Some $1.99 price drops at Amazon US (no idea for how long)...
Hell's Highway: Chronicle of the 101st Airborne Division in the Holland Campaign, September-November 1944 by George Koskimaki
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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 contributors of written and oral accounts of the Screaming Eagles’ part in the attempt to liberate the Netherlands.
Koskimaki is an expert in weaving together individual recollections to make a compelling and uniquely first-hand account of the bravery and deprivations suffered by the troops, and their hopes, fears, triumphs, and tragedies, as well as those of Dutch civilians caught up in the action.
There have been many books published on Operation Market Garden and there will surely be more. This book, however, gets to the heart of the action. The “big picture,” which most histories paint, here is just the context for the real history on the ground.
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Sunday in Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute by Bill McWilliams
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Using long-established historical records and contemporary journals, as well as recently released wartime documents, Bill McWilliams has created a brand-new minute-by-minute narrative of the Day That Will Live in Infamy. Told from the points of view of dozens of characters, from generals and admirals and politicians and diplomats down to deckhands and private soldiers and innocent civilians at all levels, this panoramic overview of one of the most traumatizing and shocking events in American history puts the reader in a position to understand the big picture of strategy and tactics, as well as the intimate details of what the chaos, violence, and presence of death felt like to people immersed in the surprise of an armed attack on American soil.
December 7, 1941, was a turning point in the history of the United States, which had been teetering on a decision between isolationism and intervention. One might argue that every US military engagement since then has been affected by what happened when America learned that it could not stand by and watch war among strangers without potentially becoming involved—whether we wished to or not.
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The Miracle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord
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Stranded on the beach with the Nazis closing in, the British army managed one of the most unlikely maneuvers in modern military history
In May of 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men who gathered on that beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear. And so, unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26th, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England. Assembled from interviews with hundreds of survivors who witnessed the evacuation, The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the fate of Britain hung in the balance.
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