Wars & Military Hist
--We Are the Mighty In the winter of 1941, as Britain faced defeat on all fronts, an RAF reconnaissance pilot photographed an alien-looking object on the French coast near Le Havre. The mysterious device--a "Wurzburg Dish"--appeared to be a new form of radar technology: ultra-compact, highly precise, and pointed directly across the English Channel. Britain's experts found it hard to believe the Germans had mastered such groundbreaking technology. But one young technician thought it not only possible, he convinced Winston Churchill that the dish posed a unique and deadly threat to Allied forces, one that required desperate measures--and drastic action . . . Capturing the radar on film had been an amazing coup. Stealing it away from under the noses of the Nazis would be remarkable. So was launched Operation Biting, a mission like no other. An extraordinary "snatch-and-grab" raid on Germany's secret radar installation, it offered Churchill's elite airborne force, the Special Air Service, a rare opportunity to redeem themselves after a previous failed mission--and to shift the tides of war forever. Led by the legendary Major John Frost, these brave paratroopers would risk all in a daring airborne assault, with only a small stretch of beach menaced by enemy guns as their exit point. With the help of a volunteer radar technician who knew how to dismantle the dish, as well as the courageous men and women of the French Resistance, they succeeded against all odds in their act of brazen robbery. Some would die. Others would be captured. All fought with resolute bravery . . . This is the story of that fateful night of February 27, 1942. A brilliantly told, thrillingly tense account of Churchill's raiders in their finest hour, this is World War II history at its heart-stopping best. "This highly informative book almost reads like a genuine techno-thriller.
--New York Journal of Books
"A little-known behind-the-lines spectacular led by two heroic British officers."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Anyone who wants to learn more about the origins of the British Special Forces should read this book. It intertwines historical research and eyewitness testimony to tell the untold story of heroism, courage, and ingenuity."
--Military Press
"Lewis presents a richly detailed and nail-biting tale."
--Library Journal
"Citizen Soldiers" opens at 0001 hours, June 7, 1944, on the Normandy beaches, and ends at 0245 hours, May 7, 1945. In between come the battles in the hedgerows of Normandy, the breakout at St. Lo, the Falaise Gap, Patton tearing through France, the liberation of Paris, the attempt to leap the Rhine in Operation Market-Garden, the near-miraculous German recovery, the battles around Metz and in the Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge-- the biggest battle in the history of the U.S. Army-- the capture of the bridge at Remagen, and finally the overrunning of Germany.
From the high command (including Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton) on down to the enlisted men, Stephen E. Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from men on both sides who were there. Ambrose once again recreates the experiences of the individuals who fought the battles. The women who served as nurses, secretaries, clerks, code-breakers, and flyers are part of the narrative, as are the Germans who fought against us. Within the chronological story, there are chapters on medics, nurses, and doctors; on the quartermasters; on replacements; on what it was like to spend a night on the front lines; on sad sacks, cowards, and criminals; on Christmas 1944; on weapons of all kinds.
Ambrose reveals the learning process of a great army-- how to cross rivers, how to fight in snow or hedgerows, how to fight in cities, how to coordinate air and ground campaigns, how to fight in winter and on the defensive, how citizens become soldiers in the best army in the world. Ambrose evokes the suffering of warfare, fighting in the cold and wet, gruesome wounds, combat exhaustion, looting, shooting prisoners, random destruction and more. Throughout, the perspective is that of the enlisted men and junior officers. Even when writing about Ike, Monty, Patton, and Bradley, Ambrose does so from the point of view of the men in the front lines and focuses on how the decisions of the brass affected them.
"Citizen Soldiers" is a biography of the U.S. Army in the European Theater of Operations, June 7, 1944, to May 7, 1945. Allied citizen soldiers overcame their fear and inexperience, the mistakes of the high command, and the enemy to win the war. Once again, Stephen E. Ambrose shows that free men fight better than slaves, that the sons of democracy proved to be better soldiers than the sons of Nazi Germany.
Franci’s War: A Woman’s Story of Survival by Franci Rabinek Epstein
I love non-fiction about strong people who struggle through frightening events and somehow survive. These stories grab me because I want to believe we can persevere throughw ars, famine and pandemics, knowing that survival will take determination and hard work in order to defend our lives and beliefs. Franci’s War: A Woman’s Story of Survival by Franci Rabinek Epstein, is that kind of story. Franci was a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birrkenau camps. Her daughter, Helen Epstein, has edited her mother’s journal and divided it into chapters to help the reader follow the story.
Franci was born in Prague, in 1920. At the age of nineteen she became the owner of her mother’s couture shop, but the Nazi’s had invaded Czechoslovakia and her world was rapidly changing. Franci and her parents were arrested by the Gestapo, released, she got married, got pregnant—and decided on an abortion--and in the next year, Nazi’s took everything away and sent her to a concentration camp. She survived, in part, because she told them a lie, that she was an electrician. Her story is amazing, honest, heartbreaking and inspiring, and, in my opinion, a must read to understand our past--so we never repeat it.
Sarah Willis, Loganberry Books
“When in 1922 T.E. Lawrence enlisted in the ranks of the R.A.F. under the name of John Hulme Ross, he was in a strange physical and mental state as the result of his war experiences. Upon the discovery of his identity he was discharged, but was allowed to re-enlist two and a half years later, this time using the name of Shaw, under which he had meanwhile served in the Tank Corps.
From his notes, many times re-written and revised, he constructed The Mint – ‘an iron, rectangular, abhorrent book,’ he called it, ‘one which no man would willingly read.’ It does not correspond to that description. In the main it is a highly subjective account of Lawrence’s life in the R.A.F. Though resentfully critical of the treatment to which he and other recruits were subjected, it is not self-pitying. It is often robustly entertaining, and the character sketches are brilliant examples of Lawrence’s literary skill. He had an acute ear for conversation: in fact, some of the dialogue so faithfully records habitual barrack-room words that it has been deemed inadvisable to reproduce them in the ordinary edition of the book.” (From book flap)
London: Jonathan Cape, 1955. 1st edition; dust jacket in protective cover; edges tanned; flaps clipped; blue cloth; spine head frayed; corners bumped; binding good; text clean and bright. G/G
On Thermonuclear War was controversial when originally published and remains so today. It is iconoclastic, crosses disciplinary boundaries, and finally it is calm and compellingly reasonable. The book was widely read on both sides of the Iron Curtain and the result was serious revision in both Western and Soviet strategy and doctrine. As a result, both sides were better able to avoid disaster during the Cold War.
The strategic concepts still apply: defense, local animosities, and the usual balance-of-power issues are still very much with us. Kahn's stated purpose in writing this book was simply: "avoiding disaster and buying time, without specifying the use of this time." By the late 1950s, with both sides H-bomb-armed, reason and time were in short supply.
Kahn, a military analyst at Rand since 1948, understood that a defense based only on thermonuclear arnaments was inconceivable, morally questionable, and not credible.The book was the first to make sense of nuclear weapons. Originally created from a series of lectures, it provides insight into how policymakers consider such issues. One may agree with Kahn or disagree with him on specific issues, but he clearly defined the terrain of the argument. He also looks at other weapons of mass destruction such as biological and chemical, and the history of their use.
Princeton University Press, 1961; 2nd edition with index; dust jacket in protective cover; head of spine chipped; edges shelf worn; rust cloth with black and gilt lettering on spine; binding tight; text clean and bright. G+/G
Munich: Vaad Hatzala, 1948. Pictorial covers over gray cloth spine; covers toned, edges lightly frayed; front hinge weak; all edges red; pages toned with age. Scarce copy of this important photo-illustrated report issued by Vaad Hatzala, an organization dedicated to the rescue of European Jews after the Holocaust. Founded in 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, the organization formed schools, orphanages, senior living homes, etc. in the displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria, circa 1946-1948. Text in German, Hebrew, and English. G
Travis Harman, a young skater punk from the small farming town of Hughesville, PA has never had a close relationship with his father, Dean, but after 9/11 shakes the nation, Travis and Dean enlist in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard together. Shortly after joining, Travis begins to have second thoughts and devises a plan to leave the Army. Once back in Hughesville, he realizes the only way he'll ever gain his father's acceptance is to enlist, and so he reverses course and joins again. This time, now fully committed, Travis endures rigorous basic and advanced training at Fort Benning and Fort Gordon, Georgia. Just as advanced training ends, Dean helps Travis get work at Fort Indiantown Gap supporting the training of troops preparing to deploy. As Travis prepares to head back to Hughesville, Dean calls informing him that father and son will be deploying to Afghanistan together.
Travis and Dean deploy to Afghanistan in December of 2008, heading to Fort Bragg, North Carolina first. After three months of train up, Travis is sent to a remote outpost in the northeast part of the country, while his father has a cushy desk job at Bagram Airfield. Travis is pulled into often horrific realities of modern war as he experiences intense combat all while yearning for his father's acceptance. Travis goes back to Bagram and sees his father in transit to Qatar where he will be going on pass for some much-needed rest and relaxation. The tales of Travis' bravery under fire reach his father before Travis arrives, and when he greets his father once again, Travis starts to feel accepted by his father, a feeling he has chased since boyhood.
These memoirs and accounts present both a factual accounting of the revelations of the Spirit which sometimes unexpectedly occur while in flight and also, a reasoned, prayerful attempt to understand those revelations. Much of James T. Hollin, Jr.'s lifetime was spent recognizing that aerial flight can be used for many reasons, running the gamut from sky-diving, hot-air ballooning, low level sightseeing, the dropping of searing napalm on soldiers, med-evac flights, or entering a low Earth orbit in a space vehicle. Even more important, this has been the recounting of one person's appreciation of, and sometimes bewilderment with, the goodness of Divine happenstance, or Fate, intervening in the most unexpected and timely circumstances.
The title provides an inkling of the wondrous and sometimes brutal activities of mankind in the sky. Since the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, the air above the Earth has enveloped innumerable instances of lifesaving aerial exertions and ferocious warmongering. The skies have been used for the benefit of, and also, selected destruction of mankind.
From personal experiences, and the bountiful history of flight, the author describes events that illustrate, in many respects, the nature of man. His interwoven memoirs include recitations of airborne bliss, nerve-wracking predicaments, and unexplained aerial phenomena. Centuries-old cultural and racial mores evoked personal conflicts which needed resolution within the author's own perception of spirituality and aviation.
Often, a disastrous twist of fate will catch a person totally unawares. Such occurrences can cause apprehension, helplessness, or even terror, but frequently become immediately and unexplainably resolved. It is heartwarming when unseen forces, undefined by science or not fully articulated by religion, intervene in a lifesaving manner, especially in the sky.
The writer regards flying as a combined physical, mental, and spiritual immersion in the medium of air, whether piloting a gigantic airliner or a hang glider. An aviator, by virtue of being "up front," should assume the role of a committed, principled leader, particularly when transporting passengers. It is an inspiring quality that is sorely needed in any environment.
About the Author
James T. Hollin, Jr. is a former military aviator and experienced airline pilot. J.T. was raised in the quiet, desert town of Yuma, Arizona during the 1950's and 1960's. A graduate of the University of Arizona, he received a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering. Captain Hollin flew as a U.S. Air Force pilot for almost five years, including a six-month tour in South Korea, and a year combat tour as a Forward Air Controller, flying over South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Later in his career, Captain Hollin flew as a Delta Air Lines pilot for thirty-one years. With the airline, Captain Hollin flew several aircraft types, including the DC-9, Convair-880, the Boeing-727, -757, and -767, the Lockheed L-1011, McDonnell-Douglas MD-11, retiring as a Boeing-777 Captain.
Captain Hollin currently is self-employed part-time as a registered patent attorney, and occasionally performs voluntary work with the Atlanta Chapter, Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.
"A unique work of. . . history, made all the more interesting by its relevance to the time in which we live."
--James R. Elkins, editor of Legal Studies Forum
In this timely study of the roots of terrorism, author Albert Borowitz deftly assesses the phenomenon of violent crime motivated by a craving for notoriety or self-glorification. He traces this particular brand of terrorism back to 356 BCE and the destruction of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus by arsonist Herostratos and then examines similar crimes through history to the present time, detailing many examples of what the author calls the "Herostratos Syndrome," such as the attempted explosion of the Greenwich Observatory in 1894, the Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddhas in Afghanistan, the assassination of John Lennon, the Unabomber strikes, and the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings.
The study of terrorism requires interdisciplinary inquiry. Proving that terrorism cannot be the exclusive focus of a single field of scholarship, Borowitz presents this complex subject using sources based in religion, philosophy, history, Greek mythology, and world literature, including works of Chaucer, Cervantes, Mark Twain, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Terrorism for Self-Glorification, written in clear and direct prose, is original, thorough, and thought provoking. Scholars, specialists, and general readers will find their understanding of terrorism greatly enhanced by this book.
The Kent State University Press, 2005. 1st edition. Inscribed by author. Fine/Fine