American people bombed, shelled and invaded by a foreign power. Towns overrun. Americans fleeing for their lives. Americans thrown out of their homes and their businesses, enslaved, deprived of essentials, beaten, tortured, and in some cases publicly executed. Their churches closed. Their children taught to despise everything the United States stands for. Is this fantasy? Science fiction? A nightmare? No, it is history. It really happened in World War II. Included in this book are the Battle of Hawaii, the Invasion of Guam, the Siege of Wake, the Battle of Los Angeles, the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Dutch Harbor, the Invasion of Alaska, the Kiska Blitz, the Battle of Adak, the Amchitka Blitz, the Battle of the Komandorskis, the Liberation of Attu, the Liberation of Kiska, the Marianas Turkey Shoot and the Liberation of Guam. This book explains the bloody battles on US soil, in the air and at sea, and the courage that enabled every last acre of desecrated soil to be recovered so that the Stars and Stripes could be raised again over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Dietrich's Boys: the Leibstandarte is the story of a military unit. It began quite literally one man strong, with Josef 'Sepp' Dietrich assigned to be the personal bodyguard of Adolf Hitler. It ended as an armored division of the German armed forces in World War II that saw more than fifty thousand men serve in its ranks. Its prestige was great, but this was hard come by. Tarnished by misdeeds of a few of its members, and held in high respect by the German people owing to the deeds of most of its personnel, this formation was unique in the units of World War II on all sides. It began with Dietrich, an 'upstart', and it ended with an accusation of infamy that still causes fierce discussions to this very day. This is more than a military history. It is a social history of a European nation over a period of thirty years. And it is a human story of Dietrich and his boys.

Bataan Singapore Coral Sea These names have become legend in the history of World War II. Yet ABDACOM is one of those military acronyms that has faded into the mist. But at the time in 1941 and 1942 this unit title meant real flesh and blood people, real soldiers, sailors and airmen fighting a seemingly hopeless battle. Named after the American, British, Dutch and Australian armed forces, the formation also included units of the armed forces of Canada, China, New Zealand, Burma, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and the Philippines, and of lands that became Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangla Desh. The battlefield covered the greatest surface of the earth of any battlefield in the history of mankind. It encompassed the largest surrender in British military history, and the longest retreat in the history of that martial nation. Also involved was the largest surrender of US controlled troops in American history. And the second largest surrender in Dutch military history. Modern warfare was introduced to the soil of Australia for the first time. More Canadian troops were lost in one week of battle, than in the previous two years of war put together. In addition, these crippling defeats were inflicted upon Caucasian white generals and admirals by members of a non-white race. This fact alone would have massive repercussions for the latter half of the twentieth century, and more than any other single factor it would be responsible for bringing the age of colonialism to an end. Over half a million desperate men and women valiantly fought to stem the tide of Japanese aggression on the ground, in the air and at sea, and they suffered more than ninety per cent casualties. This indeed was a massacre.

This work is a battle history of every ground unit of the US Marine Corps from 1775 to 1991. It covers all sizes of units from the small embassy guards that found themselves under attack to the corps sized units such as the VMAC, which controlled the battle for Iwo Jima. It covers the entire war history of the marines on land from the Revolutionary War, through the Mexican War, Civil War, World War I, the Banana Wars, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, including the Shores of Tripoli and the Halls of Montezuma. Many small conflicts are also included from anti-pirate operations to riot duty in countless cities around the world. This is a must for anyone connected to the corps, and for anyone interested in the actual events of history detail by detail.

"Five Stars. This is a great read, which would make a really good movie. This is well worth reading if you like something that you can get your teeth into." Independent review by M. Dowden, London, UK. This book of 300 Kindle pages is an historical fiction murder mystery. In the ancient tunnels under the city of Luxembourg a boy is found murdered. Karl Pohl is the detective assigned to the case. There is a child killer out there, and he will kill again. Normally Pohl would have the power of the state behind him and the support of the local police and the people. But this is September 1944 and the country is under Nazi occupation. Pohl knows he will have no support from the Nazi state, because he is not a Nazi. And he soon learns he will get little support from the Luxembourg police, because he is a German. And he also learns he will get no support from the people, because of two little letters on his uniform. 'SS'. Pohl is also worried about his beautiful wife, who lives with him in the city. She has a secret, and it is enough to put her on the Gestapo's watch list, but not on their arrest list...at least not yet. He soon has a list of suspects, but who lined up these suspects for him? Pohl decides that someone is playing him. But who? The Gestapo? The Anti-Nazi Resistance? Pohl decides he has to break this impasse. If he can't get support from the Nazi state, can he get it from the resistance? But that would mean committing treason. And what if the killer is a member of the resistance? As the evidence points that way. There's another reason for urgency. The German front in France has collapsed, and the American Army is charging towards Luxembourg. They could be here any day, any hour. And when that happens the hunted killer will become the hunter. And Pohl will become the prey.

Internationally acclaimed historian J. Lee Ready has produced another monumental work. Avanti: Mussolini and the Wars of Italy. This book covers the Street War 1919-22, the Libyan War 1919-31, the Ethiopian War 1935-40, the Spanish Civil War 1936-39 and World War II. The book states opinions backed up by the author's forty years of research and study. Mussolini was not executed by partisans, but was killed trying to escape. Italy emerged victorious in World War II. Italian troops were praised for their bravery on all fronts. Italian arms were highly efficient at times. Mussolini was the most popular leader in Italy in centuries, and also the most vilified. Italians were guilty of major war crimes, but were never punished by the Allies. The author gives evidence for these statements and lets the reader make up his mind. Excerpts: "In general Italian infantry performed well. Sometimes they panicked, but at other times their bravery was outstanding, such as on the Franco-Italian Border 1940, and in Greece, Egypt/Libya, Eritrea/Ethiopia, Tunisia, the Russian front, Sicily, Cassino, the crawl up the Italian boot and the battles of 1945 on both sides of the line." - "The Russians saw no difference between Italian and German troops." - "The Bersaglieri were elite and consistently good, showing great audacity. At Sidi Rezegh they reassured a nervous Rommel. At Kasserine Pass they worried the Americans. On the Russian front they sliced their way through Russian hordes." - "In Sicily even Nazis praised Italian artillery." - "On Corsica the French insisted on keeping their Italian artillery in action." - "When the veterans of the US 88th Division ran up against the Italians they described them as 'elite'." - "The Royal Navy had a healthy respect for the Italian Navy." - "The American experience of fighting against Italians was gained in Tunisia, Sicily and Italy, where they encountered courageous opposition." - "British generals described Allied Italian units as 'invaluable', 'exceeded expectations', 'the bravery of the Italian troops in action is beyond question', 'they are paying a very worthwhile dividend', 'morale in these groups is very high'." - "American generals described Allied Italian units as 'valuable, without which US Fifth Army could not have operated'." - "Without Italian military efficiency there would have been no victory at Teruel, no destruction of British armor in the desert, no charge across Russia, no impressive last stands at Keren, Amba Alagi, Alamein or Enfidaville, and no partisan uprising." - "But decent leadership, such as provided by the Duke D'Aosta, Lorenzini, Nasi, Utili, Bergonzolli and Messe, was all too rare." - "Mussolini's invasion of Albania taught a predominantly Moslem people the meaning of Christianity by invading and conquering them on Easter weekend " - "Much of Moslem Libya's attitude to the world can be attributed to their treatment at the hands of the Christian Italians." - "Did the civilians of Barcelona really die because their love of their Catalonian homeland threatened Italy, or because Mussolini wanted to impress the world with his new airplanes?" - "Prior to Mussolini the only hope for a poor farm worker was to emigrate." - " Mussolini] gave Italy a boom economy that helped her sail through the Great Depression practically unharmed." - "in Mussolini's Italy the nobility slept like babes with the assurance that their privileges would still be there in the morning." - "he bought off the Roman Catholic Church with the greatest gift of all: he gave the church its own country, the Vatican." - "he whittled down the nation's major criminal families, including the 'Mafia' in Sicily." - "he created an air force that was the envy of the world, with Italian pilots as popular in the public imagination as race car drivers." Controversial and opinionative as all good histories should be, this book, Avanti, should be considered a standard work in Italian history and the story o

SS und POLIZEI: Myths and Lies of Hitler's SS and Police looks at the SS and police chronologically by comparing the statements and stories and rumors created by the SS and police about themselves with the actual reality, and points out the glaring discrepancies. E.g. the Nazis believed that racial purity was of paramount importance, and they believed the SS was the vanguard of white supremacy, specifically German supremacy. But the reality was that the race restrictions for membership in the SS were ignored or bent with feeble excuses, such as the enlistment of soldiers from Asia and Africa. The police of the Third Reich have got to be the most non-stick body of men ever to squeeze through a series of horrific events and emerge smelling like a rose. Hitler's regime was the police state par excellence, yet at the end of the war none of the Allies thought of blaming his police. The first part of the book explains the breeding ground of the SS philosophy and the importance of the police and Freikorps in shaping that philosophy. Then follows an explanation of how the SS was accepted into the government. This is followed by a description of the compartmentalizing of the SS into a myriad of departments often totally unrelated, such as an archaeological team, a psychiatric research section, a firing squad and a tank warfare school, to name but four. After this comes the story of how the Waffen SS grew in World War Two from a poor man's army operating with hand me downs and despised by the German generals into an elite 'fire brigade' force that rescued those same generals on many an occasion. Within the narrative is an analysis of the interweaving between the police and the SS. This was so intricate that in some units SS and police insignia were both worn at the same time, and some members literally did not know if they were SS or police This was further muddied when Himmler insisted on assigning duties without regard to the 'job description' of SS and police members, such as sending police regiments to the front line to battle Soviet tanks In addition the book details that 'SS' did not necessarily mean 'Nazi', nor did 'police' mean 'Nazi'. Many did not join the Nazi party, though it would have been easier for them if they had. Even some Gestapo personnel did not join the SS or the Nazi Party. The book ends with the disgusting tale of back-stabbing and betrayal, fanaticism and cowardice that marked the SS and police in the last months of the war.