"John C. McManus, one of our most highly-acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor--a rude awakening for a ragtag militia woefully unprepared for war--to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly-desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower."--Provided by publisher.
In Fire and Fortitude—winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History—John C. McManus presented a riveting account of the US Army's fledgling fight in the Pacific following Pearl Harbor. Now, in Island Infernos, he explores the Army’s dogged pursuit of Japanese forces, island by island, throughout 1944, a year that would bring America ever closer to victory or defeat. “A feat of prodigious scholarship.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Wonderful.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch • “Outstanding.”—Publishers Weekly • “Rich and absorbing.”—Richard Overy, author of Blood and Ruins • “A considerable achievement, and one that, importantly, adds much to our understanding of the Pacific War.”—James Holland, author of Normandy ’44 After some two years at war, the Army in the Pacific held ground across nearly a third of the globe, from Alaska’s Aleutians to Burma and New Guinea. The challenges ahead were enormous: supplying a vast number of troops over thousands of miles of ocean; surviving in jungles ripe with dysentery, malaria, and other tropical diseases; fighting an enemy prone to ever-more desperate and dangerous assaults. Yet the Army had proven they could fight. Now, they had to prove they could win a war. Brilliantly researched and written, Island Infernos moves seamlessly from the highest generals to the lowest foot soldiers and in between, capturing the true essence of this horrible conflict. A sprawling yet page-turning narrative, the story spans the battles for Saipan and Guam, the appalling carnage of Peleliu, General MacArthur’s dramatic return to the Philippines, and the grinding jungle combat to capture the island of Leyte. This masterful history is the second volume of John C. McManus’s trilogy on the US Army in the Pacific War, proving McManus to be one of our finest historians of World War II.
Provides a detailed, harrowing account of the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach from the perspective of the soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division as well as from the Gap Assault Team engineers who dealt with mines and other dangerous obstacles.
Does the darkness expose the actual reality that's shadowed by the light? Darkness holds many secrets, and darkness can make even the most innocent room appear to be something it's NOT. What if darkness is the truth? Does the darkness expose the actual reality that's shadowed by the light? Do we all live in a deceptive lie? Do we all live in a fraudulent reality, where only a select few can recognise it for what it is, understand the absolute truth, and recognise the UNSEEN? Based on true events, this is a ghost story of a haunted house that leads to a haunted soul. based in the small village of Keevil here in the UK. It is what seems like a normal small town, but it may hold the key to many untold secrets. How dark can someone become before it consumes them. This ghost story is going to take you there and put you into the protagonists shoes. This is not like any scary story you have heard before. This story has risen from deep within the shadows and out of the darkness, but are the UNSEEN still hiding in the dark depths of your nothingness, watching as you sleep the darkness away!
Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life meets Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's Extreme Ownership in this tough-love leadership book from a Navy SEAL and rising star in Republican politics. In 2012, on his third tour of duty, an improvised explosive device left Dan Crenshaw's right eye destroyed and his left blinded. Only through the careful hand of his surgeons, and what doctors called a miracle, did Crenshaw's left eye recover partial vision. And yet, he persevered, completing two more deployments. Why? There are certain stories we tell ourselves about the hardships we face—we can become paralyzed by adversity or we can adapt and overcome. We can be fragile or we can find our fortitude. Crenshaw delivers a set of lessons to help you do just that. Most people's everyday challenges aren't as extreme as surviving combat, and yet our society is more fragile than ever: exploding with outrage, drowning in microaggressions, and devolving into divisive mob politics. The American spirit—long characterized by grit and fortitude—is unraveling. We must fix it. That's exactly what Crenshaw accomplishes with Fortitude. This book isn't about the problem, it's about the solution. And that solution begins with each and every one of us. We must all lighten up, toughen up, and begin treating our fellow Americans with respect and grace. Fortitude is a no-nonsense advice book for finding the strength to deal with everything from menial daily frustrations to truly difficult challenges. More than that, it is a roadmap for a more resilient American culture. With meditations on perseverance, failure, and finding much-needed heroes, the book is the antidote for a prevailing "safety culture" of trigger warnings and safe spaces. Interspersed with lessons from history and psychology is Crenshaw's own story of how an average American kid from the Houston suburbs went from war zones to the halls of Congress—and managed to navigate his path with a sense of humor and an even greater sense that, no matter what anyone else around us says or does, we are in control of our own destiny.
Acclaimed historian John C. McManus, author of The Dead and Those About to Die, explores World War II’s most ambitious invasion, Operation Market Garden, an immense, daring offensive to defeat Nazi Germany before the end of 1944. “A riveting and deeply moving story of uncommon courage.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of The First Wave August 1944 saw the Allies achieve more significant victories than in any other month over the course of the war. The Germans were in disarray, overwhelmed on all fronts. Rumors swirled that the war would soon be over. On September 17, the largest airborne drop in military history commenced over Holland—including two entire American divisions, the 101st and the 82nd. Their mission was to secure key bridges at such places as Son, Eindhoven, Grave, and Nijmegen until British armored forces could relieve them. The Germans, however, proved much stronger than the Allies anticipated. In eight days of ferocious combat, they mauled the airborne, stymied the tanks, and prevented the Allies from crossing the Rhine. September Hope conveys the American perspective like never before, through a vast array of new sources and countless personal interviews to create a truly revealing portrait of this searing human drama.
“From the training camps to the combat missions, this is war from the perspective of the young Americans who lived through it: the pilots, the bombardiers, the navigators, and the gunners of all the combat services in both Europe and in the Pacific. It is an engaging and vivid portrayal of war in the skies from 1941 to 1945.”—Craig L. Symonds, Author of World War II at Sea John C. McManus, author of The Dead and Those About to Die and September Hope, reveals the terror and triumph that shared the fiery skies of World War II—from the first dogfights over Europe to the last Kamikaze attacks over the Pacific. This insightful chronicle takes readers inside the experiences of America’s fighter pilots and bomber crews, an incredible assortment of men who, in nearly four years of warfare all over the globe, suffered over 120,000 casualties with over 40,000 killed. Their stories span the earth into every corner of the combat theaters in both Europe and the Pacific. And the aircraft explored are as varied, tough, and legendary as the men who flew them—from the indomitable heavy-duty warhorse that was the B-17 Flying Fortress to the sleek, lethal P-51 Mustang fighter. In Deadly Sky, master historian John C. McManus goes beyond the familiar tales of aerial heroism, capturing the sights and sounds, the toil and fear, the adrenaline and the pain of the American airmen who faced death with every mission. In this important, thoroughly-researched work, McManus uncovers the true nature of fighting—and dying—in the skies over World War II.
For Dutton Caliber's American War Heroes series, the gripping and action-packed combat story of America’s most celebrated tank commander, Staff Sergeant Lafayette “War Daddy” Pool. Lafayette Pool provided inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character “War Daddy” Collier in the movie Fury, but his true story is less known. Here, acclaimed author Stephen L. Moore writes the first full-length narrative to honor the valiant Texan tanker. A champion Golden Gloves boxer turned U.S. Army legend, Pool was known as the “ace of tankers” for destroying more than five enemy tanks in head-to-head combat. Sporting a pair of cowboy boots and a confident smile, Pool and his tank, In the Mood, fearlessly led the charge into at least twenty-one different engagements across France, Belgium, and Germany in World War II. His 3rd Armored superiors credit Pool’s crew with destroying at least 275 enemy vehicles, capturing 250 or more enemy soldiers, and killing or wounding more than a thousand opponents. In one three-day period alone, they knocked out four German tanks, three anti-tank guns, and fifty armored vehicles, creating an overwhelming number of enemy casualties. Drawing on official military documents, the memoirs of Pool’s crewmen, and personal interviews with the family of Pool and his comrades, Blood and Fury is full of heated battles, suspenseful near-death experiences, and indomitable bravery. At the heart of it all is an undeniable American hero: Lafayette Pool.
John Costello's The Pacific War has now established itself as the standard one-volume account of World War II in the Pacific. Never before have the separate stories of fighting in China, Malaya, Burma, the East Indies, the Phillipines, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Aleutians been so brilliantly woven together to provide a clear account of one of the most massive movements of men and arms in history. The complex social, political, and economic causes that underlay the war are here carefully analyzed, impelling the reader to see it as the inevitable conclusion to a series of historical events. And the bloody fighting that indelibly recorded names like Midway and Iwo Jima in the annals of human conflict is described in detail, through its ominous conclusion in the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
