V for Victory

V for Victory

Author: Stan Cohen

Publisher: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13:

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Tells of the Amerian efforts to provide equipment for World War II and tells of the situation in America at the time.


Our Mothers' War

Our Mothers' War

Author: Emily Yellin

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-05-11

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1439103585

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Our Mothers' War is a stunning and unprecedented portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way women participate in American society. Never before has the vast range of women's experiences during this pivotal era been brought together in one book. Now, Our Mothers' War re-creates what American women from all walks of life were doing and thinking, on the home front and abroad. These heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking accounts of the women we have known as mothers, aunts, and grandmothers reveal facets of their lives that have usually remained unmentioned and unappreciated. Our Mothers' War gives center stage to one of WWII's most essential fighting forces: the women of America, whose extraordinary bravery, strength, and humanity shine through on every page.


Taking Leave, Taking Liberties

Taking Leave, Taking Liberties

Author: Aaron Hiltner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 022668718X

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American soldiers overseas during World War II were famously said to be “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” But the assaults, rapes, and other brutal acts didn’t only happen elsewhere, far away from a home front depicted as safe and unscathed by the “good war.” To the contrary, millions of American and Allied troops regularly poured into ports like New York and Los Angeles while on leave. Euphemistically called “friendly invasions,” these crowds of men then forced civilians to contend with the same kinds of crime and sexual assault unfolding in places like Britain, France, and Australia. With unsettling clarity, Aaron Hiltner reveals what American troops really did on the home front. While GIs are imagined to have spent much of the war in Europe or the Pacific, before the run-up to D-Day in the spring of 1944 as many as 75% of soldiers were stationed in US port cities, including more than three million who moved through New York City. In these cities, largely uncontrolled soldiers sought and found alcohol and sex, and the civilians living there—women in particular—were not safe from the violence fomented by these de facto occupying armies. Troops brought their pocketbooks and demand for “dangerous fun” to both red-light districts and city centers, creating a new geography of vice that challenged local police, politicians, and civilians. Military authorities, focused above all else on the war effort, invoked written and unwritten legal codes to grant troops near immunity to civil policing and prosecution. The dangerous reality of life on the home front was well known at the time—even if it has subsequently been buried beneath nostalgia for the “greatest generation.” Drawing on previously unseen military archival records, Hiltner recovers a mostly forgotten chapter of World War II history, demonstrating that the war’s ill effects were felt all over—including by those supposedly safe back home.


How We Lived Then

How We Lived Then

Author: Norman Longmate

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-01-26

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 1409046435

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Although nearly 90% of the population of Great Britain remained civilians throughout the war, or for a large part of it, their story has so far largely gone untold. In contrast with the thousands of books on military operations, barely any have concerned themselves with the individual's experience. The problems of the ordinary family are barely ever mentioned - food rationing, clothes rationing, the black-out and air raids get little space, and everyday shortages almost none at all. This book is an attempt to redress the balance; to tell the civilian's story largely through their own recollections and in their own words.


The Home Front in World War Two

The Home Front in World War Two

Author: Susie Hodge

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2013-02-19

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 178346979X

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This book brings an era to life with vivid stories and information from those who were there. During World War Two, 90% of the British population remained civilians. The War affected daily life more than any other war had done before. The majority of British people faced this will fortitude, courage and determination and this is their story, the telling of events and situations that forced their ingenuity and survival instincts to rise. Make do and mend came to mean so much more than reworking old clothes and this book describes the enterprise that went on and has long been forgotten. From the coasts and the countryside, this is how those at home faced and fought the war passively, particularly women whose job it was to keep the home fires burning. These ordinary people were crucial to the war effort; without their courage and inventiveness, the outcome could have been very different. Packed with interviews, photographs and other firsthand information, this book will appeal to all those who were there, but even more for those with little or no experience of World War Two, who will gain insights into the humor, strength and creativity that emerged in the face of hardship and tragedy. The book explores how people lived in Britain during times of fear, hardship and uncertainty; how they functioned and supported those away fighting and how they dealt with the enormous challenges and adversities


Fortress Dark and Stern

Fortress Dark and Stern

Author: Wendy Z. Goldman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-04-02

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 0190618434

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The first history of the Soviet home front experience during World War II and of the civilians who bore the burden of total war and played a critical role in the global victory over fascism. After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, German troops conquered the heartland of Soviet industry and agriculture and turned the occupied territories into mass killing fields. The country's survival hung in the balance. In Fortress Dark and Stern, Wendy Z. Goldman and Donald Filtzer tell the epic tale of the Soviet home front during World War II. Against the backdrop of the Red Army's early retreats and hard-fought advances after Stalingrad, they present the impact of total war behind the front lines in a chronicle of spirited defense efforts, draconian state directives, teeming black markets, official corruption, and selfless heroism. In one of the greatest wartime feats in history, Soviet workers rapidly evacuated factories, food, and people thousands of miles to the east. After long and dangerous journeys in unheated boxcars, they built a new industrial base beyond the reach of German bombers. As the Soviet state reached the height of its power, imposing military discipline and sending millions of people to work thousands of miles from home, ordinary people withstood starvation, epidemics, and horrific living conditions to supply the front and make the Allied victory possible This book examines the dark and painful war years from a new perspective, telling the stories of evacuees, refugees, teenaged and women workers, runaways from work, prisoners, and deportees. Based on a vast trove of new archival materials, Fortress Dark and Stern reveals a history of suffering, sacrifice, and ultimate triumph largely unknown to Western readers.


Women's Experiences of the Second World War

Women's Experiences of the Second World War

Author: Mark J. Crowley

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1783275871

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Using a very wide range of detailed sources, the book surveys the many different experiences of women during the Second World War.


Committed to Victory

Committed to Victory

Author: Richard E. Holl

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2015-10-09

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0813165652

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When World War II broke out in Europe in September 1939, Kentucky was still plagued by the Great Depression. Even though the inevitably of war had become increasingly apparent earlier that year, the citizens of the Commonwealth continued to view foreign affairs as a lesser concern compared to issues such as the lingering economic depression, the approaching planting season, and the upcoming gubernatorial race. It was only the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that destroyed any lingering illusions of peace. In Committed to Victory: The Kentucky Home Front During World War II, author Richard Holl offers the first comprehensive examination of the Commonwealth's civilian sector during this pivotal era in the state's history. National mobilization efforts rapidly created centers of war production and activity in Louisville, Paducah, and Richmond, producing new economic prosperity in the struggling region. The war effort also spurred significant societal changes, including the emergence of female and minority workforces in the state. In the Bluegrass, this trend found its face in Pulaski County native Rose Will Monroe, who was discovered as she assembled B-24 and B-29 bombers and was cast as Rosie the Riveter in films supporting the war effort. Revealing the struggles and triumphs of civilians during World War II, Holl illuminates the personal costs of the war, the black market for rationed foods and products, and even the inspiration that coach Adolph Rupp and the University of Kentucky basketball team offered to a struggling state. Committed to Victory is a timely and engaging account that fills a significant gap in the literature on a crucial period of American history.


When Books Went to War

When Books Went to War

Author: Molly Guptill Manning

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2014-12-02

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0544535170

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This New York Times bestselling account of books parachuted to soldiers during WWII is a “cultural history that does much to explain modern America” (USA Today). When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops, gathering 20 million hardcover donations. Two years later, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million specially printed paperbacks designed for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. These small, lightweight Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. This pioneering project not only listed soldiers’ spirits, but also helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. “A thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account . . . I was enthralled and moved.” — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “Whether or not you’re a book lover, you’ll be moved.” — Entertainment Weekly