One of the great untold stories of World War II finally comes to light in this thrilling account of Torpedo Squadron Eight and their heroic efforts in helping an outmatched U.S. fleet win critical victories at Midway and Guadalcanal. Thirty-five American men -- many flying outmoded aircraft -- changed the course of the war, going on to become the war's most decorated naval air squadron, while suffering the heaviest losses in U.S. naval aviation history. Mrazek paints moving portraits of the men in the squadron, and exposes a shocking cover-up that cost many lives. Filled with thrilling scenes of battle, betrayal, and sacrifice, A Dawn Like Thunder is destined to become a classic in the literature of World War II.
After four years, the tide of war is turning in North Africa and Europe. The conflict in Southeast Asia, however, has reached new heights of savagery, and Operation Monsun poses a sinister threat to the hope of allied victory. The Special Operations mission off the Burmese coast requires volunteers. Men with nothing to live for, or men with everything to lose. Men like Lieutenant James Ross, awarded the Victoria Cross for his work in underwater sabotage, or the desperate amateur Charles villiers, heir to a fortune now controlled by the Japanese. The two-man torpedo - the chariot - is the ultimate weapon in a high-risk war. Cast loose into the shadows before an eastern dawn, the heroes or madmen who guide it will strike terror into the heart of an invaluable enemy, or pay the ultimate price for failure... 'Masterly storytelling' The Times 'Authentic, inspiring, well-characterised and, finally, moving' Sunday Times
"And the Dawn Came Up Like Thunder is the experience of an ordinary soldier captured by the Japanese at Singapore in February 1942. Leo Rawlings' story is told in his own pictures and his own words; a world that is uncompromising, vivid and raw. He pulls no punches. For the first time cruelty inflicted on the prisoners of war by their own officers is depicted as well as shocking images of POW life. This is truly a view of the River Kwai experience for a 21st Century audience. The new edition includes pictures never before published as well as an extensive new commentary by Dr Nigel Stanley, an expert on Rawlings and the medical problems faced on the Burma Railway. More than just a commentary on the history and terrible facts behind Rawlings' work, it stands on its own as a guide to the hidden lives of the prisoners."--Publishers website.
Includes the Island War In The Pacific Illustration Pack – 152 maps, plans and photos. The epic story of the death and rebirth of the famous Torpedo Squadron 8, destroyed at the Battle of Midway and rose again to become a crack outfit under the leadership of “Swede” Larsen. “THE JAPS WIPED OUT THE UNITED STATES NAVY Torpedo Squadron 8 in a few minutes at the Battle of Midway. The minutes were hot and rough. The squadron was like a raw egg thrown into an electric fan, and only three men came out of the action alive. One of these is no longer fit for combat duty. His nerves are gone. They became unstrung in those few minutes, and in the ten months since then he has not been able to get them working again normally, although he has been out on the line trying his best, refusing painfully to give up. So, when Torpedo 8 was wiped out on Thursday morning, June 4, 1942, in about the time it takes to stamp out a pile of ants, it looked to those of us on the outside as if torpedo bombing were about to become a lost art. But the Navy did not agree. Nor did Torpedo 8 agree. The Navy seemed to know without asking that Torpedo 8 would not feel this way, for, without being asked, Torpedo 8 was thrown directly from Midway into the Battle for the Solomons — a series of engagements into which the Japs put about five times the naval strength they used at Midway, and much more naval strength than they used against the Malay Peninsula and Java. Torpedo 8 went into the battle with two veterans of Midway, plus remnants of the old squadron who had not got into the action there, and plus ‘replacements,’ as they are called. They did not, as the Japs do, blame their dead for having died. They wanted revenge for them. Up to Midway, the slogan of the squadron had been ‘Attack.’ On June 12, eight days after the holocaust at Midway, the squadron commander in an official squadron memorandum changed the slogan to: ‘Attack— and Vengeance!’”-Introduction
One of the great untold stories of World War II finally comes to light in this thrilling account of Torpedo Squadron Eight and their heroic efforts in helping an outmatched U.S. fleet win critical victories at Midway and Guadalcanal. Thirty-five American men -- many flying outmoded aircraft -- changed the course of the war, going on to become the war's most decorated naval air squadron, while suffering the heaviest losses in U.S. naval aviation history. Mrazek paints moving portraits of the men in the squadron, and exposes a shocking cover-up that cost many lives. Filled with thrilling scenes of battle, betrayal, and sacrifice, A Dawn Like Thunder is destined to become a classic in the literature of World War II.
When 80-year-old Rove MacNee sets about to tell his life's story, he begins a coming-of-age narrative taking place in the small gulf coast town of Fairhope, Alabama. The son of an alcoholic captain, Rove finds peace casting his fishing net into the sea--but soon he will face the crossroads of his life.
A memoir of the final days of the Second World War from the London of the flying bombs to the liberation of the concentration camps. Arthur Marshall, Sunday Telegraph "1945 - we are lucky indeed to have it here chronicled in such absorbing, if often horrifying, detail. Future historians will bless Tom Pocock's name, for other pivotal periods of our world's troubled life were less well served ... one would have given much for Mr. Pocock's presence accompanied by a Leica, at the Battle of Hastings." Marghanita Laski, Country Life "It is hard to think of where Pocock was not in that eventful year... Pocock's story is that of the year as a whole, not only of his own experiences, rich, terrible, funny as these were... It is clear that young Pocock had not only an eye for events but a feel for them. On nothing is he better than of the sudden switch of feeling as the war ended." John Grigg, Evening Standard "A picture of that extraordinary year which will be an eye-opener to those (now a large majority) who did not live through it and intensely evocative to those who did. Tom Pocock writes unusually well... His idealism never inhibits his curiosity or his lively sense of the absurd... The book conveys to perfection the atmosphere of 1945, in which exhilaration was tinged with doubt and disgust."
The breathtaking, never-before-told, true story of a historic air force bombing mission in 1943 Germany. On September 6, 1943, three hundred and thirty-eight B-17 "Flying Fortresses" of the American Eighth Air Force took off from England, bound for Stuttgart, Germany, to bomb Nazi weapons factories. Dense clouds obscured the targets, and one commander's critical decision to circle three times over the city—and its deadly flak—would prove disastrous. Forty-five planes went down that day, and hundreds of men were lost or missing. Focusing on first-person accounts of six of the B-17 airmen, award-winning author Robert Mrazek vividly re-creates the fierce air battle—and reveals the astonishing valor of the airmen who survived being shot down, and the tragic fate of those who did not.
When a freak natural phenomenon dissolves the boundaries between yesterday and today, the world is transformed into a patchwork mixture of the present and the distant past. Entire cities are replaced by primeval forests. Prehistoric monsters stalk modern city streets, hunting for human prey. While ordinary men and women struggle to survive in this strange new world, the president and his advisers search for a way to undo the catastrophe. But the solution may be more devastating than the dinosaurs.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
