**A remarkable eyewitness account of the most brutal combat of the Pacific War, from Peleliu to Okinawa, this is the true story of R.V. Burgin, the real-life World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific.“Read his story and marvel at the man...and those like him.”—Tom Hanks**When a young Texan named R.V. Burgin joined the Marines 1942, he never imagined what was waiting for him a world away in the Pacific. There, amid steamy jungles, he encountered ...

Explore the rich history of the legendary railroad that spanned the American Midwest in this beautifully illustrated volume.Beginning operations in the mid-nineteenth century, the Rock Island Line served farms and small-town America for more than 140 years. One of the earliest railroads to build westward from Chicago, it was the first to span the Mississippi, advancing the frontier, bringing settlers into the West, and hauling their crops to market.Rock Islan...

An epic, groundbreaking account of the ethnic and state violence that followed the end of World War I and shaped the course of the twentieth century.Winner of the Tomlinson Book PrizeA Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2016In The Vanquished, a highly original and gripping work of history, Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not...

A story of heroism, friendship, and courage in World War 2—as seen in the award-winning HBO miniseries The Pacific.In 1944, the U.S. Marines were building the 5th Marine Division—also known as “The Spearhead”—in preparation for the invasion of the small, Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima...When Chuck Tatum began Marine boot camp, he was just a smart-aleck teenager eager to serve his country. Little did he know that he would be training under a livin...

From Robert Leckie, the World War II veteran and New York Times bestselling author of Helmet for My Pillow, whose experiences were featured in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, comes this vivid narrative of the astonishing six-month campaign for Guadalcanal.From the Japanese soldiers’ carefully calculated—and ultimately foiled—attempt to build a series of impregnable island forts on the ground to the tireless efforts of the Americans who struggled against a...

On the morning of November 20, 1943, the U.S. 2d Marine Division undertook the first modern amphibious assault against a well-defended beachhead. The objective was tiny Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll. The result was a tragedy and near defeat turned around into an epic of victory and indomitable human spirit. Although the admirals commanding the Tarawa invasion fleet had assured the Marines that Betio would be pounded to dust by a massive naval and air bombardment the largest of its kind seen to...

The Ultimate Battle is the full story of the last great clash of World War II as it has never before been told.With the same “grunt's-eye-view” narrative style that distinguished his Brotherhood of Heroes, Bill Sloan presents a gripping and uniquely personal saga of heroism and sacrifice in which at least 115,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen from both sides were killed, as were nearly 150,000 civilians caught in the crossfire or encouraged to com...

Charles Gadd served in Vietnam in late 1967 and 1968 and had experiences very similar to what most enlisted men endured. He describes the mud, blood, leeches, loss of friends, and low morale due to constant harassment by guerrillas. The author, a squad leader with the 101st Airborne, was wounded twice and saw nearly constant action in the Central Highlands. This memoir is a vivid and accurate description of the Vietnam War.*“I must explain that this story is writte...

Lying due north of Australia, New Guinea is among the world’s largest islands. In 1942, when World War II exploded onto its shores, it was an inhospitable, cursorily mapped, disease-ridden land of dense jungle, towering mountain peaks, deep valleys, and fetid swamps. Coveted by the Japanese for its strategic position, New Guinea became the site of one of the South Pacific’s most savage campaigns. Despite their lack of jungle training, the 32nd Division’s Ghost Mountain Boys were assigned t...

in this memoir of his experiences as a teenage infantryman in the US Third Army during World War II, Kotlowitz brings to life the harrowing story of the massacre of his platoon in northeastern France, in which he--by playing dead--was the only one to survive. 208 pp. 15,000 print.

From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge and more, here is the authorized biography of one of the most celebrated paratroopers of Easy Company, Sergeant Shifty Powers, the legendary sharpshooter from the Band of Brothers.Look for the Band of Brothers miniseries, now available to stream on Netflix!As a boy, Darrell “Shifty” Powers’s goal was to become the best rifle shot he could be. His father trained him to listen to the woods, to “s...

The first and only memoir by one of the original Navajo code talkers of WWII.His name wasn’t Chester Nez. That was the English name he was assigned in kindergarten. And in boarding school at Fort Defiance, he was punished for speaking his native language, as the teachers sought to rid him of his culture and traditions. But discrimination didn’t stop Chester from answering the call to defend his country after Pearl Harbor, for the Navajo have always been warriors, a...