Children under the Allied bombs in France provides a unique perspective on the Allied bombing of France during the Second World War which killed around 57,000 French civilians. Using oral history as well as archival research, it provides an insight into children's wartime lives in which bombing often featured prominently, even though it has slipped out of French collective memory. How prepared were the French for this aerial onslaught? What was it like to be bombed? And how did people understand why their 'friends' across the Channel were attacking them? Divided into three parts dealing with expectations, experiences and explanations of bombing, this book considers the child's view of wartime violence, analysing resilience, understanding and trauma. It contributes significantly to scholarship on civilian life in Occupied France, and will appeal to students, academics and general readers interested in the history of Vichy France, oral history and the experiences of children in war. -- .

During the Second World War, British and Imperial forces captured more than half a million Italian soldiers, sailors and airmen. Although a symbol of military success, these prisoners created a multitude of problems for the authorities throughout the war. This book looks at how the British addressed these problems and turned liabilities into assets by using the Italians as a labor force, a source of military intelligence and as a political warfare tool before their final repatriation in 1946-47.

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"This fascinating account, told in relentless detail, deserves a wide readership."--"Choice"

International Acclaim: "Thomas has written a quite enchanting book, magnificently researched, and cleverly and wittily presented. . . . I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Quite outstanding."
--"The Irish Times"

"[This] book is mesmerizing and is an unputdownable and brilliantly researched page-turner. An important and riveting study in social history."
--"The Sunday Times"

"Donald Thomas has chronicled one of the last untold stories of the war, and he does so with scholarship as well as humor."
--"The Spectator"

"Beautifully written, utterly compelling: almost without fault in every respect."
--"The Literary Review"

While the Second World War produced numerous acts of self-sacrifice, it also made many people rich. The criminal activities of the British underworld that extended from the civilian population right through to the armed forces constitute one of the great untold stories of the war. The Blitz of 1940 may have made a nation of heroes, but in the shadows the shelter gangs and looters prowled.

Acclaimed author Donald Thomas draws on extensive archival material for these tales of profiteering. He retells how between 1940 and 1941 a Liverpool ship repairer cheated the government of the modern equivalent of $30 million, while $120 million a month was looted from relief supplies at the port of Trieste. Professional gangs raided British government offices for ration books, and underground presses counterfeited gasoline and clothing coupons by the tens of thousands. Illegal food supplies threatened the nation'shealth--a consignment of black market sausages in Hackney contained tuberculous meat, while the industrial alcohol, or "hooch," served to pilots in London's West End clubs could produce blindness and brain damage.

The Enemy Within also recounts colossal theft within the army. Vehicles would arrive at front line railheads stripped of tools, spare parts, and removable components, and whole consignments of cigarettes and razor blades disappeared.

In addition to these stories, The Enemy Within includes revealing photos of known law-breakers, victims, and illegal transactions. The facts Thomas uncovers are often so preposterous that in a novel they would seem unbelievable. These are the extraordinary and often absurd stories of less-than-heroic Britons.

Vilified in the West as the Japanese equivalent of Hitler, Hideki Tojo (1884-1948) was in fact cut from very different cloth. Lacking the skills and charisma of a statesman, fueled by no apocalyptic visions, Tojo was an unimaginative soldier whose primary goals were to establish Japan's military strength and serve his emperor. Yet his determination and ambition caused him to participate in the seizure of power when the military took over the government. WWII scholar Hoyt, a resident of Japan, relies on new sources and remarkable insight to show how Tojo and the leaders of Japan's armed forces gained control of the country, but how ambition ultimately proved to be Tojo's undoing.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Filming the End of the Holocaust considers how the US Government commissioned the US Signal Corps and other filmmakers to document the horrors of the concentration camps during the April-May 1945 liberation. The evidence of the Nazis' genocidal actions amassed in these films, some of them made by Hollywood luminaries such as John Ford and Billy Wilder, would go on to have a major impact at the Nuremberg Trials; they helped to indict Nazi officials as the judges witnessed scenes of torture, human experimentation and extermination of Jews and non-Jews in the gas chambers and crematoria. These films, some produced by the Soviets, were integral to the war crime trials that followed the Holocaust and the Second World War, and this book provides a thorough, close analysis of the footage in these films and their historical significance. Using research carried out at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the US National Archives and the film collection at the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University, this book explores the rationale for filming the atrocities and their use in the subsequent trials of Nazi officials in greater detail than anything previously published. Including an extensive bibliography and filmography, Filming the End of the Holocaust is an important text for scholars and students of the Holocaust and its aftermath.

The Nazis put a remarkable amount of effort into anti-Semitic propaganda, intending to bring ordinary Germans around to the destructive ideology of the Nazi party. Julius Streicher (1885-1946) spearheaded many of these efforts, publishing anti-Semitic articles and cartoons in his weekly newspaper, Der Sturmer, the most widely read paper in the Third Reich. Streicher won the close personal friendship of Hitler and Himmler, and drew deserved attacks from the world press. Bytwerk's biography examines Streicher's use of propaganda techniques, and the hate literature towards Jews that continued to appear after his death, bearing his influence.

Before the outbreak of WWII, French fashion represented the very pinnacle of style, and French women the epitome of chic. At home and abroad, couturiers' wealthy clients eagerly awaited the latest collections, and design houses throughout the world looked to Paris for inspiration. Unparalleled for glamour and elegance, all things French were noted and emulated - and especially French fashion.One morning in September 1939, into this idyllic world of haute couture and Cafe society came the shattering experience of war, followed by the German Occupation. French women, determined not to give way to the inevitable austerities, sought innovation: hats made from blotting paper or newspapers - the latter signalling political allegiances - and blouses made out of parachute silk, often obtained through dubious means. Not only did life go on, but creativity flourished - culottes, which enabled stylish bicycle journeys, became the vogue, and couturiers capitalized on deprivation with wit - dubbing designs 'Coal' and 'Black Coffee', or naming an entire collection after Metro stops.Fashion under the Occupation provides the only in-depth history of these blackest years in French history, long overlooked by fashion history because of the impoverished industry and deprivations that affected design. Widely acknowledged as the authoritative work on fashion during this period, it is available in English for the first time and will be essential reading for anyone interested in fashion, French cultural history, and particularly the German Occupation of France.

Appointed by Hitler to defend Nazi-held France against an imminent Allied invasion, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel saw how poor German defenses were when he arrived in Normandy in 1943. Rommel's growing awareness of the Allies' battle plans and his organization of the defense forces come into sharp focus in The Desert Fox in Normandy by World War II expert Samuel Mitcham, Jr. Mitcham uses little-known primary sources to tell the story of D-Day from the German perspective. His analysis reveals that Rommel led a brilliant campaign, despite his absence when the Allies landed. His insight and ability resulted in a powerful resistance against the invasion.

This is the inspiring and charming true story of one of the Second World War's most unusual combatants - a 500-pound cigarettesmoking, beer-drinking brown bear. Originally adopted as a mascot by the Polish Army in Iran, Wojtek soon took on a more practical role, carrying heavy mortar rounds for the troops and going on to play his part as a fully enlisted 'soldier' with his own rank and number during the Italian campaign. After the war, Wojtek, along with some of his Polish compatriots from II Corps, came to Berwickshire, where he became a significant member of the local community before subsequently moving to Edinburgh Zoo. Wojtek's retirement was far from quiet: a potent symbol of freedom and solidarity for Poles around the world, he attracted a huge amount of media interest that shows no sign of abating almost 50 years after his death.

This is a close study of the little-known attack in November 1940, by British carrier-based planes on the Italian fleet at Taranto. This was a successful raid, in which the Italian fleet was put out of World War II, the raid was studied by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and served as a textbook case for surprise and swift devastation.

The Jehovah's Witnesses endured intense persecution under the Nazi regime, from 1933 to 1945. Unlike the Jews and others persecuted and killed by virtue of their birth, Jehovah's Witnesses had the opportunity to escape persecution and personal harm by renouncing their religious beliefs. The vast majority refused and throughout their struggle, continued to meet, preach, and distribute literature. In the face of torture, maltreatment in concentration camps, and sometimes execution, this unique group won the respect of many contemporaries. Up until now, little has been known of their particular persecution.

Dorothy Dore was born in the Philippines to a British father who served there in the Spanish American War, and to a Filipina mestiza mother. This young woman was attending an exclusive private school when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941. The Japanese Imperial Army made a swift invasion of the Philippines, and Dorothy's life became a nightmare. As recounted in this moving memoir, Dorothy studied nursing so that she could support the United States Armed Forces Far East (USAFFE). She spent the war years on the run, working for the USAFFE when she could, but abandoning those duties when her family was in need. Dorothy recalls the sacrifices of her family, the brutal treatment of civilians by the Japanese, and the vainglorious actions of some of the USAFFE guerrilla leaders. It is a compelling story of love, loss, family, courage, and survival during an especially horrifying time.

This book, coinciding with the sixtieth anniversary of the Liberation of France, takes a unique approach to the events of 1944, by seeing them as shared experiences which brought ordinary Anglo-Americans and French people into contact with each other in a variety of different communities. The book looks at the Liberation through 5 case-studies: Normandy, Cherbourg, Provence, the Pyrbliogenbliogees-Orientales and Reims, and uses the words of participants at the time to describe the developing relationship between Liberators and Liberated.

Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors (encouraged by a new and flourishing culture of 'witnessing') have come forward only recently to tell their stories,Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the first chroniclers confined to Nazi-enforced ghettos to today's survivors writing as part of collective memory. Zoe Waxman shows how the conditions and motivations for bearing witness changed immeasurably. She reveals the multiplicity of Holocaust experiences, the historically contingent nature of victims' responses, and the extent to which their identities - secular or religious, male or female, East or West European - affected not only what they observed but also how they have written about their experiences. In particular, she demonstrates that what survivors remember is substantially determined by the context in which they are remembering.

"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy In "An Army at Dawn"--winner of the Pulitzer Prize--Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in "The Day of Battle," he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome.
The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the war's most complex and controversial commanders, American officers and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable.
Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank. With "The Day of Battle," Atkinson has once again given us the definitive account of one of history's most compelling military campaigns.

The many factors that led to Japan's participation in World War II, and the horrifying battles that resulted, come into focus in Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict. The book, which takes into account Japanese and Asian documents and scholarship in addition to American and European sources, chronicles events in the Pacific from 1853 to 1951. During those years, the leaders of Japan, believing in the superiority of their nation and culture, sought to dominate East Asia and the Pacific Basin. That period also saw Japan and America becoming entangled in each other's national affairs, starting when Commodore Perry's ships ended Japan's isolation policy, and continuing into the occupation by the U. S. Army following the war. Author Hoyt shows conflicting personalities and historical context that led to the rise of Japanese militarism and wars with China and Russia. Japan's War examines the decisions that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the escalating climate of violence that resulted in the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March.

Did the bombing of Japan's cities culminating in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hasten the end of World War II? Edwin Hoyt, World War II scholar and author, argues against the U. S. justification of the bombing. In his new book, Inferno, Hoyt shows how the U. S. bombed without discrimination, hurting Japanese civilians far more than the Japanese military. Hoyt accuses Major General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force leader who helped plan the destruction of Dresden, of committing a war crime through his plan to burn Japan's major cities to the ground. The firebombing raids conducted by LeMay's squadrons caused far more death than the two atomic blasts. Throughout cities built largely from wood, incendiary bombs started raging fires that consumed houses and killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. The survivors of the raids recount their stories in Inferno, remembering their terror as they fled to shelter through burning cities, escaping smoke, panicked crowds, and collapsing buildings. Hoyt's descriptions of the widespread death and destruction of Japan depicts a war machine operating without restraint. Inferno offers a provocative look at what may have been America's most brutal policy during the years of World War II.

Hollywood's South Seas and the Pacific War explores the expectations, experiences, and reactions of Allied servicemen and women who served in the wartime Pacific. Viewing the South Pacific through the lens of Hollywood's South Seas, Americans and their Allies expected to find glamorous women who resembled the famous 'sarong girl, ' Dorothy Lamour. But Dorothy was nowhere to be seen. Despite those disappointments popular images proved resilient, and at war's end the 'old' South Seas re-emerged almost unscathed. Based on extensive archival research, Hollywood's South Seas and the Pacific War explores the intersections between military experiences and cultural history.

Examines the reputation of the Hungarian musician Bela Bartok (1881-1945) as an antifascist hero. This book examines the reputation of the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (1881-1945) as an antifascist hero and beacon of freedom. Following Bartok's reception in Italy from the early twentieth century, through Mussolini's fascist regime, and into the early Cold War, Palazzetti explores the connexions between music, politics and diplomacy. The wider context of this study also offers glimpses into broader themes such as fascist cultural policies, cultural resistance, and the ambivalent political usage of modernist music. The book argues that the 'Bartokian Wave' occurring in Italy after the Second World War was the result of the fusion of the Bartok myth as the 'musician of freedom' and the Cold War narrative of an Italian national regeneration. Italian-Hungarian diplomatic cooperation during the interwar period had supported Bartok's success in Italy. But, in spite of their political alliance, the cultural policies by Europe's leading fascist regimes started to diverge over the years: many composers proscribed in Nazi Germany were increasingly performed in fascist Italy. In the early 1940s, the now exiled composer came to represent one of the symbols of the anti-Nazi cultural resistance in Italy and was canonised as 'the musician of freedom'. Exile and death had transformed Bartok into a martyr, just as the Resistenza and the catastrophe of war had redeemed post-war Italy.