|
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations
Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France
by Nicholas Shakespeare is a transcendent work of narrative
nonfiction in the vein of The Hare with Amber Eyes.
When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a trunk full of his
late aunt's personal belongings, he was unaware of where this
discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden
past. The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his
childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman
who emerged from the trove of love letters, journals and
photographs, surrounded by suitors and living the precarious
existence of a British citizen in a country controlled by the enemy
during World War II.
As a young boy, Shakespeare had always believed that his aunt
was a member of the Resistance and had been tortured by the
Germans. The truth turned out to be far more complicated.
Piecing together fragments of his aunt's remarkable and tragic
story, Priscilla is at once a stunning story of detection, a loving
portrait of a flawed woman trying to survive in terrible times, and
a spellbinding slice of history.
"An author's quest to discover what really happened to his uncle
in World War II"
To all appearances, Anthony "Tony" Korkuc was just another
casualty of World War II. A gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress,
Korkuc was lost on a bombing mission over Germany, and his family
believed that his body had never been recovered. But when they
learned in 1995 that Tony was actually buried at Arlington National
Cemetery, his nephew Bob Korkuc set out on a seven-year quest to
learn the true fate of an uncle he never knew.
"Finding a Fallen Hero" is a compelling story that blends a
wartime drama with a primer on specialized research. Author Bob
Korkuc initially set out to learn how his Uncle Tony came to rest
at Arlington. In the process, he also unraveled the mystery of what
occurred over the skies of Germany half a century ago.
Korkuc dug up military documents and private letters and
interviewed people in both the United States and Germany. He
tracked down surviving crewmembers and even found the brother of
the Luftwaffe pilot who downed the B-17. Dozens of photographs help
readers envision both Tony Korkuc's fateful flight and his nephew's
dogged search for the truth.
A gripping chronicle of exhaustive research, "Finding a Fallen
Hero" will strike a chord with any reader who has lost a family
member to war. And it will inspire others to satisfy their own
unanswered questions.
Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is the most colorful and popular of Douglas Southall Freeman's works. A sweeping narrative that presents a multiple biography against the flame-shot background of the American Civil War, it is the story of the great figures of the Army of Northern Virginia who fought under Robert E. Lee. The Confederacy won resounding victories throughout the war, but seldom easily or without tremendous casualties. Death was always on the heels of fame, but the men who commanded -- among them Jackson, Longstreet, and Ewell -- developed as leaders and men. Lee's Lieutenants follows these men to the costly battle at Gettysburg, through the deepening twilight of the South's declining military might, and finally to the collapse of Lee's command and his formal surrender in 1865. To his unparalleled descriptions of men and operations, Dr. Freeman adds an insightful analysis of the lessons learned and their bearing upon the future military development of the nation. Accessible at last in a one-volume edition abridged by noted Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears, Lee's Lieutenants is essential reading for all Civil War buffs, students of war, and admirers of the historian's art as practiced at its very highest level.
'Lucid and damning ... an absorbing - and infuriating - tale of
complicity, coverup and denial' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of
EMPIRE OF PAIN A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis
helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third
Reich and World War II - and how the world allowed them to get away
with it. In 1946, Gunther Quandt - patriarch of Germany's most
iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW - was
arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he
had been forced to join the party by his arch-rival, propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt
lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have
only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their
reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of
them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic
brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the
dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz and still
control Porsche, Volkswagen and BMW has remained hidden in plain
sight - until now. In this landmark work, investigative journalist
David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany's wealthiest
business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the
atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources,
de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured
slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler's
army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong
exposes how the wider world's political expediency enabled these
billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a
bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.
'Eject! Eject!' When the call is made to abandon an aircraft, it's
only the beginning of the story... From the Sunday Times
bestselling writer John Nichol, author of Spitfire, Lancaster and
Tornado, comes a brilliant new book that reveals the astonishing
story of an invention that has saved many thousands of lives around
the world, including his own: the ejection seat. Nichol tells the
remarkable tale of how the ejection seat was first conceived during
the Second World War as countless lives were lost in accidents and
in battle. In the wake of the war, that technological race to save
aircrew lives using explosive seats continued at an incredible
pace. Nichol tells the story of the brave men who risked their
lives testing those early devices, and interviewed the first
British pilot to eject back in 1949, when ejection, from pulling
the handle to being under the parachute, took thirty seconds.
Today, that figure is down to around one second. Packed with
interviews with aircrew who know exactly how it feels to 'Bang Out'
from an aircraft at high speed, both in peace and in war, the book
gives the reader a vivid sense of what that life-saving experience
feels like, but also features the moving accounts of what happens
next, from the viewpoint of both the crews and their families, who
often have little or no information about whether or not their
loved ones have survived. Because ejecting is just the start of a
journey..... Packed with dramatic action, incredible science and
moving recollections, Eject! Eject! is an essential read.
Illustrated with detailed artworks of American, British, Canadian,
Australian, French, Polish and other Western Allied nations tanks
and their markings with exhaustive captions and specifications,
World War II Tanks: Western Allies 1939-45: Identification Guide
offers an highly-illustrated guide to the main armoured fighting
vehicles used by the Western Allies during World War II. This
compact volume includes sample unit structures and orders of battle
from company up to corps level. Organised by division, the book
offers a comprehensive survey of Western Allied armoured fighting
vehicles by campaign, including the fall of Poland, the defence of
the Low Countries and France, desert warfare in North Africa, the
push through Italy, the Normandy landings, the Battle of the Bulge
and the final defeat of Germany. All the major and many minor tanks
are featured, with variations of the M4 Sherman, Churchill and
Matilda, as well as mat-laying, engineering and mine-clearing
versions. Lesser known models from the early years of the war,
armoured cars, halftracks, trucks and amphibious vehicles make this
a rounded compendium of Western Allied armoured fighting vehicles.
Packed with more than 200 full-colour artworks and photographs with
exhaustive specifications, World War II Tanks: Western Allies
1939-45 is a key reference guide for military modellers and World
War II enthusiasts.
|
|