Chester Nimitz was an admiral's Admiral, considered by many to be the greatest naval leader of the last century. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz assembled the forces, selected the leaders, and - as commander of all U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific Ocean - led the charge one island at a time, one battle at a time, toward victory. A brilliant strategist, he astounded contemporaries by achieving military victories against fantastic odds, outpacing more flamboyant luminaries like General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral "Bull" Halsey. And he was there to accept, on behalf of the United States, the surrender of the Japanese aboard the battleship USS Missouri in August 1945. In this first biography in over three decades, Brayton Harris uses long-overlooked files and recently declassified documents to bring to life one of America's greatest wartime heroes.

November 1944. The British government finally agrees to send a brigade of 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine to Europe to fight the German army. But when the war ends and the soldiers witness firsthand the horrors their people have suffered in the concentration camps, the men launch a brutal and calculating campaign of vengeance, forming secret squads to identify, locate, and kill Nazi officers in hiding. Their own ferocity threatens to overwhelm them until a fortuitous encounter with an orphaned girl sets the men on a course of action -- rescuing Jewish war orphans and transporting them to Palestine -- that will not only change their lives but also help create a nation and forever alter the course of world history.

After years of being apart, cousins Carolyn and Patty are eager to catch up with each other at a relative's wedding. They bring the letters they exchanged during World War II--when they were children--as a way to reminisce.

As the women read through the letters, they are transported back to the American home front. When they begin writing letters, Carolyn has just moved from Nebraska to Oregon, and the two girls desperately miss each other. But their communication is soon overshadowed by the events of December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor is bombed.

The tone of the letters changes as the girls grow preoccupied with the war. Patty tells Carolyn about how their Japanese American friends move to Canada to avoid being put into camps, while Carolyn expresses her relief that her father cannot enlist in the navy due to a blind eye.

Whether they write about gas rationing and blackout regulations or saving money to buy war stamps, Carolyn and Patty reveal the war's impact on their lives. But as the two discuss the contents of the letters at their reunion, they realize just how much the war years shaped who they are as adults.

Artfully switching between the past and the present, Letters from the Home Front is a charming novel of America during World War II.

Thanks for the Memories destroys the historical myth that young men and women went about the business of war and stayed on the straight and narrow path. Rather, World War II provided new opportunities for sexual experimentation, for hasty marriages, for flourishing prostitution-and for love connections that have stood the test of time. Young men in the military, far away from family and home, did things they might never have done. Young women, many of whom went to work for the first time, experienced a freedom and independence most women had never known. Because of the war, courtships were cut short, couples married more quickly than normal, and husbands and wives were often separated for several years. Despite attempts to get back to normal after the war and the apparent togetherness of the 1950s, World War II had set change in motion, heralding the second wave of the women's liberation movement. The collective consciousness of World War II revolved around the virtues of bravery, sacrifice, and commitment. Members of The Greatest Generation toed political and social lines in hopes of winning the war. They fell into lockstep, asking very few questions, and breaking few social and sexual mores. Or did they? In fact, World War II was-like all wars-a time of sexual experimentation and a general loosening of morals. It was a time of conflicting emotions and conflicting messages, a time of great sacrifice, and a time of discovery, when some groups, especially woman, experienced a relaxing of bonds that had kept them in check. Thanks For The Memories: Love, Sex, and World War II the true story of how the World War II generation responded to the passions of war, and how those passions changed their lives-and the relationships between the sexes-forever. But this book is more than that. As Jane Mersky Leder writes, Thanks for the Memories opens the hearts and memories of a generation that is dying, by one estimate, at the rate of more than 1,000 a day. It exposes the sexual and romantic escapades of The Greatest Generation and underscores how those four war years revolutionized relationships (including those between gays), and how it helped set the stage for the second wave of the women's liberation movement. Many who never thought their stories mattered, Leder writes, now feel the pull of limited time, and the importance of leaving an accurate account for their children and grandchildren of what it was like to be a young man or young woman during World War II. This is their collective story.

German general Hermann Balck (1897--1982) was considered to be one of World War II's greatest battlefield commanders. His brilliantly fought battles were masterpieces of tactical agility, mobile counterattack, and the technique of Auftragstaktik, or "mission command." However, because he declined to participate in the U.S. Army's military history debriefing program, today he is known only to serious students of the war. Drawing heavily on his meticulously kept wartime journals, Balck discusses his childhood and his career through the First and Second World Wars. His memoir details the command decision-making process as well as operations on the ground during crucial battles, including the Battle of the Marne in World War I and his incredible victories against a larger and better-equipped Soviet army at the Chir River in World War II. Balck also offers observations on Germany's greatest generals, such as Erich Ludendorff and Heinz Guderian, and shares his thoughts on international relations, domestic politics, and Germany's place in history. Available in English for the first time in an expertly edited and annotated edition, this important book provides essential information about the German military during a critical era in modern history.

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.

First published in 1929, it is now available as a brand new book. The story is an account of the lives of ordinary soldiers. The central character, Bourne is an enigmatic character and Manning tells his own wartime experiences through him. It is forcibly written, too forcibly for the sensibilities of the time, and a censored version was produced in 1930 under the title 'Her Privates We'.

Promoted as a means for rectifying the problems of a region in extreme need, the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC) only exposed and exacerbated the underlying antagonisms between Britain and the United States over the economic and political structure of the post-war world. This study places the AACC, formed in 1942, within the context of the Anglo-American wartime special relationship, and examines the political, economic, and security motives at the heart of this unique and little-known collaboration. It exposes the determination of the United States to use exigencies of war to impose its post-war plans upon Britain, and the tenacity of the British to defend even the smallest and least regarded of its possessions regardless of local and international opposition.

The AACC was a battleground of conflicting British and American visions of a new West Indies, and it would thus serve as a rehearsal for key debates that would emerge at the end of the war. For the United States, the AACC was a vehicle for promoting America's broad postwar ambitions in the West Indies; for Britain, it was simply part of the price that had to be paid for American assistance in the war effort. Debates within the AACC over the future of West Indian sugar, the regulation of tariffs and trade, constitutional reform and the expansion of civil aviation mirrored wider British and American differences.

The powerful impact of World War II continues to thunder through the postwar decades. Memoirs and analyses of this turning point in world history continue to gain popularity. Now comes "Blueberry Pie" by Otis Pease, war veteran and retired history professor.

With humor and a deft touch, Pease discusses his war in the context of historians' ongoing debates: Did WWII GIs fight mainly for "blueberry pie" as John Hersey concluded-for the chance to resume their American dreams? Or did they have a broader vision of their military mission? Pease argues that the motivations and attitudes of young U.S. soldiers and sailors were much more complex than could be explained by "blueberry pie." In analyzing the question, Pease examines an extensive wartime survey of soldiers headed by sociologist Samuel Stouffer. "Blueberry Pie" also features diary excerpts and letters home from other WWII veterans.

Pease concludes his comments about "the war that changed America" by discussing the impact of what Harvard Professor Robert Putnam calls "the long civic generation" on post-war America and, with the help of the GI Bill, on its educational institutions.

Included in "Blueberry Pie" is Pease's own WWII diary, beginning with basic training and ending with his post-war journey home from Europe aboard a Victory ship. Recording his WWII career proved crucial to Pease in making sense of his memory of the war. For the reader of "Blueberry Pie," the details of the diary vivify the compelling military experience of a young man on the cusp of college and adulthood.

For several decades, Italian-born Domenico Forte worked hard in America with the hopes of bringing his family with him. It was a slow process punctuated by two world wars. Domenico survived the first war, but World War II found him in America while his family was trapped in some of the most ferocious fighting of the Italian campaign.

The Forte family eked out an existence on a farm just outside of Pico, a village in central Italy in the foothills of the Aurunci Mountains. The mountains' towering presence, coupled with a nearby labyrinth of strong rivers, became the setting for some of the most brutal combat of WWII. With a population of about 3,000, Pico became the linchpin of the German defenses; its fleeting military importance quickly brought the scourge of battle upon its citizenry. The Forte family was caught in the middle.

"Promises to Keep" chronicles the war in Pico from two perspectives. It examines the military backdrop against which the taking of Pico occurred, and discusses the military celebrities in command at the time of the siege. But more than that, it shows how the brutal reality of war affected the population of Pico.

Drawing together a wide variety of primary source documents from across the United States, Europe, and Asia, this book illuminates the events and experiences of World War II-the most devastating war in human history. World War II was the most destructive and disruptive war ever, a global conflict that in one way or another affected the lives of people across the planet. Voices of World War II: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life coalesces a wide variety of primary source documents drawn from across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Supplemented by interpretive material that enables readers to analyze them, assess their impact and significance, and place them in context to comparable situations today, the documents provide rare insights into World War II. Expert commentaries and additional information on these texts enable a greater understanding of the background to these documents, providing valuable training in learning to interpret, assess, and evaluate historical sources. Intended primarily for upper-level high school and undergraduate-level history students, general readers will also appreciate the variegated array of primary material from World War II, which depicts numerous aspects of the conflict, often in extremely personal terms. A chronology lists all major events of World War II A bibliography provides an up-do-date selection of basic books, Internet sources, and movies and television series on World War II A glossary defines key World War II terms and phrases Extensive commentary, contextual information, and guiding questions accompany each document

What was the role played by local police volunteers in the Holocaust? Using eye witness descriptions from the towns and villages of Belorussia and Ukraine, this text reveals local policemen as hands on collaborators of the Nazis. They brutally drove Jewish neighbours from their homes and guarded them closely on the way to their deaths. Some distinguished themselves as ruthless murderers. Outnumbering German police manpower in these areas, the local police were the foot soldiers of the Holocaust in the east.

This book is the first full-length study of the museum object as a memory medium in history exhibitions about the Nazi era, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. Over recent decades, German and Austrian exhibition-makers have engaged in significant programmes of object collection, often in collaboration with witnesses and descendants. At the same time, exhibition-makers have come to recognise the degree to which the National Socialist era was experienced materially, through the loss, acquisition, imposition, destruction, and re-purposing of objects. In the decades after 1945, encounters with material culture from the Nazi past continued, both within the family and in the public sphere. In analysing how these material engagements are explored in the museum, the book not only illuminates a key aspect of German and Austrian cultural memory but contributes to wider debates about relationships between the human and object worlds.

During World War II the Japanese were stereotyped in the European imagination as fanatical, cruel, almost inhuman - an image reflected in most books and films about prisoner of war in the Far East. While the Japanese cetainly treated those they captured badly, behaving far worse to Chinese and native captives than to Europeans, the conventional view of the Japanese is unhistorical and simplistic. It fails to recognize that hte Japanese were acting at a time of supreme national crisis trial, at a particular period of their history, and that their attitudes were influenced by a combination of their perception of their own racial identity mixed with a powerful historical tradition. This collection of essays, by both western and Japanese scholars, aims to see the question from a historical viewpoint, and from both a western and Japanese perspective, looking at it in the light of both longer-term influences, notably the Japanese attempt to establish themselves as an honorary white race. The essays also examine particular instances. Conditions in the almost self-run camp at Changi contrasted remarkably with those on the Burma Railway, where disease and a failure to provide supplies caused terrible suffering. The book also addresses the other side of the question, looking at the treatment of Japanese prisoners in Allied captivity.

This book discusses the impact of war on the complex interactions between various actors involved in justice: individuals and social groups on the one hand and 'the justice system' (police, judiciary and professionals working in the prison service) on the other. It also highlights the emergence of new expectations of justice among these actors as a result of war. Furthermore, the book addresses justice practices, strategies for coping with the changing circumstances, new forms of negotiation, interactions, relationships between populations and the formal justice system in this specific context, and the long-term effects of this renegotiation. Ten out of the eleven chapters focus on Belgian issues, covering the two world wars in equal measure. Belgium's diverse war experiences in the twentieth century mean that a study of the country provides fascinating insights into the impact of war on the dynamics of 'doing justice'. The Belgian army fought in both world wars, and the vast majority of the population experienced military occupation. The latter led to various forms of collaboration with the enemy, which required the newly reinstalled Belgian government to implement large-scale judicial processes to repress these 'antipatriotic' behaviours, in order to restore both its authority and legitimacy and to re-establish social peace.

In the annals of World War II, the role of America's British allies in the Pacific Theater has been largely ignored. Nicholas Sarantakes now revisits this seldom-studied chapter to depict the delicate dance among uneasy partners in their fight against Japan, offering the most detailed assessment ever published of the U.S. alliance with Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

Sarantakes examines Britain's motivations for participating in the invasion of Japan, the roles envisioned by its Commonwealth nations, and the United States' decision to accept their participation. He shows how the interests of all allies were served by maintaining the coalition, even in the face of disputes between nations, between civilian and military leaders, and between individual services-and that allied participation, despite its diplomatic importance, limited the efficiency of final operations against Japan.

Sarantakes describes how Churchill favored British-led operations to revive the colonial empire, while his generals argued that Britain would be further marginalized if it didn't fight alongside the United States in the assault on Japan's home islands. Meanwhile, Commonwealth partners, preoccupied with their own security concerns, saw an opportunity to support the mother country in service of their own separatist ambitions. And even though the United States called the shots, it welcomed allies to share the predicted casualties of an invasion.

Sarantakes takes readers into the halls of both civil and military power in all five nations to show how policies and actions were debated, contested, and resolved. He not only describes the participation of major heads of state but also brings in lesser-known Commonwealth figures, plus a cast of military leaders including General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz on the American side and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham and Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke on the British. He also paints vivid scenes of battle, including the attack of the British Pacific Fleet on Japan and ground fighting on Okinawa.

Deftly blending diplomatic, political, and military history encompassing naval, air, and land forces, Sarantakes's work reveals behind-the-scenes political factors in warfare alliances and explains why the Anglo-America coalition survived World War II when it had collapsed after World War I.