A thrilling history of the Office of Strategic Services, America's precursor to the CIA, and its secret operations behind enemy lines during World War II.Born in the fires of the Second World War, the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, was the brainchild of legendary US Maj. Gen. William "Wild Bill" Donovan, designed to provide covert aid to resistance fighters in European nations occupied by Germany's Nazi aggressors. Paratroopers Stewart Alsop and Thomas Brade...

The untold story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War—now a Netflix original series starring Jose Miguel Vasquez, Bryan Hibbard, and Bradley James“Exceptional . . . worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers.”—Wall Street JournalWritten with Alex Kershaw's trademark narrative drive and vivid immediacy, The Liberator trace...

December 20, 1943. Two Canadian infantry battalions and a tank regiment stand poised on the outskirts of a small Italian port town. They expect to take Ortona quickly. But the German 1st Parachute Division has other ideas. For reasons unknown, Hitler has ordered Ortona held to the last man. Houses, churches and other buildings are dynamited, clogging the streets with rubble. Germans with machine guns lie in ambush. Snipers slip from one rooftop to another. The Canadians seem to have walked...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa.The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick At...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and ItalyIn An Army at Dawn—winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the strengthening Am...

The bestselling, award-winning author of The American Invasion of Canada "has given great drama and immediacy to that turning point in Canadian history" ( Maclean's).On Easter Monday 1917 with a blizzard blowing in their faces, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in France seized and held the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front—the muddy scarp of Vimy Ridge. The British had failed to take the Ridge, and so had the French who had ...

Under cover of the bombardment, the Germans blew gaps in the wire and cleared paths through the minefield. By the following morning, they had established a hole through the outer defences a mile and a half wide and taken more than 100 prisoners. Their charismatic leader, the dynamic Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, was the most highly respected German general of World War II.Read about the daring exploits of General Erwin Rommel during World Wars I and II in this tale of True Combat. ...

During World War II, some of the most treacherous jobs were those performed by men and women located deep within enemy territory. Always in danger of being exposed and subjected to torture, imprisonment, and even death, their stories are chilling accounts of bravery and luck--and, in some cases, what happens when the luck runs out.

For nearly 100 years Canada's role in ending WWI sooner than anyone thought possible has gone largely unrecognized. The Canadian Corp led by citizen soldier, Arthur Currie, became the premiere fighting force on the Western Front. The fact that Canada was not yet a formalized nation but a Dominion at the close of the war may be the reason for the absence of recognition yet the record of the Canadian WWI military accomplishments is irrefutable.Canadian soldiers unlike British "city b...

Stephen E. Ambrose’s D-Day is the definitive history of World War II’s most pivotal battle, a day that changed the course of history.D-Day is the epic story of men at the most demanding moment of their lives, when the horrors, complexities, and triumphs of life are laid bare. Distinguished historian Stephen E. Ambrose portrays the faces of courage and heroism, fear and determination—what Eisenhower called “the fury of an aroused democracy”—that sh...

It was a stunning strategic victory of World War II–and one of the most fantastic breaks for the Allies. On March 7, 1945, a small group of American infantrymen, engineers, and tank crews secured the Ludendorff Bridge that crossed the Rhine. The successful mission saved thousands of American lives and spearheaded the invasion of Nazi Germany.The Bridge at Remagen is the detailed narrative of this surprising but crucial military action, one that stunned the German army. It is also t...

This candid memoir of a GI serving under Gen. Patton offers a rare glimpse into the realities of life and combat in Europe during WWII.Though Gen. Patton's army is famous for dashing armored attacks, some of the most intensive fighting of World War II was done by Patton's infantry—the foot sloggers who were deployed to reduce enemy strong points. This candid account of the US infantry in the European theater takes the reader from the beaches of Normandy to the conq...