The Crucible of War, 1939-1945 PDF Download

Author: Brereton Greenhous
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802005748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1148

View

Book Description
The RCAF, with a total strength of 4061 officers and men on 1 September 1939, grew by the end of the war to a strength of more than 263,000 men and women. This important and well-illustrated new history shows how they contributed to the resolution of the most significant conflict of our time.

Author: Fred Anderson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307425398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 902

View

Book Description
In this engrossing narrative of the great military conflagration of the mid-eighteenth century, Fred Anderson transports us into the maelstrom of international rivalries. With the Seven Years' War, Great Britain decisively eliminated French power north of the Caribbean — and in the process destroyed an American diplomatic system in which Native Americans had long played a central, balancing role — permanently changing the political and cultural landscape of North America. Anderson skillfully reveals the clash of inherited perceptions the war created when it gave thousands of American colonists their first experience of real Englishmen and introduced them to the British cultural and class system. We see colonists who assumed that they were partners in the empire encountering British officers who regarded them as subordinates and who treated them accordingly. This laid the groundwork in shared experience for a common view of the world, of the empire, and of the men who had once been their masters. Thus, Anderson shows, the war taught George Washington and other provincials profound emotional lessons, as well as giving them practical instruction in how to be soldiers. Depicting the subsequent British efforts to reform the empire and American resistance — the riots of the Stamp Act crisis and the nearly simultaneous pan-Indian insurrection called Pontiac's Rebellion — as postwar developments rather than as an anticipation of the national independence that no one knew lay ahead (or even desired), Anderson re-creates the perspectives through which contemporaries saw events unfold while they tried to preserve imperial relationships. Interweaving stories of kings and imperial officers with those of Indians, traders, and the diverse colonial peoples, Anderson brings alive a chapter of our history that was shaped as much by individual choices and actions as by social, economic, and political forces.

Author: Jorge Rodriguez Beruff
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626740879
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

View

Book Description
Despite 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.

Author: Terry Copp
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

View

Book Description
A Nation at War brings together a collection of sixty-two essays covering all aspects of the Canadian experience in the Second World War. It is a readable and authoritative introduction to both the historical narrative and the interpretive debates by the best selling author of Fields of Fire and Cinderella Army. Published by the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies and distributed by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Author: Geoffrey Jensen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351873733
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 564

View

Book Description
Although ostensibly a time of peace, one of the richest and most fascinating periods in military history falls between the two world wars. With good reason, even today military theorists look to these years for relevant lessons. The articles and papers collected together in this volume highlight the major themes and developments of interwar military affairs in Europe, including the new doctrines of tank warfare, air power, German "Blitzkrieg", and Soviet operational art. They also demonstrate the important place of the major armed conflicts of the period, such as the Russian and Spanish Civil Wars, in European history.

Author: Brian Buckley
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1039148328
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 156

View

Book Description
Courage. Heroism. Endurance. These qualities are emblematic of the stories of thousands of Canadians who fought during World War II. Canadians like Tim Carlon, a young Montrealer who went off to war, doing his part in a global struggle whose legacy remains as relevant as ever eight decades later. Tim’s Story: A Canadian Airman in World War II, is a tale of an airman who was decorated for gallantry in 1942, only to be wounded and shot down over Germany the following year. He spent over two years in POW camps and survived two forced marches in 1945 before the war finally ended. But Tim’s sacrifice didn’t end when he came home. A war-related illness claimed his life a few years after he returned to Canada. Brian Buckley (whose wife is Tim Carlon’s niece) wrote this account to preserve the memory of a brave young man, one of Canada’s many heroes whose stories and legacies deserve to be remembered. A tribute to all those who served, Tim’s Story also aims to deepen Canadians’ collective understanding of our country’s role in a conflict that largely shaped the modern world.

Author: Timothy Balzer
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774818999
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

View

Book Description
In wartime, capturing the hearts and minds of the citizenry is arguably as important as victory on the battlefield. The Information Front explores the Canadian military’s use of public relations units to manage news during the Second World War. These specialized units were responsible for providing sufficient and positive news coverage to Canadians at home. This fascinating study traces the transformation of an emergent PR organization into an efficient publicity machine. It also scrutinizes news coverage and PR activities during major Canadian operations at Dieppe, Sicily, and Normandy to reveal how the military used censorship and propaganda to rally support for the war effort.

Author: David Ian Hall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313350086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

View

Book Description
Strategy for Victory: The Development of British Tactical Air Power, 1919-1943 examines the nature of the inter-Service crisis between the British Army and the RAF over the provision of effective air support for the army in the Second World War. Material for this book is drawn primarily from the rich collection of documents at the National Archives (UK) and other British archives. The author makes a highly original point that Britain's independent RAF was in fact a disguised blessing for the Army and that the air force's independence was in part a key reason why a successful solution to the army's air support problems was found. The analysis traces why the British army went to war in 1939 without adequate air support and how an effective system of support was organized by the RAF. As such, it is the first scholarly survey of the origins and development of British air support doctrine and practice during the early years of the Second World War. The provision of direct air support was of central importance to the success enjoyed by Anglo-American armies during the latter half of the Second World War. First in North Africa, and later in Italy and North-West Europe, American, British and Empire armies fought most if not all of their battles with the knowledge that they enjoyed unassailable air superiority throughout the battle area. This advantage, however, was the product of a long and bitter dispute between the British Army and the Royal Air Force that began at the end of the First World War and continued virtually unabated until it was resolved in late 1942 and early 1943 when the 2nd Tactical Air Force was created. Battlefield experience and, in particular, success in North Africa, combined with the hard work, wisdom and perseverance of Air Marshals Sir Arthur Tedder and Arthur Coningham, the active co-operation of General Bernard Montgomery, and the political authority of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, produced a uniquely British system that afforded the most comprehensive, effective and flexible air support provided by any air force during the war. The book is divided into two equal parts of five chapters. Part one surveys how the British Army went to war in 1939 without adequate air support, and part two explains how an effective system of air support was organized by the middle years of the war. The analysis traces Britain's earliest experience with aircraft in the Great War 1914-1918, the inter-war period of doctrinal development and inter-Service rivalry, and the major campaigns in France and the Middle East during the first half of the Second World War when the weaknesses in Army-RAF co-operation were first exposed and eventually resolved. As such, it is the first scholarly survey of the origin and development of British air support doctrine and practice during the early years of the Second World War.

Author: Tim Cook
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014319612X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 942

View

Book Description
Winner of the 2016 Ottawa Book Award The magisterial second volume of Tim Cook's definitive account of Canadians fighting in the Second World War. Historian Tim Cook displays his trademark storytelling ability in the second volume of his masterful account of Canadians in World War II. Cook combines an extraordinary grasp of military strategy with a deep empathy for the soldiers on the ground, at sea and in the air. Whether it's a minute-by-minute account of a gruelling artillery battle, vicious infighting among generals, the scene inside a medical unit, or the small details of a soldier's daily life, Cook creates a compelling narrative. He recounts in mesmerizing detail how the Canadian forces figured in the Allied bombing of Germany, the D-Day landing at Juno beach, the taking of Caen, and the drive south. Featuring dozens of black-and-white photographs and moving excerpts from letters and diaries of servicemen, Fight to the Finish is a memorable account of Canadians who fought abroad and of the home front that was changed forever.

Author: Donald Nijboer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 081176592X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

View

Book Description
More than half of the U.S.’s aircraft losses in Europe in World War II were due to German antiaircraft artillery, and many of the American aircraft shot down by Luftwaffe fighters had first been driven out of formation by flak and made easy prey for the fighters. A world away in the Pacific, American flak guns aboard naval ships formed the last line of defense against Japanese kamikazes. Historian Donald Nijboer relies on firsthand accounts, newly discovered files, photos, diagrams, and maps to reveal the forgotten contribution of flak in World War II, from doctrine and tactics to combat stories on the ground and in the air about what it was like to fly into the teeth of antiaircraft fire.