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Author: Sy M. Kahn
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252069086
Category : Soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
When Sy Kahn set off to serve in the Pacific during World War II, he was a bookish, naive nineteen-year-old, the youngest in his company. Convinced he would not survive the war, Kahn kept a meticulous record of his experiences as his "foxhole of the mind," even though keeping such a journal was forbidden by military regulations. His secret diary--one soldier's "mark against oblivion"--is a rare ground-level account of the war. Often writing in tents by candlelight, in foxholes, or on board ships, Kahn documents life during four campaigns and over three hundred air attacks. He describes the 244th Port Company's backbreaking work of loading and unloading ships, the suffocating heat, the debilitating tropical diseases, and the relentless, sometimes terrifying bombings, accidents, casualties, and deaths. His wartime odyssey also includes encounters with civilians in Australia, in the Philippines, and, as among the earliest occupation troops, in Japan. A detailed record of the daily cost of war, Kahn's journal reflects his increasing maturity and his personal coming of age, representative of thousands of young Americans who served in World War II.
Author: Sy M. Kahn
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252069086
Category : Soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Get Book Here
Book Description
When Sy Kahn set off to serve in the Pacific during World War II, he was a bookish, naive nineteen-year-old, the youngest in his company. Convinced he would not survive the war, Kahn kept a meticulous record of his experiences as his "foxhole of the mind," even though keeping such a journal was forbidden by military regulations. His secret diary--one soldier's "mark against oblivion"--is a rare ground-level account of the war. Often writing in tents by candlelight, in foxholes, or on board ships, Kahn documents life during four campaigns and over three hundred air attacks. He describes the 244th Port Company's backbreaking work of loading and unloading ships, the suffocating heat, the debilitating tropical diseases, and the relentless, sometimes terrifying bombings, accidents, casualties, and deaths. His wartime odyssey also includes encounters with civilians in Australia, in the Philippines, and, as among the earliest occupation troops, in Japan. A detailed record of the daily cost of war, Kahn's journal reflects his increasing maturity and his personal coming of age, representative of thousands of young Americans who served in World War II.
Author: Merrel D. Clubb, Jr.
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800879
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
An exceptional storyteller with an analytical eye, Merrel Clubb has gathered the letters he sent his parents from the Pacific Theater of World War II and his subsequent reflections on that war and on his life into a kind of then-and-now memoir. The letters are a treasure trove of humor, anxiety, and hope, revealing a young man thrust into a war that he does not understand. Through this exceptional portal on the past, we learn of the tragic absurdity of war, of a soldier trained for naval warfare but sent into land battle with weapons he'd never before fired; of command post latrines at which even commanding officers were sitting ducks; of the ghoulish trophies and mementos that soldiers collected from the battlefields. The letters describe a vivid cast of characters, from Clubb's childhood friend who instilled a love of poetry in his comrades to the hillbilly singer and the prostitute with whom the young Clubb had varied amorous adventures. But the most compelling figure in this narrative is, of course, Clubb himself, an intellectual who carried Jane Austen and Joseph Conrad along with his tommy gun; who used books as a fortification for his foxhole, discovering upon waking one morning that "Ouspensky stopped a bullet"; and who, in a darkly humorous moment, wrote home that "Plato is pretty consoling, because I can always think that somewhere there is a perfect hell of a navy of which this is but an imitation or representation." Returning to these letters years later prompts Clubb to look again at the Second World War and at the atomic bomb that ended it. In an analysis as useful to understanding our own historical moment as it is to reconsidering the past, Clubb counters the conventional wisdom shared by veterans and civilians alike, particularly regarding the concept of a "just war." For Clubb, as for so many veterans, the war does not end with the victory over Japan. Despite the intervening years, Clubb finds that the haunting episodes experienced over half a century ago echo still. Even in the solitude of the forest, in the hunting parties he meets, in the animals he himself kills, he hears again the sound of battle, sees again the faces of the victims of war. Part letters, part memoir, and part scholarly analysis, this volume ranges over a vast, colorful, and weighted territory. From the battles and respites in the Pacific Islands, to the night clubs and call girls of mainland San Francisco and San Diego; from the relative quiet of his aptly named hometown, Stillwater, to the similarly quiet Montana backcountry, Clubb's narrative explores the psychological terrain of a life disturbed, and forever changed, by war.
Author: Loyd Lee
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313033145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546
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Book Description
A broadly interdisciplinary work, this handbook discusses the best and most enduring literature related to the major topics and themes of World War II. Military historiography is treated in essays on the major theaters of military operations and the related themes of logistics and intelligence, while political and diplomatic history is covered in chapters on international relations, resistance movements, and collaboration. The volume analyzes themes of domestic history in essays on economic mobilization, the home fronts, and women in the military and civilian life. The book also covers the Holocaust. This handbook approaches each topic from a global viewpoint rather than focusing on individual national communities. Except for nonprint material, the literature, research, and sources surveyed are primarily those available in English. The volume is aimed at both experts on the war and the general academic community and will also be useful to students and serious laymen interested in the war.
Author: Louis A. Conter
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 1627878602
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
The Lou Conter Story: From USS Arizona Survivor to Unsung American Hero tells the incredible story of one of the last remaining survivors of the USS Arizona. More than just a recollection of the events that transpired in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, this book also records the author's memorable experiences before and after the Day of Infamy. Conter was on the USS Arizona deck when a Japanese armor-piercing bomb hit one million pounds of gunpowder stored in the ship's hull. He helped rescue crewmen following the explosion and dove into the wreckage to recover bodies in the days after. In 1942, Conter went to flight school where he earned his wings and became a VP-11 Black Cat pilot. He helped rescue over two hundred Australian Coastwatchers stranded in northern New Guinea and was shot down twice -- once swimming with his crew while sharks circled. Conter also helped rescue over two hundred Australian shore watchers up the Sepik River in New Guinea. After World War II, he became an intelligence officer, flew combat in Korea, created the Navy's first SERE program (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape), and served as a military advisor to presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. Lou Conter shares his Pearl Harbor experiences with high school students throughout Northern California, and he returns to the USS Arizona every December to take part in National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day activities to honor and remember the 2,403 service members and civilians who were killed during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. In 2019, Conter was one of only three remaining crew members out of the 335 who had survived the attack on the USS Arizona. He was the only survivor able to attend the memorial event.
Author: Kate Quinn
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062740385
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 645
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Book Description
"...compulsively readable historical fiction…[a] powerful novel about unusual women facing sometimes insurmountable odds with grace, grit, love and tenacity.” - Kristin Hannah, The Washington Post Named one of best books of the year by Marie Claire and Bookbub “If you enjoyed “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” read “The Huntress,” by Kate Quinn." The Washington Post From the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling novel, THE ALICE NETWORK, comes another fascinating historical novel about a battle-haunted English journalist and a Russian female bomber pilot who join forces to track the Huntress, a Nazi war criminal gone to ground in America. In the aftermath of war, the hunter becomes the hunted… Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive. Transformed by the horrors he witnessed from Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg Trials, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it. Growing up in post-war Boston, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride is determined to become a photographer. When her long-widowed father unexpectedly comes homes with a new fiancée, Jordan is thrilled. But there is something disconcerting about the soft-spoken German widow. Certain that danger is lurking, Jordan begins to delve into her new stepmother’s past—only to discover that there are mysteries buried deep in her family . . . secrets that may threaten all Jordan holds dear. In this immersive, heart-wrenching story, Kate Quinn illuminates the consequences of war on individual lives, and the price we pay to seek justice and truth.
Author: Deborah Dash MOORE
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674041208
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
Through memoirs, oral histories, and letters, Deborah Dash Moore charts the lives of 15 young Jewish men as they faced military service and tried to make sense of its demands.
Author: E. Warner Morrell
Publisher: E. Warner Morrell
ISBN: 9781418429256
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 558
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Book Description
When thoroughly American Inis Zaragosa sees the well-dressed stranger on the doorstep of the tiny adobe she shares with her ailing, quarrelsome aunt, she has no idea how his appearance will change her life. He introduces himself as her distant cousin, don Roman Velasquez, who has come to take her and her aunt back to his plantation on the Caribbean Island of Betania. On Betania, Inis learns the truth about her identity, which had been kept from her by her aunt, and meets handsome, world-weary Alejandro, whose hostility towards her is as obvious as it is undeserved. And on Betania she is shadowed by a sinister vagrant who has seemingly tracked her the whole distance from the American Southwest to the Caribbean. In this new world, Inis discovers friendship and love, but also the capacity for strength and courage, qualities she never imagined herself capable of. Qualities she will need to see her through the turbulent events that follow her return to her ancestral home.
Author: James Scott Powell
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603443525
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
Thrown into the heart of war with little training--and even less that would apply to the battles in which they were engaged--the units of the 112th Cavalry Regiment faced not only the Japanese enemy, but a rugged environment for which they were ill-prepared. They also grappled with the continuing challenge of learning new military skills and tactics across ever-shifting battlefields. The 112th Cavalry Regiment entered federal service in November 1940 as war clouds gathered thick on the horizon. By July 1942, the 112th was headed for the Pacific theater. As the war neared its end, the regiment again had to shift its focus quickly from an anticipated offensive on the Japanese home islands to becoming part of the occupation force in the land of a conquered enemy. James S. Powell thoroughly mines primary documents and buttresses his story with pertinent secondary accounts as he explores in detail the ways in which this military unit adapted to the changing demands of its tactical and strategic environment. He demonstrates that this learning was not simply a matter of steadily building on experience and honing relevant skills. It also required discovering shortcomings and promptly taking action to improve--often while in direct contact with the enemy.
Author: Francis B. Catanzaro
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253109477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223
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Book Description
"[W]e began our advance toward the Mokmer Airstrip.... The road climbed a ridge 15 or 20 feet high and we found ourselves on a flat coral plateau sparsely covered by small trees and scrub growth.... As we moved westward along the road, two of our destroyers were sailing abreast of the lead elements of the advancing column. The first indication of trouble was the roar of heavy artillery shells sailing over our heads... aimed at our destroyers.... Shortly after that our forward movement stopped, and we heard heavy firing from the head of the column.... As we waited, we began to hear heavy fire from the rear.... We were cut off and surrounded!" In the enormous literature of the Second World War, there are surprisingly few accounts of fighting in the southwest Pacific, fewer still by common infantrymen. This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is rare indeed, follows a foot soldier's career from basic training to mustering out. It takes the reader into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines during the long campaign to win the war against Japan. From basic training at Camp Roberts through combat, occupation, and the long journey home, Francis Catanzaro's account tells of the excitement, misery, cruelty, and terror of combat, and of the uneasy boredom of jungle camp life. A member of the famed 41st Infantry Brigade, the "Jungleers," Catanzaro saw combat at Hollandia, Biak, Zamboanga, and Mindanao. He was a part of the Japanese occupation force and writes with feeling about living among his former enemies and of the decision to drop the atom bomb. With the 41st Division in the Southwest Pacific is a powerful, gritty, and moving narrative of the life of a soldier during some of the most difficult fighting of World War II.
Author: Samuel Hynes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101191724
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
The Soldiers' Tale is the story of modern wars as told by the men who did the actual fighting. Hynes examines the journals, memoirs, and letters of men who fought in the two World Wars and in Vietnam, and also the wars fought against the weak and helpless in concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and bombed cities. Interweaving his own reflections on war with brilliantly chosen passages from soldiers' accounts, he offers vivid answers to the question we all ask of men who have fought: What was it like? In these powerful pages the experiences of modern war, which seem unimaginable to those who weren't there, become comprehensible and real. The wide range of writers examined includes both famous literary memoirists like Robert Graves, Tim O'Brien, and Elie Wiesel, and unknown soldiers who wrote only their war stories. Using these testimonies, Hynes considers each war in terms of its special circumstances and its effects on men who fought. His understanding of the psychology of warfare—and of each war's role in history—gives this study its intellectual authority; the voices of the men who were there, and wrote about what they saw and felt, give it its powerful dramatic impact.
