The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War II PDF Download

Author: Mitchell Geoffrey Bard
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592572045
Category : Lightning war
Languages : en
Pages : 436

View

Book Description
WWII began in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and an Anglo-French coalition but eventually widened to include most of the nations of the world. It ended in 1945, leaving a new world order dominated by the United States and the USSR. This book features updated and expanded coverage of the fateful D-Day invasion, a critical timeline of major WW II events, and a WW II timeline highlighting the crucial and most important events of the war. It will include details about major battles on land, in the air, and on the sea - starting with Hitler's rise to power and his goal of European conquest; to Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbour; to the decisive battles such as D-Day and the Battle of Midway, which turned the tides of the war toward the Allies.

Author: Alan Axelrod
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780028639024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

View

Book Description
Provides coverage of the causes leading to war, famous battles, weapons, and the influence on political and cultural development, and includes biographical information on key figures.

Author: U. S. Military
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781520960593
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 437

View

Book Description
This comprehensive book provides a complete guide to the Aleutian campaign in World War II, incorporating seventeen official documents and histories with vivid details and insightful analysis. Contents: The Aleutians - Lessons From A Forgotten Campaign * World War II in the Aleutians: The Fundamentals of Joint Campaigns * The Aleutian Campaign: Lessons in Operational Design * The "Moose Muss" of the Aleutian Campaign: An Operational Analysis Using the Principles of War * The Aleutian Islands Campaign - An Operational Art Perspective * Fighting The Cold: The Need for Standing Cold Weather Combat Capabilities * The Aleutian Campaign In World War II: A Strategic Perspective * Mountain and Cold Weather Warfighting: Critical Capability for the 21st Century * Imperial Japanese Navy Campaign Planning and Design of the Aleutian-Midway Campaign * Aleutian Campaign, World War II: Historical Study and Current Perspective * Weather as the Decisive Factor of the Aleutian Campaign, June 1942 - August 1943 * Victory in the Aleutians: An Analysis of Jointlessness * Effective Operational Deception: Learning the Lessons of Midway and Desert Storm * Memories of the Aleutians Campaign, WWII * Aleutian Islands - The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II * The Aleutians Campaign - June 1942 to August 1943 * World War II in Alaska In the summer of 1943, the United States and the Imperial Japanese Empire struggled violently over one of the most desolate pieces of ground in the Northern Pacific. The Aleutian chain of islands, part of the territory of Alaska, became the battleground for a dramatic conflict in the Second World War. The campaign for the Aleutians represented on both sides key strategic objectives and Interests, and eventually cost considerable lives. Alaska's role as battlefield, lend-lease transfer station, and North Pacific stronghold was often overlooked by historians in the post-war decades, but in recent years awareness has been growing of Alaska's wartime past. Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombed the U.S. Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears, near Unalaska Island and occupied the Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska. For many decades following the War, the prevailing understanding about the Japanese Aleutian operation was that it served as a mere diversionary measure from their Midway operation. Recent research, however, concludes that the Japanese had a broader and longer term strategy to establish and expand an eastern defensive perimeter. In response, U.S. military strategists knew that they could not risk leaving the Aleutians open as stepping stones for Japanese attacks on the United States mainland. In addition, the occupation was a significant propaganda victory for the Japanese-the affront could not go unanswered. Aleutian Campaign - Because planes departing from Kodiak and Dutch Harbor did not have the nearly 1,400 mile range to engage the Japanese at Attu and Kiska, U.S. forces built bases on other Aleutian islands as refueling and maintenance stops, allowing them to strike further west. Pilots and ground troops soon realized they were facing a second enemy, Mother Nature. Weather along the Aleutian chain is some of the worst in the world, with dense fogs, violent seas, and fierce wind storms called williwaws. Aircraft lacking accurate navigational devices or consistent radio contact crashed into mountains, each other, the sea-simply finding the enemy was a life-and-death struggle. For soldiers in the Aleutians, contact with the enemy was infrequent and fleeting, but the weather was a perpetual adversary.

Author: Jon Latimer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781786080585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 618

View

Book Description
The Burma campaign of WW2 - marked by extremes, contradictions and harsh brutality - is fascinatingly brought to life in this comprehensive military history

Author: Rana Mitter
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 054784056X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 485

View

Book Description
A history of the Chinese experience in WWII, named a Book of the Year by both the Economist and the Financial Times: “Superb” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, Chinese troops clashed with Japanese occupiers in the first battle of World War II. Joining with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, China became the fourth great ally in a devastating struggle for its very survival. In this book, prize-winning historian Rana Mitter unfurls China’s drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue as never before. Based on groundbreaking research, this gripping narrative focuses on a handful of unforgettable characters, including Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and Chiang’s American chief of staff, “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell—and also recounts the sacrifice and resilience of everyday Chinese people through the horrors of bombings, famines, and the infamous Rape of Nanking. More than any other twentieth-century event, World War II was crucial in shaping China’s worldview, making Forgotten Ally both a definitive work of history and an indispensable guide to today’s China and its relationship with the West.

Author: Thomas E. Simmons
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 158979964X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327

View

Book Description
World War II was the defining event of the twentieth century. For everyone it was a time of confusion, fear, destruction, and death on a scale never before seen. Much has been written of the generals, campaigns, and battles of the war, but it was young, ordinary American kids who held our freedom in their hands as they fought for liberty across the globe. Forgotten Heroes of World War II offers a personal understanding of what was demanded of these young heroes through the stories of rank-and-file individuals who served in the navy, marines, army, air corps, and merchant marine in all theaters of the war. Their tales are told without pretense or apology. At the time, each thought himself no different from those around him, for they were all young, scared, and miserable. They were the ordinary, the extraordinary—the forgotten.

Author: Thomas R. Flagel
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402271468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

View

Book Description
Did you know that neither Hitler nor Stalin graduated from high school? Or that the Allies often employed teenage girls as spies? In The History Buff's Guide to World War II, Thomas R. Flagel leaves no stone unturned as he presents dozens of top ten lists that examine the politics, leaders, and battles of the Second World War. From Hitler to Stalin, battleground to home front, Flagel's compelling analysis and attention to often-overlooked information ensures a surprise on every page for even the most dedicated World War II buff. This fresh, impossible-to-put-down book puts a new perspective on one of the most heavily researched wars of all time and is sue to enthrall expert and amateur historians alike. Do You Think You Know World War II? Top Ten Speeches Top Ten Causes of Military Deaths Top Ten Most Popular Myths and Misconceptions Top Ten Forms of Resistance Top Ten Military Blunders

Author: Jonathan Gawne
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1636240100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398

View

Book Description
A guide to learning more about your relatives’ experience serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. In this fully revised edition of Finding Your Father’s War, military historian Jonathan Gawne has written an easily accessible handbook for anyone seeking greater knowledge of their relatives’ experience in World War II, or indeed anyone seeking a better understanding of the U.S. Army during World War II. With over 470 photographs, charts, and an engaging narrative with many rare insights into wartime service, this book is an invaluable tool for understanding our “citizen soldiers,” who once rose as a generation to fight the greatest war in American history. “Jonathan's Gawne’s book is a 5-star blueprint, well-written and beautifully illustrated, to deciphering a loved one’s WW2 U.S. Army service.” —The Commander’s Voice “A great read not only for genealogists wishing to research an ancestor, but also for those who simply have an interest in the United States Army during World War II . . . written so that anyone, even those with no military background, can understand, yet also includes more advanced information . . . detail is phenomenal . . . a must read reference book for any professional genealogist or military historian.” —APG Quarterly

Author: Wil S. Hylton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594632863
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

View

Book Description
From a mesmerizing storyteller, the gripping search for a missing World War II crew, their bomber plane, and their legacy. In the fall of 1944, a massive American bomber carrying eleven men vanished over the Pacific islands of Palau, leaving a trail of mysteries. According to mission reports from the Army Air Forces, the plane crashed in shallow water—but when investigators went to find it, the wreckage wasn’t there. Witnesses saw the crew parachute to safety, yet the airmen were never seen again. Some of their relatives whispered that they had returned to the United States in secret and lived in hiding. But they never explained why. For sixty years, the U.S. government, the children of the missing airmen, and a maverick team of scientists and scuba divers searched the islands for clues. With every clue they found, the mystery only deepened. Now, in a spellbinding narrative, Wil S. Hylton weaves together the true story of the missing men, their final mission, the families they left behind, and the real reason their disappearance remained shrouded in secrecy for so long. This is a story of love, loss, sacrifice, and faith—of the undying hope among the families of the missing, and the relentless determination of scientists, explorers, archaeologists, and deep-sea divers to solve one of the enduring mysteries of World War II.

Author: Hampton Sides
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385541163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

View

Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers, a chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism by Marines called on to do the impossible during the greatest battle of the Korean War. "Superb ... A masterpiece of thorough research, deft pacing and arresting detail...This war story—the fight to break out of a frozen hell near the Chosin Reservoir—has been told many times before. But Sides tells it exceedingly well, with fresh research, gritty scenes and cinematic sweep." —The Washington Post On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war. As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What followed was one of the most heroic--and harrowing--operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time. Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below zero, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way to the sea. Hampton Sides' superb account of this epic clash relies on years of archival research, unpublished letters, declassified documents, and interviews with scores of Marines and Koreans who survived the siege. While expertly detailing the follies of the American leaders, On Desperate Ground is an immediate, grunt's-eye view of history, enthralling in its narrative pace and powerful in its portrayal of what ordinary men are capable of in the most extreme circumstances. Hampton Sides has been hailed by critics as one of the best nonfiction writers of his generation. As the Miami Herald wrote, "Sides has a novelist's eye for the propulsive elements that lend momentum and dramatic pace to the best nonfiction narratives."