The Crash of Ruin

The Crash of Ruin PDF Author: Peter Schrijvers
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 9780814798072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
In the ruined Europe of World War II, American soldiers on the frontline had no eye for breathtaking vistas or romantic settings. The brutality of battle profoundly darkened the soldiers' perceptions of the Old World. Drawing on soldiers' diaries, letters, poems and songs, Peter Schrijvers offers a compelling account of the experiences of U.S. combat ground forces: their struggles with the European terrain and seasons, their confrontations with soldiers, and their often startling encounters with civilians. Schrijvers relays how the GIs became so desensitized and dehumanized that the sight of dead animals often evoked more compassion in them than enemy dead. The Crash of Ruin concludes with a dramatic and moving account of the final Allied offensive into German-held territory and the soldiers' bearing witness to the ultimate symbol of Europe's descent into ruin: the death camps of the Holocaust.

The Crash of Ruin

The Crash of Ruin PDF Author: Peter Schrijvers
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 9780814798072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
In the ruined Europe of World War II, American soldiers on the frontline had no eye for breathtaking vistas or romantic settings. The brutality of battle profoundly darkened the soldiers' perceptions of the Old World. Drawing on soldiers' diaries, letters, poems and songs, Peter Schrijvers offers a compelling account of the experiences of U.S. combat ground forces: their struggles with the European terrain and seasons, their confrontations with soldiers, and their often startling encounters with civilians. Schrijvers relays how the GIs became so desensitized and dehumanized that the sight of dead animals often evoked more compassion in them than enemy dead. The Crash of Ruin concludes with a dramatic and moving account of the final Allied offensive into German-held territory and the soldiers' bearing witness to the ultimate symbol of Europe's descent into ruin: the death camps of the Holocaust.

A Cause Greater than Self

A Cause Greater than Self PDF Author: Stephen J. Ochs
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603448039
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
A privileged, hell-raising youth who had greatly embarrassed his family—and especially his war-hero father—by being dismissed from West Point, Michael J. Daly would go on to display selfless courage and heroic leadership on the battlefields of Europe during World War II. Starting as an enlisted man and rising through the ranks to become a captain and company commander, Daly’s devotion to his men and his determination to live up to the ideals taught to him by his father led him to extraordinary acts of bravery on behalf of others, resulting in three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star with “V” attachment for valor, two Purple Hearts, and finally, the Medal of Honor. Historian Stephen J. Ochs mined archives and special collections and conducted numerous personal interviews with Daly, his family and friends, and the men whom he commanded and with whom he served. The result is a carefully constructed, in-depth portrait of a warrior-hero who found his life’s deepest purpose, both during and after the war, in selfless service to others. After a period of post-war drift, Daly finally escaped the “hero’s cage” and found renewed purpose through family and service. He became a board member at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he again assumed the role of defender and guardian by championing the cause of the indigent poor and the terminally ill, earning the sobriquet, “conscience of the hospital.” A Cause Greater than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient is at once a unique, father-son wartime saga, a coming-of-age narrative, and the tale of a heroic man’s struggle to forge a new and meaningful postwar life. Daly’s story also highlights the crucial role played by platoon and company infantry officers in winning both major battles like those on D-Day and in lesser-known campaigns such as those of the Colmar Pocket and in south-central Germany, further reinforcing the debt that Americans owe to them—especially those whose selfless courage merited the Medal of Honor.

On the Bloody Road to Berlin

On the Bloody Road to Berlin PDF Author: Duncan Rogers
Publisher: Helion & Company Limited
ISBN: 9781874622086
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
This book puts you in the front line of the titanic struggles fought in Northwest Europe and on the Eastern Front between June 1944 and May 1945. Follow the course of these campaigns through the eyes of a small number of British, American, Russian, and German soldiers. The great majority of this book consists of outstanding first-person narratives of the bitter fighting on the road to Berlin. Eyewitnesses include troops from the British infantry, tank and airborne forces, US infantry, Russian infantry, tank and artillery units, and German infantry along with the Waffen-SS. Events narrated include the taking of Pegasus Bridge, vicious fighting in Normandy, Operation Bagration, Arnhem, the Ardennes and Alsace, the massive Vistula-Oder offensive in the East, and the final battles in Vienna and Berlin. This book reminds the reader of the hardships and triumphs in the final leg of World War II.

Into the Mountains Dark

Into the Mountains Dark PDF Author: Franklin L. Gurley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
A significant combat memoir written by a young US soldier during the bitter fighting in the Vosges Mountains, 1944-45. When 17-year old freshman Frank Gurley was placed second in his first Harvard varsity cross-country meet, he thought he had achieved the ultimate in courage and tenacity. Just over a year later, still shy of his 19th birthday, and still a scout of sorts (First Scout in an infantry rifle squad), Gurley came down from a frowning peak in the Vosges Mountains with far deeper insights into the meaning of valor and intrepid endurance... after his odyssey 'Into the Mountains Dark.' This extraordinary work is actually the result of an operational security violation and military offence for which the author could have been severely punished. Throughout his six months of combat as an enlisted man in the U.S. Seventh Army's 100th Infantry Division in France and Germany, Private Gurley maintained an extensive, up-to-the hour journal in which he and his buddies painstakingly recorded every major incident in the life of their platoon. A former high school newspaper editor, the author risked the potential penalties for his actions and meticulously chronicled the fears, joys, grip

America, History and Life

America, History and Life PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
Article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations covering the United States and Canada.

When the Odds Were Even

When the Odds Were Even PDF Author: Keith Bonn
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0307417751
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
In three months of savage fighting, the U.S. Seventh Army did what no army in the history of modern warfare had ever done before–conquer an enemy defending the Vosges Mountains. With the toughest terrain on the Western Front, the Vosges mountain range was seemingly an impregnable fortress, manned by German troops determined to hold the last barrier between the Allies and the Rhine. Yet despite nearly constant rain, snow, ice, and mud, soldiers of the U.S. Seventh Army tore through thousands of pillboxes, acres of barbed wire, hundreds of roadblocks, and miles of other enemy obstacles, ripping the tenacious German defenders out of their fortifications in fierce fighting–and then held on to their gains by crushing Operation Nordwind, the German offensive launched in a hail of steel at an hour before midnight on the last New Year’s Eve of the war. Keith Bonn’s fascinating study of this little-known World War II campaign offers a rare opportunity to compare German and American fighting formations in a situation where both sides were fairly evenly matched in numbers of troops, weapons, supplies, and support. This gripping battle-by-battle account shatters the myth that German formations were, division for division, superior to their American counterparts.

History of the Twenty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in the War for the Preservation of the Union, 1861-1865

History of the Twenty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in the War for the Preservation of the Union, 1861-1865 PDF Author: Charles Folsom Walcott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Massachusetts
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description


Revolutions in Communication

Revolutions in Communication PDF Author: Bill Kovarik
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1628924780
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
Revolutions in Communication offers a new approach to media history, presenting an encyclopedic look at the way technological change has linked social and ideological communities. Using key figures in history to benchmark the chronology of technical innovation, Kovarik's exhaustive scholarship narrates the story of revolutions in printing, electronic communication and digital information, while drawing parallels between the past and present. Updated to reflect new research that has surfaced these past few years, Revolutions in Communication continues to provide students and teachers with the most readable history of communications, while including enough international perspective to get the most accurate sense of the field. The supplemental reading materials on the companion website include slideshows, podcasts and video demonstration plans in order to facilitate further reading.

Strategic Challenges for Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terrorism

Strategic Challenges for Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terrorism PDF Author: Williamson Murray
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Counterinsurgency
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"In March 2006, President George W. Bush signed a new National Security Strategy that he refers to as a "wartime national security strategy." He also states in the introduction that to follow the path the United States has chosen, we must "maintain and expand our national strength." One way to do this is to study and propose solutions to the complex challenges the United States faces in the 21st century. At the U.S. Army War College, the students have embraced this challenge and spend a year developing their intellectual strength in areas that extend well beyond the familiar operational and tactical realm to which they are accustomed. This collection of essays written by students enrolled in the U.S. Army War College Advanced Strategic Art Program (ASAP) reflects the development of their strategic thought applied to a wide range of contemporary issues. The ASAP is a unique program that offers selected students a rigorous course of instruction in theater strategy. Solidly based in theory, doctrine, and history, the program provides these students a wide range of experts both in and out of the military, staff rides, and exercises to develop them as superb theater strategists. ASAP graduates continue to make their mark throughout the military to include in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the Combatant Commands."--STINET web site.

Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State

Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State PDF Author: Megan Ming Francis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107037107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
This book extends what we know about the development of civil rights and the role of the NAACP in American politics. Through a sweeping archival analysis of the NAACP's battle against lynching and mob violence from 1909 to 1923, this book examines how the NAACP raised public awareness, won over American presidents, secured the support of Congress, and won a landmark criminal procedure case in front of the Supreme Court.