Author: Jim McEnery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451659148
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horror McErery’s Rifle Company—the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific—fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnery’s story is a no-holds-barred, grunt’s-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.
Author: Jim McEnery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451659156
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horror McErery’s Rifle Company—the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific—fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnery’s story is a no-holds-barred, grunt’s-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.
Author: Richard Wolfe
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
ISBN: 174228714X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
In the 1830s Kororareka was known as the 'hell-hole of the Pacific'. Whalers, sealers, escaped convicts, seamen, traders and adventurers descended upon this small cove in the Bay. Grog-shops and the oldest profession in the world abounded. At one stage the town was said to be harbouring 'a greater number of rogues than any other spot of equal size in the universe'. Some whaling captains steered clear, fearing they'd lose their crews. But was Kororareka actually a hell-hole? How wild was it really? In this absorbing book on one of the most lively periods in New Zealand history, Richard Wolfe asks new questions, confronts existing myths, and comes up with some fascinating answers.
Author: Gregory F Michno
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682470253
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Now available in paperback, Death on the Hellships chronicles the true dimensions of the Allied POW experience at sea. It is a disturbing story; many believe the Bataan Death March even pales by comparison. Survivors describe their ordeal in the Japanese hellships as the absolute worst experience of their captivity. Crammed by the thousands into the holds of the ships, moved from island to island and put to work, they endured all the horrors of the prison camps magnified tenfold. Gregory Michno draws on American, British, Australian, and Dutch POW accounts as well as Japanese convoy histories, declassified radio intelligence reports, and a wealth of archival sources to present a detailed picture of the horror.
Author: Hugh Ambrose
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101185848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624
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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling official companion book to the Emmy® Award-winning HBO® miniseries. Look for The Pacific miniseries, now available to stream on Netflix! Between America's retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur's airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home. In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To deepen the story revealed in the HBO® miniseries and go beyond it, the book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as the Pacific and the brave men who fought.
Author: Saul David
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780316534680
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
From the award-winning historian, Saul David, the riveting narrative of the heroic US troops, bonded by the brotherhood and sacrifice of war, who overcame enormous casualties to pull off the toughest invasion of WWII's Pacific Theater -- and the Japanese forces who fought with tragic desperation to stop them. With Allied forces sweeping across Europe and into Germany in the spring of 1945, one enormous challenge threatened to derail America's audacious drive to win the world back from the Nazis: Japan, the empire that had extended its reach southward across the Pacific and was renowned for the fanaticism and brutality of its fighters, who refused to surrender, even when faced with insurmountable odds. Taking down Japan would require an unrelenting attack to break its national spirit, and launching such an attack on the island empire meant building an operations base just off its shores on the island of Okinawa. The amphibious operation to capture Okinawa was the largest of the Pacific War and the greatest air-land-sea battle in history, mobilizing 183,000 troops from Seattle, Leyte in the Philippines, and ports around the world. The campaign lasted for 83 blood-soaked days, as the fighting plumbed depths of savagery. One veteran, struggling to make sense of what he had witnessed, referred to the fighting as the "crucible of Hell." Okinawan civilians died in the tens of thousands: some were mistaken for soldiers by American troops; but as the US Marines spearheading the invasion drove further onto the island and Japanese defeat seemed inevitable, many more civilians took their own lives, some even murdering their own families. In just under three months, the world had changed irrevocably: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died; the war in Europe ended; America's appetite for an invasion of Japan had waned, spurring President Truman to use other means -- ultimately atomic bombs -- to end the war; and more than 250,000 servicemen and civilians on or near the island of Okinawa had lost their lives. Drawing on archival research in the US, Japan, and the UK, and the original accounts of those who survived, Crucible of Hell tells the vivid, heart-rending story of the battle that changed not just the course of WWII, but the course of war, forever.
Author: Jon Diamond
Publisher: Images of War
ISBN: 9781526762160
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
In September 1944, to prevent Japanese air interdiction against General MacArthur's planned invasion of the Southern Philippines, the Americans attacked Peleliu and Angaur in the Palau group of the Western Caroline Islands. Admiral Halsey, commanding the US Third Fleet, feared the heavily defended Palaus would be costly for his III Amphibious Corps comprising the 1st Marine Division and the 81st Infantry Division.While Angaur fell in four days, on Peleliu the Japanese resisted tenaciously using their underground fortifications on the Umurbrogel Ridge overlooking the airfield. It was only after over two months' bitter fighting that the Americans finally controlled the Island. Despite the heavy cost, the benefits of this hard fought and costly victory were doubtful. In the event, Mindanao and other Southern Philippine Islands were bypassed by MacArthur in favour of a direct assault on Leyte on 20 October. But, as the graphic images and well researched text bear witness, there is no denying the courage and determination shown by the attacking US forces.
Author: D. M. Giangreco
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682471667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
Two years before the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped bring a quick end to hostilities in the summer of 1945, U.S. planners began work on Operation Downfall, codename for the Allied invasions of Kyushu and Honshu, in the Japanese home islands. While other books have examined Operation Downfall, D. M. Giangreco offers the most complete and exhaustively researched consideration of the plans and their implications. He explores related issues of the first operational use of the atomic bomb and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, including the controversy surrounding estimates of potential U.S. casualties. Following years of intense research at numerous archives, Giangreco now paints a convincing and horrific picture of the veritable hell that awaited invader and defender. In the process, he demolishes the myths that Japan was trying to surrender during the summer of 1945 and that U.S. officials later wildly exaggerated casualty figures to justify using the atomic bombs to influence the Soviet Union. As Giangreco writes, “Both sides were rushing headlong toward a disastrous confrontation in the Home Islands in which poison gas and atomic weapons were to be employed as MacArthur’s intelligence chief, Charles Willoughby, succinctly put it, ‘a hard and bitter struggle with no quarter asked or given.’ Hell to Pay examines the invasion of Japan in light of the large body of Japanese and American operational and tactical planning documents the author unearthed in familiar and obscure archives. It includes postwar interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur’s headquarters. This groundbreaking history counters the revisionist interpretations questioning the rationale for the use of the atomic bomb and shows that President Truman’s decision was based on real estimates of the enormous human cost of a conventional invasion. This revised edition of Hell to Pay expands on several areas covered in the previous book and deals with three new topics: U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the war against Imperial Japan; U.S., Soviet, and Japanese plans for the invasion and defense of the northernmost Home Island of Hokkaido; and Operation Blacklist, the three-phase insertion of American occupation forces into Japan. It also contains additional text, relevant archival material, supplemental photos, and new maps, making this the definitive edition of an important historical work.
Author: Derrick Wright
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780960808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
A definitive account of the famous battle of Iwo Jima, and the men who fought there. The battle of Iwo Jima saw one hundred thousand men fighting over a tiny volcanic island of just 8 square miles. The island was of major strategic importance to the US Air Force. However, it was also of supreme importance to the 20,000 Japanese troops who were deeply entrenched in the island when the Marines invaded, and to whom surrender was not an option. The titanic struggle dragged on for 36 days, eclipsing all that had gone before. The loss of Iwo Jima was proof to the Japanese that the Americans could seize one of the world's most heavily defended islands, and filled them with foreboding about the inevitable invasion of their homeland. This book covers the campaign in detail, and also the experiences of the men who fought for their lives on the black sands of Iwo Jima in one of the most savage battles of the Pacific War. This book contains material previously published in Campaigns 81: Iwo Jima 1945, Warrior 95: Japanese Infantryman 1937–45 and WAR 112: US Marine Rifleman 1939–45: Pacific Theater
Author: Walter Pincus
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635768020
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 523
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Book Description
A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist exposes the sixty-seven US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands that decimated a people and their land. The most important place in American nuclear history are the Marshall Islands—an idyllic Pacific paradise that served as the staging ground for over sixty US nuclear tests. It was here, from 1946 to 1958, that America perfected the weapon that preserved the peace of the post-war years. It was here—with the 1954 Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll—that America executed its largest nuclear detonation, a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima. And it was here that a native people became unwilling test subjects in the first large scale study of nuclear radiation fallout when the ashes rained down on powerless villagers, contaminating the land they loved and forever changing a way of life. In Blown to Hell, Pulitzer Prize–winnng journalist Walter Pincus tells for the first time the tragic story of the Marshallese people caught in the crosshairs of American nuclear testing. From John Anjain, a local magistrate of Rongelap Atoll who loses more than most; to the radiation-exposed crew of the Japanese fishing boat the Lucky Dragon; to Dr. Robert Conard, a Navy physician who realized the dangers facing the islanders and attempted to help them; to the Washington power brokers trying to keep the unthinkable fallout from public view . . . Blown to Hell tells the human story of America’s nuclear testing program. Displaced from the only homes they had known, the native tribes that inhabited the serene Pacific atolls for millennia before they became ground zero for America’s first thermonuclear detonations returned to homes despoiled by radiation—if they were lucky enough to return at all. Others were ripped from their ancestral lands and shuttled to new islands with little regard for how the new environment supported their way of life and little acknowledgement of all they left behind. But not even the disruptive relocations allowed the islanders to escape the fallout. Praise for Blown to Hell “A shocking account of the destruction wrought by atomic bomb testing in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958 . . . . Pincus makes a persuasive case that in “seeking a more powerful weapon for warfare, the U.S. unleashed death in several forms on peaceful Marshall Island people.” Readers will be appalled.” —Publishers Weekly “For more than half a century, Walter Pincus has been among our greatest reporters and most persistent truth-tellers. Blown to Hell is a story worthy of his talents—infuriating, heart-breaking, and utterly riveting.” —Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Liberation Trilogy
