World War Memoir

Part contemporary detective story, part World War II historical narrative, No Surrender is the inspiring true story of Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville-born enlistee who risked his life during the final days of World War II to save others from murderous Nazis, and the lasting effects his actions had on thousands of lives - then and now.

With his parting words "I shall return," General Douglas MacArthur sealed the fate of the last American forces on Bataan. Yet one young Army Captain, named Russell Volckmann, refused to surrender. He disappeared into the jungles of north Luzon where he raised a Filipino army of over 22,000 men. For the next three years he led a guerrilla war against the Japanese, killing over 50,000 enemy soldiers. At the same time he established radio contact with MacArthur's HQ in Australia and directed Allied forces to key enemy positions.

This book presents the remarkable personal journals of German soldier Hans Roth. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. In these journals, battles are described in "you are there" detail, as Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors.

At the height of his fame and influence during World War II, Ernie Pyle’s nationally syndicated dispatches from combat zones shaped America’s understanding of what the war felt like to ordinary soldiers, as no writer’s work had before or has since. From North Africa to Sicily, from the beaches of Anzio to the beaches of Normandy, and on to the war in the Pacific, where he would meet his end, Ernie Pyle had a genius for connecting with his beloved dogfaced grunts. In The Soldier's Truth, acclaimed writer David Chrisinger brings Pyle’s journey to vivid life in all its heroism and pathos.

Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange of the nuclear age? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that electrifying moment on February 10, 1962, when their fates helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the cold war.

FACING THE LION is the autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II, Simone Arnold is a young girl who delights in life – her doting parents, her loving aunts and uncles, and her grandparents at their mountain farm in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. As Simone grows into her preteen years, her parents turn from the Catholic Church and become devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Simone, too, embraces the faith. The Nazi party (the "Lion") takes over Alsace-Lorraine, and Simone's schools become Nazi propaganda machines.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, written and read by Spike Milligan. At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train....

Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator. Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI.

Battle Hardened: An Infantry Officer's Harrowing Journey from D-Day to VE Day tells the story of an American soldier's growth from a Second Lieutenant eager to prove his worth in battle to a skilled and resolute commander over the course of the Northern European Campaign. Craig Chapman delves deep into the personal recollections and mental state of Bill Chapman as he fought against the Nazis, enduring frontline combat and witnessing horror on a massive scale.

The very young men who flew the B24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were an exemplary band of brothers. In The Wild Blue, Stephen Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship. Stephen Ambrose describes how the Army Air Forces recruited, trained, and chose those few who would undertake the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war.

Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer. However, Captain William Kidd was no career cut-throat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to chase pirates. Across the oceans of the world, the pirate hunter, Kidd, pursued the pirate, Culliford. One man would hang in the harbor; the other would walk away with the treasure. The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and a page-turner.

Nicknamed le loup des mers ("the sea wolf") by Napoleon, Thomas Cochrane was one of the most daring and successful naval heroes of all time. In this fascinating account of Cochrane's life, historian David Cordingly unearths startling new details about the real-life "Master and Commander", from his daring exploits against the French navy to his role in the liberation of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and the shock exchange scandal that forced him out of England and almost ended his naval career.

While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.

In a lifetime shaped by politics, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proved himself a master manipulator of Congress, the press, and the public. But when war in Europe and Asia threatened America's shores, FDR found himself in a world turned upside down, where his friends became his foes, his enemies his allies. To help wage democracy's first "total war", he turned to one of history's most remarkable triumvirates.

Some years ago a stash of family records was handed down to Michael Palin, among which were photos of an enigmatic young man in army uniform, as well as photos of the same young man as a teenager looking uncomfortable at family gatherings. This, Michael learned, was his Great-Uncle Harry, born in 1884, died in 1916. He had previously had no idea that he had a Great-Uncle Harry, much less that his life was cut short at the age of 32 when he was killed in the Battle of the Somme. The discovery both shocked him and made him want to know much more.

Louise Steinman has published essays and articles in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and Salon. She has also led writing workshops and curates literacy programs. The Souvenir, a powerful, best-selling book, was a featured selection of the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and others.

When Leosz was only six, his life changed completely. World War II broke out in 1939, sweeping the young boy into the whirlwind of the holocaust. For six long torturous years, Leosz sees and goes through everything: myriads of overcrowded transports headed for concentration camps, life on the streets of occupied Poland as an abandoned child, hiding from cruel Nazis, forced labor under conditions of starvation, and the constant threat of death.

The incredible true story of Clifton B. "Lucky" Cates, whose service in World War I and beyond made him a legend in the annals of the Marine Corps. Cates knew that he and his small band of marines were in a desperate spot. Before handing the note over to a runner, he added three words that would resound through Marine Corps history: I WILL HOLD.

June 1940: Europe has fallen to Adolf Hitler’s army, and Britain is his next target. Winston Churchill exhorts the country to resist the Nazis, and the nation seems to rally behind him. But in secret, some British citizens are plotting to hasten an invasion. Agent Jack tells the incredible true story of Eric Roberts, a seemingly inconsequential bank clerk who, in the guise of “Jack King”, helped uncover and neutralize the invisible threat of fascism on British shores.

Bold, brash, and brimming with courage, Chuck Yeager burst onto the scene as a national hero in 1947, when he became the first to fly an airplane faster than the speed of sound. Yet even before his days as America’s most famous test pilot, Yeager was a young fighter ace in the US Army Air Force, flying a P-51 Mustang over Nazi-occupied Europe. His exploits are the stuff of legend.