A WWII reporter's dangerous adventures in Singapore, Malaya, Java, and more.Harold Guard became a war correspondent by chance after he'd been invalided out of the navy following a submarine accident. Thereafter, working for United Press, he gained a front-row seat to many of the most dramatic battles and events of the century.In March 1942, Guard arrived in Australia, having narrowly escaped from Japanese forces invading Singapore and Java. His dispatches f...

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...

ACROSS THE DARK ISLANDSThe War in the PacificFloyd W. RadikeBrigadier General, U.S. Army (Ret.)“I remember sitting in a foxhole on Guadalcanal in the rain. The sergeant I shared the hole with shook his head and asked me: ‘What in the hell are we doing on this godforsaken island? Why don’t we let the Japs keep this stinking rock?’ I didn’t have an answer.”The war in the Pacific has never been portrayed more honestly—or in prose more powerful—th...

A selection of the Military Book Club: An "informative and objective" biography of a genius commander and a study of his loyalty to the Nazi cause ( Library Journal).To many close students of World War II, Erich von Manstein is considered the greatest commander of the war, if not the entire twentieth century. He devised the plan that conquered France in 1940 and led an infantry corps in that campaign. At the head of a panzer corps, he reached the gates of ...

Includes maps, photos, and firsthand accounts of participants: "There is no better book on this vital chapter in American history." —Terry Copp, author of Fields of FireCombining the personal recollections of soldiers with historical narrative and analysis of the actual invasion as it unfolded, this detailed description of the action at Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion of World War II comes from "the top living D-Day historian" ( USA Today...

"A first-class history, impeccably researched and skillfully written . . . by the foremost historian of the American D-Day experience." — Naval HistoryAdded to the invasion plan largely at the insistence of British General Bernard Montgomery, the attack at Utah Beach aimed to secure the Cotentin Peninsula and ultimately seize the port of Cherbourg. Although the assault on Utah Beach became one of the most successful American military operations of World Wa...

An illustrated history and guide to the Battle of Hastings by two leading medieval military historians.The Battle of Hastings, fought on 14 October 1066, changed the course of English history. This most famous moment of the Norman Conquest was recorded in graphic detail in the threads of the Bayeux Tapestry, providing a priceless glimpse into a brutal conflict.In this fresh look at the battle and its surrounding campaigns, leading medieval military historia...

In Fire and Fortitude—winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History—John C. McManus presented a riveting account of the US Army's fledgling fight in the Pacific following Pearl Harbor. Now, in Island Infernos, he explores the Army’s dogged pursuit of Japanese forces, island by island, throughout 1944, a year that would bring America ever closer to victory or defeat.“A feat of prodigious scholarship.”—The Wall Street Journal •...

"A sweeping epic.… Promises to do for the war in the Pacific what Rick Atkinson did for Europe." —James M. Scott, author of RampageIn 1937, the swath of the globe east from India to the Pacific Ocean encompassed half the world’s population. Japan’s onslaught into China that year unleashed a tidal wave of events that fundamentally transformed this region and killed about twenty-five million people. This extraordinary World War II narrative vividly portrays ...

"Here is the first full translation into English of one of the twentieth century's few undoubted classics of history." — The Washington Post Book WorldThe Autumn of the Middle Ages is Johan Huizinga's classic portrait of life, thought, and art in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France and the Netherlands. Few who have read this book in English realize that The Waning of the Middle Ages, the only previous transl...

An "almost absurdly colorful" history of the WWII battle for the Levant: "In places . . . the material is like Casablanca meets The English Patient" ( The Wall Street Journal).In the spring of 1941, the Allied forces had one last hope: that the Axis would run through its fuel supply. In Blood, Oil and the Axis, historian John Broich tells the vital story of Iraq and the Levant during this most pivotal time of the war.Four I...

"Written in a clear and elegant style, The Ghosts of Berlin is . . . a superb guide to this process of urban self-definition, both past and present." — The Wall Street JournalIn the twenty years since its original publication, The Ghosts of Berlin has become a classic, an unparalleled guide to understanding the presence of history in our built environment, especially in a space as historically contested—and emotionally fraught—as Berlin. B...