Author: Marilyn Walton and Michael Eberhardt Publisher: Author House ISBN: 1491846887 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 741
Book Description
During World War II, 300,000 United States Army Air Corps airmen were shot down. Of that number, 51,000 were prisoners of war or listed as missing in action. Bombardiers, positioned in the vulnerable bombardiers' compartment at the front of the aircraft, were in high demand. The authors' fathers were two such bombardiers, one on a B-17 and the other on a B-24. Like so many of the post-war generation, the authors traveled on their own emotional journeys to reconstruct their fathers' WWII experiences. Their fathers fought in the flak-ridden "blue battlefield," and like thousands of other airmen shot out of the sky, became prisoners of war. They would endure deprivation, loneliness, and great peril. Held at Stalag Luft III, where the Great Escape of movie fame took place, they, along with the British, were eventually force marched 52-miles in the dead of winter to Spremberg, Germany, and loaded onto overcrowded, filthy, boxcars, the Americans to be taken to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, or to Stalag XIII-D in Nürnberg. Languishing until their liberation in barbaric conditions with nearly 120,000 international POWs, they witnessed the death throes of the Third Reich. With many sons and daughters trying to explore the wartime histories of their loved ones, the authors supply crucial information and insight regarding the World War II POW experience in Europe. Often times, by necessity, that experience reflects the co-existence and tenuous relationship with the Germans holding them. In this book, there are stories that up until now have not been heard, and there are hundreds of pictures, many previously unseen, illustrating the prisoners' plight. This book is a documentation of riveting history and a chance to vicariously live the war, told through their voices --echoes now fading with time. Their sacrifices to ensure precious freedom should never be forgotten.
Author: Marilyn Jeffers Walton Publisher: AuthorHouse ISBN: 1491847069 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 740
Book Description
During World War II, 300,000 United States Army Air Corps airmen were shot down. Of that number, 51,000 were prisoners of war or listed as missing in action. Bombardiers, positioned in the vulnerable bombardiers compartment at the front of the aircraft, were in high demand. The authors fathers were two such bombardiers, one on a B-17 and the other on a B-24. Like so many of the post-war generation, the authors traveled on their own emotional journeys to reconstruct their fathers WWII experiences. Their fathers fought in the flak-ridden blue battlefield, and like thousands of other airmen shot out of the sky, became prisoners of war. They would endure deprivation, loneliness, and great peril. Held at Stalag Luft III, where the Great Escape of movie fame took place, they, along with the British, were eventually force marched 52-miles in the dead of winter to Spremberg, Germany, and loaded onto overcrowded, filthy, boxcars, the Americans to be taken to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, or to Stalag XIII-D in N rnberg. Languishing until their liberation in barbaric conditions with nearly 120,000 international POWs, they witnessed the death throes of the Third Reich. With many sons and daughters trying to explore the wartime histories of their loved ones, the authors supply crucial information and insight regarding the World War II POW experience in Europe. Often times, by necessity, that experience reflects the co-existence and tenuous relationship with the Germans holding them. In this book, there are stories that up until now have not been heard, and there are hundreds of pictures, many previously unseen, illustrating the prisoners plight. This book is a documentation of riveting history and a chance to vicariously live the war, told through their voices --echoes now fading with time. Their sacrifices to ensure precious freedom should never be forgotten.
Author: Marilyn Walton Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services ISBN: 9781483425399 Category : Languages : en Pages : 394
Book Description
At 6:30 a.m. on 27 January 1945, Col. Friedrich von Lindeiner, the court martialed and exiled "gentleman" ex-Commandant of Stalag Luft III, sat in the waiting room of the Gorlitz train station hoping to return to Sagan, Germany, to fight the approaching Russians. The distance from Gorlitz to Sagan was 28.5 miles. He arrived fifteen hours later as 10,000 Allied prisoners of war were evacuating his former camp. Like them, he would soon view the war from both inside and outside the barbed wire. Later, as a prisoner of war, he was held by the British for two years before returning to a devastated and divided Germany."
Author: Jens Müller Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1493077929 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 161
Book Description
A thrilling, first-person account of one of the most famous prison escapes of World War II. Jens Müller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944—the breakout that later became the basis for the famous film The Great Escape. His memoir tells how Müller, a pilot in one of the RAF’s Norwegian squadrons, was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the English Channel in June 1942. After some days at sea in his Spitfire’s life raft, he made it to land in Belgium but was soon captured by the occupying Germans and sent as a prisoner of war to Stalag Luft III (in what is now Zagan, Poland). Müller vividly describes life in the camp, how the escapes were planned, and relates the compelling story of his personal breakout. Together with Per Bergsland, he managed to make it to the coast and stowed away on a ship to Gothenburg, Sweden. The two men eventually reached RAF Leuchars base in Scotland.
Author: Marilyn Jeffers Walton Publisher: AuthorHouse ISBN: 1425974864 Category : Bombing, Aerial Languages : en Pages : 510
Book Description
This book is the culmination of three year's of research in four countries. By meticulously combing the archive records in England, Germany, Poland and the United States, Marilyn Jeffers Walton has reconstructed the final mission of her father and his crew and located the German cemetery where one crewmate, killed the day the plane was shot down, was buried. She searched for and found the remaining men of the crew of "Rhapsody in Junk" and reunited them after sixty years. Interviews with the crew and fellow prisoners of war contributed puzzle pieces, put together bit by bit, that enabled her to find where they were captured and interrogated. By searching old records, letters, diaries and mission records, she was finally able to return to Germany and find the crash site of her father's B-24 where pieces of the plane still remained. To her astonishment, she met the woman who watched her father bail out and saw the very field where he landed. During her return to Germany, she connected emotionally with the people of the peaceful farm community of Wagersrott where her father was taken prisoner over six decades before. In her quest to reconstruct the mission and her father's prisoner of war experiences, Walton presents not only his story but the stories of the British and German people who both suffered greatly, all caught up in the dictates of a mad man. Revealed within the pages is a first-hand account of the bombing of Dresden from a German couple who survived it. Walton's odyssey through Europe allowed her to discover the rich fabric of the people who endured and survived the war and to weave their stories into a multi-faceted mosaic that reflects the personal experiences of World War II.
Author: Ian Darling Publisher: Union Square + ORM ISBN: 1454936185 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
A gripping collection of true stories that capture the bravery of American pilots who helped win WWII. American pilots fought fierce and often deadly battles in every theater of the Second World War, and many overcame incredible obstacles to survive. Meet some of these courageous aviators, including George McGovern, who survived enemy fire that left 110 holes in his aircraft; George H. W. Bush, shot down in the Pacific; Jim Landis, a naval flyer stationed in Pearl Harbor who returned fire even after sustaining a bullet through his hand; Alex Jefferson, a Tuskegee airman shot down over France and taken prisoner; and Betty Blake, one of the little-known women pilots who aided the war effort. Clifton Truman Daniel, a grandson of President Truman, provides the foreword to this collection of carefully researched and vividly told profiles in courage that will transport you to the bullet-ridden, bomb-laden skies of the early 1940s.
Author: R. Loeffel Publisher: Springer ISBN: 1137021837 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 269
Book Description
In the Third Reich, political dissidents were not the only ones liable to be punished for their crimes. Their parents, siblings and relatives also risked reprisals. This concept - known as Sippenhaft – was based in ideas of blood and purity. This definitive study surveys the threats, fears and infliction of this part of the Nazi system of terror.
Author: Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 0786469668 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 497
Book Description
With its battlefields paved over and its bunkers crumbled, the Third Reich of Nazi Germany nevertheless lives on in countless photographs that record an era of extraordinary brutality. This collection of more than 500 photographs taken by amateurs and professional propagandists provides a panoramic overview of Nazi Germany, offering intimate glimpses into living rooms and killing grounds, kitchens and concentration camps, movie theaters and battle fronts. The explanatory text explores the context of the images. Together, these photographs, most never before seen, create a time capsule, capturing the faces of Hitler's soldier's as well as those who suffered under the Nazi onslaught on humanity.
Author: Marilyn Walton and Michael Eberhardt
Author: Marilyn Jeffers Walton
Author: Marilyn Walton
Author: Jens Müller
Author: Marilyn Jeffers Walton
Author: Ian Darling
Author: 
Author: R. Loeffel
Author: Leslie C. Green
Author: