Nijmegen Bombardment On 22 February 1944: A Faux Pas Or The Price Of Liberation?
Nijmegen Bombardment On 22 February 1944: A Faux Pas Or The Price Of Liberation?

Author: Joris A. C. van Esch

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1786250403

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A steadfast misbelief in precision bombing evolved into the leading concept for US Army Air Force during the Second World War. This concept envisioned the destruction of the German industrial and economic system as the swiftest path to victory. However, the belief in survivability of bombers through self defense proved incorrect, and the Allies realized that the Luftwaffe had to be defeated first, by attacking the German aircraft industry. On 22 February 1944, Eighth Air Force conducted a mission as part of this offensive. During this mission, the bombers were recalled because of severe weather. On the return trip, the airmen decided not to abandon the mission outright, but to attack targets of opportunity. Because of navigational errors a section of 446 Bombardment Group misidentified the Dutch city Nijmegen as in Germany, and bombed it. Due to aiming errors, the greater part of the bombs missed the designated marshalling yards by a kilometer, and hit the city center instead. The bombardment caused chaos on the ground. It surprised the citizens, ignorant by earlier faulty alarms, and damage caused great difficulties for the provision of aid relief. As a result, the bombardment killed about 800 citizens and destroyed the historic city center.

16 Cases of Mission Command
16 Cases of Mission Command

Author: Donald P., Donald Wright, Ph. D.

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-12

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9781494407155

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For the US Army to succeed in the 21st Century, Soldiers of all ranks must understand and use Mission Command. Mission Command empowers leaders at all levels, allowing them to synchronize all warfighting functions and information systems to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative against a range of adversaries. This collection of historical vignettes seeks to sharpen our understanding of Mission Command philosophy and practice by providing examples from the past in which Mission Command principles played a decisive role. Some vignettes show junior officers following their commander's intent and exercising disciplined initiative in very chaotic combat operations. Others recount how field grade officers built cohesive teams that relied on mutual trust to achieve key operational objectives. Each historical account is complemented by an annotated explanation of how the six Mission Command principles shaped the action. For this reason, the collection is ideal for leader development in the Army school system as well as for unit and individual professional development. Mission Command places great responsibility on our Soldiers.

Fighting the People's War
Fighting the People's War

Author: Jonathan Fennell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-01-24

Total Pages: 967

ISBN-13: 1107030951

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Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

Year Zero
Year Zero

Author: Ian Buruma

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-09-30

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0143125974

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A marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale: across Asia (including China, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines, and of course Japan) and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it. In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much horror to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated was extraordinary, and the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the European welfare state, the United Nations, decolonization, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Social, cultural, and political “reeducation” was imposed on vanquished by victors on a scale that also had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill advised, but in hindsight, as Ian Buruma shows us, these efforts were in fact relatively enlightened, humane, and effective. A poignant grace note throughout this history is Buruma’s own father’s story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a laborer, and by war’s end was literally hiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into “normalcy” stand in many ways for his generation’s experience. A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, Year Zero is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write. It is surely his masterpiece.

American Armies and Battlefields in Europe
American Armies and Battlefields in Europe

Author:

Publisher: Department of the Army

Published: 2018-08-17

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 9780160945830

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This volume was first published by the American Battle Monuments Commission in 1938 and was republished by CMH in 1992 to commemorate the American Expeditionary Forces' seventy-fifth birthday. American Armies and Battlefields in Europe, a facsimile edition to commemorate the seventy-fifth birthday of the American Expeditionary Forces, is a unique, illustrated volume that captures the AEF's lessons of battle during World War I. Based on the series of battlefield tours conducted for staff officers at General John J. Pershing's headquarters, the operational chapters describe the military situation, giving detailed accounts of actual fighting supported by maps and sketches, and a summary of events and service of combat divisions. Topical chapters on the Services of Supply, the U.S. Navy, military cemeteries and memorials, and other interesting and useful facts conclude the narrative. For scholars and students of the Great War, as well as veterans and their descendants wishing to find battle sites of long ago, this guidebook remains the most authoritative and easily usable source for visitors to the AEF's battlefields. The American Battle Monuments Commission, a small independent agency established by Congress in 1923 at the request of General John J. Pershing, is the guardian of America's overseas commemorative cemeteries and memorials. Its mission is to honor the service, achievements, and sacrifice of the United States armed forces. Related products: Check out our World War I resources collection here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/world-war-i Other products produced by the U.S. Army, Center of Military History can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/center-military-history-cmh

The Bitter Road to Freedom
The Bitter Road to Freedom

Author: William I. Hitchcock

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-10-21

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0743273818

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Reading Group Guide forThe Bitter Road to Freedomby William I. Hitchcock1. The story of the liberation of Europe has been told many times. What new and surprising things did you learn from this book that you didn't know before?2. The book makes use of so many primary sources: letters, diaries, old records, and, as a result, we hear many voices. Did these first-hand accounts change the way you previously perceived the liberation of Europe? Why or why not?3. Americans remember the end of WWII as a time of triumph and universal celebration in Europe when the occupied countries were finally freed from Hitler's tyranny. What was life really like for Europeans during and after the Liberation? Why do you think Americans remember the Liberation so differently from Europeans?4. The book discusses the violence and suffering that occur to the civilian population in even the most just of wars. Do you think what happened in Europe after the war has present-day applications, especially regarding the war in Iraq and our escalating campaign in Afghanistan?5. Some might see this book as disparaging to the accomplishments of "The Greatest Generation." How do you think veterans of WWII will react to this book?6. Americans were surprised to find that they got along well with the Germans upon entering their country. In what ways does Eisenhower's failed ban on American soldiers fraternizing with German civilians illustrate the differences between political ideology and basic human experience? How might these differences still be true today?7. Were you surprised to find that survivors of the Holocaust faced such difficulties in the immediate aftermath of their liberation? How might that treatment influence their view of the end of the war?8. Why do you think the large-scale relief effort that America led in Europe, through many charitable organizations and volunteer groups, is not better known in the United States? Should historians write as much about the humanitarian side of war as they do about battle-field history?

Politics and Cultures of Liberation
Politics and Cultures of Liberation

Author: Frank Mehring

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-05-29

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 9004292012

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Politics and Cultures of Liberation: Media, Memory, and Projections of Democracy focuses on mapping, analyzing, and evaluating memories, rituals, and artistic responses to the theme of “liberation.” How is the national framed within a dynamic system of intercultural contact zones highlighting often competing agendas of remembrance? How does the production, (re)mediation, and framing of narratives within different social, territorial, and political environments determine the cultural memory of liberation? The articles compiled in this volume seek to provide new interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives on the politics and cultures of liberation by examining commemorative practices, artistic responses, and audio-visual media that lend themselves for transnational exploration. They offer a wide range of diverse intercultural perspectives on media, memory, liberation, (self)Americanization, and conceptualizations of democracy from the war years, through the Cold War era to the 21st century.

Operation Market-Garden 1944 (2)
Operation Market-Garden 1944 (2)

Author: Ken Ford

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-11-17

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 1472814320

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With Germany being pushed back across Europe the Allied forces looked to press their advantage with Operation Market-Garden, a massive airborne assault that, if successful, could have shortened the war in the west considerably. The ground advance consisted of an armoured thrust by the British XXX Corps, while the US 82nd and 101st US Airborne Divisions secured the bridges at Eindhoven and Nijmegen and the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Airborne Brigade were tasked with seizing the final bridge at Arnhem to secure the route. What they did not realise was that the 9. SS and 10. SS-Panzer Divisions were nearby, ready to reinforce the local garrison and fend off the Allied assault. Focusing on the role played by these British and Polish troops, Ken Ford examines Operation Market-Garden in its entirety, from the early planning through to the early setbacks and eventual catastrophic conclusion.