America's first West Coast armored and infantry training installation was built in California in 1941 and named Camp Cooke. It is currently known as Vandenberg Space Force Base. During WWII, more than 400 military units trained at Cooke, peaking at more than 36,000 soldiers. The largest units that rotated through Cooke were the 5th, 6th, 11th, 13th, and 20th Armored Divisions and the 86th and 97th Infantry Divisions. Having honed their fighting skills at Cooke, they prevailed in fierce bat...

Over thirty survivors who fought from Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay give firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed. Includes maps, photos, and never-before-seen portraits. Here are the real stories that LOOK Magazine could not tell.292 PAGES.Volume 1 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® series begins in an upstate NY community, which LOOK Magazine de...

The extraordinary World War II story of shipwreck and survival that paved John F. Kennedy's path to power – hailed as a “breathtaking account” by James Patterson, “masterfully written” by historian Douglas Brinkley, and “the finest book” ever written on the subject by Lt. Commander William Liebenow, the man who rescued JFK and the PT 109 crew in August 1943.In the early morning darkness of August 2, 1943, during a chaotic nighttime skirmish amid the Solomon Islands, the Japanese de...

Capturing the hearts of a beleaguered nation, the fighter pilots of World War II engaged in a kind of battle that became the stuff of legend. They cut through the sky in their P-38s to go one-on-one against the enemy—and those who survived the deadly showdowns with enough courage and skill earned the right to be called aces. But two men in particular rose to become something more. They became icons of aerial combat, in a heroic rivalry that inspired a weary nation to fight on.Richa...

The author of The Battered Bastards of Bastogne does a "superb job of telling the history the 101st Airborne Division during Operation Market Garden" ( Kepler's Book Reviews).Hell's Highway is a history, most of which has never before been written. It is adventure recorded by those who lived it and put into context by an author who was also there. It is human drama on an enormous scale, told through the personal stories of 612 con...

In his book Men Against Fire, [historian S. L. A.] Marshall asserted that only 15 to 25 percent of American soldiers ever fired their weapons in combat in World War II. . . .Shooting at the enemy made a man part of the “team,” or “brotherhood.” There were, of course, many times when soldiers did not want to shoot, suchas at night when they did not want to give away a position or on reconnaissance patrols. But, in the main, no combat soldier in his right mind would ha...

Army, Air Force, or Marine—read all about them in the latrine!Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and the Coast Guard—the patriotic folks at the Bathroom Readers Institute have stormed the proverbial beaches of Normandy and beyond to bring you this salute to the greatest force for good on planet Earth! Make your way through the ranks and read about the history, triumphs, trials, trivia, and humor of those who serve. At nearly 500 pages, this is the book you want by you...

My War is a blunt, funny, idiosyncratic account of Andy Rooney's World War II. As a young, naïve correspondent for The Stars and Stripes, Rooney flew bomber missions, arrived in France during the D-Day invasion, crossed the Rhine with the Allied forces, traveled to Paris for the Liberation, and was one of the first reporters into Buchenwald. Like so many of his generation, Rooney's life was changed forever by the war. He saw life at the extremes of human experience, and w...

The Great Rat Race for Europe: Stories of the 357th Fighter Group (Sortie One) tells the true stories of the Yoxford Boys of the 357th Fighter Group; arguably the best Army Air Force fighter group in the European Theater during World War Two. Aces Kit Carson, Bud Anderson, Johnny England, Pete Peterson, Chuck Yeager and others from this elite group of “tigers” eventually became famous after the war, while other Yoxford Boys just melted back into the scenery that was the American post war y...

James Brady, bestselling war memoirist, and Marine officer in Korea, returns with one of his most memorable works to date--exploring what it means to be a soldier and why Marines fight.United States Marines, for more than two centuries, have been among the world's fiercest and most admired of warriors. They have fought from the Revolutionary War to Afghanistan and Iraq, in famous battles become bone and sinew of American lore. But why do Marines fight? Why fight so ...

New York Times Bestseller!She wasn't a horse—she was a Marine.She might not have been much to look at—a small "Mongolian mare," they called her—but she came from racing stock, and had the blood of a champion. Much more than that, Reckless became a war hero—in fact, she became a combat Marine, earning staff sergeant's stripes before her retirement to Camp Pendleton. This once famous horse, recognized as late as 1997 by Life Magazine as one ...