Lee Heide's wartime adventures read like fiction but they are factual, brought to life by skillful characterization and dialogue. Raised in Vancouver, he was trained as a navigator and flew overseas in a Hudson aircraft in June, 1941. In England he joined an RAF crew for training on Beaufort torpedo bombers. Sent to Malta, he survived a year of the blitz on that island, with heavy losses to his squadron. Upon converting to Beaufighters he was twice posted as missing. The first time, he and his pilot were washed ashore, after five days in a dinghy, on enemy-held Elba whence they escaped by boat to Corsica. The second time his aircraft was shot up in the Aegean and forced to land in Turkey where he was interned. A meticulous recorder, Heide's descriptions of places and events in the Middle East are informative and entertaining. The title Whispering Death was the name given by the Germans to the Beaufighter--one of the outstanding attack aircraft of the war. Readers will not lightly put down this autobiography
Review
from Canadian Military History Book Review Supplement, Autumn 2000
This is another small-press memoir that brings us a dimension of war that is not widely known. The author, a Vancouver native, flew overseas in a Hudson bomber in 1941 and then, after further training in England, was posted to the Middle East, where he flew as a navigator on Beaufort and Beaufighter torpedo bombers over the Mediterranean (the title refers to the nickname given to the Beaufighter). He spent a year operating from Malta and, after conversion to Beaufighters, survived two forced landings. The first, in the sea, resulted in a five-day ordeal before he and his pilot washed ashore onthe island of Elba, from which they escaped to Corsica. This was followed by instructional duties on Cyprus, which lasted only until a pilot friend convinced him that it was better to be killed on operations than be killed by a student pilot. Heide and his pilot were posted to an operational squadron on Tobruk, and then went through a second ditching. On this occasion, they managed to reach land, but it was neutral Turkey and they were interned (albeit in quite pleasant conditions) for a short period of time before returning to the squadron. The war in the desert wound up in late 1944, and Heide was back in Canada, newly demobilized and with a DFC and a British wife, by the spring of 1945. A keen observer, Heide spins a good tale; Whispering Death is an informative and entertaining book with lots of good anecdotes and local colour.

This defining work on Hitler's elite fanatical boy soldiers details the creation and training of these teenage warriors and their baptism of fire in the Normandy campaign in World War II. Written by the division's former chief of staff, Volume 1 details all aspects of the division's history with a balanced mix of tactical and strategic accounts.

The volume looks at the renewal of interest in, and extensive re-evaluation of, the wartime occupation of France by the Nazis. The author places the phenomenon in its literary and historical context, revealing how, until 1970 a collective and predominantly Gaullist myth of the resistance was able to establish itself in France. This myth was subsequently undermined as the author shows in his survey of the works of prominent writers such as Francois Mauriac, Marcel Ayme, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Claude Simon. He also looks at some younger writers in greater detail.

Follow along as the author relates his experiences from the time he enlists in the Army Air Force in 1942, thru training as an Aviation Cadet and finally as the pilot-in-command of a B-17 Flying Fortress as the 8th Air Force mounts its attack against Hitler's Germany. Enjoy moments of humor, live incidents of aviation suspense and feel the sorrow of tragic times.

When the Romans thought they controlled the world, this was really the lands around the Mediterranean. The Asians occupied the rest of the world, most of which the West never knew existed. This is a story of Asian royals in France, Britain and the U.S. during W.W.II. They discuss religion, history and the East-West Divide. There were many alliances which were made to kepp the invaders of the West out of Asia. The Asian groups did beat the Greek and Roman Empires, as well as, the United Knights of Europe. All of the wars which occurred in the last century could have been avoided, if Asia, including Russia, had a mutual defense agreement. This was accomplished in the thirteenth century by Hun-Mongol royals. Also, there was a meeting of Asian leades in China around the middle of 2006.

This book describes the struggle for power between two totalitarian dictatorships in the north of Europe and the battle for survival of a small nation caught between them. In the Winter War of 1939-40, Finland successfully fought off a Soviet invasion. Then, with no one to turn to but Germany, it became the only democratic state in the Axis powers. Ultimately, it succeeded in extricating itself from the war and, despite the shadow of Russia looming over it, averted a communist takeover.

Eighteen essays on the failure of diplomatic efforts by the US and Japan between the two world wars--the problems that thwarted diplomacy, the possible avoidability of the Pacific War. The collection serves as a retroactive study in peace research as well as a study in diplomatic history.

The following study is primarily concerned with the unifying and destructive forces that affected the Anglo-American relationship between 1938 and 1944, as those involved searched for a strategic solution to the war in Europe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill's methods of leadership are compared and their personal relationship investigated. Anglo-American tensions are disclosed and assessed with regard to clandestine warfare, special operations and rearming the French and operation ANVIL, the invasion of southern France, is examined for its role in the Anglo-American strategic conflict.

General Motors, the largest corporation on earth today, has been the owner since 1929 of Adam Opel AG, Russelsheim, the maker of Opel cars. Ford Motor Company in 1931 built the Ford Werke factory in Cologne, now the headquarters of European Ford. In this book, historians tell the astonishing story of what happened at Opel and Ford Werke under the Third Reich, and of the aftermath today. Long before the Second World War, key American executives at Ford and General Motors were eager to do business with Nazi Germany. Ford Werke and Opel became indispensable suppliers to the German armed forces, together providing most of the trucks that later motorized the Nazi attempt to conquer Europe. After the outbreak of war in 1939, Opel converted its largest factory to warplane parts production, and both companies set up extensive maintenance and repair networks to help keep the war machine on wheels. During the war, the Nazi Reich used millions of POWs, civilians from German-occupied countries, and concentration camp prisoners as forced laborers in the German homefront economy. Starting in 1940, Ford Werke and Opel also made use of thousands of forced laborers. POWs and civilian detainees, deported to Germany by the Nazi authorities, were kept at private camps owned and managed by the companies. In the longest section of the book, ten people who were forced to work at Ford Werke recall their experiences in oral testimonies. For more than fifty years, legal and political obstacles frustrated efforts to gain compensation for Nazi-era forced labor; in the most recent case, a $12 billion lawsuit was filed against the computer giant I.B.M. by a group of Gypsy organizations. In 1998, former forced laborers filed dozens of class action lawsuits against German corporations in U.S. courts. The concluding chapter reviews the subsequent, immensely complex negotiations towards a settlement - which involved Germany, the United States, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Czech Republic, Israel and several other countries, as well as dozens of well-known German corporations.

Codenames were a vital feature of World War II, serving as mental shorthand for those in the know, and obscuring the issues for those who were not. Codenames were used from the highest level, in the planning of grand strategic moves affecting the conduct of the whole war, to the lowest command divisions, in the conduct of small-scale tactical operations. This encyclopedia, first published in 1986, removes the mystery surrounding many of the important code names from the era. With around 3,000 entries drawn from all sides - the U.K., U.S.A., Germany, the U.S.S.R. and Japan - Christopher Chant's work provides a uniquely comprehensive and full overview of major operations, names and code words. Thorough and exciting, this key reference reissue is an exceptionally valuable resource for military historians, enthusiasts and general readers with an interest in World War II.

Security and Special Operations offers the first comprehensive history of the Security Section of the Special Operations Executive and its relationship with MI5 during the Second World War. The book makes extensive use of recently declassified files in order to examine the development of liaison between the two organizations. It explores SOE's involvement with MI5's double cross operations and offers a fresh perspective on both the 'Englandspiel' disaster in Holland and the case of the notorious agent Henri Dericourt.

For much of the twentieth century, the prevalence of dictatorial regimes has left business, especially multinational firms, with a series of complex and for the most part unwelcome choices. This volume, which includes essays by noted American and European scholars such as Mira Wilkins, Gerald Feldman, Peter Hayes, and Wilfried Feldenkirchen, sets business activity in its political and social context and describes some of the strategic and tactical responses of firms investing from or into Europe to a myriad of opportunities and risks posed by host or home country authoritarian governments during the interwar period. Although principally a work of history, it puts into perspective some commercial dilemmas with which practitioners and business theorists must still unfortunately grapple.

Leadership, Direction and Legitimacy of the RAF Bomber Offensive from Inception to 1945 offers a fresh approach to the debate on the RAF's strategic bomber offensive by using modern strategic leadership theory as an analytical tool to examine the campaign. In particular, it looks at the legality and legitimacy of the offensive and explores the key interfaces between the military leaders, the politicians and allies. It also looks at the major controversies in the aims and objectives of the campaign and the personalities involved.Modern literature from the leadership field is used to consider the challenges facing those charged with the formulation and execution of the offensive. Aspects of the senior leadership disputes are also dealt with in the context of the leadership literature and in the wider context of the strategic challenges then facing Churchill, Sinclair and Portal.Furthermore there is a multi-disciplinary bent to the book that enables the reader to move beyond the narrow confines of military considerations to the thorough investigation of the legality, legitimacy and morality of the offensive that is provided.

Dramatic, highly readable, and painstakingly researched, The Great Desert Escape brings to light a little-known escape by 25 determined German sailors from an American prisoner-of-war camp.The disciplined Germans tunneled unnoticed through rock-hard, sunbaked soil and crossed the unforgiving Arizona desert. They were heading for Mexico, where there were sympathizers who could help them return to the Fatherland. It was the only large-scale domestic escape by foreign prisoners in US history. Wrung from contemporary newspaper articles, interviews, and first-person accounts from escapees and the law enforcement officers who pursued them, The Great Desert Escape brings history to life. At the US Army's prisoner-of-war camp at Papago Park just outside of Phoenix, life was, at the best of times, uneasy for the German Kreigsmariners. On the outside of their prison fences were Americans who wanted nothing more than to see them die slow deaths for their perceived roles in killing fathers and brothers in Europe. Many of these German prisoners had heard rumors of execution for those who escaped. On the inside were rabid Nazis determined to get home and continue the fight. At Papago Park in March 1944, a newly arrived prisoner who was believed to have divulged classified information to the Americans was murdered-hung in one of the barracks by seven of his fellow prisoners. The prisoners of war dug a tunnel 6 feet deep and 178 feet long, finishing in December 1944. Once free of the camp, the 25 Germans scattered. The cold and rainy weather caused several of the escapees to turn themselves in. One attempted to hitchhike his way into Phoenix, his accent betraying him. Others lived like coyotes among the rocks and caves overlooking Papago Park. All the while, the escapees were pursued by soldiers, federal agents, police and Native American trackers determined to stop them from reaching Mexico and freedom.

Romania fielded the third-largest Axis army in the European war. A military contribution of such magnitude, coupled with the delivery of oil to the German war machine and the personal respect which Ion Antonescu enjoyed from Hitler, places Romania on a par with Italy as a principal ally of Germany. Antonescu's precise role and the policies of Romania under his direction - especially towards the Jews - has been impeded in English-speaking accounts by the lack of a complete biography - this volume aims to fill this gap.

For Winston Churchill the men and women at Bletchley Park were ' the geese the laid the golden eggs' , providing important intelligence that led to the Allied victory in the Second World War. At the peak of Bletchley' s success, a total of twelve thousand people worked there of whom more than eight thousand were women. These included a former ballerina who helped to crack the Enigma Code; a debutante working for the Admiralty with a direct line to Churchill; the convent girl who operated the Bombes, the top secret machines that tested Enigma settings; and the German literature student whose codebreaking saved countless lives at D-Day. All these women were essential cogs in a very large machine, yet their stories have been kept secret. In The Debs of Bletchley Park author Michael Smith, trustee of Bletchley Park and chair of the Trust' s Historical Advisory Committee, tells their tale. Through interviews with the women themselves and unique access to the Bletchley Park archives, Smith reveals how they came to be there, the lives they gave up to do ' their bit' for the war effort, and the part they played in the vital work of ' Station X' . They are an incredible set of women, and this is their story.

This edition is the first of its kind to offer a basic collection of facsimile, English language, historical articles on all aspects of the extermination of the European Jews. A total of 300 articles from 84 journals and collections allows the reader to gain an overview of this field. The edition both provides access to the immense, rich array of scholarly articles published after 1960 on the history of the Holocaust and encourages critical assessment of conflicting interpretations of these horrifying events. The series traces Nazi persecution of Jews before the implementation of the "Final Solution", demonstrates how the Germans coordinated anti-Jewish activities in conquered territories, and sheds light on the victims in concentration camps, ending with the liberation of the concentration camp victims and articles on the trials of war criminals. The publications covered originate from the years 1950 to 1987. Included are authors such as Jakob Katz, Saul Friedlander, Eberhard Jackel, Bruno Bettelheim and Herbert A. Strauss.

From 1941-1944 Leningrad saw by far the largest-scale famine ever to occur in a developed society. This book examines the nature and consequences of the extreme conditions created by the German blockade of Leningrad between September 1941 and January 1944. Using declassified documents from Party and State archives in Moscow and St Petersburg and interviews with survivors the authors have produced the most informed and detailed analysis to date of the impact of the siege on the lives and the health of the people of Leningrad.

According to the international critical consensus, Holocaust writer Primo Levi experienced and interpreted Auschwitz through the lens of the Enlightenment and secular humanism. This book reassesses Levi's memoirs and essays in light of the posthumanist theories of Adorno, Levinas, Lyotard, and Foucault, four major thinkers that find causal links between certain Enlightenment ideas and the Nazi genocide. Jonathan Druker argues that even as Levi speaks for the victims in good faith, his texts actually reveal that Holocaust writing framed by humanist assumptions risks complicity with the murderous master narratives of Nazism and Italian Fascism. "Primo Levi and Humanism after Auschwitz "explores the consequences of this complicity for the future of Man, the universal human subject whom Levi urgently tries to defend.