Dramatic photographs of Nazi Germany's shocking Ardennes Offensive that nearly turned the tide of World War II—from the author of In Pursuit of Hitler.Hitler's desperate last throw during the depths of winter 1944/45 came perilously close to being a major disaster for the Allies. Their offensive through the Ardennes fell on the Americans and caught them totally by surprise. Unaccustomed to setbacks, the situation was for a time extremely serious and in some...

A pictorial history of the Allied campaigns in the final months before the end of World War II in Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany.Sixty years ago, the world had been at war for nearly six years. The cost in life and material terms was appalling, millions of men and women had died, families and nations destroyed, and all sides were suffering grievously in human and financial terms. The Allies were closing in on Hitler's Germany from the East, West, and South. T...

"By Spring 1945, while the war in Europe was coming to a close, in the Pacific there was no end to hostilities in sight. The Japanese, albeit retreating, defended every outpost and island with fanatical determination and all the indications were that Japan would have to be invaded at a terrible cost. The two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed this and the world forever.Victory in the Pacific tells the story of the last six months of the war against Japan in the Pacific, the Phi...

This is the fascinating account, as recorded from the US perspective, of the bitter fighting during the eight days and nights of encirclement at Bastogne. First published in the pages of the Infantry Journal in 1946, this contemporary account by S.L.A. Marshall was rescued from obscurity by the US Armys Center Of Military History and is now appearing in e-book form for the first time. There are few better or more authoritative accounts of the struggle as seen through the eyes of the American ...

Dont fight a battle if you dont gain anything by winning.General Erwin RommelA fascinating account of a deadly combination: the supreme German weapon of war in the hands of the finest military tacticians of last century.Illustrated throughout with full coverage of all the German tanks, tank battles and campaigns in the period 1943-1945, from Kursk to the last battles in the east, along with commanders, strategy, tactics and technical details.This book is part of The Hitlers War Machine ser...

In July 1943, Hitler launched Operation Zitadelle, the last German offensive on the Eastern Front. It was an attempt to shorten the German lines by eliminating the Kursk salient and was designed to result in the encirclement of the Red Army. In reality, the German tanks came up against impenetrable Russian defences: minefields, artillery and anti-tank emplacements, spread through lines 250km deep and manned by Russian troops whose actions often verged on the suicidal. The ...

"Reveals much of what history has tended to gloss over . . . should be a must read for all who have an interest in this operation" ( Airborne Quarterly).After Normandy, the most spectacular Allied offensive of World War II was Operation Market Garden, which planned to join three divisions of paratroopers dropped behind German lines with massive armored columns breaking through the front. The object was to seize a crossing over the Rhine to outflank the hea...

The prizewinning historian and bestselling author of D-Day, Stalingrad, and The Battle of Arnhem reconstructs the Battle of the Bulge in this riveting new accountOn December 16, 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes in Belgium, believing he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp and forcing the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were do...

The ferocious battles for survival fought by trapped German forces in Russia have become synonymous with that most terrible of all military campaigns. Shortly after the war the personal experiences of those who had fought in the battles were collected together as the German Report Series. The German report series includes invaluable information from impeccable sources on the pockets formed at Klin, Velikiye Luki, Cherkassy and Kamenets-Podolskiy.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.Midnight, Tuesday 6 June 1944: the beginning of D-Day, the operation to invade Nazi-occupied Western Europe and initiate the final phase of World War II. A vast undertaking, it involved 12,000 aircraft and an amphibious assault of almost 7,000 vessels. 160,000 troops would cross the English Channel during Operation Overlord, paving the way for more than three million allied troops to enter France by the end of August 1944.

This book reviews the complex set of military operations played out in the Netherlands during September 1944 involving the forces of Britain, Canada, Poland, the USA and Germany. As far as space permits we have attempted toprovide a wide selection of sources covering each of the belligerents.We are also proud to present the previously unpublished war diary of Captain Graham Davies, which brings a new perspective on the often overlooked contribution made by the artillerymen in support of bo...

"The Allied landings in 1944 had all the prospects for disaster. Churchill thought he would be woken up to be told of massive casualties. Eisenhower prepared a somber broadcast announcing that the enterprise had failed.The specter of failure was always present. After a failed landing the Nazi regime would have regained the ascendant. New, terrifying bombs and rockets were ready to be launched. Long-distance submarines were in the final stage of development. The last million Jews of...