Unsung Sailors

Unsung Sailors PDF Author: Justin F. Gleichauf
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
The story of a critical but relatively unknown branch of the navy involving some 144,000 men who served in the US Naval Armed Guard. There are 150 first-hand accounts from former guardsmen, as well as historical data telling how the US Naval Armed Guard's 6000 merchant ships transported supplies.

Unsung Sailors

Unsung Sailors PDF Author: Justin F. Gleichauf
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
The story of a critical but relatively unknown branch of the navy involving some 144,000 men who served in the US Naval Armed Guard. There are 150 first-hand accounts from former guardsmen, as well as historical data telling how the US Naval Armed Guard's 6000 merchant ships transported supplies.

Valor

Valor PDF Author: Mark Lee Greenblatt
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1589799534
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Valor features the thrilling stories that are the fruit of Mark Lee Greenblatt’s interviews with brave American servicemen from twenty-first-century wars. These soldiers, sailors, and Marines have risked their lives several times over for their country as well as for their fellow troops and civilians. Still, until now, their stories have largely gone unnoticed by the public, perhaps lost in the frenzied and often nasty debate surrounding those conflicts. As the author writes, “This generation does not have an Audie Murphy. I set out to change that with this book.” Detailing incredible and evocative feats—including an Army pilot who rescued two fellow pilots from a deadly crash in hostile territory and strapped himself to the helicopter’s exterior for the flight to the hospital—Greenblatt provides glimpses into the minds of these men as they face gut-wrenching decisions and overcome enormous odds. However, this book is much more than tales of riveting action. Each chapter goes beyond linear combat stories to explore each hero’s motivations, dreams, and the genuine emotions that were evoked in the face of extreme danger. Readers will be transported to a variety of settings—from close-quarters urban fighting in Iraq to mountainside ambushes in rural Afghanistan to a midnight rescue in the middle of the Atlantic—as they accompany the men who do not see themselves as heroes but as patriots in the line of duty.

Never Call Me a Hero

Never Call Me a Hero PDF Author: N. Jack Kleiss
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062692364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" —Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise’s elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target—the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan’s most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty’s perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier’s deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank—losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history—and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway’s seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty’s remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave PDF Author: Caspar Weinberger
Publisher: Forge Books
ISBN: 1429936274
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In Home of the Brave, former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger brings us a chronicle of heroism in the War on Terror. They are nineteen of the most highly decorated soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in the United States military, and yet most Americans don't even know their names. In this riveting, intimate account, former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Wynton C. Hall tell stories of jaw-dropping heroism and hope in Afghanistan and Iraq. Home of the Brave takes readers beyond the bullets and battles and into the hearts and minds of the men and women who are fighting terrorists overseas so that America doesn't have to fight them at home. These are the powerful, true-life stories of the hopes, fears, and triumphs these men and women experienced fighting the War on Terror. But more than that, these are the stories of soldiers who risked everything to save lives and defend freedom. Including: *Lieutenant Colonel Mark Mitchell, the Green Beret leader whose 15-man Special Forces team took 500 Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, and posthumously repatriated the body of the first American to die in combat in the War on Terror, CIA agent Johnny "Mike" Spann. *Army National Guard Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester, the first woman ever to be awarded the Silver Star for combat, whose sharp-shooting and bravery played an enormous role in fighting off over fifty Iraqi insurgents while her ten-person squad protected a convoy of supplies on the way to fellow soldiers. *Sergeant Rafael Peralta, a Mexican immigrant, enlisted in the Marines the same day he received his green card. Wounded from enemy fire, Peralta used his body to smother the blast of an enemy grenade and gave his life so that his marine brothers could live. These real-life heroes remind us of American history's most enduring lesson: Ours would not be the land of the free if it were not also the home of the brave. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Best Little Stories from World War II

Best Little Stories from World War II PDF Author: C. Brian Kelly
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402243588
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
The untold stories of bravery, triumph, and redemption in the depths of the darkest world war. Behind the great powers, global military conflict, and infamous battles are more than 100 incredible stories that bring to life the Second World War. During the six years of war were countless little-known moments of profound triumph and tragedy, bravery and cowardice, and good and evil. These amazing and unbelievable stories of brotherhood, redemption, escape, and civilian courage shed new light on the war that gripped the entire world. Experience the action through the eyes of people like: Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was aboard both the Enola Gay and Bock's Car and felt the force of the shockwave that nearly destroyed the planes after dropping the H-bombs that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Professor William Miller, who collapsed during a death march of POWs in Germany and was saved by the same man who had rescued him from what would have been a fatal car wreck in Pennsylvania five years earlier. The brave civilians who answered the British Admiralty's call to help rescue an army from Dunkirk during the height of a dangerous battle and sailed small fishing boats into relentless German fire, ultimately saving 335,000 men from This is the perfect book for any history buff looking for the untold stories of military and civilian daring during World War 2.

Black Jacks

Black Jacks PDF Author: W. Jeffrey. Bolster
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674028473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Few Americans, black or white, recognize the degree to which early African American history is a maritime history. W. Jeffrey Bolster shatters the myth that black seafaring in the age of sail was limited to the Middle Passage. Seafaring was one of the most significant occupations among both enslaved and free black men between 1740 and 1865. Tens of thousands of black seamen sailed on lofty clippers and modest coasters. They sailed in whalers, warships, and privateers. Some were slaves, forced to work at sea, but by 1800 most were free men, seeking liberty and economic opportunity aboard ship.Bolster brings an intimate understanding of the sea to this extraordinary chapter in the formation of black America. Because of their unusual mobility, sailors were the eyes and ears to worlds beyond the limited horizon of black communities ashore. Sometimes helping to smuggle slaves to freedom, they were more often a unique conduit for news and information of concern to blacks.But for all its opportunities, life at sea was difficult. Blacks actively contributed to the Atlantic maritime culture shared by all seamen, but were often outsiders within it. Capturing that tension, Black Jacks examines not only how common experiences drew black and white sailors together--even as deeply internalized prejudices drove them apart--but also how the meaning of race aboard ship changed with time. Bolster traces the story to the end of the Civil War, when emancipated blacks began to be systematically excluded from maritime work. Rescuing African American seamen from obscurity, this stirring account reveals the critical role sailors played in helping forge new identities for black people in America.An epic tale of the rise and fall of black seafaring, Black Jacks is African Americans' freedom story presented from a fresh perspective.

Information Bulletin

Information Bulletin PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description


Reading the Short Story

Reading the Short Story PDF Author: Anna Wing-bo Tso
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476673985
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Beginning with a brief history and evolution of the short story genre, alongside an overview of the key short story writers, and an explanatory chapter of literary criticism, this book aims to give readers insight into the works by canonical British, Irish, and American authors, including Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, and more. Applying close reading skills and critical literary approaches to twelve selected short stories in English, this work conducts comparative analyses to reveal the interrelationships between the texts, the authors, the readers, and the sociocultural contexts. Developed and tested in literature classes at university over several semesters, this book addresses key issues, topics and trends in the short story genre.

The Ship That Never Was

The Ship That Never Was PDF Author: B.J. BRYAN
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1456877682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
"The United States Merchant Marine provided the greatest sealift in history between the production army at home and the fighting forces scattered around the globe in World War II. The prewar total of 55,000 experienced mariners was increased to over 215,000 through U. S. Maritime Service training programs. Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders, and destroyers, aircraft (kamikaze), and the element. About 8,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12.00 wounded of whom at least, 1, 100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner. Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze and some starved. Many died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. 31 ships vanished without a trace to a watery grave. ( Total killed estimated 9,300) "

The Day of Battle

The Day of Battle PDF Author: Rick Atkinson
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1429920106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 814

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy In An Army at Dawn—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fight their way north toward Rome. The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once under way, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, one of the war's most complex and controversial commanders, American officers and soldiers became increasingly determined and proficient. And with the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable. Drawing on a wide array of primary source material, written with great drama and flair, this is narrative history of the first rank. With The Day of Battle, Atkinson has once again given us the definitive account of one of history's most compelling military campaigns.