This fascinating millitary history tells the intriguing tale of the bitter and attritional Winter War between the USSR and Finland in the midst of World War II. On 30 November 1939, Soviet bombers unloaded their bombs on Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Stalin's ultimatum, demanding the cession of huge tracts of territory as a buffer zone against Nazi Germany, had been rejected by the Finnish government, and now a small Baltic republic was at war with the giant Soviet military machine. But this forgotten war, fought under brutal, sub-arctic conditions, often with great heroism on both sides, proved one of the most astonishing in military history. Using guerrilla fighters on skis, even reindeer to haul supplies on sleds, heroic single-handed attacks on tanks, and with unfathomable endurance and the charismatic leadership of one of the 20th century's true military geniuses, Finland not only kept at bay but won an epic, if short-lived, victory over the hapless Russian conscripts. Its surreal engagements included the legendary "Sausage Battle", when starving Soviet troops who had over-run a Finnish encampment couldn't resist the cauldrons of hot sausage soup left behind by their opponents - and were ambushed as they stopped to sup. Although by sheer attritional weight of numbers Stalin eventually prevailed over the Finns, their pointed resistance enabled their country to remain free, even as other countries fell one by one. This book gives a telling insight into the military history of Russia, as once again Russian troops march on foreign soil, and a nation at Russia's borders fights to retain its independence.

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.

This carefully researched study is the first to chronicle the history of Allied involvement in the defense of British, French, and Dutch possessions in the Caribbean. The study is extremely well researched and well written. . . . The definitive work in this particular area of historical research, based on all available sources in English, French, and Dutch, published and unpublished. Choice Although few military campaigns were fought in the Caribbean, the region had strategic importance throughout World War II for the United States and its allies. This carefully researched study is the first to chronicle the history of Allied involvement in the defense of British, French, and Dutch possessions in the Caribbean. The first chapter examines the events and diplomacy that led in 1939 to Britain's granting the United States permission to base military facilities in Bermuda, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and to the creation of the Caribbean Sea Frontier. Later chapters detail the troubled course of British-American cooperation as U.S. military commitments--and regional dominance--increased. Also described is the role of the Netherlands, with Britain and the United States, in the defense of the oil and bauxite reserves in the Dutch Caribbean territories, and the friction between Britain and the United States over French Caribbean possessions. The final chapters analyze strategic shifts occuring as a result of the war and influencing postwar settlements negotiated for the region.

The cinema was the most popular form of entertainment during the Second World War. Film was a critically important medium for influencing opinion. Films, such as In Which We Serve and One of Our Aircraft is Missing, shaped the British people's perceptions of the conflict. British War Films, 1939-45 is an account of the feature films produced during the war, rather than government documentaries and official propaganda, making the book an important index of British morale and values at a time of desperate national crisis.

The Good War is a book about World War 2. It takes place in 1944 at the time of the Battle of the Bulge. The 981st U.S. Army is encamped in Brussels, Belgium. The 981st is made up of Engineering, Heavy Artillery, and Intelligence. The intelligence unit is sent behind enemy lines to find out what the enemy is up to. The unit is split into two groups, when one group is picked up by Belgian Partisans. The corporal Alex McDowell meets among the partisans a woman that he could fall in love with, but her overprotective brother stands in the way of their happiness. The unit now again in the Ardennes forest to fight the Battle of the Bulge. While war rages through the beautiful European landscape, partisans fight and die for freedom. One in particular Eva Rimmel, a young woman of great courage and compassion helps a unit of lost American soldiers. Her attraction to one of the soldiers is undeniable. Corporal Alex McDowell a soldier of the 981st intelligence unit was far from his home of Dallas, Texas. Separated from his unit he found the beautiful young partisan irresistible. Can their love survive a war?

In "George C. Marshall: Servant of the American Nation," a talented cast of historians and social scientists provide fresh insights and perspectives into the exceptional life of a distinguished American soldier-statesman. Marshall's extraordinary career in the first half of the twentieth century paralleled the emergence of the United States as a global power. Indeed, this great servant leader contributed substantively to almost every important event and issue comprising that rise to power. The essays collected here are organized around the major roles assumed by Marshall over those five decades and provide an unusually balanced look at the key issues of the era. As a result, they also shed important light on the legacy of his enigmatic commander in chief, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As World War II and the Nazi assault on Europe ended, some 25,000 Jews--entire families in some instances--walked out of the forests of Eastern Europe. Based on numerous interviews with these survivors, "Fugitives of the Forest" tells their harrowing and heroic stories.

The Holocaust was the systematic murder of six million European Jews by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. The horrors of the Holocaust have documented been many times. Even those that were not killed, mutilated, or starved in concentration camps were stripped of their citizenship and their identities. The Nazis did not stop there, though. Hitler, in his quest to build an empire, planned and executed the most extensive theft of art and cultural treasures in history. A group of art historians, museum curators, scholars, and others with an expertise in art accepted the enormous responsibility of traveling to the front lines of World War II in an effort to protect art before it could be stolen or recover the art that fell into the hands of the Nazis. Even more lent their expertise when the fighting ended, remaining in Europe for years after the war was over. They were called "Venus fixers" by the troops but have since come to be known as the Monuments Men. Acting on orders from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had the backing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, many of the Monuments Men - and women - put their lives on the line for art. By doing so, they preserved not just paintings, sculptures, and tapestries, but a significant portion of the culture that makes life worth living. As Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, said, "Art belongs to humanity. Art is what makes us human." This book dives into the fascinating history of one of the greatest treasure hunts of all time HistoryCaps is an imprint of BookCaps Study Guides. With each book, a brief period of history is recapped. We publish a wide array of topics (from baseball and music to science and philosophy), so check our growing catalogue regularly to see our newest books.

This set of previously out-of-print books collects together a host of valuable research spanning the breadth of topics around the Second World War. Areas covered include the air war, land battles, generalship, dictatorship and appeasement, the use of atomic weapons, propaganda, conscription and conscientious objection, civilian evacuation, refugees, resistance under occupation, and much more besides.

From North Africa to Nazi Prison Camps tells the harrowing story of a young American school teacher from the Missouri Ozarks that fulfilled his country's call to duty during World War II. This biographical account describes the courage that the author and his comrades summoned and the determination of the human spirit as the young soldiers use their tenacity and character to endure the hardships of captivity and to keep their spirits high and remain patriotic to their country. General Rommel's North African Campaign was an important front where American and German forces clashed. The 34th Division fought in the battle for Faid Pass until the majority of troops were injured, killed or captured. This true story tells the ruthless aspects of war from a medic's experience as portrayed by the author.

The Battle of Britain lasted for sixteen weeks during later 1940, yet this struggle for air supremacy was vital in thwarting Hitler's invasion threat. The Good Fight discusses wartime propaganda where "The Few," the RAF's fighter and bomber pilots, captivated the world through their combat prowess and valour. Projected through press, film, radio broadcasts and publications, this book assesses the constituencies, organisations, censorship and approaches deployed in exploiting this fortuitous opportunity, and the impact upon British morale. Charting its roots in the run up to war, it discusses the evolving propaganda coverage throughout the war years, and the post-war historiography.

In this surprising reinterpretation of Hitler's impact on the outcome of World War II, James Duffy reveals that the war was not won through American strength and ingenuity alone. Rather, it was lost due to Hitler's phenomenal military blunders. Challenging popular American views, the author shows how Nazi Germany at first substantially won the war in Europe. Yet Hitler proceeded to lose it even before the United States had entered the conflict. "Hitler Slept Late" sets the stage for each of Hitler's major errors, uncovering why each was made, what happened as a result, and how the outcome of the war might have been different had Hitler followed the advice of others. Duffy shows how Hitler's conquest of Europe ultimately failed due to two glaring faults--his inability to develop a concrete long-range plan and his maniacal belief in the strength of his own will. Offering new insight into Hitler as a military leader, this provocative study provides a clear view of Hitler's strengths and weaknesses and looks at what might have happened had he not blundered so often at vital times during the war.

Duffy begins with a look at Hitler's early victories in the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. These victories, achieved through swift surprise attacks, worked because of the indecisiveness and reluctance to act exhibited by the British and French. Hitler's most egregious errors included his belief in his own infallibility as a military leader, his failure to heed the warnings of advisers, and his ultimate decision to surround himself with yes men. Fatal strategic errors include allowing the British army to escape from Dunkirk, failing to invade Great Britain immediately after Dunkirk, and not recognizing the primary importance of Moscow as a target in the Soviet invasion. These character flaws and leadership foibles, as described and analyzed in "Hitler Slept Late," vividly illustrate the words of Sir Christopher Foxley Norris, retired Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force: Had it not been for Hitler, the Germans] would have won.

The purpose of this book is two-fold. First, it presents in a single place a coherent account of the tumultuous naval events that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1940 and 1945 during World War II. Second, the book aims to demonstrate in an interesting fashion what naval warfare in the narrow seas is really like.

Koburger demonstrates that there was a definite Allied strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War II. He delineates that strategy, showing its two halves, and demonstrates the roles of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. Koburger contends that the Eastern Mediterranean offers an excellent example of what warfare in the narrow seas is about. He remains convinced that, in the 1990s, the narrow seas are where the wars are going to be. This book will be of interest to policymakers, the military, and military historians.

After the Soviets trapped the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and his Army Group Don orchestrated a dramatic reversal of fortune between November 1942 and March 1943, enabling Germany to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front and continue fighting for two more years. Sadarananda relies on an in-depth analysis of war diaries to piece together the course of this pivotal campaign and shows how Manstein brilliantly anticipated Soviet moves and effectively handled an indecisive Hitler.

British Writing of the Second World War investigates representations of violence and the relationship of imaginative literature to propaganda and politics. A wide-ranging survey of familiar and forgotten wartime writers, it focuses in greatest detail on the Blitz, military aviation, North Africa, war aims, POWs and the Holocaust. The book theorizes the role of culture in the prosecution of war, gives a richly-textured historical account of contemporary responses to Britains Second World War, and provides a substantial bibliographical resource for future research.