, and African Americans

This unique volume combines the book Tiger I In Combat with a facsimile of the original German wartime crew manual for the Tiger tank, the Tigerfibel. This overview draws on a wide variety of primary source accounts of the Tiger I in action from both the Allied and the German perspective. Rare photographs, technical drawings and contemporary reports of the Tiger in combat help to set aside the myths and bring the reality into focus. General Heinz Guderian authorised the publication of the Tigerfibel from 1943 onwards. This highly unorthodox publication was full of risqu drawings and humorous illustrations and was designed to convey complex battlefield instructions in a simple and memorable manner. The manual contains everything the reader could ever wish to know concerning how the crews were instructed to handle the Tiger I under combat conditions. The Tigerfibel contains detailed instructions on aiming, firing, ammunition and close combat. There are extensive sections on maintenance, driving, radio operation and the essentials of commanding a Tiger I in combat. This book contains the original German publication with a complete English translation, new overview and introduction by Emmy Award winning historian Bob Carruthers. Highly accessible, this book is essential and rewarding reading for all readers interested in the history of the Tiger I.

A new compendium of firsthand reminiscences of life on the American home front during World War II. America's Home Front Heroes: An Oral History of World War II brings together in one rich resource the voices of those whom history often leaves out-the ordinary men, women, and children caught up in an extraordinary time. America's Home Front Heroes is divided into four sections: A Time for Heightened Passion, A Time for Caution and Prejudice, A Time for Flag Waving, and A Time for War Plant Women. The 34 brief oral histories within these sections capture the full diversity of the United States during the war, with contributions coming from men, women, and children of all backgrounds, including Japanese Americans, conscientious objectors, African Americans, housewives, and journalists. A treasure trove for researchers and World War II enthusiasts, this remarkable volume offers members of "the greatest generation" an opportunity to relive their defining era. For those with no direct experience of the period, it's a chance to learn firsthand what it was like living in the United States at a pivotal moment in history. 34 concise oral histories describing everyday life in the United States during World War II Four sections: A Time for Heightened Passion, A Time for Caution, A Time for Flag Waving, and A Time for War Plant Women Based entirely on primary sources-letters, journals, correspondence, interviews, etc-from people who lived through World War II on the American home front Photographs that capture the look and feel of how life changed for Americans at home during World War II Includes contributions and photographs from Martha Kostyra, mother of Martha Stewart

Belzec was the prototype death camp and precursor of the killing centers of Sobibor and Treblinka. Secretly commissioned by the highest authority of the Nazi State, it acted outside the law of both civil and military conventions of the time. Under the code "Aktion Reinhardt," the death camp was organized, staffed and administered by a leadership of middle-ranking police officers and a specially selected civilian cadre who, in the first instance, had been initiated into group murder within the euthanasia program. Their expertise, under bogus SS insignia, was then transferred to the operational duties to the human factory abattoir of Belzec, where, on a conveyor belt system, thousands of Jews, from daily transports, entered the camp and after just two hours, they lay dead in the Belzec pits, their property sorted and the killing grounds tidied to await the next arrival. Over a period of just nine months, when Belzec was operational Galician Jewry was totally decimated: 500,000 lay buried in the 33 mass graves. The author takes the reader step by step into the background of the "Final Solution" and gives eyewitness testimony, as the mass graves were located and recorded. This is a publication of the "Yizkor Books in Print Project" of JewishGen, Inc 376 pages with Illustrations. Hard Cover

World War II saw the first generation of young men that had grown up comfortable with modern industrial technology go into combat. As kids, the GIs had built jalopies in their garage and poured over glossy, full-color issues of Popular Mechanics; they had read Buck Rogers in the Twenty Fifth Century comic books, listened to his adventures on the radio, and watched him pilot rocket ships in the Saturday morning serials at the Bijou. Tinkerers, problem-solvers, risk-takers, and day-dreamers, they were curious and outspoken--a generation well prepared to improvise, innovate, and adapt technology on the battlefield. Since they were also a generation which had unprecedented technology available to them, their ability to innovate with technology proved an immeasurable edge on the field of combat. This book tells their story through the experience of the battle of Normandy, bringing together three disparate brands of history: (1) military history; (2) the history of science and technology; and (3) social, economic, cultural, and intellectual history. All three historical narratives combine to tell the tale of GI genius and the process by which GI ingenuity became an enduring feature of the American citizen-soldier. GI Ingenuity is in large part an old-fashioned combat history, with mayhem and mass slaughter at center stage. It tells the story of death and destruction on the killing fields of Normandy, as well as the battlegrounds that provide the prologue and postscript to the transformation of war that occurred in France in 1944. This story of GI ingenuity, moreover, puts the battles in the context of the immense social, economic, scientific, and technological changes that accompanied theevolution of combat in the twentieth century. GI Ingenuity illustrates the great transition of the American genius in battle from an industrial-age army to a postmodern military. And it does it by looking at the place where the transition happened--on the battlefield.

Illustrated with detailed artworks of World War II-era German aircraft and their markings with exhaustive captions and specifications, Luftwaffe Squadrons 1939-45: Identification Guide is the definitive study of the equipment and organisation of the Luftwaffe's combat units. Organised by theatre of operations and the many campaigns fought by the Luftwaffe, the book describes in depth the various units that were fighting on the front at key points in the war and describes the models of aircraft in service with each unit along with their individual and squadron markings. With information boxes accompanying the full-colour artworks, Luftwaffe Squadrons 1939-45 is an essential reference guide for modellers and any enthusiast with an interest in the aircraft of the German war machine.

This book examines the experience of two British Infantry Divisions, the 43rd (Wessex) and 53rd (Welsh), during the Overlord campaign in Northwest Europe. To understand the way the British fought during Operation Overlord, the book considers the political and military factors between 1918 and 1943 before addressing the major battles and many of the minor engagements and day-to-day experiences of the campaign. Through detailed exploration of unit war diaries and first-hand accounts, Louis Devine demonstrates how Montgomery's way of war translated to the divisions and their sub units. While previous literature has suggested that the British Army fought a cautious war in order to avoid the heavy casualties of the First World War, Devine challenges this concept by showing that the Overlord Campaign fought at sub-divisional levels was characterised by command pressure to achieve results quickly, hasty planning and a reliance on massive artillery and mortar contributions to compensate for deficiencies in anti-tank and armoured support. By following two British infantry divisions over a continuous period and focusing on soldiers' experience to offer a perspective 'from below', as well as challenging the consensus of a 'cautious' British campaign, this book provides a much-needed re-examination of the Overlord campaign which will be of great interest to students and scholars of the Second World War and modern military history in general.

This is the story of Chęciny, my hometown in southern Poland, and of the people who lived there between the two world wars of the 20th Century.

The Nazi invasion of Poland in October 1939 started World War II. Millions of Polish Jews died in the ensuing Holocaust, including 4,000 citizens of Chęciny, and 50 members of my family. I was lucky: my mother, brother, three sisters and I had joined my father in America in 1930. I finished high school in Chicago, went to college and graduated from the University of Illinois Medical School. I became a doctor and a psychiatrist, setting up a long and rewarding private practice in Los Angeles that spanned more than 50 years.

Like the wall paintings in Pompeii, which offer a glimpse into the daily life of that city before the volcano, I hope that these stories offer a glimpse into the daily life of my hometown before the Holocaust.

But most of all, this is the story of my family, and a tribute to my beloved Aunt Chana and her daughter, my cousin Rachel, whose courage and self-sacrifice saved Miriam - Chęciny's youngest survivor of the Holocaust - from the Nazi murderers.

Captain Graham Wright is a man ahead of his time. He saw life and work differently from others. However, speaking his mind brought him more trouble than good, as others didn't often agree with his point of view or vision. But during his current 93 years, he's seen many of his predictions and ideas come to fruition. Putting It Wright covers his life to date, from joining the Royal Australian Navy at age 13, his experiences in Palestine, Malta, Turkey and adventures during World War II in the Mediterranean, Madagascar, South-East Asia and most importantly Archangel and the truth behind a secret meeting with Stalin in Moscow by Sir Walter Citrine, UK Trade Union Congress leader, under Churchill's orders in 1941. No other book in history has ever exposed this detail. This Naval career highlight earned him the Arctic Star. His service continued during peacetime until 1962 amid major changes in the Navy and then all the Defence Forces. After 29 years of Naval service he accepted an offer from the then Department of External Affairs, spending two interesting years amongst the communist spy scandals in Bangkok, Thailand, as Head of Research in the South East Asian Treaty Organization Headquarters. Later, after joining the Australian Public Service, his major achievement was working with Sir Arthur Tange in producing the well-known Tange Report. With his Bachelor of Arts Honours degree and his thesis work, the Tange Report amalgamated the administration of the three armed services and Supply Department, creating the Department of Defence as we know it today. Even after being criticized by Australian National University gurus who believed that an insider couldn't be credited with writing about Defence matters, Wright proved to be right again - as history has shown that what we have today with the day-to-day operations of the three Services now controlled by the Headquarters at Bungendore - is just as he'd written it.

A Mail on Sunday book of the year.

In 1940, Europe was on the brink of collapse. Country after country had fallen to the Nazis, and Britain was known as ‘Last Hope Island’, where Europeans from the captive nations gathered to continue the war effort.

In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian and New York Times–bestselling author Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history.

From the Polish and French code breakers who helped crack Enigma, to the Czech pilots who protected London during German bombings, Olson tells the stories of the courageous men and women who came together to defeat Hitler and save Europe.

This book explores five cases of monument and public commemorative space related to World War II (WWII) in contemporary China (Mainland), Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of which were built either prior to or right after the end of the War and their physical existence still remains. Through the study on the monuments, the project illustrates past and ongoing controversies and contestations over Chinese nation, sovereignty, modernism and identity. Despite their historical affinities, the three societies in question, namely, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, vary in their own ways of telling, remembering and forgetting WWII. These divergences are not only rooted in their different political circumstances and social experiences, but also in their current competitions, confrontations and integrations. This book will be of great interest to historians, sinologists and analysts of new Asian nationalism.

Following their occupation by the Third Reich, Warsaw and Minsk became home to tens of thousands of Germans. In this exhaustive study, Stephan Lehnstaedt provides a nuanced, eye-opening portrait of the lives of these men and women, who constituted a surprisingly diverse population-including everyone from SS officers to civil servants, as well as ethnically German city residents-united in its self-conception as a "master race." Even as they acclimated to the daily routines and tedium of life in the East, many Germans engaged in acts of shocking brutality against Poles, Belarusians, and Jews, while social conditions became increasingly conducive to systematic mass murder.

Bennett collects oral histories from men of three United States regiments that participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. The 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment was the most widely scattered of the American parachute infantry regiments to be dropped on D-Day. However, the efforts of 180 men to stop the advance of an SS Panzer Grenadier division largely have been ignored outside of France. The 116th Infantry Regiment received the highest number of casualties on Omaha Beach of any Allied unit on D-Day. Stationed in England through most of the war, it had been the butt of jokes while other regiments did the fighting and dying in North Africa and the Mediterranean; that changed on June 6, 1944. And the 22nd Infantry Regiment, a unit that had fought in almost every campaign waged by the U.S. Army since 1812, came ashore on Utah Beach quite easily before getting embroiled in a series of savage fights to cross the marshland behind the beach and to capture the German heavy batteries to the north. Each participant's story is woven into the larger picture of the assault, allowing Bennett to go beyond the largely personal viewpoints yielded by traditional oral history but avoiding the impersonal nature of studies of grand strategy. In addition to the interviews and memoirs Bennett collected, he also discovered fresh documentary evidence from American, British, and French archives that play an important part in facilitating this new approach, as well as archives in Britain and France. The author unearths new stories and questions from D-Day, such as the massacre of soldiers from the 507th at Graignes, Hemevez, and elsewhere. This new material includes a focus on the regimental level, which is all but ignored by historians, while still covering strategic, tactical, and human issues. His conclusions highlight common misperceptions about the Normandy landings. Questions have already been raised about the wisdom of the Anglo-American amphibious doctrine employed on D-Day. In this study, Bennett continues to challenge the assumption that the operation was an exemplary demonstration of strategic planning.