THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion
BOOK DISCUSSIONS
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New Release Books on WW2
Added TBR, looks good Jerome.
Mike wrote: "Added TBR, looks good Jerome."Me too. I've long been an admirer of Admiral Thomas C. Hart. He went on to an abbreviated term as a U.S. senator from Connecticut.
TBR. This subject is a blank in the blankiest shade of blank to me.
Dimitri wrote: "TBR. This subject is a blank in the blankiest shade of blank to me."Lol, right?
A March 2017 release:
bt Stephen WynnDescription:
Until the late 1930s, Singapore was noted as a popular stop-off point for wealthy European travelers on their way to countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The outbreak of World War II changed all of that.Major General William Dobbie, who served as the General Officer Commanding Malaya between 8 November 1935 and August 1939, warned that Singapore could be conquered by the Japanese; his concerns went unheeded. Many factors led to the fall of Singapore. These included the arrogance of some senior British military personnel and politicians; a misconception that Japanese soldiers were inferior to their American and Commonwealth counterparts; a belief that Japan would not militarily engage both the United States and Britain at the same time; and the Allies perception that victory in Europe took priority over defeating the Japanese throughout Asia and the Pacific.
Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942 and was controlled by them for the next three years. During this time Chinese civilians and Commonwealth soldiers were murdered in such incidents as the Sook Ching massacre and the Burma Railway death march.
Winston Churchill decided against a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the fall of this bastion of empire, and no subsequent British government has seen fit to change that decision. This remarkable book tells the fascinating and largely forgotten story of the fall of Singapore.
looks suspiciously slim for the fall of singapore plus occupation...
This March 2017 release may interest some members in the group I'm pretty sure:
The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters: Linchpin of Victory 1935-1942 by Andrew BoydDescription:
This new work tells the compelling story of how the Royal Navy secured the strategic space from Egypt in the west to Australasia in the East through the first half of the Second World War; it explains why this contribution, made while Russia s fate remained in the balance and before American economic power took effect, was so critical. Without it the war would certainly have lasted longer and decisive victory might have proved impossible. After the protection of the Atlantic lifeline, this was surely the Royal Navy's finest achievement, the linchpin of victory. The book moves authoritatively between grand strategy, intelligence, accounts of specific operations, and technical assessment of ships and weapons. It challenges established perceptions of Royal Navy capability and will change the way we think about Britain's role and contribution in the first half of the war. The Navy of 1939 was stronger than usually suggested and British intelligence did not fail against Japan. Nor was the Royal Navy outmatched by Japan, coming very close to a British Midway off Ceylon in 1942. And it was the Admiralty, demonstrating a reckless disregard for risks, that caused the loss of Force Z in 1941. The book also lays stress on the key part played by the American relationship in Britain's Eastern naval strategy. Superbly researched and elegantly written, this new book adds a hugely important dimension to our understanding of the war in the East and will become required reading.
Perhaps a dumb question, but did the Royal Navy post-1942 keep a Pacific presence that would warrant a sequel ?
I recall that they had a Pacific Fleet that retreated to the western Indian Ocean, but that they did not see action again until May 1944 or so (they even bombarded the Japanese coast with the Americans at one point).
You might find this link on the British Pacific Fleet of interest:http://www.navy.gov.au/history/featur...
Great photos, particularly of HMS KING GEORGE V and the aircraft carriers.
Here is a review from the NY Times by Timothy Snyder of Peter Fritzsche's --
An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler.I question if it's a positive review or not?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/boo...
Hmm... reads like one of those "know what and what not to expect" books that's rich in ideas but poor on structure. From the title, I'd have imagined something like Hitler's Empire by Mazower. Guess not. I'd definitely read this, just not for keeps.
A February release:
by Ray Moseley Description:
Luminary journalists Ed Murrow, Martha Gellhorn, Walter Cronkite, and Clare Hollingworth were among the young reporters who chronicled World War II's daily horrors and triumphs for Western readers. In this fascinating book, Ray Moseley, himself a former foreign correspondent who encountered a number of these journalists in the course of his long career, mines the correspondents' writings to relate, in an exhilarating parallel narrative, the events across every theater-Europe, Pearl Harbor, North Africa, and Japan-as well as the lives of the courageous journalists who doggedly followed the action and the story, often while embedded in the Allied armies. Moseley's broad and intimate history draws on newly unearthed material to offer a comprehensive account both of the war and the abundance of individual stories and overlooked experiences, including those of women and African-American journalists, which capture the drama as it was lived by reporters on the front lines of history.
We have had two recently releases in Australia on our reporters during WW2:
Voices From the Air: The ABC war correspondents who told the stories of Australians in the Second World War by Tony HillDescription:
An untold story of Australia's military history: how World War II was brought into Australian homes by ABC radio's intrepid war correspondents.
The conflict of 1939 to 1945 brought war and the threat of invasion to Australia's shores and sent more than 550,000 Australians into battle overseas. Australians fought on the dusty soil of the Middle East, the hills of Greece, the beaches and sweltering South East Asia, on the seas and in the air and against attacks on the Australian coast. Australian stories from the battlefield were of vital interest and news from home and abroad was critical: in particular, news from the warfronts, from Australia's own region and from the Allied powers.
In World War I newspapers had been the only source of news but now radio was in homes and at work and a part of Australian daily life. By 1941 there were 1.3 million licensed radios - it was the magic medium, immediate and compelling, connecting with all the power of the human voice and carrying with it the sounds of the wider world.
The war was a coming of age for radio and the young national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and led to the birth of the ABC news service. Broadcasters and journalists such as Chester Wilmot, Dudley Leggat, John Hinde and Haydon Lennard honed the skills of a new craft and radio found a new voice in their dispatches from overseas as the ABC sent its own observers and war correspondents to the battlefronts to tell the stories of Australians at war and to bring home the news.
Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondant by Peter BruneDescription:
Chester Wilmot (1911-1954) was a renowned Australian war correspondent, broadcaster, journalist and writer. Covering the first triumphant North African battles of Bardia, Tobruk and Derna, the heartbreaking disaster of the Greek Campaign, the epic struggle along the famed Kokoda Track, the momentous amphibious invasion at Normandy and the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany, his voice stood above all others during BBC and ABC broadcasts throughout WWII.
Following the war he continued reporting and broadcasting, and published The Struggle for Europe, his classic account of the Normandy invasion and its aftermath. He was tragically killed in the crash of the BOAC Comet over Greece in 1954, returning from Australia where he had been covering the Royal Tour.
Valiant for Truth charts Wilmot's exceptional life as he reported key events of the twentieth century. It contains the most complete account to date of the command crisis in New Guinea in 1942 and his extraordinary feud with Australian Commander-in-Chief General Sir Thomas Blamey. Bestselling authors Neil McDonald and Peter Brune unite to tell the story in this, the first full biography of one of the most important correspondents of WWII.
Glantz's Stalingrad epic is getting abbreviated in March 2017, people ! Stalingrad by David M. Glantz
and Osprey's Zaloga is doing something retrospective, he's always good with armour:
Early US Armor: Tanks 1916–40 by Steven J. Zaloga
Should be good Dimitri, I've only finished volume one so far.
Will be starting whole thing after I finish Battle Of Norway
Michal wrote: "Will be starting whole thing after I finish Battle Of Norway"I found the first volume an excellent account and I will try and tackle the second book soon.
A recent release:
by Kaushik RoyDescription:
During the Second World War, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) suffered one of its greatest defeats in Burma. Both in Malaya and Burma, the bulk of the British Commonwealth forces comprised Indian units. Few people know that by 1944, about 70 percent of the Allied ground personnel in Burma was composed of soldiers of the Indian Army. The Indian Army comprised British-led Indian units, British officered units of the Indian princely states and the British units attached to the Government of India. Based on the archival materials collected from India and the United Kingdom, Sepoys against the Rising Sun assesses the combat/military/battlefield effectiveness of the Indian Army against the IJA during World War II. The volume is focussed on the tactical innovations and organizational adaptations which enabled the sepoys to overcome the Japanese in the trying terrain of Burma.
A January release:
by David Mitchelhill-GreenDescription:
For a period during World War II, the isolated Libyan fortress of Tobruk captured the world’s attention. Why did the Allied defenders of Tobruk successfully hold out against Rommel for 9 months in 1941, when they fell to Axis forces in just 24 hours the following year? Tobruk was one of the greatest Allied victories—and one of the worst Allied defeats of World War II. This book presents a new perspective on Tobruk, utilizing a wealth of primary and secondary references and comparing the 1941 and 1942 battles.
A May 2017 release:
by Allen D Boyer Descroption:
In Rocky Boyer’s War, Allen Boyer offers a wry, keen-eyed, and occasionally disgruntled counterpoint history of the hard-fought, brilliant campaign that won World War II in the Southwest Pacific. Based in part on an unauthorized diary kept by the author's father, 1st Lt. Roscoe “Rocky” Boyer, this narrative history offers the reader an account of Allied air commander Gen. George Kenney's "air blitz" offensive as it was lived both in the cockpit and on the ground.
During 1944, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s forces fought their way from New Guinea to the Philippines, Kenney, discarding pre-war doctrine, planned and ran an “air blitz” offensive. His 5th Air Force drove forward like a tank army, crash-landing in open country, seizing terrain, bulldozing new airfields, winning air control, and moving forward. At airfields on the front line, Rocky kept the radios working for the 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group, a fighter-bomber unit.
Diaries were forbidden, but Rocky kept one―full of casualties, accidents, off-duty shenanigans, and rear-area snafus. He had friends killed when they shot it out with Japanese anti-aircraft gunners, or when their bombers vanished in bad weather. He wrote about wartime camp life at Nadzab, New Guinea, the largest air base in the world, part Scout camp and part frontier boomtown. He knew characters worthy of Catch-22: combat flyers who played contract bridge, military brass who played office politics, black quartermasters, and chaplains who stood up to colonels when a promotion party ended with drunken gunplay and dynamite.
This is a narrative of the war as airmen lived it. Rocky’s experience of life on the front line gives from-the-bottom-up detail to the framework of Kenney’s air blitz. The author uses Rocky’s story as a jumping-off point from which to understand the daily life, pranks, mishaps, and casualties, of the men who in 1944 fought their way over the two thousand miles from New Guinea to the Philippines.
Jerome wrote: "A May 2017 release: by Allen D Boyer Descroption:
In Ro..."
Definitely going to have to buy this one! Thanks for the heads up!
An August 2017 release:
by Joseph WheelanDescription:
The first U.S. offensive of World War II began with no fanfare early August 7, 1942. But, before it ended six months later with the first U.S. land victory, Guadalcanal was a household name. There, marines faced bloody banzai attacks in the stifling malarial jungles while the U.S. sailors and pilots battled Japanese air and sea armadas day and night. The all–in battles consumed thousands of men, hundreds of planes, and dozens of warships and— stopped the Japanese Juggernaut. Guadalcanal was the Pacific War's turning point.
Published on the 75th anniversary of the battle, Midnight in the Pacific is both a sweeping narrative and a compelling drama of individual Marines, soldiers, and sailors caught in the cross–hairs of history.
Here is a December 2016 release that a few members might like to see in their Christmas stockings:
The Red Army and the Second World War by Alexander HillDescription:
In a definitive new account of the Soviet Union at war, Alexander Hill charts the development, successes and failures of the Red Army from the industrialisation of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s through to the end of the Great Patriotic War in May 1945. Setting military strategy and operations within a broader context that includes national mobilisation on a staggering scale, the book presents a comprehensive account of the origins and course of the war from the perspective of this key Allied power.
Drawing on the latest archival research and a wealth of eyewitness testimony, Hill portrays the Red Army at war from the perspective of senior leaders and men and women at the front line to reveal how the Red Army triumphed over the forces of Nazi Germany and her allies on the Eastern Front, and why it did so at such great cost.
An April 2017 release:
by Raymond Callahan Description:
In the spring of 1944, on the eastern front of India near the Burmese border, the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Japanese Army suffered the worst defeat in its history at the hands of Lieutenant General William Slim’s British XIV Army, most of whose units were drawn from the little-esteemed Indian Army. Triumph at Imphal-Kohima tells the largely unknown story of how an army that Winston Churchill had once dismissed as “a welter of lassitude and inefficiency” came to achieve such an unlikely, unprecedented, and critical victory for the Allied forces in World War II.
Long the British Empire’s strategic reserve, the Indian Army had been comprehensively defeated in Malaya and Burma in 1941–1943. Military historian Raymond Callahan chronicles the remarkable exercise in institutional transformation that remade the British Indian forces to reverse those losses. With the invaluable help of the American DC-3 on the Burma front, Slim overhauled the British XIV Army with the Imperial Japanese Army's strategic weaknesses in mind; namely, an utter disregard for logistics and an unrelenting addiction to the attack. Callahan shows how, on an enormous battlefield—over five hundred miles from north to south—the XIV Army surmounted the challenges of terrain, disease, wretched communication, and climate to draw the Imperial forces under Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Renya ever deeper into ever stronger British defensive arrays until the Japanese Army’s vaunted offensive aggression finally exhausted itself.
Following this epic battle from build-up to aftermath, this book brings overdue detailed attention to Lieutenant General William Slim’s handling of perhaps the most complex battle any Allied commander fought during World War II—and to the long-belittled British Indian Army that became the magnificent fighting force that triumphed at Imphal-Kohima and went on to reconquer Burma.
The NY Times featured a review by Margaret MacMillan of --
The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End by Robert Gerwarth.It appears to be an interesting book, but the review isn't enlightening. The review focuses on the book's subject matter more than upon the book itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/boo...
The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End"Meh." I leafed through this at the shop & it was my only reaction as I put it back. Hopes up for nothing...good intro if you're new to the subject, no doubt.
It's like a series of chapters whose length is determined by how well-known the interwar situation is to the general public: big ones for the Weimar Freikorps and the Russian Civil War, a medium one for the foundation of modern Turkey... The Fiume episode in Italy got 4 pages or so.
It's not complete: where's all the minor violence & ethnic ping-pong linked to the nation-building after the Hapsburgs collapse ? Where's Greater Romania ?
I tend to agree with Dimitri. I've picked up a copy in the local bookshop a few times and flicked through it but it hasn't grabbed me as one I need to read.
A November 2017 release:
by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver Description:
On 27 October 1942, four "Long Lance" torpedoes fired by the Japanese destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo exploded in the hull of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8). Minutes later, the ship that had launched the Doolitte Raid six months earlier slipped beneath the waves of the Coral Sea. Of the pre-war carrier fleet the Navy had struggled to build over 15 years, only three were left: Enterprise, that had been badly damaged in the battle of Santa Cruz; USS Saratoga (CV-3) which lay in dry dock, victim of a Japanese submarine torpedo; and the USS Ranger (CV-4), which was in mid-Atlantic on her way to support Operation Torch.
For the American naval aviators licking their wounds in the aftermath of this defeat, it would be difficult to imagine that within 24 months of this event, Zuikaku, the last survivor of the carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor, would lie at the bottom of the sea. Alongside it lay the other surviving Japanese carriers, sacrificed as lures in a failed attempt to block the American invasion of the Philippines, leaving the United States to reign supreme on the world's largest ocean. This is the fascinating account the Central Pacific campaign, of one of the most stunning comebacks in naval history as in 14 months the US Navy went from the jaws of defeat to the brink of victory in the Pacific.
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I tend to agree with Dimitri. I've picked up a copy in the local bookshop a few times and flicked through it but it hasn't grabbed me as one I need to read."Thank, Rick. While we're on the subject, what are the group's opinions on previous works by Robert Gerwarth ? He's an OK guy with interwar violence, but is this "the vanquished" a combo of them ? If so I'm de-tbr'ing them.
Empires at War: 1911-1923 
War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe After the Great WarP.S. We're all wild about
Hirohito's War: The Pacific War, 1941-1945 by Francis Pike, but the Michigan War Studies Review unearths a host of errors (alltough I'm bound not to remember that much detail from this doorstop) : http://www.miwsr.com/2016-112.aspx
Thanks for the link to that review on Hirohito's War. I have a copy that I am yet to read, I hope it's not as bad as the review makes out :)
Anyone know if David Stahel is working on a book or not?
Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Anyone know if David Stahel is working on a book or not?"I sent him an e-mail, let's see.
Jerome wrote: "A July 2017 release: by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver Description:
On 27 October ..."
Thanks for the heads up on this one--gonna have to make another large pre-order on Amazon once again!
While I was looking at that one, I came across this one which also comes out about a month earlier (June 2017):
Their Backs against the Sea: The Battle of Saipan and the Largest Banzai Attack of World War III know Bill Sloan is a bit hit and miss, so I'm hoping this one is more hit than miss. He seems to forego the big picture in his books and concentrate more on the personal experiences of those who were there. Depends on your preference I suppose.
Dimitri wrote: "Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Anyone know if David Stahel is working on a book or not?"I sent him an e-mail, let's see."
Nice, keep me posted, sir!
Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Anyone know if David Stahel is working on a book or not?"I've never read any of Stahel's books, but I see he has several which look interesting. Might have to add him to my list...
Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Anyone know if David Stahel is working on a book or not?""That’s kind of you to ask and inform your fellow readers. My students sometimes tell me about all these online forums, but I never have much time to go exploring in the internet.
· My next book will be one I’ve been putting together with as an editor. It’s called Joining Hitler’s Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet Union. The basic idea is to ask why so many European nations contributed troops to Hitler’s war in the east in 1941. The difference with this book is that each chapter is written by an historian in that country with an expertise in World War II. So each chapter is written with language material that no one author could otherwise access. There will be 14 chapters.
· My next single author work will be – you probably guessed – Army Group Centre’s retreat from Moscow in December 1941 and January 1942. I’ve largely finished the research and have recently started the writing, but it will take some time yet."
So, on one hand he keeps his Eastern Front series going by calendar & on the other we'll have a playdate for Hitler's Europe Ablaze: Occupation, Resistance, and Rebellion during World War II which was also a group effort, which each author a specialist on native sources.
This tells us enough what to look out for in the online grapevine for next year or so, right ?
Thanks for that information Dimitri. I'll be keen to read his next book on Army Group Centre.
An April 2017 release:
by Jonathan Templin RitterDescription:
Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma explores the relationship between American General Joseph Vinegar Joe Stilwell and British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten in the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI) and the South East Asia Command (SEAC) between October 1943 and October 1944, within the wider context of Anglo-American relations during World War II. Using original material from both British and American archives, Jonathan Templin Ritter discusses the military, political, and diplomatic aspects of Anglo-American cooperation, the personalities involved, and where British and American policies both converged and diverged over Southeast Asia.
Although much has been written about CBI, Stilwell and China, and Mountbatten, no published comparison study has focused on the relationship between the two men during the twelve-month period in which their careers overlapped.This book bridges the gap in the literature between Mountbatten s earlier naval career and his later role as the last Viceroy of British India. It also presents original archival material that explains why Stilwell was so anti-British, including his 1935 memorandum titled The British, and his original margin notes to Mountbatten s farewell letter to him in 1944. Finally, it presents other original archival material that refutes previous books that have accused Stilwell of needlessly sacrificing the lives of his men during the 1944 North Burma Campaign, merely out of hatred for the Britis
Dimitri wrote: "Doubledf99.99 wrote: "Anyone know if David Stahel is working on a book or not?""That’s kind of you to ask and inform your fellow readers. My students sometimes tell me about all these online foru..."
That's some good stuff, have something to look forward to in Army Group Center, within the next few years.
Your a gooooood man Dimitri, thanks for taking the ball and running with it!
message 1794:
by
Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
(new)
Dimitri wrote: "Perhaps a dumb question, but did the Royal Navy post-1942 keep a Pacific presence that would warrant a sequel ?"This will help tell the story of the RN's (incl commonwealth) Pacific Fleet which as I understand was held in high regard by the USN who used it as part of its wider battle fleets.
The British Pacific Fleet: The Royal Navy's Most Powerful Strike Force by David Hobbs
Looks like a good one Geevee, thanks for posting the details.
This February 2017 (UK) release may interest some members in the group:
Honoring Those They Led: Decorated Field Commanders of the Third Reich: Command Authorities, Award Parameters, and Ranks by Mark C YergerDescription:
Honoring Those They Led examines specific points and groups within a massive subject; Commanding Generals of WW II German field commands with those primarily studied being among those presented one or more of their highest combat decorations by Adolf Hitler. A lengthy opening chapter provides in-depth details on a diversity of subjects including specifics of the five senior ranks of the German Army, from Generalmajor to Generalfeldmarschall, that combined totaled some 2,000 officers. Information along with privately owned award documents are shown to fully understand the process and granting of Germany's highest awards for bravery or leadership; the Knight's Cross, German Cross in Gold, and Roll of Honor Clasp.
Other topics include the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Oberkommando des Heeres, Generalstabes des Heeres, and their key personnel. Changes in command level responsibilities as the war progressed as a result of Hitler's appointments and operational planning are discussed. Encompassing all senior ranks, examples within the chapter include those from the largest group; officers who attained General rank after the war started with focus on those awarded one or more of their highest decorations for their initial command. Chapters follow on the primary advisors to field commanders; the First Staff Officers and Chiefs of Staff of higher commands. Then the presenting of awards by field commanders is discussed and the wartime status of recipients including numerous images of a field presentation of the Knight's Cross. Representing the countries allied with Germany; the decorated Spanish commanders of the 250.Infanterie Division are then detailed. With careers that include commands from Division to Heeresgruppe, 34 field commanders are then examined in individual chapters. All were recipients of the Oakleaves, Swords, or Diamonds to the Knight's Cross with visual details included of one or more of their award presentations by Hitler.
With detailed military service specifics presented in this oversized-format volume, the data begins at the start of their lengthy military careers. Many joined the Army before WW I and saw combat in the Great War before serving with the Reichswehr that became the Wehrmacht on May 21, 1935. Details include assignments and units with their development, decorations, promotions, predecessors and successors. The information is enhanced with primarily previously unpublished images including autographed photos and award documents given to or signed by them.
Among the material included are all the award and promotion documents from both World Wars given to a divisional commander of Grossdeutschland. These nearly three dozen General ranks range from famous names to more obscure commanders who had significant impact in the field, their skills frequently resulting in being appointed as successors to more well-known officers in command appointments as the war progressed. A Gallery chapter concludes the volume, incorporating images and documents of personnel related to the various categories of the study that were not incorporated with the study. A wealth of information for both history readers and collectors. Glossary, bibliography, and name index for finding entries pertaining to more than 300 command personnel.
Yerger's works are solid, and like me he went to the living sources. We were both acquaintances of many of the senior Army and Waffen SS leaders, in particular Oak Leaves and Swords recipients.
One of my favourite books on the subject is this title by Florian Berger:
The Face of Courage: The 98 Men Who Received the Knight's Cross and the Close-Combat Clasp in Gold by Florian BergerI also have these books in my library as reference guides:
On the Field of Honor: A History of the Knight's Cross Bearers, volumes one and two by LTC John Angolia and Verleihung Genehmigt! (Their Honor Was Loyalty! ): An Illustrated and Documentary History of the Knight's Cross Holders of the Waffen-SS and Police, 1940-1945 by Jost Schneider
Here is another new book, due out in April 2017, that may be of some interest to a few group members:
Avenging Angels: Young Women of the Soviet Union's WWII Sniper Corps by Lyuba VinogradovaDescription:
The girls came from every corner of the U.S.S.R. They were factory workers, domestic servants, teachers and clerks, and few were older than twenty. Though many had led hard lives before the war, nothing could have prepared them for the brutal facts of their new existence: with their country on its knees, and millions of its men already dead, grievously wounded or in captivity, from 1942 onwards thousands of Soviet women were trained as snipers.
Thrown into the midst of some of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War they would soon learn what it was like to spend hour upon hour hunting German soldiers in the bleak expanses of no-man's-land; they would become familiar with the awful power that comes with taking another person's life; and in turn they would discover how it feels to see your closest friends torn away from you by an enemy shell or bullet.
In a narrative that travels from the sinister catacombs beneath the Kerch Peninsula to Byelorussia's primeval forests and, finally, to the smoking ruins of the Third Reich, Lyuba Vinogradova recounts the untold stories of these brave young women. Drawing on diaries, letters and interviews with survivors, as well as previously unpublished material from the military archives, she offers a moving and unforgettable record of their experiences: the rigorous training, the squalid living quarters, the blood and chaos of the Eastern Front, and those moments of laughter and happiness that occasionally allowed the girls to forget, for a second or two, their horrifying circumstances.
Avenging Angels is a masterful account of an all-too-often overlooked chapter of history, and an unparalleled account of these women's lives.
Ooops, found another new release for those who enjoy accounts of the German U-boat campaign. This title seems to offer something new:
Shadow over the Atlantic: Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 ‘Atlantik’ – The Luftwaffe’s Long-Range Maritime Reconnaissance and U-boat Cooperation Unit 1943-45 by Robert ForsythDescription:
German U-boats were the scourge of Allied merchant and military shipping in the Atlantic during World War II, threatening to isolate and then starve the UK out of the War. As Germany's war against the Allied convoys intensified in late 1943, German Admiral Karl Dönitz called upon the Luftwaffe to provide a long-range spotting and shadowing unit to act as 'eyes' for his U-boats. Equipped with big, four-engined Junkers Ju 290s fitted out with advanced search radar and other maritime 'ELINT' (electronic intelligence) devices, the FAGr 5 undertook a distant, isolated campaign far out into the Atlantic and thousands of miles away from its home base in western France. The information generated and reported back to Dönitz's headquarters was vital to the efforts of the U-boats, and FAGr 5's 'shadowing' missions were assigned priority in terms of skilled crews, supplies and equipment.
This book tells for the first time the fascinating story of the formation and operations of FAGr 5 'Atlantik', drawing on never-before-published historical records of the unit that accounted for the reporting and destruction of thousands of tons of Allied shipping.
THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP
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Air War Varsity (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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James M. Scott (other topics)
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Description:
In the Highest Degree Tragic tells the heroic story of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet’s sacrifice defending the Dutch East Indies from the Japanese in the first three months of the Pacific War. Donald M. Kehn Jr.’s comprehensive narrative history of the operations involving multiple ships and thousands of men dramatically depicts the chaotic nature of these battles. His research has uncovered evidence of communications failures, vessels sinking hundreds of miles from where they had been reported lost, and entire complements of men simply disappearing off the face of the earth.
Kehn notes that much of the fleet went down with guns blazing and flag flying, highlighting, where many others have failed to do so, the political and strategic reasons for the fleet’s deployment to the region in the first place. In the Highest Degree Tragic rectifies the historical record, showcasing how brave yet all-too-human sailors and officers carried out their harrowing tasks. Containing rare first-person accounts and anecdotes, from the highest command echelons down to the lowest enlisted personnel, Kehn’s book is the most comprehensive and exhaustive study to date of this important part of American involvement in World War II.