Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Annotation

From the bloody beach at Omaha through the hedgerow country of Normandy and beyond, American veterans of World War II—Army engineers and infantrymen, Coast Guardsmen and Navy sailors, tank gunners and glider pilots—sit down with you across the kitchen table and talk about what they saw and experienced, tales they may have never told anyone before. World War II brought out the worst in humanity, but it also brought out the best. In these...

"Engineers of Victory" is a new account of how the tide was turned against the Nazis by the Allies in the Second World War, the focus being on the problem-solvers: Major-General Perry Hobart, who invented the "funny tanks" which flattened the curve on the D-Day beaches; Flight Lieutenant Ronnie Harker "the man who put the Merlin in the Mustang"; and Captain "Johnny" Walker, the convoy captain who worked out how to sink U-boats with a "creeping barrage"....

14 World War II veterans of the Battle of the Bulge and beyond share their intimate experiences in narrative nonfiction oral history form.

"Despite Hitler's dictates on women's place being in the home, two fiercely defiant female pilots were awarded the Iron Cross during the Second World War. Other than this unique distinction and a passion for flying that bordered on addiction, these women could not have been less alike. One was Aryan Nazi poster-girl Hanna Reitsch, an unsurpassed pilot, who is now best-known for being the last person to fly into Berlin-under-siege in April 1945, in...

"In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis, ascended to prominent, dangerous roles, and were very lucky to survive. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate...

"While the resounding American victory at Midway in June 1942 blunted Japanese momentum to a great extent, it left the opposing forces precariously balanced, particularly in the South Pacific. In Knife's Edge Robert C. Stern provides an account of the Battles of the Eastern Solomons and the Santa Cruz Islands, the two pivotal carrier air battles that followed the initial engagements at the Coral Sea and Midway between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial...

"Near the end of World War II, thousands of Allied ex-POWs were abandoned to wander the war-torn Eastern Front, modern day Ukraine. With no food, shelter, or supplies, they were an army of dying men. The Red Army had pushed the Nazis out of Russia. As they advanced across Poland, the prison camps of the Third Reich were discovered and liberated. In defiance of humanity, the freed Allied prisoners were discarded without aid. The Soviets viewed POWs...

"The extraordinary career of George Catlett Marshall--America's most distinguished soldier-statesman since George Washington--whose selfless leadership and moral character influenced the course of two world wars and helped define the American century. Winston Churchill called him World War II's "organizer of victory." Harry Truman said he was "the greatest military man that this country ever produced." Today, in our era of failed leadership, few...

Chronicles Detroit's dramatic transition from an automobile manufacturing center to a highly efficient producer of World War II airplanes, citing the essential role of Edsel Ford's rebellion against his father, Henry Ford.