Author: Rick Beyer
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1797225308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
“A riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way—ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously.” —Tom Brokaw The first book to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives—now updated with new material. In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—artists, designers, architects, and sound engineers, including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Every move they made was top secret, and their story was hushed up for decades after the war's end. Hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs, along with maps, official memos, and letters, accompany Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles’s meticulous research and interviews with many of the soldiers, weaving a compelling narrative of how an unlikely team carried out amazing battlefield deceptions that saved thousands of American lives and helped open the way for the final drive to Germany. The stunning art created between missions also offers a glimpse of life behind the lines during World War II. This updated edition includes: A new afterword by co-author Rick Beyer Never-before-seen additional images The successful campaign to have the unit awarded a Congressional Gold Medal History and WWII enthusiasts will find The Ghost Army of World War II an essential addition to their library.
Author: Alan C. Wood
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445625229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
The first ever ghostly gazetteer of military manifestations both here and abroad.
Author: Richard McKenzie
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1409201376
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 150
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Book Description
The green fields of Britain hide a grim secret. Beneath the buttercups are the bones of untold numbers of soldiers who died for causes now lost in the mists of time. From hotels to houses, castles to council estates, these warriors walk reminding us of our bloody past.
Author: Jack Kneece
Publisher: Pelican Publishing
ISBN: 9781455604876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was a force of only 1,000 men who, with skilled deceptions, often masqueraded as 34,000.
Author: J. E. Lendon
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300119794
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 484
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Book Description
Sparta, Macedonia, and Rome--how did these nations come to dominate the ancient world? Lendon shows readers that the most successful armies were those that made the most effective use of cultural tradition.
Author: Samuel M. Katz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592409016
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442
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Book Description
The untold story of the Ya'mas, Israel's special forces undercover team that infiltrated Palestinian terrorist strongholds during the Second Intifada. It was the deadliest terror campaign ever mounted against a nation in modern times: the al-Aqsa, or Second, Intifada. This is the untold story of how Israel fought back with an elite force of undercover operatives, drawn from the nation's diverse backgrounds and ethnicities--and united in their ability to walk among the enemy as no one else dared. Beginning in late 2000, as black smoke rose from burning tires and rioters threw rocks in the streets, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Arafat's Palestinian Authority embarked on a strategy of sending their terrorists to slip undetected into Israel's towns and cities to set the country ablaze, unleashing suicide attacks at bus stops, discos, pizzerias--wherever people gathered. But Israel fielded some of the most capable and cunning special operations forces in the world. The Ya'mas, Israel National Police Border Guard undercover counterterrorists special operations units, became Israel's eyes-on-target response. Launched on intelligence provided by the Shin Bet, indigenous Arabic-speaking Dovrim, or "Speakers," operating in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza infiltrated the treacherous confines where the terrorists lived hidden in plain sight, and set the stage for the intrepid tactical specialists who often found themselves under fire and outnumbered in their effort to apprehend those responsible for the carnage inside Israel. This is their compelling true story: a tale of daring and deception that could happen only in the powder keg of the modern Middle East. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAPS
Author: Robert S. Burrell
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 160344517X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
In February 1945, some 80,000 U.S. Marines attacked the heavily defended fortress that the Japanese had constructed on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Leaders of the Army Air Forces said they needed the airfields there to provide fighter escort for their B-29 bombers. At the cost of 28,000 American casualties, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions dutifully conquered this desolate piece of hell with a determination and sacrifice that have become legendary in the annals of war, immortalized in the photograph of six Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi. But the Army Air Forces’ fighter operations on Iwo Jima subsequently proved both unproductive and unnecessary. After the fact, a number of other justifications were generated to rationalize this tragically expensive battle. Ultimately, misleading statistics were presented to contend that the number of lives saved by B-29 emergency landings on Iwo Jima outweighed the cost of its capture. In The Ghosts of Iwo Jima, Captain Robert S. Burrell masterfully reconsiders the costs of taking Iwo Jima and its role in the war effort. His thought-provoking analysis also highlights the greater contribution of Iwo Jima’s valiant dead: They inspired a reverence for the Marine Corps that proved critical to its institutional survival and its embodiment of American national spirit. From the 7th War Loan Campaign of 1945 through the flag-raising at Ground Zero in 2001, the immortal image of Iwo Jima has become a symbol of American patriotism itself. Burrell’s searching account of this fabled island conflict will advance our understanding of World War II and its continuing legacy for the twenty-first century. At last, the battle’s ghosts may unveil its ultimate, and most crucial, lessons.
Author: Mark Felton
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306825600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
It is April 1945 and the world's most prized horses are about to be slaughtered... As the Red Army closes in on the Third Reich, a German colonel sends an American intelligence officer an unusual report about a POW camp soon to be overrun by the Soviets. Locked up, the report says, are over a thousand horses, including the entire herd of white Lipizzaner's from Vienna's Spanish Riding School, as well as Europe's finest Arabian stallions--stolen to create an equine "master race." The horses are worth millions and, if the starving Red Army reaches the stables first, they will kill the horses for rations. The Americans, under the command of General George Patton, whose love of horses was legendary, decide to help the Germans save the majestic creatures. So begins "Operation Cowboy," as GIs join forces with surrendered German soldiers and liberated prisoners of war to save the world's finest horses from fanatical SS soldiers and the ruthless Red Army in an extraordinary battle during the last few days of the war in Europe. This is an epic untold story from the waning days of World War II. Drawing from newly unearthed archival material, family archives held by descendants of the participants, and interviews with many of the participants published throughout the years, Ghost Riders is the definitive account of this truly unprecedented and moving story of kindness and compassion at the close of humanity's darkest hour.
Author: Alan Gratz
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 133877591X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
#1 New York Times bestselling author Alan Gratz delivers an all-new, original Captain America graphic novel! In this thrilling historical adventure, 18 year-old Steve Rogers (AKA Captain America) and his young sidekick, Bucky Barnes are fighting in WWII when they encounter a threat like none they've ever seen -- a Ghost Army. The dead of this war and wars past are coming back to life, impervious to bullets, flames, or anything else the Allies can throw at them. The armies rise from the ground in the night and seem to disappear without a trace. How can Cap and Buck fight something that's already dead? And just what does the mysterious Baron Mordo, sitting in his castle atop nearby Wundagore Mountain have to do with this? Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Alan Gratz (Refugee, Ground Zero) merges the worlds of historical fiction and super hero comics in this one-of-a-kind graphic novel that is sure to be met with major enthusiasm from fans of all ages.
Author: Jeff Belanger
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
ISBN: 1601639740
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
Ghosts of War is where history and mystery meet. Phantom U.S. Civil War regiments still march through Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, before vanishing into the evening sunset. The beaches of Normandy, France still echo with the cries of the men who gave their lives storming the beaches on D-Day. The disembodied clip-clop of horse's hooves and the clank of swords from the British Civil War battle of January 25, 1644, are still heard in Nantwich, Cheshire. Wherever battles were fought and people perished, ghost legends have followed. Ghosts can be found wherever tragedy left its mark. Where men'?s and women'?s lives ended so quickly that their spirits may not even realize that they're dead. Where soldiers, focused on duty, still patrol the front lines of long-finished wars. The world's battlefields are imprinted with the passions, fears, and horrors of the soldiers who took their enemies? lives and often sacrificed their own. Battlefields are still rife with spirit activity, centuries after the last cannon was fired and the last casualty lost. Ghosts of War is a history book told through the eyes of witnesses who have experienced the ghosts who still haunt these locations. Featuring nearly two dozen battlefields from around the world and throughout the centuries, each chapter includes first-hand accounts of the battle (where available), important facts and dates, historic and ghostly photos of the site, and first-hand ghost sightings and supernatural experiences that still occur.
