I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”
John C. McManus acknowledged the contribution of the film Saving Private Ryan in bringing the Normandy beaches into everyone’s consciousness. I read much of the book and especially the chapter on H-Hour as if I were on the beach crouching beside Joe Zukowski, Frank DeBellis, Howard Pearre, and so many others, crawling, walking laden with far too much equipment, bleeding from machine-gun fire that pierced knees and arms and chests, and ultimately falling.
I found, as McManus wrote: “The soldiers ... were willing to sacrifice themselves and risk death, not just for their cause, not just for the pride of their unit, but in the end, for one another.”
A white-knuckle account of the 1st Infantry Division’s harrowing D-Day assault on the eastern sector of Omaha Beach—acclaimed historian John C. McManus has written a gripping history that will stand as the last word on this titanic battle.
Nicknamed the Big Red One, 1st Division had fought from North Africa to Sicily, earning a reputation as stalwart warriors on the front lines and rabble-rousers in the rear. Yet on D-Day, these jaded combat veterans melded with fresh-faced replacements to accomplish one of the most challenging and deadly missions ever. As the men hit the beach, their equipment destroyed or washed…
This story came very close to not being told. I am grateful that on hearing the briefest detail about a World War II resistance fighter, author Mark Sullivan ran with it and even interviewed the protagonist, Pino Leila before his death.
I can understand how a trained soldier or spy might have managed the feats of bravery that Leila did but discovering that he did so as an ordinary Italian teenager boggles the mind. I shuddered at the length when I first picked up the book but could not put it down once I started.
Soon to be a major television event from Pascal Pictures, starring Tom Holland.
Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, the USA Today and #1 Amazon Charts bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man's incredible courage and resilience during one of history's darkest hours.
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager-obsessed with music, food, and girls-but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape…
You don’t have to look too far to find tales of ordinary soldiers in World War II, but stories from deserters? This was a story I did not expect and had not seen handled elsewhere.
I thought Glass brought the reader into the increasingly fragile minds of the young men on the battlefield, showing how the horror of what they saw weighed on them and how some pressed on while others could not.
I often say I want a book to put me into the boots of the soldier on the field – but maybe not these soldiers!
"[A]n impressive achievement: a boot-level take on the conflict that is fresh without being cynically revisionist." --The New Republic
A groundbreaking history of ordinary soldiers struggling on the front lines, The Deserters offers a completely new perspective on the Second World War. Charles Glass-renowned journalist and author of the critically acclaimed Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation-delves deep into army archives, personal diaries, court-martial records, and self-published memoirs to produce this dramatic and heartbreaking portrait of men overlooked by their commanders and ignored by history.
Surveying the 150,000 American and British soldiers known to have deserted in…
My father was a World War II fighter pilot and told me much about what he did–but it was night and day from what a glider pilot of the same era did. I think Gen. Westmoreland described it best, as the author quotes: their duty was to “deliberately crash land, and then go on to fight as combat infantrymen.”
I cannot imagine climbing into a plane made of plywood, fabric, and glue and going off to fight, but Taylor, the daughter of one of these intrepid pilots, manages to make the experience palpable.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans neutralized one of the most heavily fortified fortresses in Europe with a new weapon: the combat glider-an aerial vehicle capable of carrying men and equipment in close proximity to each other and crash landing behind enemy lines. The Army Air Corps soon established its own glider pilot program, but the glider pilots were not considered power pilots nor infantry. The end result was a group of young men looking for adventure-belonging seemingly to no command other than on paper-that through the course of the war went into combat with varying amounts of equipment, training,…
This book is a gift to readers of World War II history. I had had it on my to-be-read list for years and finally opened the page earlier this year.
The prose is heart-grabbing and nerve-rattling and helped me better understand the unfathomable—flying in a WWII-era bomber, my hands frostbitten and bleeding, a tiny piece of shrapnel lodged in my eye as I try to reassemble my plane’s radio. Far from just another story of young men doing their duty to their country.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: “Beautifully told.”—CNN • “A remarkable story...worth retelling and celebrating.”—USA Today • “Oh, it’s a good one!”—Fox News
A “beautiful story of a brotherhood between enemies” emerges from the horrors of World War II in this New York Times bestseller by the author of Devotion, now a Major Motion Picture.
December, 1943: A badly damaged American bomber struggles to fly over wartime Germany. At the controls is twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown. Half his crew lay wounded or dead on this, their first mission. Suddenly, a Messerschmitt fighter pulls up on the bomber’s tail. The pilot is German…
On Tuesday, October 24, 1944, over 2,600 Americans perished—yet the day remains overshadowed by more widely remembered dates in WWII history. The book is a gripping retelling of this fateful day, hour by hour and incident by incident. Interwoven between the first death in a prisoner-of-war camp to the last in a submarine attack in the Pacific is the story of the sinking of the Japanese “hellship” Arisan Maru—a lesser-known tragedy of the war.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect is the book’s attention to the human side of the conflict. It tells the stories of ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, pilots, and their aircrews—as they grapple with the horrors of the war.
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
