Author: Spencer C. Tucker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 4723

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Book Description
With more than 1,700 cross-referenced entries covering every aspect of World War II, the events and developments of the era, and myriad related subjects as well as a documents volume, this is the most comprehensive reference work available on the war. This encyclopedia represents a single source of authoritative information on World War II that provides accessible coverage of the causes, course, and consequences of the war. Its introductory overview essays and cross-referenced A–Z entries explain how various sources of friction culminated in a second worldwide conflict, document the events of the war and why individual battles were won and lost, and identify numerous ways the war has permanently changed the world. The coverage addresses the individuals, campaigns, battles, key weapons systems, strategic decisions, and technological developments of the conflict, as well as the diplomatic, economic, and cultural aspects of World War II. The five-volume set provides comprehensive information that gives readers insight into the reasons for the war's direction and outcome. Readers will understand the motivations behind Japan's decision to attack the United States, appreciate how the concentration of German military resources on the Eastern Front affected the war's outcome, understand the major strategic decisions of the war and the factors behind them, grasp how the Second Sino-Japanese War contributed to the start of World War II, and see the direct impact of new military technology on the outcomes of the battles during the conflict. The lengthy documents volume represents a valuable repository of additional information for student research.

Author: Randall Hansen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101104783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. But the terrible truth is that much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership, leading to the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved: the military and civilian command in America, Britain, and Germany, the aircrews in the skies who carried out their orders, and civilians on the ground who felt the fury of the Allied attacks. Here, for the first time, the story of the American and British air campaigns is told-and the cost accounted for...

Author: Denis Richards
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description

Author: Peter Gray
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441162275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This book offers a fresh approach to the debate on the RAF's bomber offensive by using modern strategic leadership theory as an analytical tool to examine the campaign. In particular, it looks at the legality and legitimacy of the offensive and explores the key interfaces between the military leaders, the politicians and allies. It also looks at the major controversies in the aims and objectives of the campaign and the personalities involved. Modern literature from the leadership field is used to consider the challenges facing those charged with the formulation and execution of the offensive. Aspects of the senior leadership disputes are also dealt with in the context of the leadership literature and in the wider context of the strategic challenges then facing Churchill, Sinclair and Portal. A multi-disciplinary bent to the book enables the reader to move beyond the narrow confines of military considerations to the thorough investigation of the legality, legitimacy and morality of the offensive.

Author: Richard Michael Milburn
Publisher: Air World
ISBN: 1399044419
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Charles Frederick Algernon Portal was born in Hungerford, England, in 1893. One of seven brothers, Portal developed a fierce competitive streak and a steely determination from an early age. Known by all who knew him as ‘Peter’, Portal enlisted in the Army at the outbreak of the First World War as a dispatch rider, being mentioned in General French’s very first dispatch. Portal’s abilities were quickly recognized, and he gained a commission in short order. It was in the air that Portal saw his future, and he subsequently transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, initially as an observer, before training as a pilot. In this latter role, Portal proved a courageous and instinctive leader, garnering the rare accolade of a DSO and Bar for his wartime service. His meteoric rise continued in the inter-war period, and when Hitler’s forces invaded Poland, Portal had already ascended to the Air Force Board. He then took the RAF’s top command post at Bomber Command during the battles of France and Britain, before replacing Cyril Newall as Chief of Air Staff, aged just 47, in October 1940. Charles Portal was, in General Eisenhower’s words, ‘Britain’s greatest wartime leader, including Churchill’. Portal was a strategist, a diplomat and an outstanding leader of the RAF in the Second World War. He built productive and enduring relationships with the most powerful Allied leaders – some of which, including Churchill, Bomber Harris, and Hap Arnold, are explored here. Portal helped direct the UK’s strategy from the darkest days of 1940 through to Allied victory in 1945. He never lost his calm, even under the most extreme pressure, and approached the war with a cool logic that defied the chaos of the day. Despite his enormous achievements, and being showered with post-war accolades, Portal is little known today. His historical anonymity is a reflection of his disinterest in his own legacy. He neither kept wartime diaries, nor penned an egotistical autobiography to cash in on his post-war fame. He retired as he had served, with dignity and humility, traits that made him particularly influential with American allies. As Wing Commander Rich Milburn reveals in this long-overdue second biography, Charles Portal was a hero in every sense; a heroic battlefield leader in one global conflict, and one of the men most directly responsible for Allied victory in a second.

Author: Patrick W. Montague-Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Baronetage
Languages : en
Pages : 2540

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Author: Alan E. Steinweis
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803242999
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The essays address the nature of Nazism as reflected in contemporary perceptions of Nazi Germany in the United States; the origins and character of fascism; the many forms of antisemitism; German scholars' efforts to promote persecution in the Third Reich; the role of ethnic Germans in the anti-Jewish and anti-Slavic policies of the Reich; the actions of German police in the occupation of eastern Europe and in the Holocaust; Hitler's style of leadership; the nazification of the German military high command; and the politics surrounding the memory of Nazism and the Holocaust after 1945."--BOOK JACKET.

Author: Edward Bujak
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472592174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
The extent to which the Great War impacted upon English landed society is most vividly recalled in the loss of young heirs to ancient estates. English Landed Society in the Great War considers the impact of the war on these estates. Using the archives of Country Life, Edward Bujak examines the landed estate that flourished in England. In doing so, he explores the extent to which the wartime state penetrated into the heartlands of the landed aristocracy and gentry, and the corrosive effects that the progressive and systematic militarization of the countryside had on the authority of the squire. The book demonstrates how the commitment of landowners to the defence of an England of home and beauty - an image also adopted in wartime propaganda - ironically led to its transformation. By using the landed estate to examine the transition from Edwardian England to modern Britain, English Landed Society in the Great War provides a unique lens through which to consider the First World War and its impact on English society.

Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416572465
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 579

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Book Description
A study of the decades leading up to World War II profiles the world leaders, politicians, business people, and others whose personal politics and ideologies provided an inevitable barrier to the peace process and whose actions led to the outbreak of war.

Author: Richard Mead
Publisher: Pen and Sword Aviation
ISBN: 1036104176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
An in-depth overview of the role of the Royal Air Force's leaders during World War II. The RAF did not come of age until the Second World War. The role of its forerunners in the Great War, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, although important, was peripheral to that of the ground forces. The founding father of the RAF, Lord Trenchard, was determined that it should become a fully-fledged third service, equal in status to the Royal Navy and British Army, and this he succeeded in doing between the wars, firstly by setting up the RAF College at Cranwell, and Staff College at Andover, and secondly by providing a cost-effective policeman of the more rebellious parts of the British Empire. By 1939 the RAF had grown substantially, but, of the three best aircraft of the coming War, only the Supermarine Spitfire was in service, as neither the Avro Lancaster nor the De Havilland Mosquito would be available until early 1942. Aircraft, however, were not enough. It was the leaders of the RAF, the subjects of this book, who would take the battle to the enemy and who, after six long years, would prevail.