An absolutely harrowing first-person account of the 94th Infantry Division’s bold campaign to break through Hitler’s “impregnable” Siegfried line at the end of World War IIEighteen-year-old William Foley was afraid the war would be over before he got there, but the rifleman was sent straight to the front lines, arriving January 25, 1945–just in time to join the 94th Infantry Division poised at Hitler’s legendary West Wall. By the time Foley finally managed to grab ...

SOMETIMES I wonder why they smile so pleasantly at me, And pat my head when they pass by as friendly as can be; Sometimes I wonder why they stop to tell me How-d’-do, And ask me then how old I am and where I’m going to; And ask me can I spare a curl and say they used to know A little girl that looked like me, oh, years and years ago; And I told Mamma how they smiled and asked her why they do, So she said if you smile at folks they always smile at you. I never knew I smiled at them when the...

Expand slavery or limit it? By 1818, the United States was deeply divided about what to do in Missouri, a territory that wanted to be a state. At issue was whether slavery would be legal in the new state. But how did the fight start? And how would the fate of Missouri change the United States?

An absolutely harrowing first-person account of the 94th Infantry Division’s bold campaign to break through Hitler’s “impregnable” Siegfried line at the end of World War IIEighteen-year-old William Foley was afraid the war would be over before he got there, but the rifleman was sent straight to the front lines, arriving January 25, 1945–just in time to join the 94th Infantry Division poised at Hitler’s legendary West Wall. By the time Foley finally managed to grab ...

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.

George Wilson has garnered much acclaim for this shattering and enlightening memoir. Detailing his odyssey from July, 1944 until the following summer, If You Survive is a startling first-person account of the final year of World War II. Wilson was the only man from his original company to finish the war. As a Second Lieutenant, he went ashore at Utah Beach after the D-Day invasion amidst burned vehicles, sunken landing craft, and broken fortifications. From the breakthrough at Saint-LO, to...

The Tank Killers is the story of the American Tank Destroyer Force in North Africa, Italy, and the European Theater during World War II. The tank destroyer (TD) was a bold—if some would say flawed—answer to the challenge posed by the seemingly unstoppable German blitzkrieg. The TD was conceived to be light and fast enough to outmaneuver panzer forces and go where tanks could not. At the same time, the TD would wield the firepower needed to kill any German tank on the battlefield. ...

They were the men of the now-legendary Easy Company. After almost two years of hard training, they parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and, later, Operation Market Garden. They fought their way through Belgium, France, and Germany, survived overwhelming odds, liberated concentration camps, and drank a victory toast in April 1945 at Hitler's hideout in the Alps.Here, revealed for the first time, are stories of war, sacrifice, and courage as experienced by one of the most revered comba...

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...

The men who served with in the 1st Infantry Division with F company, 52nd Infantry, (LRP) later redesignated as Company I, 75th Infantry (Ranger) --engaged in some of the fiercest, bloodiest fighting during the Vietnam War, suffering a greater relative aggregate of casualties that any other LRRP/LRP/ Ranger company. Their base was Lai Khe, within hailing distance of the Vietcong central headquarters, a mile inside Cambodia, with its vast stockpiles of weapons and thousands of transient VC ...

November 1950, the Korean Peninsula. After General MacArthur ignores Mao's warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his 10,000 First Division Marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir. Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge in the Nangnim Mountains. It will need to be held open at all costs. The mission is handed to Captain William Barber an...

Chief Petty Officer James "Patches" Watson was there at the start. One of the first to come out of the famed Underwater Demolition Team 21, he was an initial member—a "plank owner"—of America's deadliest and most elite fighting force, the U.S. Navy SEALs.Through three tours in the jungle hell of Vietnam, he walked the point—staying alert to trip wires, booby traps, and punji pits, guiding his squad of amphibious fighters on missions of rescue, reconnaissance, and demolition—confron...