The Caribbean Front in World War II
Author: José L. Bolívar
Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers
Published: 2021
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9781558769557
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Island at War
Author: Jorge Rodriguez Beruff
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Published: 2015-05-01
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 1626740879
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDespite Puerto Rico being the hub of the United States’s naval response to the German blockade of the Caribbean, there is very little published scholarship on the island’s heavy involvement in the global conflict of World War II. Recently, a new generation of scholars has been compiling interdisciplinary research with fresh insights about the profound wartime changes, which in turn generated conditions for the rapid economic, social, and political development of postwar Puerto Rico. The island's subsequent transformation cannot be adequately grasped without tracing its roots to the war years. Island at War brings together outstanding new research on Puerto Rico and makes it accessible in English. It covers ten distinct topics written by nine distinguished scholars from the Caribbean and beyond. Contributors include experts in the fields of history, political science, sociology, literature, journalism, communications, and engineering. Topics include US strategic debate and war planning for the Caribbean on the eve of World War II, Puerto Rico as the headquarters of the Caribbean Sea frontier, war and political transition in Puerto Rico, the war economy of Puerto Rico, the German blockade of the Caribbean in 1942, and the story of a Puerto Rican officer in the Second World War and Korea. With these essays and others, Island at War represents the cutting edge of scholarship on the role of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in World War II and its aftermath.
Long Night of the Tankers
Author: D. H. Bercuson
Publisher:
Published: 2014-02-07
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781770870949
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOn February 16th, 1942 a Nazi U-boat brazenly shelled the huge Lago oil refinery on Aruba and torpedoed the tankers Pedernales and Oranjestad, both tied up in Aruba's San Nicolas Harbour. Oranjestad was sunk and Pedernales badly damaged. The damage to the refinery was minor, but that same night other U-boats attacked and sank four more tankers in the waters between Aruba and Curaçao and Venezuela. It was the long night of the tankers and the opening salvo of a two year struggle to dominate the Caribbean Sea. In the last twelve days of February, 1942 alone the submarines sank 17 more ships, most of them tankers. Long Night of the Tankersis the story of the German effort to cut the Caribbean off from Britain, the United States andCanada and the desperate defence mounted by the Allies, along with a half dozen other Caribbean and South American nations. The loss of the oil threatened Britain's ability to wage war; the loss of the tankers almost strangled the oil supply to America's industrial north east. When even Churchill and Roosevelt began to worry about the vulnerable Caribbean, the US and its allies poured thousands of men, hundreds of aircraft and dozens of ships into the Caribbean region, organized an effective convoy system and rallied the Central and South American nations against the Germans. By mid 1944, the Caribbean had become an Allied lake and the submarine threat was defeated. But to this day, the old timers of the islands still remember the oil-soaked beaches, the explosions in the night and the bodies of dead sailors washed ashore that marked this dramatic chapter in the Second World War.
Jamaican Women and the World Wars
Author: Dalea Bean
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2017-12-04
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 3319685856
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book highlights the important, yet often forgotten, roles that Jamaican women played in the World Wars. Predicated on the notion that warfare has historically been an agent of change, Dalea Bean contends that traces of this truism were in Jamaica and illustrates that women have historically been part of the war project, both as soldiers and civilians. This ground-breaking work fills a gap in the historiography of Jamaican women by positioning the World Wars as watershed periods for their changing roles and status in the colony. By unearthing critical themes such as women’s war work as civilians, recruitment of men for service in the British West India Regiment, the local suffrage movement in post-Great War Jamaica, and Jamaican women’s involvement as soldiers in the British Army during the Second World War, this book presents the most extensive and holistic account of Jamaican women’s involvement in the wars.
The U-boat War in the Caribbean
Author: Gaylord Kelshall
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 594
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReprint of the account of WWII submarine operations in the Caribbean, originally published by Paria Pub. Co., Trinidad in 1988, with a new (one page) foreword. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Historical Dictionary of World War II
Author: Anne Sharp Wells
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2023-12-15
Total Pages: 521
ISBN-13: 1538102560
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWorld War II was the largest and most costly conflict in history, the first true global war. Fought on land, on sea, and in the air, it involved numerous countries and killed, maimed, or displaced millions of people, both civilian and military, around the world. In spite of the alliances that bound many of the same participants, the war was essentially two separate but simultaneous conflicts: one involved Japan as the major antagonist and took place mostly in Asia and the Pacific; and the other, initiated by Germany and Italy, was contested mainly in Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. This book focuses on the lesser known war, the war with Japan. It begins with Japan’s seizure of Manchuria from China in 1931 and covers Japan’s ambitious attacks on Pearl Harbor and other territories ten years later, the use of atomic bombs on Japan’s cities, and the end of the Allied occupation of Japan in 1952. Although Japan renounced war in its 1947 constitution, conflict continued across Asia, as former colonies fought for independence and civil war engulfed other areas. Historical Dictionary of World War II: The War Against Japan, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on the military, diplomatic, political, social, economic, and scientific aspects of the war, in addition to the lives of the people who participated in and directed the war. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the war against Japan during World War II.
Roosevelt's Secret War
Author: Joseph E. Persico
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Published: 2002-10-22
Total Pages: 594
ISBN-13: 0375761268
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDespite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations. Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations: -FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor -A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to the Oval Office -Roosevelt knew before any other world leader of Hitler's plan to invade Russia -Roosevelt and Churchill concealed a disaster costing hundreds of British soldiers' lives in order to protect Ultra, the British codebreaking secret -An unwitting Japanese diplomat provided the President with a direct pipeline into Hitler's councils Roosevelt's Secret War also describes how much FDR had been told--before the Holocaust--about the coming fate of Europe's Jews. And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennial question Did FDR know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor? By temperament and character, no American president was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. He once remarked, "I never let my right hand know what my left hand does." Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends. FDR was also spied against. Roosevelt's Secret War presents evidence that the Soviet Union had a source inside the Roosevelt White House; that British agents fed FDR total fabrications to draw the United States into war; and that Roosevelt, by yielding to Churchill's demand that British scientists be allowed to work on the Manhattan Project, enabled the secrets of the bomb to be stolen. And these are only a few of the scores of revelations in this constantly surprising story of Roosevelt's hidden role in World War II.
Roi Ottley's World War II
Author: Mark A. Huddle
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2012-08-14
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 0700618910
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen black journalist Vincent "Roi" Ottley was assigned to cover the European theater in World War II, he provided a perspective shared by few other war correspondents. But what he really saw has taken more than sixty years to come to light. Already famous as the author of New World A-Coming-in which he decried the hypocrisy of America fighting for freedom in Europe while denying it to blacks at home-Ottley was sent to cover the experiences of African American soldiers that neither white journalists nor the American military felt obliged to report. But while his dispatches documented this assignment, his personal diary reveals a different war-one that included mess hall brawls between Southern white soldiers and their black counterparts, the British public's ignorance toward their own black soldiers, and other subtle glimpses of wartime life that never made it into print. That journal remained buried in a collection of Ottley's papers at St. Bonaventure University until Mark Huddle discovered it in the school's archives. With this book, he offers us a new look at World War II as he brings a forgotten figure out of history's shadow. While Ottley may have had an agenda in his published articles of proving the worth of black soldiers, his diary is rich in personal reflections-from his fears while enduring a bombing raid in London to his true feelings about fellow reporters to his encounters with celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway and Edward R. Murrow. And at every turn Ottley kept a keen eye on race issues, revealing a highly political as well as entertaining writer while reflecting a growing awareness that the African American freedom movement was part of a larger international struggle by peoples of color against Western imperialism. Huddle's introduction frames Ottley's career and contributions, and his annotations throughout the book provide additional context to the reporter's experiences. Huddle also includes thirteen of Ottley's published dispatches to demonstrate the differences between his personal musings and his professional output. The publication of this lost diary restores the reputation of a trailblazing figure, showing that Roi Ottley was both a brilliant writer and one of America's keenest observers of race issues. It offers all readers interested in race relations or World War II a more nuanced picture of life during that conflict from a perspective rarely encountered.
You Are Not Forgotten
Author: Bryan Bender
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2014-05-20
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 0307946460
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1944 Major Marion “Ryan” McCown Jr., an earnest young Marine Corps pilot, came under attack by enemy fire and went down with his plane, lost to the dense jungle of Papua New Guinea. Some sixty years later, Major George Eyster V would find himself in the same sweltering and nearly impenetrable rain forest searching for evidence of MIAs. Coming from a long line of military officers dating back to the Revolutionary War, army service was Eyster’s family legacy. After a disillusioning tour of duty in Iraq and almost ending his army career, he accepts a posting to JPAC instead, an elite division whose sole mission is to bring all fallen soldiers home to the country for which they gave their lives. While Eyster’s search for McCown proves difficult, what emerges at the end of the unforgettable mission is an inspiring true tale of loss and redemption.
Torpedo Junction
Author: Homer H Hickam
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 1996-05-03
Total Pages: 369
ISBN-13: 1612515789
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war. In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win--because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.
