A decisive account of how Franklin D. Roosevelt used federal power and taxpayer capital to build the industrial machine that won World War II—before the first American shot was fired.When France fell to Germany in the summer of 1940, the United States lacked the factories, shipyards, and industrial facilities needed to fight a global war. Built for War examines how the United States created the industrial foundation required not just to fight but to win a ...

During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, US Navy dive bomber pilot Wade McClusky proved himself to be one of the greatest pilots and combat leaders in American history, but his story has never been told – until now.It was Wade McClusky who remained calm when the Japanese fleet was not where it was expected to be. It was he who made the counterintuitive choice to then search to the north instead of to the south. It was also McClusky who took the calculated risk of ...

Awarded NASOH's 2012 "John Lyman Book Award for Best U.S. Naval History," Allied Master Strategists describes the unique and vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Based on a combination of primary and secondary source material, this book proves that the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization was the glue holding the British-American wartime alliance together. As such, the Combined Chiefs of Staff was probably the most important i...

Bloomsbury presents Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway by David Rigby, read by Keith MacKechnie.During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, US Navy dive bomber pilot Wade McClusky proved himself to be one of the greatest pilots and combat leaders in American history, but his story has never been told – until now.It was Wade McClusky who remained calm when the Japanese fleet was not where it was expected to be. It was he who made the counterintuitive choice to then search ...

The Second World War was the final global conflict of the twentieth century. It involved more combatants, and a wider range of battlefield terrain than any other conflict in history, from the frozen plains of Russia to the baking Libyan desert, and from the atolls of the Pacific to the skies over Britain.In Turning the Tide, Nigel Cawthorne has taken a fresh look at the crucial battles which decided the outcome of the Second World War, beginning with the evacuation of Dunkirk in 19...

"A balanced account of World War II . . . Dr. Stokesbury's one-volume history is by far the best short account of the war yet published." —Thaddeus V. Tuleja, Professor of History, St. Peter's College, author of Climax at MidwayDespite the numerous books on World War II, until now there has been no one-volume survey that was both objective and comprehensive. Previous volumes have usually been written from an exclusively British or America...

A fascinating "what if" history of one of World War II's most iconic battles.It is early September 1942 and the German commander of the Sixth Army, General Paulus, assisted by the Fourth Panzer Army, is poised to advance on the Russian city of Stalingrad. His primary mission was to take the city, crushing this crucial center of communication and manufacturing, and to secure the valuable oil fields in the Caucasus.What happens next is well known to any stude...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.Midnight, Tuesday 6 June 1944: the beginning of D-Day, the operation to invade Nazi-occupied Western Europe and initiate the final phase of World War II. A vast undertaking, it involved 12,000 aircraft and an amphibious assault of almost 7,000 vessels. 160,000 troops would cross the English Channel during Operation Overlord, paving the way for more than three million allied troops to enter France by the end of August 1944.

With exclusive interviews, a Signal Corps veteran tells the full story of how cryptography helped defeat the Axis powers, at Bletchley Park and beyond.For years, the story of the World War II codebreakers was kept a crucial state secret. Even Winston Churchill, himself a great advocate of Britain's cryptologic program, purposefully minimized their achievements in his history books. Now, though, after decades have passed, the true scope of the British and American cr...

An in-depth history of the Polish soldiers who served in World War 2, with previously unpublished first-hand accounts and rare photographs.There is a chapter of World War II history that remains largely untold; the monumental struggles of an entire nation have been forgotten, and even intentionally obscured. This book gives a full overview of Poland's participation in World War II. Following their valiant but doomed defence of Poland in 1939, members of the Polish ...

This fascinating study of military leadership follows British general Bernard Law MontgomeryÆs military career from his cadet days and service in World War I to his great victories of World War II, including his defeat of the great German panzer commander, Erwin Rommel, at Alamein.Nigel Hamilton presents a brilliant, arrogant Montgomery, who refused to bow to authority and skated on the edge of dismissal like his American counterpart, George S. Patton. Though very different in the...

It was a tank battle exceeded in size and significance only by the famous defeat of Germany's Panzer force near Kursk in 1943. And yet, little is known about this weeklong clash of more than two thousand Soviet and German tanks in a stretch of northwestern Ukraine that came to be known as the "bloody triangle." This book offers the first in-depth account of this critical battle, which began on 24 June 1941, just two days into Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Aut...