The Day of Battle

The Day of Battle PDF Author: Rick Atkinson
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805088618
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 852

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Book Description
In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.

The Day of Battle

The Day of Battle PDF Author: Rick Atkinson
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805088618
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 852

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Book Description
In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.

Italy's Sorrow

Italy's Sorrow PDF Author: James Holland
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007176457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
James Holland's ground-breaking account expertly documents the German advance to the stalemate of the Gothic line and a segment of Italian history that has been largely neglected. The war in Italy was the most destructive campaign in the west as the Allies and Germans fought a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict up the mountainous leg of Italy during the last twelve months of the Second World War. While the Allies and Germans were slogging it out through the mountains, the Italians were fighting their own battles, one where Partisans and Fascists were pitted against each other in a bloody civil war. Around them, civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror and anarchy while, in the wake of the Allied advance, beleaguered and impoverished Italians were forced to pick their way through the ruins of their homes and country and often forced into making terrible and heart-rending decisions in order to survive.

Anzio

Anzio PDF Author: Lloyd Clark
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802143266
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
"Masterly . . . a heartbreaking, beautifully told story of wasted sacrifice." --Vince Rinehart, The Washington Post The Allied attack of Normandy beach and its resultant bloodbath have been immortalized in film and literature, but the U.S. campaign on the beaches of Western Italy reigns as perhaps the deadliest battle of World War II's western theater. In January 1944, about six months before D-Day, an Allied force of thirty-six thousand soldiers launched one of the first attacks on continental Europe at Anzio, a small coastal city thirty miles south of Rome. The assault was conceived as the first step toward an eventual siege of the Italian capital. But the advance stalled and Anzio beach became a death trap. After five months of brutal fighting and monumental casualties on both sides, the Allies finally cracked the German line and marched into Rome on June 5, the day before D-Day. Richly detailed and fueled by extensive archival research of newspapers, letters, and diaries--as well as scores of original interviews with surviving soldiers on both sides of the trenches--Anzio is a harrowing and incisive true story by one of today's finest military historians.

At War on the Gothic Line

At War on the Gothic Line PDF Author: Christian Jennings
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466871733
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Christian Jennings's At War on the Gothic Line tells the little-known story of the Allied effort to break the German defenses in Northern Italy—told through the eyes of the multi-national force that fought it. In the autumn of 1944, as Patton’s army paraded through Paris, another Allied force was gathering in southern Italy. Spearheaded by over 100,000 American troops, this vast, international army was faced with a grim task—break The Gothic Line, a series of interconnected German fortifications that stretched across the mountains of northern Italy. Striving to reach Europe’s vulnerable underbelly before the Red Army, these Allied soldiers fought uphill against entrenched enemies in some of the final and most brutal battles of the Second World War. In At War on the Gothic Line, veteran war correspondent and historian Christian Jennings provides an unprecedented look inside this unsung but highly significant campaign. Through the eyes of thirteen men and women from seven different countries, Jennings brings history to life as he vividly recounts the courageous acts of valor performed by these soldiers facing overwhelming odds, even as many experienced discrimination at the hands of their allies and superiors. Witness the courage of a young Japanese-American officer willing to die for those under his command. Lie in wait with a troop of Canadian fur trappers turned snipers. Creep along mountain paths with Indian warriors as they assault fortified positions in the dead of night. Learn to fear a one-armed SS-Major guilty of some of the most atrocious war-crimes in the European theater. All these stories and more pack the pages of this faced-paced, action-heavy history, taking readers inside one of the most important, and least discussed, campaigns of World War Two.

The National Army Museum Book of the Turkish Front 1914-1918

The National Army Museum Book of the Turkish Front 1914-1918 PDF Author: Michael Carver
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9780330491082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
The Turkish Front in World War I was an historically important campaign as the destruction of the Ottoman Empire led to the political turmoil of the Middle East. But it also had a big emotional pull. This book contains extracts from the letters, diaries and other papers of those involved.

The Battle for Rome

The Battle for Rome PDF Author: Robert Katz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743216425
Category : Rome (Italy)
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
This landmark work draws on newly released documents and firsthand accounts to tell the dramatic story of Rome's dark days during the German occupation. 8-pages of photos. 2 maps.

Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania

Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania PDF Author: Flavio G. Conti
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611479983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
During World War II 51,000 Italian prisoners of war were detained in the United States. When Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, most of these soldiers agreed to swear allegiance to the United States and to collaborate in the fight against Germany. At the Letterkenny Army Depot, located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, more than 1,200 Italian soldiers were detained as co-operators. They arrived in May 1944 to form the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion and remained until October 1945. As detainees, the soldiers helped to order, stock, repair, and ship military goods, munitions and equipment to the Pacific and European Theaters of war. Through such labor, they lent their collective energy to the massive home front endeavor to defeat the Axis Powers. The prisoners also helped to construct the depot itself, building roads, sidewalks, and fences, along with individual buildings such as an assembly hall, amphitheater, swimming pool, and a chapel and bell tower. The latter of these two constructions still exist, and together with the assembly hall, bear eloquent testimony to the Italian POW experience. For their work the Italian co-operators received a very modest, regular salary, and they experienced more freedom than regular POWs. In their spare time, they often had liberty to leave the post in groups that American soldiers chaperoned. Additionally, they frequently received or visited large entourages of Italian Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region who were eager to comfort their erstwhile countrymen. The story of these Italian soldiers detained at Letterkenny has never before been told. Now, however, oral histories from surviving POWs, memoirs generously donated by family members of ex-prisoners, and the rich information newly available from archival material in Italy, aided by material found in the U.S., have made it possible to reconstruct this experience in full. All of this historical documentation has also allowed the authors to tell fascinating individual stories from the moment when many POWs were captured to their return to Italy and beyond. More than seventy years since the end of World War II, family members of ex-POWs in both the United States and Italy still enjoy the positive legacy of this encounter.

War in Val D'Orcia

War in Val D'Orcia PDF Author: Iris Origo
Publisher: Allison & Busby
ISBN: 0749040548
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
It is quite impossible to attach importance to material possessions now. All that one still clings to is a few vital affections' Iris Origo, October 1943. Marchesa Iris Origo and her husband had been settled at their rural estate of La Foce since 1924. When the Second World War broke out Origo, an Englishwoman married to an Italian landowner, had divided loyalties. But as the war dragged on and the hostilities escalated, the small community of Val d'Orcia found themselves helping evacuees, orphans, refugees, prisoners of war and soldiers from both sides, concerned less with who was fighting whom than caring for those who needed their aid. Origo kept her diary throughout this time, when the risk of betrayal was a fact of life and the penalty for helping the enemy would result in death. Even with German troops occupying her manor house, she wrote at night about her valiant attempts to shelter refugees, burying her diary in the garden each morning. The result is a book which has become a classic, an affirmation in itself of courage and resistance, and an unsentimental, compelling story of the trials and tragedies of wartime.

Tug of War

Tug of War PDF Author: Dominick Graham
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473819938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 635

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Book Description
When the Allies invaded mainland Italy in 1943 they intended only a clearing-up operation to knock Italy out of the war, but Hitler ordered the German armies to defend every foot of the country. The 'Tug of War' was the mysterious force which caused a war to race out of control, and attract vast numbers of men, tanks, guns and aircraft. The book analyses the main battles of Salerno, Cassino, Anzio and the march on Rome.

The Invasion of Sicily 1943

The Invasion of Sicily 1943 PDF Author: Jon Diamond
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473896118
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
With victory in North Africa complete, the Allies had a choice. The Americans wanted an early cross channel attack from Britain on North West Europe. Churchill favored invading the soft underbelly of Italy to weaken the Axis forces and gain Italian surrender. With Eisenhowers army and battle-hardened Eighth Army in North Africa, Churchill prevailed.The ambitious Operation HUSKY required meticulous planning. Montgomery's Eighth Army and Patton's Seventh landed successfully although the air landing proved costly. While the outcome was not in doubt the mountainous terrain acted in the defenders favor. The German presence was higher than expected and the vast bulk of the enemy were Italian. In little over a month, the first Americans reached Messina.The strategic plan was successful: the Italian capitulated, Hitler had to reinforce his Southern flank relieving pressure on the Soviets and valuable lessons were learned by Allied for D-Day.