World War II Memoirs: The European Theater (LOA #385)
World War II Memoirs: The European Theater (LOA #385)

Author: Charles B. Macdonald

Publisher: Library of America

Published: 2024-11-19

Total Pages: 914

ISBN-13: 1598537865

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On the 80th anniversary of the war's end, 5 classic memoirs capture firsthand the shock, terror, and courage of the American fight against the Axis powers in Europe "The emotional environment of warfare has always been compelling," writes J. Glenn Gray in his incomparable World War II memoir and mediation, The Warriors. "Reflection and calm reasoning are alien to it." The struggle to make sense of the experience of war, to find some meaning in the savagry and senseless destruction, animates the five brilliant and unforgettable memoirs gathered here. Company Commander (1947), by Charles B. MacDonald, describes with startling immediacy and candor the “cold, dirty, rough, frightened, miserable” life of the infantryman and company commander from the aftermath of D-Day in September 1944 through the war's terrifying final days. The Warriors (1959), by J. Glenn Gray, a counterintelligence officer who served in Italy, France, and Germany and a scholar with a PhD. in philosophy, is a sensitive and revelatory meditation on the nature of war and its effects on both soldiers and civilians, interspliced with his letters, journals, and wartime memories. All the Brave Promises (1966) is novelist Mary Lee Settle’s memoir of her year as an airfield radio operator in the Royal Air Force. Settle brilliantly evokes both the working-class culture of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force’s “other ranks” and the petty and demeaning regimentation inherent in military life. The Fall of Fortresses (1980), by former B-17 navigator Elmer Bendiner, vividly recalls the fear and excitement he experienced flying bomber missions deep into Germany in 1943 without fighter escort. The Buffalo Saga (2009) is James Harden Daugherty’s heartfelt account of his frontline service as a Black soldier in the 92nd Infantry Division, as he fights the Germans, endures the harsh Italian winter, and confronts the racism of his own army. This deluxe Library of America volume includes full-color endpaper maps of the European Theater, an eight-page photo insert, an introduction by West Point professor Elizabeth D. Samet, and detailed notes.

A Wing and a Prayer
A Wing and a Prayer

Author: Harry H. Crosby

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1504067320

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“A compelling account of the air war against Germany” written by the navigator portrayed by Anthony Boyle in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air (Publishers Weekly). They began operations out of England in the spring of ’43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the “Bloody Hundredth” a legend. Harry H. Crosby—depicted in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last. After dealing with his fear and gaining in skill and confidence, he was promoted to Group Navigator, surviving hairbreadth escapes and eluding death while leading thirty-seven missions, some of them involving two thousand aircraft. Now, in a breathtaking and often humorous account, he takes us into the hearts and minds of these intrepid airmen to experience both the triumph and the white-knuckle terror of the war in the skies. “Affecting . . . A vivid account . . . Uncommonly thoughtful recollections that address the moral ambiguities of a great cause without in any way denigrating the selfless valor or camaraderie that helped ennoble it.” —Kirkus Reviews “Re-creates for us the sense of how it was when European skies were filled with noise and danger, when the fate of millions hung in the balance. An evocative and excellent memoir.” —Library Journal “The acrid stench of fear and cordite, the coal burning stoves, the heroics, the losses . . . This has to be the best memoir I have read, bar none.” —George Hicks, director of the Airmen Memorial Museum

Flights of Passage
Flights of Passage

Author: Samuel Hynes

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780747578116

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A gripping, literary recollection of a pilot's experiences during WWII.

Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II
Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II

Author: Combat Studies Institute Press

Publisher:

Published: 2019-07-29

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9781086087291

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"Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II" provides a historical account of how US forces used synchronized operations in the air, maritime, information, and land domains to defeat the Japanese Empire. This work offers a historical case that illuminates current thinking about future campaigns in which coordination among all domains will be critical for success.

Looking for the Good War
Looking for the Good War

Author: Elizabeth D. Samet

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2021-11-30

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0374716129

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“A remarkable book, from its title and subtitle to its last words . . . A stirring indictment of American sentimentality about war.” —Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans—all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States’ “exceptional” history and destiny. Samet finds the war's ambivalent legacy in some of its most heavily mythologized figures: the war correspondent epitomized by Ernie Pyle, the character of the erstwhile G.I. turned either cop or criminal in the pulp fiction and feature films of the late 1940s, the disaffected Civil War veteran who looms so large on the screen in the Cold War Western, and the resurgent military hero of the post-Vietnam period. Taken together, these figures reveal key elements of postwar attitudes toward violence, liberty, and nation—attitudes that have shaped domestic and foreign policy and that respond in various ways to various assumptions about national identity and purpose established or affirmed by World War II. As the United States reassesses its roles in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the time has come to rethink our national mythology: the way that World War II shaped our sense of national destiny, our beliefs about the use of American military force throughout the world, and our inability to accept the realities of the twenty-first century’s decades of devastating conflict.

The Praetorian STARShip : the untold story of the Combat Talon
The Praetorian STARShip : the untold story of the Combat Talon

Author:

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 1428990437

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Jerry Thigpen's study on the history of the Combat Talon is the first effort to tell the story of this wonderfully capable machine. This weapons system has performed virtually every imaginable tactical event in the spectrum of conflict and by any measure is the most versatile C-130 derivative ever produced. First modified and sent to Southeast Asia (SEA) in 1966 to replace theater unconventional warfare (UW) assets that were limited in both lift capability and speed the Talon I quickly adapted to theater UW tasking including infiltration and resupply and psychological warfare operations into North Vietnam. After spending four years in SEA and maturing into a highly respected UW weapons system the Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) chose the Combat Talon to lead the night low-level raid on the North Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay. Despite the outcome of the operation the Talon I cemented its reputation as the weapons system of choice for long-range clandestine operations. In the period following the Vietnam War United States Air Force (USAF) special operations gradually lost its political and financial support which was graphically demonstrated in the failed Desert One mission into Iran. Thanks to congressional supporters like Earl Hutto of Florida and Dan Daniel of Virginia funds for aircraft upgrades and military construction projects materialized to meet the ever-increasing threat to our nation. Under the leadership of such committed hard-driven officers as Brenci Uttaro Ferkes Meller and Thigpen the crew force became the most disciplined in our Air Force. It was capable of penetrating hostile airspace at night in a low-level mountainous environment covertly to execute any number of unconventional warfare missions.