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Hardback. Condizione: Good. Wurst, a rifleman, spent the most of World War II in the European Theater of Operations as a squad leader or platoon sergeant in Company F, 505. He made three of the four regimental combat jumps, dropping into Italy, Normandy, and Holland. Highlights include his baptism of fire in Italy during the Battle of Arnone; the jump on D-Day and the liberation of Ste. Mere Eglise (for which he was awarded a Purple Heart); a grueling month of combat in the hedgerows of Normandy (a second Purple Heart); the ferocious battle with the SS for the highway bridge at Nijmegen, Holland (Silver Star); and survival in the Ardennes, where he found himself as point man on his twentieth birthday, in a long, bitter march toward the shoulder of the Bulge.Wurst's narrative, set against a carefully researched historical background, offers a unique view of the heat of battle as experienced by a noncommissioned officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. Initial chapters chronicle his training before mobilization, when he lied about his age (15) to the National Guard in Erie, Pennsylvania, and his later experience in a heavy weapons company of the 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. In 1941, Wurst was on a truck returning from First Army maneuvers in the Carolinas to Indiantown Gap Military Reservation when he heard the news of the attack at Pearl Harbor. He recounts life at Camps Livingston and Beauregard in Louisiana, and at the newly formed Parachute School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was stationed in the infamous Frying Pan area. Descending from the Clouds portrays the passage from innocence to experience. Wurst begins as a 135-pound kid marching down his hometown streets in the National Guard, wearing the remnants of a World War I uniform and pulling by hand a water-cooled .30-caliber machine-gun mounted on a wooden cart. Five years later, he is a hardened platoon sergeant, leading his troopers through the frozen killing fields of Death Valley in Germany's Huertgen Forest. His story is the story of the coming of age of the American military: fewer than twenty men per company who started with the 505 in the Frying Pan returned home.REVIEWS gives a good sense of the confusion of airborne operations and close combat makes an excellent book for company level leader development on the subjects of discipline, training, and combat leadership. Army History, Winter 2010 ranks as one of the best war memoirs written by a World War II veteran.Library Journal, 2005.…

Paperback. Condizione: Good. This is the story of George L. Cooper, who flew 74 missions in B-25 strafers over the Pacific.

Hardback. Condizione: Good. A comprehensive history of the U.S. Ninth Army, from its formation and organization, through its constituent units and commanders to narrative of the key battles it took part in August 1944May 1945.

Hardback. Condizione: Good. First in a trilogy of books comprising a general history of war in the Asia Pacific, from the origins of enmity between Japan and China, through Japans ascendancy in the early years of World War II.

Paperback. Condizione: Very Good. This is the story of George L. Cooper, who flew 74 missions in B-25 strafers over the Pacific.

Hardback. Condizione: Good. He was one of the last great foreign correspondents Larry Meredith, United Press The story of how Guard gate-crashed journalism is in itself an epic. Newspaper World magazine .rate with the best reporting of this or any other war.

Paperback. Condizione: Very Good. Written by a proven combat leader and leadership expert, this book is an invaluable guide to anyone wanting to improve their leadership skills.

Hardback. Condizione: Very Good. History plays tricks sometimes. During the course of America's experience it has enshrined an exceptional few military leaders in our collective consciousness as great, while ignoring others often equally as deserving. In the Shadows of Victory takes a look at an array of American battlefield commanders who were as responsible for triumph as their more famous peers, yet have often gone unsung. For example, few of the thousands who pass by the traffic square between Fifth Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan each day realize that it houses a tomb. Fewer still understand that beneath the obelisk rests one of America's best military commanders--William Worth--a hero in not one but two of the nation's wars. Similarly, the Civil War general who never lost a battle and who many military historians believe fought one of the two most perfect battles in history was not Grant, Sherman, Lee, or Jackson; it was Thomas--who never extolled his own cause but in all likelihood saved his nation's. From the War of Independence, through the Mexican War and Civil War, and during the numerous Indian wars throughout, great combat leaders have emerged across America's battlefields, yet have just as suddenly slipped through the cracks of history once the guns went silent. At the same time conflicts themselves have often disappeared from consciousness, the public forgetting the fights the country waged against the Barbary Pirates, the British in 1812, and against the Seminoles and Apaches. In the Shadows of Victory describes the heroics and command acumen of 25 superb military leaders whose sacrifice and skill have often been neglected. As such it provides a fascinating tour through early American military history and the various martial challenges the young nation faced during its first century of existence.…

Hardback. Condizione: Fair. A Selection of the Military and History Book ClubsA startling new analysis of one of America's most glorious battles . . .Contrary to movie and legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo in the war for Texan independence--including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William B. Travis--did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry. Instead the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness, forcing a wild melee inside the fort before many of its defenders had even awoken.In this book, Dr. Tucker, after deep research into recently discovered Mexican accounts and the forensic evidence, informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: most of the Alamo's defenders died in breakouts from the fort, cut down by Santa Anna's cavalry that had been pre-positioned to intercept the escapees.To be clear, a number of the Alamo's defenders hung on inside the fort, fighting back every way they could. Captain Dickinson, with cannon atop the chapel (in which his wife hid), fired repeatedly into the Mexican throng of enemy cavalry until he was finally cut down. The controversy on Crockett still remains, though the recently authenticated diary of the Mexican de la Pena offers evidence that he surrendered.The most startling aspect of this book is that most of the Texans, in two gallantly led groups, broke out of the fort after the enemy had broken in, and the primary fights took place on the plain outside. Still fighting desperately, the Texans' retreat was halted by cavalry, and afterward Mexican lancers plied their trade with bloodcurdling charges into the midst of the remaining resisters.Notoriously, Santa Anna burned the bodies of the Texans who had dared stand against him. As this book proves in thorough detail, the funeral pyres were well outside the fort--that is, where the two separate groups of escapers fell on the plain, rather than in the Alamo itself.PHILLIP THOMAS TUCKER earned his Ph.D. in American History from St. Louis University in 1990. The author or editor of more than 20 books on military history, several of which have won national and state awards for scholarship, he has worked as a U.S. Air Force Historian for nearly two decades in Washington, DC.…

Hardback. Condizione: Good. Personal letters detailing a soldiers analysis of the war and day-to-day life on the front line Astonishing contemporary photographs bring the many colourful characters vividly to life Though the United States was late to enter the Great War, a number of idealistic young Americans wished to take part from the beginning.…

Hardback. Condizione: Good. The gallant stand of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne has long become part of historical and media legend. But how many students of the war realize there was already a U.S. unit holding the town when they arrived? And this unit the 10th Armored Division continued to play a major role in its defense throughout the German onslaught.In The Tigers of Bastogne, authors King and Collins finally detail the travails of this young armored division, which had only arrived in Europe that fall, yet found itself subject to the full brunt of Manteuffel s Fifth Panzer Army in the Ardennes. At first overwhelmed, and then falling back to protect the vital crossroads, the 10th Armored was reinforced (not saved ) by the Screaming Eagles, and its men and tanks went on to contribute largely to America s victory in its largest battle of the war.The 10th Armored had only arrived in Europe that September, as part of Patton s Third Army, and their divisional motto, Terrify and Destroy, was somewhat belied by the onslaught of Nazi panzers that burst across no-man s-land on December 16. Instead their nickname, The Tiger Division, became fully earned, as they went on the defensive at Bastogne, surrounded by an entire German army, yet refused to concede a single inch of ground not earned with blood.General Anthony McAuliffe, of the 101st Airborne (and Nuts fame), said, It seems regrettable to me that Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division didn t get the credit it deserved at the battle of Bastogne. All the newspaper and radio talk was about the paratroopers. Actually the 10th Armored Division was in there a day before we were and had some very hard fighting before we ever got into it. Fortunately, in this book, the historical record is finally corrected. With their trademark style, King and Collins, through their firsthand interviews with veterans, bring us straight into the combats of the 10th Armored, equaling the balance between the brave paratroopers and gallant tankers who, together, held off Germany s last major offensive in the West.REVIEWS .a story which needed to be told. definitely a volume worth reading as we look to gain all of the information possible before the primary source of the Greatest Generation is gone.Journal of America's Military Past This is a superb detailed account of a less familiar aspect of a famous battle, often providing platoon by platoon and day-by-day details of the role played by the men of the US 10th Armored Division in the defensive of Bastogne, and thus in the wider Allied victory in the Battle of the BulgeHistory of War.…

Hardback. Condizione: Good. John S. 'Slew' McCain was an old-school sailor. Wiry, profane, a cusser and a gambler, he reminded more than one observer of 'Popeye.' He was also a pioneer in the hard-hitting naval tactics that brought Imperial Japan to its knees. McCain graduated from Annapolis in 1906 and served aboard an armored cruiser in World War I. Espying the future of naval warfare, he earned his aviation wings in 1936 and by 1939 was commander of the aircraft carrier, USS Ranger. He was thus well placed to provide a leading role in America's cut and thrust war with the Japanese across the broad expanses of the Pacific. In 1942 he was made commander of all land-based aircraft during the campaign for Guadalcanal. Though he took his share of blame for the disaster at Savo Island, he counterattacked with every means at his disposal, to the point of commandeering the planes of the crippled carriers Enterprise and Saratoga to reinforce U.S. strength on Henderson Field. Throughout the war, McCain prioritized fighters and single-seat dive-bombers as the best weapons to directly attack the enemy. By the time the U.S. returned to the Philippines, McCain was leading a fast carrier task force under William 'Bull' Halsey. When asked what he thought about his carrier commander, Halsey replied,Not much more than my right arm. At the Philippines, Okinawa, and finally up to the very coastline of Japan, McCain's carrier group destroyed thousands of enemy planes and hundreds of ships with aggressive, swarming tactics. When the Empire formally surrendered on the battleship Missouri, McCain was in the first row of U.S. officers looking on. After Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, McCain flew back to his home in the U.S., and died in his bed the next day--perhaps from heart failure but more probably from exhaustion. His name has lived on, however, through his son, John S. McCain II, who became commander of U.S. naval forces in the Pacific, 1968-72 (the first father and son four-star admirals in U.S. history), and his grandson, John S. McCain III, a carrier pilot who became the one of the longest held U.S. POW during the Vietnam War and currently serves as a U.S. Senator from Arizona. Drawing upon a wealth of primary sources, including information provided by the McCain family, as well as an expert grasp of the titanic battles waged by the U.S. armed forces in the Pacific, Alton Keith Gilbert has provided the fullest account of the first Admiral John McCain's life yet written. An unconventional leader, Slew McCain's career was marked by courage and innovation, as he emerged from World War II as one of America's greatest combat leaders.…

Hardback. Condizione: Good. This beautiful and evocative book gives an illustrated overview of the First World War, on land, on sea and in the air. With original drawings in full color, Steven Patricia uses 30 years' experience as a historical illustrator to give an informative and insightful account of the war, portraying the human faces of the participants and capturing moments in time with a vividness and immediacy that brings home both the emotional impact and the tragedy of war. Accompanied by soldier's diary extracts and other contemporary literature, there are many drawings of the hardware of war: aircraft and airships, submarines and ships, guns and grenades. We also get a glimpse of weary officers relaxing in an RAF mess, see panicking sailors swimming desperately away from a sinking ship, soldiers stumbling across no-man's land, and the dramatic scene of one of last great cavalry charges of any war, in Egypt. The role of animals is featured, including the importance of horses and rescue and messenger dogs. The text gives a concise introduction to the events of the war and why it started, with maps of the different fronts where fighting took place and a diagram of a trench system. Designed for readers with little familiarity of the conflict, this is a unique and unmissable book in the centenary of the 'war to end all wars'.…

Hardback. Condizione: Good. The story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnambeginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out.…

Hardback. Condizione: Very Good. The story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnambeginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out.…

Hardback. Condizione: Very Good. Many professional historians have recorded the actions of D-Day but here is an account of the airborne actions as described by the actual men themselves in eyewitness detail. Participants range from division command personnel to regimental, battalion, company and battery commanders to chaplains, surgeons, enlisted medics, platoon sergeants, squad leaders and the rough, tough troopers who adapted quickly to fighting in mixed, unfamiliar groups after a badly scattered drop - and yet managed to gain the objectives set for them in the hedgerow country of Normandy. D-Day with the Screaming Eagles does not attempt to glamorise the D-Day landings or apply the Hollywood gloss of recent productions. Koskimaki has interviewed thousands of veterans over many years of researching and writing about the Screaming Eagles; this book stands as a faithful record of what it was like to land on the Normandy beaches.…

Hardback. Condizione: Good. A new visceral memoir of a year of combat with Alpha Company, 1st Infantry Battalion, in Vietnam, 1966.

Hardback. Condizione: Good. Many professional historians have recorded the actions of D-Day but here is an account of the airborne actions as described by the actual men themselves in eyewitness detail. Participants range from division command personnel to regimental, battalion, company and battery commanders to chaplains, surgeons, enlisted medics, platoon sergeants, squad leaders and the rough, tough troopers who adapted quickly to fighting in mixed, unfamiliar groups after a badly scattered drop - and yet managed to gain the objectives set for them in the hedgerow country of Normandy. D-Day with the Screaming Eagles does not attempt to glamorise the D-Day landings or apply the Hollywood gloss of recent productions. Koskimaki has interviewed thousands of veterans over many years of researching and writing about the Screaming Eagles; this book stands as a faithful record of what it was like to land on the Normandy beaches.…

Condizione: Very Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Condizione: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Paperback. Condizione: Good. The infamous Rape of Nanjing looms like a dark shadow over the history of Asia in the 20th century, and is among the most widely recognized chapters of World War II in China. By contrast, the story of the month-long campaign before this notorious massacre has never been told in its entirety. Nanjing 1937 by Peter Harmsen fills this gap. This is the follow-up to Harmsen's best-selling Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze, and begins where that book left off. In stirring prose, it describes how the Japanese Army, having invaded the mainland and emerging victorious from the Battle of Shanghai, pushed on toward the capital Nanjing in a crushing advance that confirmed its reputation for bravery and savagery in equal measure. While much of the struggle over Shanghai had carried echoes of the grueling war in the trenches two decades earlier, the Nanjing campaign was a fast-paced mobile operation in which armor and air power played mayor roles. It was blitzkrieg two years before Hitler's invasion of Poland. Facing the full might of modern, mechanized warfare, China's resistance was heroic, but ultimately futile. As in Shanghai, the battle for Nanjing was more than a clash between Chinese and Japanese. Soldiers and citizens of a variety of nations witnessed or took part in the hostilities. German advisors, American journalists and British diplomats all played important parts in this vast drama. And a new power appeared on the scene: Soviet pilots dispatched by Stalin to challenge Japan's control of the skies. This epic tale is told with verve and attention to detail by Harmsen, a veteran East Asia correspondent who consolidates his status as the foremost chronicler of World War II in China with this path-breaking work of narrative history.…

Condizione: very_good. Book is in very good condition and may include minimal underlining highlighting. The book can also include "From the library of" labels. May not contain miscellaneous items toys, dvds, etc. . We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24 7 customer service.

Paperback. Condizione: Good. The strategic potential of the three-day attack of two NVA regiments on Kham Duc, a remote and isolated Army Special Forces camp, on the eve of the first Paris peace talks in May 1968, was so significant that former President Lyndon Johnson included it in his memoirs. This gripping, original, eyewitness narrative and thoroughly researched analysis of a widely misinterpreted battle at the height of the Vietnam War radically contradicts all the other published accounts of it. In addition to the tactical details of the combat narrative, the authors consider the grand strategies and political contexts of the U.S. and North Vietnamese leaders. …

Hardback. Condizione: Good. A new detailed account of the battle of Poitiers in 1356 which saw one of the most sensational episodes of the Hundred Years War: the capture of the French King Jean by the Black Prince.

Hardback. Condizione: Very Good. A new whole-life biography of Custer that deals with his personal history as well as his military career.

Hardback. Condizione: Very Good. The down-to-earth memoir of a modern mercenary via Harvard . . . This is the tale of Rob Krott, a U.S. Army officer who after active duty found adventure in the early days of the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Somalia.

Hardback. Condizione: Fair. This new history of Stalingrad offers a radical reinterpretation of the most crucial battle in World War II. Focusing on the first half of this epic clash, it reveals new information on how nearly the Germans succeeded, and the incredible courage of the Soviet fighters who held on. Red Army chief of staff Vasilevsky called August 23, 1942, when the Germans reached the Volga, "an unforgettably tragic day." The Russians had never been able to stop a good-weather German offensive, and it appeared that Stalin's namesake city would be lost. Indeed, Soviet armies on all sides were falling back before Hitler's summer offensive, and only one, the 62nd Army, was assigned to hold out in the city to defy the Wehrmacht. Who could have guessed that this sole force, surrounded on three sides, the river at its back, hiding out in ruins, would create such a bleeding sore that the Wehrmacht was never to recover? Combining eyewitness testimony of Red Army fighters with fresh archive material, this book gives dramatic insight into the thinking of Soviet commanders and the desperate mood of ordinary soldiers. Col-General Anatoly Mereshko, a staff officer to 62nd Army commander Chuikov, worked closely with the author and provided testimony that is entirely new. His accounts of the battle are supported by other key veterans and recently released war diaries and combat journals. For three months in Fall 1942 the Germans held a preponderance of force in Stalingrad as they tried to root out the diehards of 62nd Army. The latter force was nearly annihilated on several occasions, as guns from across the river failed to stem the German attacks and the Luftwaffe plunged into the chaos, bombing at will. TheRussians could only respond by going underground, in caves near the river and in the labrynthine ruins of the city itself. Yet, as the rest of the Motherland held its breath, the small, surrounded force-motivated by inspirational leadership as well as a grave sense of the battle's vital importance-continued to deny the Nazis a victory. As we now know, Stalin was not idle while the courageous remnants of 62nd Army continued to defend his city. On November 19 and 21, new Soviet armies in overwhelming strength counterattacked across the Volga, turning the tables on the Germans to begin one of the most pitiful sagas in Western history. The more famous siege of the Germans, concluding on February 2, 1943, has dominated the literature of Stalingrad. This book reminds us that the greater time-line of the battle consisted of the Russians besieged, and just barely holding on.…

Paperback. Condizione: Good. The nearly half-million American airmen who served during World War II have almost disappeared. And so have their stories. In Unsung Eagles, award-winning writer and former fighter pilot Jay Stout has saved an exciting collection of those accounts from oblivion.

Hardback. Condizione: Very Good. The most eye-opening, and terrifying, story in Chip Reid's career as a journalist was the six weeks he spent with 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as a correspondent for NBC News. Traveling shoulder-to-shoulder with the young Marines, he had unparalleled access, witnessing them in combat, and interviewing as many as he could persuade his bosses to put on air, allowing them to tell their war stories in their own words.   It took only 22 days for the Marines of 3/5 to fight their way to Baghdad, but the effects on those who fought have lasted a lifetime. They lost a number of their own in battle, and others suffered life-threatening injuries. Of those who returned - even if they avoided physical scars - many have had to find their own way through survivor's guilt and the nightmare of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, with all its attendant miseries.   Twenty years on, Chip sat down with the Marines of 3/5 once more. They told Chip inspiring stories of heroism in battle, of camaraderie and comrades lost, of patriotism and belief in mission, of recovery and success in both military and civilian life, and of the new appreciation for life that results from Post-Traumatic Growth. Visceral and searingly honest, this book is a tribute to the Marines for their service, and for the many sacrifices they made then, and that many still make today. …

Hardback. Condizione: Good. At the end of September 1941, more than a million German soldiers lined up along the frontline just 180 miles west of Moscow. They were well trained, confident, and had good reasons to hope that the war in the East would be over with one last offensive. Facing them was an equally large Soviet force, but whose soldiers were neither as well trained nor as confident. When the Germans struck, disaster soon befell the Soviet defenders. German panzer spearheads cut through enemy defenses and thrust deeply to encircle most of the Soviet soldiers on the approaches to Moscow. Within a few weeks, most of them marched into captivity, where a grim fate awaited them. Despite the overwhelming initial German success, however, the Soviet capital did not fall. German combat units as well as supply transport were bogged down in mud caused by autumn rains. General Zhukov was called back to Moscow and given the desperate task to recreate defense lines west of Moscow. The mud allowed him time to accomplish this, and when the Germans again began to attack in November, they met stiffer resistance. Even so, they came perilously close to the capital, and if the vicissitudes of weather had cooperated, would have seized it. Though German units were also fighting desperately by now, the Soviet build-up soon exceeded their own. THE DRIVE ON MOSCOW: Operation Taifun, 1941 is based on numerous archival records, personal diaries, letters, and other sources. It recreates the battle from the perspective of the soldiers as well as the generals. The battle, not fought in isolation, had a crucial role in the overall German strategy in the East, and its outcome reveals why the failure of the German assault on Moscow may well have been true turning point of World War II. Niklas Zetterling is a researcher at the Swedish Defense College. Along with Anders Frankson he has previously written Kursk 1943: A Statistical Analysis and The Korsun Pocket: The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944. Both authors currently live in Sweden.…