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

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

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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: Richard A. Barrett, II.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781499565140
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
What do you think when you think of World War I? Chances are, you think of utter futility, a war waged because greed ran rampant and no one could halt the inevitable tragedy. Chances are, you think of a conflict where an entire generation of young men was wasted needless for a war no one truly wanted but no one could stop.But when you read Richard Barrett II's The Forgotten History of World War I, you'll find out:About Frederick Nietzsche, the racial purity philosopher who shaped the national ideology of Germany in the days before World War I, a philosopher who espoused the German Race as the Superman—“the Blonde Beast”—who would enslave the lower races, the Backworldsmen? When you read Richard Barrett II's The Forgotten History of World War I, you'll find out About how this ideology led to a forgotten genocide in South West Africa from 1904-1907, a horrific elimination of two races known as the Herero and the Nama on par with the Holocaust of Hitlerian fame.When you read Richard Barrett II's The Forgotten History of World War I, you'll find out:About the British Empire, who for two hundred years spread Civilization to countries all across the globe that were stuck in the Dark Ages, and how they wage countless wars to create an order of peace and security for millions of people across the globe.When you read Richard Barrett II's The Forgotten History of World War I, you'll find out:About when 800 British soldiers, honed in the art of Counter-Insurgency against countless terror groups across the world, beat 8000 elite of the German Army and singlehandedly saved the continent of Europe.When you read Richard Barrett II's The Forgotten History of World War I, you'll find out:

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

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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: 9780719565755
Category : Burma
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
Through festering jungle and across burning plains to high mountains and lazy rivers, the Burma campaign of the Second World War involved the longest retreat in British history, and the longest advance; long-range penetration miles behind enemy lines, vicious hand-to-hand fighting, and the horrors of forced labour. Yet this strange war remains utterly fascinating with singular characters like Slim, Mountbatten, Stilwell and Wingate, while dominated by ordinary soldiers that it 'gathered to itself like a whirlpool, men from the ends of the earth': from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West, East and South Africa, but overwhelmingly, from India. Dogras, Sikhs, Punjabis, Kumaonis, Madrassis and Nepalese, representing every race and caste on the subcontinent, were all far from home, all fighting for survival against a ruthless enemy prepared to die for his emperor, while the Burmese fought for their independence. Jon Latimer draws these disparate strands together in a gripping narrative, to describe the operations and the politics that shaped them, while illustrating the experiences of thousands of ordinary people whose lives were caught up and transformed by this south-east Asian maelstrom, many of whom feel that like Fourteenth Army they were forgotten. This book ensures that none of them are.

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

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

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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: John D. Caldwell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153811478X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America’s modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi Wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies. Caldwell comprehensively examines these four wars through the lens of a strategic architecture to explain how and why their outcomes were so dramatically different. He defines a strategic architecture as an interlinked set of continually evolving policies, strategies, and operations by which combatant states work toward a desired end. Policy defines the high-level goals a nation seeks to achieve once it initiates a conflict or finds itself drawn into one. Policy makers direct a broad course of action and strive to control the initiative. When they make decisions, they have to respond to unforeseen conditions to guide and determine future decisions. Effective leaders are skilled at organizing constituencies they need to succeed and communicating to them convincingly. Strategy means employing whatever resources are available to achieve policy goals in situations that are dynamic as conflicts change quickly over time. Operations are the actions that occur when politicians, soldiers, and diplomats execute plans. A strategic architecture, Caldwell argues, is thus not a static blueprint but a dynamic vision of how a state can succeed or fail in a conflict.

Author: Christopher Alan Bayly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674017481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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In the early stages of the Second World War, the vast crescent of British-ruled territories stretching from India to Singapore appeared as a massive Allied asset. It provided scores of soldiers and great quantities of raw materials and helped present a seemingly impregnable global defense against the Axis. Yet, within a few weeks in 1941-42, a Japanese invasion had destroyed all this, sweeping suddenly and decisively through south and southeast Asia to the Indian frontier, and provoking the extraordinary revolutionary struggles which would mark the beginning of the end of British dominion in the East and the rise of today's Asian world. More than a military history, this gripping account of groundbreaking battles and guerrilla campaigns creates a panoramic view of British Asia as it was ravaged by warfare, nationalist insurgency, disease, and famine. It breathes life into the armies of soldiers, civilians, laborers, businessmen, comfort women, doctors, and nurses who confronted the daily brutalities of a combat zone which extended from metropolitan cities to remote jungles, from tropical plantations to the Himalayas. Drawing upon a vast range of Indian, Burmese, Chinese, and Malay as well as British, American, and Japanese voices, the authors make vivid one of the central dramas of the twentieth century: the birth of modern south and southeast Asia and the death of British rule.

Author: Richard Holmes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0756656052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This defining period in world history is explored and explained as never before. World War II is captured in hundreds of compelling images, presenting the people, places, and politics involved in the epic conflict. Inside this complete visual guide is chronological coverage of the lead up to war, major military battles around the globe, and the aftermath that still influences and impacts our world today. You'll meet the key players in thought-provoking profiles and discover their experiences firsthand, from national leaders sounding the orders to combatants on the frontline and civilians left behind. Standout moments, including Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and the D-Day landings, are revealed in rarely seen color photographs and unforgettable eyewitness accounts. Explosive photography, international maps, accessible text, and supporting timelines combine to show the most destructive event ever known in unprecedented depth and detail. Although the complexities of World War II can be hard to fathom, this standout reference is organized in a logical order and the supporting captions are concise and clear throughout to aid understanding. World War II provides an unparalleled account of this devastating conflict so we never forget and continue to learn from the past. This title differs from DK's previous World War II title, in that it is a spread-by-spread account á la History (with "previous" and "following" tabs placing each spread in chronological context) of the war, rather than a narrative that needs to be read from start to finish.

Author: Charles L. Dufour
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803265998
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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"Long before the Confederacy was crushed militarily, it was defeated economically," writes Charles L. Dufour. He contends that with the fall of the critical city of New Orleans in spring 1862 the South lost the Civil War, although fighting would continueøfor three more years. On the Mississippi River, below New Orleans, in the predawn of April 24, 1862, David Farragut with fourteen gunboats ran past two forts to capture the South's principal seaport. Vividly descriptive, The Night the War Was Lost is also very human in its portrayal of terrified citizens and leaders occasionally rising to heroism. In a swift-moving narrative, Dufour explains the reasons for the seizure of New Orleans and describes its results.