A Ship With No Name

This is the story of rescue operations in the English Channel just before, during, and after the D-Day invasion aboard an ocean-going tug, "a ship with no name."

The memoir, written by the executive officer of ATR-3, tells compelling stories of the invasion, the operations of the ship, and the long trek across the Atlantic back to the US. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the involvement of the author in the attempt to rescue men after the sinking of the troopship SS Leopoldville. In one of the lesser known incidents of the war, the Leopoldville was torpedoed by the U-486 off Cherbourg on Christmas Eve 1944, and over 750 soldiers were lost. The narrative also describes the experience of working under extreme pressure and performing to the utmost to pull blown up LSTs or Destroyers to safety from Utah and Omaha Beaches.

The author, Richard Hersey, began his navy career as an apprentice seaman and retired as Commander. He served on the USS Mizar and ATR-3 during World War II and the USS Okanagan during the Korean War. He's still married to the bride he met in New York City after the ship-with-no-name sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1945.

Available from:
Createspace
Amazon.com

You Up There - We Down Here - Luftwaffe Anti-Aircraft Assistants vs. Allied Bomber Crews

In 1944, entire German school classes were deployed as anti-aircraft gun assistants (Luftwaffenhelfer) to support the heavy Flak defending Germany and Austria. These schoolboys were drilled in the use of the 88mm Flak gun to support the soldiers of the Wehrmacht battling the allied bomber streams. The author, Gerhard Oberleitner, was one of these boys, and was deployed near St. Valentin, Austria, to protect the local tank production works, one of the biggest in the Reich.

Letters, reports, documents and above all, the author’s complete diary and photographs do much to support this detailed and extensive account. He describes how it was in the final two years of World War II, both on the ground and in the air, manning the guns and systems of the 7th German Anti-Aircraft Brigade. The author has also carried out research into the operations of bombers of the 15th US Air Fleet - the foes that his unit were opposing, thus providing an insight into both the lives of the schoolboy troopers “down here” and the bomber crews “up
there”.

Extracts of the book can be read here.

Available from:
Casemate

The Fatal Flag - The Top Brass in Captivity

This is the true story of English POW Brigadier Claude Richards, which adds a missing dimension to the many accounts of this period in Japanese WWII history. It concentrates on the plight of high-ranking officers whose experiences as a group have largely been ignored.

Made possible by his copious yet covertly written notes, Claude's legacy also presented an opportunity to write a partial biography of his interesting family at a time when the misfortunes of war kept it apart. Deprived of any letters from his wife for the majority of his imprisonment, Claude still generated vital psychological support from the connection he maintained by writing notional letters to her. His conversational narrative also contains frequent appraisals of his fellow officers - not always complimentary!

From the malarious tropics of Formosa to the freezing gales of Manchuria, ageing men endured physical and mental abuse, the torment of starvation and the attrition of disease, but it was a consolation 'to the wretched to have companions in misery' and most survived. A combination of literature, cards, rumour and humour, or the stimulation of latent wanderlust in some cases, helped relieve the ennui and frustration of those wasted years.

Available from:
Troubador Publishing

Sacrifice On The Steppe - The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942-1943

When Germany’s Sixth Army advanced to Stalingrad in 1942, its long-extended flanks were mainly held by its allied armies—the Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians. But as history tells us, these flanks quickly caved in before the massive Soviet counter-offensive which commenced that November, dooming the Germans to their first catastrophe of the war. However, the historical record also makes clear that one allied unit held out to the very end, fighting to stem the tide—the Italian Alpine Corps.

As a result of Mussolini’s disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany, by the fall of 1942, 227,000 soldiers of the Italian Eighth Army were deployed along a 270km front along the Don River to protect the left flank of German troops intent on capturing Stalingrad. Sixty thousands of these were elite mountain troops incongruously put into combat on the vast steppe. When the Don front collapsed under Soviet hammerblows, it was the Alpine Corps that continued to hold out until it was completely isolated, and which then tried to fight its way out through both Russian encirclement and “General Winter,” to rejoin the rest of the Axis front. One division was all but destroyed, but two others were able to emerge with survivors. In the all-sides battle across the snowy flatlands, thousands were killed and wounded, and even more were captured. By the summer of 1946, ten thousand survivors returned to Italy from Russian POW camps.

The consequences of Mussolini’s decision to send troops to Russia is complex and unsettling, but most of all it is a human story. Raw courage and endurance blend with human suffering, desperation and altruism in the epic saga of this withdrawal from the Don lines, including the demise of thousands and survival of the few.

Available from:
Casemate

The Last Good War: The Faces and Voices of World War II

World War II remains one of the most galvanizing and defining events in the history of America. Seemingly overnight, the entire nation unified behind a singular cause. By 1945, the size of the U.S. armed forces had grown from two to twelve million men and women of every color, religion, and creed. Young people from every walk of life were inducted and volunteered. America had quickly and fiercely established itself as a global superpower, and an entire generation's identity was forged, in part, by what many still refer to as the "last good war."

Sixty years later, a young photographer named Thomas Sanders began traveling the country photographing hundreds of World War II veterans. The more he shot, the more he listened, and the more captivated he became by their memories of the war. Veronica Kavass, a writer and interviewer with StoryCorps, joined the project and spent countless hours with these men and women, recording their vivid accounts as Tom recorded their storied faces. "They are a living record of an incredibly historic time," Sanders says. "We have so much to learn from their experiences." He became determined to see that the two million living veterans were celebrated and remembered.
The Last Good War: The Faces and Voices of World War II is a chronicle of courage and hardship, sacrifice and determination. The harsh reality of combat is tempered by tender, poignant moments. The overwhelming anguish of lost brothers-in-arms sits alongside stories of enduring friendships. The war brought Americans in touch with people from all over the world – some they fought and some they fought next to, from the beaches of Normandy to the frozen plains of Russia, the North African deserts and the mountains of Japan. They came, these volunteers and draftees, from everywhere and for every reason: from the young woman pulled from her college and covertly trained to break German submarine codes, to the soldier who stormed Hitler’s castle home, these pilots, soldiers, marines, and sailors each provide a unique window into American history.

There are two million veterans still alive today, but with each passing day there are fewer and fewer. The images and memories of these men and woman, collected in these pages, preserve a profound piece of America’s history. Their past offers us a lasting and powerful perspective on today's world, and defines the true price of freedom.

This is the story of World War II through the veterans who lived it.

Visit the Mini-site for The Last Good War for preview pages, author information and more.

Available from:
Welcome Books

Voices of the Bulge - Untold Stories from Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge

The powerful German counteroffensive operation code-named “Wacht am Rhein” (Watch on the Rhine) launched in the early morning hours of December 16, 1944, would result in the greatest single extended land battle of World War II. To most Americans, the fierce series of battles fought from December 1944 through January 1945 is better known as the “Battle of the Bulge.” Almost one million soldiers would eventually take part in the fighting.

Different from other histories of the Bulge, this book tells the story of this crucial campaign with first-person stories taken from the authors’ interviews of the American soldiers, both officers and enlisted personnel, who faced the massive German onslaught that threatened to turn the tide of battle in Western Europe and successfully repelled the attack with their courage and blood. Also included are stories from German veterans of the battles, including SS soldiers, who were interviewed by the authors.

Available from:
Zenith Press

Hitler's Irishmen

During the Second World War, two young Irishmen served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany, swearing the oath of the Waffen-SS and wearing the organisation's uniform and even its distinctive blood group tattoo.

Ironically these young men had originally joined an Irish regiment of the British army, and but for a twist of fate would have ended up fighting against the Germans. Instead, the pair were recruited to the German special forces after they were captured on the island of Jersey.Under the command of Otto Skorzeny, the man who rescued Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from a mountain top prison, they were involved in some of the most ferocious fighting of the war in the last days of the Third Reich.This account, which also covers some of the other Irishmen who sided with Nazi Germany, draws heavily on their own accounts and on state papers which have been released in recent years.

Available from:
Mercier Press