A story of espionage that could have changed the course of history and saved thousands of American and British lives - and millions of Asian lives. 'On the night of 3 December 1941, I could not fall asleep,' Kilsoo Haan remembered. 'I went to the Chop Suey House, the Chinese Lantern, and ordered a bowl of Chinese soup. Next to my table, a Japanese was trying to sell a Chinese a second-hand automobile. After the Japanese left, the Chinese said to me, "You like to buy cheap automobile?" After a pause he said, "This Japanese is selling four automobiles owned by the Japanese Embassy workers because they are going to Japan pretty soon... Oh so cheap."' Four days later the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Before the Second World War, Korean-American Kilsoo Haan repeatedly warned the United States about the Japanese attack and accurately supplied every conceivable detail as relayed to him by Korean agents: midget submarines as well as aircraft at Pearl Harbor, then giant submarine aircraft carriers on the high seas that almost bombed San Diego with plague germs until Tojo cancelled the air strike, and a joint Chinese-Japanese attack - Operation Ichi-Go - against the American and Chinese Nationalist forces, which drove through Chiang Kai-shek's much larger army. When US political bungling helped to create a Communist North Korea, Haan continued to supply information about Soviet nuclear tests in Siberia, the development of Soviet guided missiles, and the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea, which led to thousands of American and British casualties. He was ignored. The story of American influence in Korea and dealings with Japan provides a little-known new perspective on the Pacific War and remains a factor today in international politics. Author John Koster explains the tragic and bloody entangled histories of Japan, China and Korea that form the backdrop to this extraordinary story.

Italy's declaration of war on Britain in June 1940 had devastating consequences for Italian immigrant families living in Scotland signalling their traumatic construction as the 'enemy other'. Through an analysis of personal testimonies and previously unpublished archival material, this book takes a case study of a long-established immigrant group and explores how notions of belonging and citizenship are undermined at a time of war. Overall, this book considers how wartime events affected the construction or Italian identity in Britain. It makes a groundbreaking and original contribution to the social and cultural history of Britain during World War Two as well as the wider literature on war, memory and ethnicity. It will appeal to scholars and students of British and Scottish cultural and social history and the history of World War II. -- .

In the last two decades our empirical knowledge of the Holocaust has been vastly expanded. Yet this empirical blossoming has not been accompanied by much theoretical reflection on the historiography. This volume argues that reflection on the historical process of (re)constructing the past is as important for understanding the Holocaust-and, by extension, any past event-as is archival research. It aims to go beyond the dominant paradigm of political history and describe the emergence of methods now being used to reconstruct the past in the context of Holocaust historiography.

With the end of World War I, a new Republic of Poland emerged on the maps of Europe, made up of some of the territory from the first Polish Republic, including Wolyn and Wilno, and significant parts of Belarus, Upper Silesia, Eastern Galicia, and East Prussia. The resulting conglomeration of ethnic groups left many substantial minorities wanting independence.

The approach of World War II provided the minorities' leaders a new opportunity in their nationalist movements, and many sided with one or the other of Poland's two enemies -- the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany -- in hopes of achieving their goals at the expense of Poland and its people. Based on primary and secondary sources in numerous languages (including Polish, German, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian and English), this work examines the roles of the ethnic minorities in the collapse of the Republic and in the atrocities that occurred under the occupying troops. The Polish government's response to mounting ethnic tensions in the prewar era and its conduct of the war effort are also examined.

"In Guerrilla in Striped PantS," Walter W. Orebaugh, a former U.S. diplomat, gives an account of his adventures behind the lines in Italy during World War II--a courageous odyssey which won him his country's acclaim as a hero and the Medal of Freedom, its highest civilian decoration, for exceptionally meritorious and courageous service . . . behind the German lines and for courage, resourcefulness and coolness under fire. The drama of Orebaugh's capture by the Italian army, his internment in the mountains, and his subsequent escape is punctuated by his heroic smuggling of two companions out of danger, his encounter with a glamorous Hungarian spy, and his treacherous journey through enemy territory to freedom.

Orebaugh's account is a personal adventure story containing all the elements of danger, intrigue, and courage which will grip the reader's imagination. The fact that it accurately recounts an important moment in history intensifies the drama, and affirms how ingenuity and daring feats can be performed by ordinary people in times of great peril.

The division of Europe between East and West, born during World War II, not only denied independence to more than 100 million East Europeans, but upset the balance of global power, putting Stalin in a position to threaten Western Europe and planting the seeds of the Cold War and the arms race. This book probes the questions and facts surrounding the division of Europe and offers new insight into how it might have been prevented. Looking beyond the conventional assumption that Stalin simply took over Eastern Europe in the postwar years, Remi Nadeau demonstrates how the Soviet leader, having gained power in Eastern Europe through Red Army occupation, was unrestrained by any prior Allied agreements. The Sovietization of Eastern Europe, which is commonly believed to have occurred in the immediate postwar years, actually came about during the war as the Allies failed to limit Stalin. Nadeau shows how the British, who recognized the Soviet threat, repeatedly tried to block it and how Roosevelt, with a different foreign policy approach, did not support them. But, as the author states in his preface, this is not a story of American wrongdoing, but of American innocence.

Well researched and thorough in its arguments, this book demonstrates how Roosevelt's failure to throw U.S. strength into the political balance was not confined to the Yalta Conference in 1945, but was a consistent U.S. policy in East-West encounters throughout the war. Nadeau shows that Roosevelt did not understand Stalin's intentions and repeatedly failed to support Churchill's attempts to block Stalin with diplomatic bargaining and military preemption. Written in a highly readable style and full of little-known historical detail, this book will appeal to any student of World War II, Eastern Europe, or European history.

World War II B-24 crew beats the odds over Pacific waters.

"Brothers at Daybreak" tells the intimate story of 11 boys who got together in 1944 to fight World War II from the air above the vast Pacific Ocean. The young members of Pilot Frank Jeter's flight crew took their role in defeating the Japanese one mission and one day at a time. They stuck together to face the constant threat of falling out of the sky in war- weary B-24 bombers that lost engines and ran out of fuel at the most inopportune times.

The Jeter Crew's time together wasn't all tragic and sad, however. They thoroughly enjoyed their time away from war and quickly learned the art of shutting out fear and grief with a bottle of beer or a shot of whiskey. "Brothers at Daybreak" chronicles the Jeter Crew's postwar lives and the enduring bond of brotherhood they never allowed to loosen.

The events of 1939-1945 had such a dramatic impact on the world that it is easy to forget that Allied victory was far from certain, especially in the early part of the war when both the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific were sweeping all before them. History of World War II chronicles the war as it happened, focusing on key battles and events that act as signposts in the slow change of fortunes of either side. Divided into two sections, one on each major theatre, the book describes such famous events as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battle of Stalingrad, the Normandy landings, the fall of Berlin, and the struggle for Iwo Jima. Linking each famous event is an in-depth chronology detailing other events happening elsewhere, building into a snapshot of the war at that point. In each section are spreads comparing and contrasting the strengths of essential weapons in that battle: fighter aircraft in the Battle of Britain, tanks at Kursk, landing aircraft at D- Day and in the Pacific. Each of these spreads is packed with colourful diagrams, graphs and charts to help you grasp the relative strengths of, for example, different aircraft carriers at the Battle of Midway, US versus Japanese small arms at Okinawa and anti- tank guns in the Normandy campaign, among many other engagements. The final part of the book provides a chronology of the war. Highly illustrated with colour maps and both colour and black-and-white photographs and colour artworks, History of World War II is a both a handy reference volume on the progress of the conflict and the weapons used to fight it.

At 17, Curtis "Kojo" Morrow enlisted in the United States Army and joined the 24th Infantry Regiment Combat Team, originally known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Seven months later he found himself fighting a bloody war in a place he had never heard of: Korea. During nine months of fierce combat, Morrow developed not only a soldier's mentality but a political consciousness as well. Hearing older men discussing racial discrimination in both civilian and military life, he began to question the role of his all-black unit in the Korean action. Supposedly they were protecting freedom, justice, and the American way of life, but what was that way of life for blacks in the United States? Where was the freedom? Why were the Buffalo Soldiers laying their lives on the line for a country in which African-American citizens were sometimes denied even the right to vote? Morrow's story of his service in the United States Army is a revealing portrait of life in the army's last all-black unit, a factual summary of that unit's actions in a bloody "police action", and a personal memoir of a boy becoming a man in a time of war.

This is the first comprehensive study in English of Soviet women who fought against the genocidal, misogynist, Nazi enemy on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Drawing on a vast array of original archival, memoir, and published sources, this book captures the everyday experiences of Soviet women fighting, living and dying on the front.

Casting new light on a controversial aspect of wartime British foreign policy, this book traces the process by which the British authorities came to offer their backing to Colonel Draza Mihailovic, leader of the non-Communist resistance movement which emerged after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. It also examines why British confidence in Mihailovic was subsequently eroded, to the point where serious consideration was given to transferring support to his avowed enemies, the Communist-led Partisans.

Despite the Second World War and the Holocaust, post-war Britain was not immune to fascism. By 1948, a large and confident fascist movement had been established, with a strong network of local organizers and public speakers, and an audience of thousands. However, within two years the fascists had collapsed under the pressure of a successful anti-fascist campaign. This book explains how it was that fascism could grow so fast, and how it then went into decline.

This is the first serious analysis of the combat capability of the British army in the Second World War. It sweeps away the myth that the army suffered from poor morale, and that it only won its battles through the use of 'brute force' and by reverting to the techniques of the First World War. Few soldiers were actively eager to close with the enemy, but the morale of the army never collapsed and its combat capability steadily improved from 1942 onwards.

This is the only book available that tells the full story of how the U.S. government, between 1942 and 1945, detained nearly half a million Nazi prisoners of war in 511 camps across the country. With a new introduction and illustrated with more than 70 rare photos, Krammer describes how, with no precedents upon which to form policy, America's handling of these foreign prisoners led to the hasty conversation of CCC camps, high school gyms, local fairgrounds, and race tracks to serve as holding areas. The Seattle Times calls Nazi Prisoners of War in America "the definitive history of one of the least known segments of America's involvement in World War II. Fascinating. A notable addition to the history of that war."

The Civil War and the World War II stand as the two great cataclysms of American history. They were our two costliest wars, with well over a million casualties suffered in each. And they were transforming moments in our history as well, times when the life of the nation and the great experiment in democracy--government of the people, by the people, for the people--seemed to hang in the balance. Now, in War Comes Again, eleven eminent historians--including three Pulitzer Prize winners, all veterans of the Second World War--offer an illuminating comparison of these two epic events in our national life.
The range of essays here is remarkable, the level of insight consistently high, and the quality of the writing is superb. For instance, Stephen Ambrose, the bestselling author of D-Day, June 6th, 1944, offers an intriguing comparison of the two great military leaders of each war--Grant and Eisenhower. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Robert V. Bruce takes a revealing look at the events that foreshadowed the two wars. Gerald Linderman, author of Embattled Courage, examines the two wars from the point of view of the combat soldier. And Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., describes how both Lincoln and FDR went around strict observance of the Constitution in order to preserve the Constitution. There is, in addition, a fascinating discussion of the crucial role played by spying during the two wars, by Peter Maslowski; a look at the diplomacy of Lincoln and Roosevelt, by Howard Jones; and essays on the impact of the wars on women and on African Americans, by D'Ann Campbell, Richard Jensen, and Ira Berlin. In perhaps the most gripping piece in the book, Michael C.C. Adams offers an unflinching look at war's destructiveness, as he argues that the evils we associate with "bad wars" (such as Vietnam) are equally true of "good wars." And finally, in perhaps the most provocative essay in the book, Russell Weigley, one of America's most eminent military historians, maps the evolution of American attitudes toward war to our present belief that the only acceptable war is one that is short, inexpensive, and certain of victory. Would any great commander, Weigley asks, would a Lee or a Grant or a Marshall, refuse to fight unless he knew he couldn't lose? "Is not a willingness to run risks for the sake of cherished values and interests close to the heart of what defines greatness in a human being or in a nation?"
Another Pulitzer winner and World War II veteran, Don E. Fehrenbacher, concludes War Comes Again with a very personal look at two common soldiers who have no monuments, who have not been mentioned in previous histories, but who point at the essence of these two wars and are "embedded in the very structure of the enduring nation and the world we live in."

This is the first detailed study of Britain's open source intelligence (OSINT) operations during the Second World War, showing how accurate and influential OSINT could be and ultimately how those who analysed this intelligence would shape British post-war policy towards the Soviet Union. Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the enemy and neutral press covering the German occupation of the Baltic states offered the British government a vital stream of OSINT covering the entire German East. OSINT was the only form of intelligence available to the British from the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union, due to the Foreign Office suspension of all covert intelligence gathering inside the Soviet Union. The risk of jeopardising the fragile Anglo-Soviet alliance was considered too great to continue covert intelligence operations. In this book, Wheatley primarily examines OSINT acquired by the Stockholm Press Reading Bureau (SPRB) in Sweden and analysed and despatched to the British government by the Foreign Research and Press Service (FRPS) Baltic States Section and its successor, the Foreign Office Research Department (FORD). Shedding light on a neglected area of Second World War intelligence and employing useful case studies of the FRPS/FORD Baltic States Section's Intelligence, British Intelligence and Hitler's Empire in the Soviet Union, 1941-1945 makes a new and important argument which will be of great value to students and scholars of British intelligence history and the Second World War.

The early twentieth-century advent of aerial bombing made successful evacuations essential to any war effort, but ordinary people resented them deeply. Based on extensive archival research in Germany and France, this is the first broad, comparative study of civilian evacuations in Germany and France during World War II. The evidence uncovered exposes the complexities of an assumed monolithic and all-powerful Nazi state by showing that citizens' objections to evacuations, which were rooted in family concerns, forced changes in policy. Drawing attention to the interaction between the Germans and French throughout World War II, this book shows how policies in each country were shaped by events in the other. A truly cross-national comparison in a field dominated by accounts of one country or the other, this book provides a unique historical context for addressing current concerns about the impact of air raids and military occupations on civilians.

Is there really such a thing as Jewish music? And how does it survive as a practice of worship and cultural expression even in the face of the many brutal aesthetic and political challenges of modernity? In Jewish Music and Modernity, Philip V. Bohlman imparts these questions with a new light that transforms the very historiography of Jewish culture in modernity.
Based on decades of fieldwork and archival study throughout the world, Bohlman intensively examines the many ways in which music has historically borne witness to the confrontation between modern Jews and the world around them. Weaving a historical narrative that spans from the end of the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, he moves through the vast confluence of musical styles and repertories. From the sacred and to the secular, from folk to popular music, and in the many languages in which it was written and performed, he accounts for areas of Jewish music that have rarely been considered before. Jewish music, argues Bohlman, both survived in isolation and transformed the nations in which it lived. When Jews and Jewish musicians entered modernity, authenticity became an ideal to be supplanted by the reality of complex traditions. Klezmer music emerged in rural communities cohabited by Jews and Roma; Jewish cabaret resulted from the collaborations of migrant Jews and non-Jews to the nineteenth-century metropoles of Berlin and Budapest, Prague and Vienna; cantors and composers experimented with new sounds. The modernist impulse from Felix Mendelssohn to Gustav Pick to Arnold Schoenberg and beyond became possible because of the ways music juxtaposed aesthetic and cultural differences.
Jewish Music and Modernity demonstrateshow borders between repertories are crossed and the sound of modernity is enriched by the movement of music and musicians from the peripheries to the center of modern culture. Bohlman ultimately challenges readers to experience the modern confrontation of self and other anew.

What was the relationship between German big business and the Third Reich? To what extent did business leaders collaborate with the Nazis? This book examines the experience of the Daimler-Benz company-one of Germany's most important armament manufacturers and automobile makers-from its formation in 1926 through the end of World War II. Based on a substantial body of new material from formerly inaccessible East German archives and previously closed Mercedes-Benz AG records, the book reveals for the first time a close association between the car manufacturer and the Nazi system, from 1933 onwards. Neil Gregor traces the early history of the Daimler-Benz company and examines how opportunities offered by Nazi rearmament in the 1930s led to its rapid expansion and a surge in profits. Focusing mainly on the war years, Gregor demonstrates how the company succeeded in exploiting the demands of the war economy while situating its operations most advantageously for resumption of commercial activity in peacetime. Despite Allied bombing, says Gregor, Daimler-Benz AG emerged from the war in good shape-with a clear operating strategy, a largely intact inventory, and core production lines geared for the peacetime market. With its own interests and preservation as prime motives, the company acquiesced in the exploitation of forced labor, thereby actively intensifying the suffering of civilians, prisoners of war, and Jews and other victims of concentration camps. He concludes that the ability of Daimler-Benz to protect its interests during the war and to manage the transition to peace was predicated upon collusion in the racial barbarism of the Nazi regime.