In this exploration of U.S. naval operations and intelligence-gathering efforts, Douglas Ford introduces a new perspective on the clash between the United States and Japan in the Pacific. At the outset of the war, the U.S. Navy could not accurately determine the fighting efficiency of Japan’s Imperial Navy and land-based fighting forces. As the capabilities designed to improve intelligence gathering evolved, technology, ingenuity, and ...
In April 1945 the American 71st Infantry Division exacted the final vestiges of life from the Reich's 6th SS Mountain Division in central Germany. On Easter weekend, the bypassed German division fought to the very end as they were first surrounded and then destroyed as a fighting force. Rusiecki argues that the battle demonstrates that the Wehrmacht’s last gasp on the Western Front was anything but a whimper as some historians cha ...
Through the Valley is the memoir of an American prisoner of war in Vietnam. It is the true story of courage, hope, and survival. The author faced combat in some of the biggest battles of the Vietnam War. After being shot down and captured, he mustered the will to survive an ordeal in jungle cages, a forced death march of several hundred miles, and months of anguish in the notorious prisons of Hanoi. His tenacity in the face of unimaginable hards ...
The city of Fallujah, Iraq will long be associated with some of the worst violence and brutality of the Iraq war. The battles to retake the city from insurgent fighters in 2004 have already indelibly carved its name into the historic annals of the U.S. military and occupy a revered place in the storied history of the United States Marine Corps. Initially occupied by U.S. forces in 2003, it eventually served as the headquarters for numerous insur ...
From Kabul to Baghdad and Back provides insight into the key strategic decisions of the Afghan and Iraq campaigns as the United States attempted to wage both simultaneously against al-Qaeda and its supporting affiliates. It also evaluates the strategic execution of those military campaigns to identify how well the two operations were conducted in light of their political objectives. The book identifies the elements that made the 2001 military op ...
Patrol Wing Ten was the only U.S. Navy aviation unit to fight the Japanese in the early weeks of World War II, and the daring exploits of its PBY scout-plane pilots offer a dramatic tale of heroism, duty, and controversy. Poorly equipped and dead tired from flying back-to-back patrols with no fighter cover, the men lost sixty-six percent of their aircraft in just eight weeks as they took on an enemy that outnumbered them nearly 1,000 to one. Thi ...
The pursuit of German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic has long been considered one of the most exciting stories of World War II. This definitive study takes readers into the cockpits and onto the flight decks of the versatile and hardy U.S. escort carriers (CVEs) to tell of their vital, yet little-known contribution to the anti-U-boat campaign. Sailing apart from the Allied convoys, the CVE captains had complete freedom of action and frequ ...
