Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, kept a diary for seventy five years, and To War with Whitaker guides us through the most adventurous, most defiant, and most valiant of those years. Hermione and Dan Ranfurly married only months before the Second World War erupted. So when Dan was posted to the Middle East, taking only their faithful butler Whitaker with him, Hermione resolved to join them there. This memoir showcases astounding displays of commitment and independence; after vowing not to go home without her husband, Hermione travelled alone from Cape Town to Palestine for the six years he was imprisoned, meeting many notable characters along the way. With wit and exuberance Hermione's diary entries take us To War with Whitaker and back again, providing sharp insight of the strong and outspoken woman she always was.

Nazi Germany's efforts to weaken the United States by subversion failed miserably. Bungling spies were captured and half-hearted efforts at sabotage came to nothing. Yet anyone who lived through WWII remembers the chilling posters warning Americans that "Enemy Agents Have Big Ears" and "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Even Superman joined the struggle against these insidious foes. In 1940, polls showed that 71% of Americans believed a Nazi Fifth Column had penetrated the country. Almost half were convinced that spies, saboteurs, dupes, and rumor-mongers lurked in their own neighborhoods and work-places. These fears extended to the White House and Congress.
In this book, Francis MacDonnell explains the origins and consequences of America's Fifth Column panic, arguing that conviction and expedience encouraged President Roosevelt, the FBI, Congressmen, Churchill's government, and Hollywood to legitimate and exacerbate American's fears. Gravely weakening the isolationists, fostering Congress's role in rooting out Un-American activities, and instigating the creation of the modern intelligence establishment, the Fifth Column scare did far more than sell movie tickets, comic books, and pulp fiction. Insidious Foes traces the panic from its origins in the minds of reasonable Americans who saw the vulnerability of their open society in an age of encroaching totalitarianism.

Cautious Crusade explores how Americans viewed Nazi Germany during World War II, the extent to which the public opposed the president's vision for planning both Germany's defeat and future, and how opinion and policy interacted as the Roosevelt administration grappled with various aspects of the German problem during this period.

The Second World War stands as the most devastating and destructive global conflict in human history. More than 60 nations representing 1.7 billion people or three quarters of the world's population were consumed by its horror. Not surprisingly, therefore, World War II stands as a landmark episode in history education throughout the world and its prominent place in school history textbooks is almost guaranteed. As this book demonstrates, however, the stories that nations choose to tell their young about World War II do not represent a universally accepted ""truth"" about events during the war. Rather, wartime narratives contained in school textbooks typically are selected to instil in the young a sense of national pride, common identify, and shared collective memory. To understand this process War, Nation, Memory describes and evaluates school history textbooks from many nations deeply affected by World War II including China, France, Germany, Japan, USA, and the United Kingdom.It critically examines the very different and complex perspectives offered in many nations and analyses the ways in which textbooks commonly serve as instruments of socialisation and, in some cases, propaganda. Above all, War, Nation, Memory demonstrates that far from containing ""neutral"" knowledge, history textbooks prove fascinating cultural artefacts consciously shaped and legitimated by powerful ideological, cultural, and sociopolitical forces dominant in the present.

The Munich crisis of 1938, in which Great Britain and France decided to appease Hitler's demands to annex the Sudentenland, has provoked a vast amount of historical writing. But historians have had, until now, only a vague understanding of the roles played by the Soviet Union and by Czechoslovakia, the country whose very existence was at the center of the crisis.
In Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler, Igor Lukes explores this turbulent and tragic era from the new perspective of the Prague government itself. At the center of this study is Edvard Benes, a Czechoslovak foreign policy strategist and a major player in the political machinations of the era. The work analyzes the Prague Government's attempts to secure the existence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia in the treacherous space between the millstones of the East and West. It studies Benes's relationship with Joseph Stalin, outlines the role assigned to Czechoslovak communists by the VIIth Congress of the Communist International in 1935, and dissects Prague's secret negotiations with Berlin and Benes's role in the famous Tukhachevsky affair. Using secret archives in both Prague and Russia, this work is an accurate and original rendition of the events that sparked the Second World War.

Edward Ellsberg's The Far Shore describes in detail the massive preparations for D-Day, the launch of the greatest armada in history, focusing on Hitler's Atlantic Wall defenses along the Normandy beaches and the ingenious creation of the Mulberry artificial floating harbor which would prove vital in securing an Allied beach-head in France.

Now in paperback, revised and updated, the stirring and authoritative account of one of World War II's most highly decorated submarines "Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em "is the first book to recount the tragic and mysterious loss of the World War II submarine USS Gudgeon. In April 1944, the highly decorated submarine USS Gudgeon slipped beneath the waves in one of the most treacherous patrol areas in the most dangerous military service during World War II. Neither the Gudgeon nor the crew was ever seen again.
Author Mike Ostlund's "Uncle Bill," the operator of a farm implements business, was aboard that ship as a lieutenant junior grade. Through extensive research of patrol reports in U.S. and Japanese naval archives, interviews with veterans who had served aboard the Gudgeon before its final patrol, and the personal effects of the lost men's relatives, Ostlund has assembled the most accurate account yet of this remarkably successful submarine's exploits, of the men aboard from steward to captain, and of what we now know about her demise. "Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em" details the memories and life lessons of the young men who went to sea aboard Gudgeon before its last patrol knowing hardly anything, and came home having seen too much.

During the immediate period before World War Two, the RAF modified its command structure to rationalize for rapid expansion. Bomber Command was divided into six operational groups, each flying the same type of aircraft.returncharacterreturncharacter3 Group had almost completely re-equipped with the Wellington by 4 September 1939 to carry out the second bombing operation of the war which was against German warships off Brunsbuttel. In 1940 the first of the new four-engined bombers, the Short Stirling, came into service with the Group, being followed in 1942 by the Avro Lancaster. On 3rd/4th November 1943, No. 3 Group played a leading part in the first bombing attack in which heavy bombers made use of the radar bombing aid known as G-H. The target was Dusseldorf; bombs were dropped "blind" and good results were obtained. In July and August 1944, aircraft of this Group equipped with G-H maintained an all-weather attack against flying-bomb sites. Through the D-Day build-up, the liberation of France and conquest of Germany, formations of No. 3 Group attacked railway junctions, marshalling yards, troop concentrations, etc.returncharacterreturncharacterDuring the week ending 25th March 1945, Bomber Command made numerous attacks to prepare for the crossing of the Rhine.

Christoph Laucht offers the first investigation into the roles played by two German-born emigre atomic scientists, Klaus Fuchs and Rudolf Peierls, in the development of British nuclear culture, especially the practice of nuclear science and the political implications of the atomic scientists' work, from the start of the Second World War until 1959.

Poised on the verge of World War II, America in 1939 was a land of contrasts. The nation was finally pulling out of the Great Depression, but war-clouds gathered on the horizon. Scientific developments offered promising new advances, yet they would soon become the tools of war. This study offers a detailed look at life in this watershed year to determine how Americans understood the conditions of their day and how they turned to escapism when their burdens became too heavy. From the royal visit to the World's Fairs, most Americans looked ahead to a brighter future. Professional athletics, Hollywood films, and the Big Bands were a welcome diversion to hard times and troubling events abroad in Europe and Asia. This account highlights the most important political, economic, and social concerns of 1939. The first part, Documenting America, focuses on the major social and economic concerns of the American people in 1939. Chapter one examines religion, race, and crime, while chapters two and three consider economic difficulties and proposed solutions. Part Two, Some Golden Ages, includes chapters on the Studio era in Hollywood, Big Bands and Broadway musicals, art and architecture of the period, scientific breakthroughs, and sports notables. The final part, It Happened Over There, completes the picture with two chapters on the ominous international situation and early American efforts to deal with the impending war.

The Japanese government disposed of "dangerous animals" (not only carnivores but also herbivores, such as elephants) in zoos and circuses during World War II, including those in Japan's three "colonies"--Korea, Taiwan, and Manchukuo, Japan's puppet state in current Northeast China. Strangely, the "disposal order" was issued in August 1943, more than 15 months before U.S. B-29 air raids on Japan began. While some European zoos also destroyed their animals, none of the authorities in Europe enforced the disposal of zoo animals as systematically as the Japanese Home Ministry. No country conducted as nationwide and systematic a disposal of captive animals as Japan. This policy was an integral part of the Japanese government propaganda to mobilize the whole civilian population into total war, rather than for the ostensible purpose of public safety.

"The Seventh Million" is the first book to show the decisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Drawing on diaries, interviews, and thousands of declassified documents, Segev reconsiders the major struggles and personalities of Israel's past, including Ben-Gurion, Begin, and Nahum Goldmann, and argues that the nation's legacy has, at critical moments--the "Exodus "affair, the Eichmann trial, the case of John Demjanjuk--have been molded and manipulated in accordance with the ideological requirements of the state. "The Seventh Million" uncovers a vast and complex story and reveals how the bitter events of decades past continue to shape the experiences not just of individuals but of a nation. Translated by Haim Watzman.

Jan Karski's Story of a Secret State stands as one of the most poignant and inspiring memoirs of World War II and the Holocaust. With elements of a spy thriller, documenting his experiences in the Polish Underground, and as one of the first accounts of the systematic slaughter of the Jews by the German Nazis, this volume is a remarkable testimony of one man's courage and a nation's struggle for resistance against overwhelming oppression. Karski was a brilliant young diplomat when war broke out in 1939 with Hitler's invasion of Poland. Taken prisoner by the Soviet Red Army, which had simultaneously invaded from the East, Karski narrowly escaped the subsequent Katyn Forest Massacre. He became a member of the Polish Underground, the most significant resistance movement in occupied Europe, acting as a liaison and courier between the Underground and the Polish government-in-exile. He was twice smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto, and entered the Nazi's Izbica transit camp disguised as a guard, witnessing first-hand the horrors of the Holocaust. Karski's courage and testimony, conveyed in a breathtaking manner in Story of a Secret State, offer the narrative of one of the world's greatest eyewitnesses and an inspiration for all of humanity, emboldening each of us to rise to the challenge of standing up against evil and for human rights. This definitive edition-which includes a foreword by Madeleine Albright, a biographical essay by Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an afterword by Zbigniew Brzezinski, previously unpublished photos, notes, further reading, and a glossary-is an apt legacy for this hero of conscience during the most fraught and fragile moment in modern history.

It is increasingly important to understand the complexity of central and southeastern Europe following the enlargement of NATO into Central Europe, the ongoing problems of the Balkans, and the subsequent focus of global attention on the entire region. Gardner brings together exceptional French and Eastern European scholars who present first-hand accounts of their experience and knowledge of the region. Each provides differing political, social, cultural, and economic perspectives on Central and Southeastern Europe.

The volume begins with a general discussion of the place of central and southeastern Europe in the greater scheme of European history. This is followed by an examination of the western European and Russian attitudes toward the Balkans, and the largely ignored affects of the Ottoman empire on the Balkans. The importance of culture and the crucial role it played in undermining both the theory and practice of communism is explored. The impact of the media is then examined in two chapters that look at the process of media liberalization in the context of each country's political situation and the particular problems the media faces in the region. The focus shifts to the role of finance capital and its impact in emerging privatized economies. How the global drug wars affect the Balkan region are also explored. The ecological damage to Central and eastern Europe and Russia caused by the communist system is detailed, and the volume ends with a look at the complexity of factors that led NATO to enlarge into Central Europe and intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo. This wide-ranging collection will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers involved with all facets of contemporary central and eastern European life.