United States Forces in New Zealand, 1942-1945
Author: Denys Bevan
Publisher: MacPherson Publishing
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 428
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
The A to Z of World War II
Author: Anne Sharp Wells
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2009-09-28
Total Pages: 495
ISBN-13: 0810870266
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWorld War II dominates world history today as it dominated world attention over 60 years ago. 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 Pacific; and the other, initiated by Germany and Italy, was contested mainly in Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. The A to Z of World War II: The War Against Japan traces the brutal conflict from Japan's seizure of Chinese territory in 1931, through the onset of war with the Western Allies in 1941, to the use of atomic weapons by the United States in 1945. It also addresses the aftermath of the war including the formation of the United Nations and the American occupation of Japan. As the first of two volumes covering World War II, this volume concentrates on the war in Asia and the Pacific so the user benefits from the comprehensive explanations of the people, places, and events that shaped much of that region's 20th-century history.
South Pacific Diary, 1942-1943
Author: Mack Morriss
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2014-10-17
Total Pages: 278
ISBN-13: 0813157366
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA unique chronicle of the war from the perspective of a sensitive twenty-four-year-old sergeant who wrote for the Army's in-house paper, Yank, the Army Weekly and a tale of the South Pacific that will not soon be forgotten. Correspondent Mack Morriss reluctantly left his diary in the Honolulu Yank office in July 1943. "Here is contained an account of the past eight and one-half months," he wrote in his last entry, "a period which I shall never forget." The next morning he was on a plane headed back to the South Pacific and the New Georgia battleground. Morriss was working out of the press camp at Spa, Belgium, in January 1945, when he learned that the diary he had kept in the South Pacific had arrived in a plain brown wrapper at the New York office. He was so happy "to know that this impossible thing had happened," he wrote to his wife, that he helped two friends "murder a quart of scotch." What was preserved and appears in print here for the first time is a unique chronicle of the war in the South Pacific from the perspective of a sensitive twenty-four-year-old sergeant. This is an intensely personal account, reporting the war from the ridge known as the Sea Horse on Guadalcanal, from the bars and dance halls of Auckland to a B-17 flying through the moonlit night to bomb Japanese installations on Bougainville. Morriss thought deeply and wrote movingly about everything connected with the war: the sordiness and heroism, the competence and ineptitude of leaders, the strange mixture of constant complaint and steady courage of ordinary GIs, friendships formed under combat stress, and, above all, what he perceived to be his own indecisiveness and weaknesses. Ronnie Day introduces Morriss's diary and illuminates the work with extensive notes based on private papers, government documents, travel in the Solomon Islands, and the recollections of men mentioned in the diary.
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force in World War II
Author: Wayne Stack
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-03-20
Total Pages: 49
ISBN-13: 178096112X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1939 more than 140,000 New Zealanders enlisted to fight overseas during World War II. Of these, 104,000 served in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Initially thrown into the doomed campaign to halt the German blitzkrieg on Greece and Crete (1941), the division was rebuilt under the leadership of MajGen Sir Bernard Freyberg, and became the elite corps within Montgomery's Eighth Army in the desert. After playing a vital role in the victory at El Alamein (1942) the 'Kiwis' were the vanguard of the pursuit to Tunisia. In 1943–45 the division was heavily engaged in the Italian mountains, especially at Cassino (1944); it ended the war in Trieste. Meanwhile, a smaller NZ force supported US forces against the Japanese in the Solomons and New Guinea (1942–44). Fully illustrated with specially commissioned colour plates, this is the story of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force's vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II.
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.
Troopships of World War II
Author: Roland Wilbur Charles
Publisher:
Published: 1947
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"This book contains authentic photographs and salient facts covering 358 troopships used in World War II. In addition, other vessels of miscellaneous character, including Victory and Liberty type temporary conversions for returning troops, are listed in the appendices ..."--Pref.
Rings of Fire
Author: Larry J. Hughes
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2024-06-18
Total Pages: 601
ISBN-13: 0811773914
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“An epic story, filled with an unfolding array of evocatively described landscapes and sharply drawn, unforgettable people.” —Dayton Duncan, writer and producer for Ken Burns documentary films and author of fourteen books on American history and national parks Edwin Land had barely settled into his seat on the plane when the flash went off. An idea for an innovative WWII technology that might help eradicate the fascist cancer devouring the free world. It was Polaroid’s Optical Ring Sight, which magically projected a bullseye of brilliantly colored rings onto the sky—like rings of fire—to aim American antiaircraft guns that previously “couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” Rings of Fire is the compelling story of American ingenuity, determination, and grit—told through the personal stories of the amazing people who transformed insight into gunsight. From scientists to ordinary Americans to drifters and ex-cons characterized as “the underbelly of America,” they crossed cultural barriers to tackle a shared crisis: California “desert rat” artist, John Hilton, whose mining claim supplied the calcite crystals desperately needed for the device, assisted by Gen. George S. Patton. Miners Steve Modesto and John Owens, a Cahuilla Indian ranch hand and a white meat-cutter from Kansas, whose friendship led to an astonishing discovery. Moonshiner Al Hansen, whose calcite prospecting in Montana started with a lucky strike but cascaded into a wild-west vigilante showdown. “Crystal Crackin’ Mama” Irene Frederick, whose calcite-crystal processing skills silenced male skeptics and helped rescue the Polaroid project from disaster. Edwin Stanton, whose hubris led to a fat FBI dossier and tragedy while prospecting in Mexico. Cecil Kegans, a rough Oklahoman with a huge smile, starting his Marine career by fetching groceries for calcite miners and ending it in a bloody pool on Saipan. And miner Harry Sikkenga, whose fist fight with a shift boss packed him off to the army artillery, just in time to invade Germany and encounter the horror of Dachau. Teamed together, they overcame enormous personal obstacles to produce ring sights for Navy ships, aircraft, and Army bazookas. And afterwards, their product went from aiming the guns of war to the cameras of peacetime—for television and on the helmets of skydiving videographers. And then, all the way to the moon, aiming NASA’s space cameras, culminating with perhaps the most influential photograph of all time, Earthrise. Larry Hughes unfolds this gripping, never-told story with accessible explanations of the science and the art behind the project, but always lets the colorful characters drive a warm and vivid adventure.
The Castaway's War
Author: Stephen Harding
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
Published: 2016-05-03
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 0306823411
DOWNLOAD EBOOKShipwrecked on a South Pacific island, a young US Navy lieutenant waged a one-man war against the Japanese In the early hours of July 5, 1943, the destroyer USS Strong was hit by a Japanese torpedo. The powerful weapon broke the destroyer's back, killed dozens of sailors, and sparked raging fires. While accompanying ships were able to take off most of Strong's surviving crewmembers, scores went into the ocean as the once-proud warship sank beneath the waves--and a young officer's harrowing story of survival began. Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, a pre-war football star at the University of Alabama, went into the water as the vessel sank. Severely injured, Miller and several others survived three days at sea and eventually landed on a Japanese-occupied island. The survivors found fresh water and a few coconuts, but Miller, suffering from internal injuries and believing he was on the verge of death, ordered the others to go on without him. They reluctantly did do, believing, as Miller did, that he would be dead within hours. But Miller didn't die, and his health improved enough for him to begin searching for food. He also found the enemy--Japanese forces patrolling the island. Miller was determined to survive, and so launched a one-man war against the island's occupiers. Based on official American and Japanese histories, personal memoirs, and the author's exclusive interviews with many of the story's key participants, The Castaway's War is a rousing story of naval combat, bravery, and determination.
Science and the Pacific War
Author: Roy M. MacLeod
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 1999-12-31
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9780792358510
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War occasioned many reflections on the place of science and technology in the conflict. That the war ended with Allied victory in the Pacific theatre, inevitably focussed attention upon the Pacific region, and particularly upon the Manhattan project and its outcome. It was in the Pacific that Western physics and engineering gave birth to the Atomic Age. However, the Pacific war had also proved a testing time, and a testing space, for other disciplines and institutions. Extreme environments and opemtional distances, and the fundamental demands of logistics, required the Allies and the Japanese to innovate many scientific and technological practices. Just as medicine and botany were called upon to fight tropical diseases and insect pests, so engineers, anthropol ogists and geographers were called upon to understand local conditions and cli mates, and to work with local peoples whose traditional lives were changed forever by the experience. At the same time, the war played midwife to a host of new de velopments, not least in scientific intelligence and in chemical and biological weapons, which were to acquire far greater importance after 1945.
Home
Author: Alison Parr
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780143203841
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhile their loved ones left to serve overseas, most New Zealanders spent the Second World War at home. This book tells the stories of those who stayed behind. Based on frank, in-depth interviews, Home reveals the reality of civilian wartime life in New Zealand during the watershed years from 1939 to 1945. Women and men remember, with disarming honesty, the experiences that unfolded for them, including chronic uncertainty, the fear of enemy invasion, the deprivations that came with rationing, and the intensity of wartime romantic relationships. Some took a pacifist stand, against the patriotic tide; others hid their embarrassment when they were excluded from military service. Most lived with the ongoing anxiety of long-distance separation from loved ones. Many endured the inevitable grief of loss. Moving, funny, heartfelt and often surprising, these are memories of ordinary lives lived in extraordinary times.
