Author : G. J. Dettore
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 438 pages
File Size : 44,90 MB
Release : 2016-07-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0811764877
As part of the famous 101st Airborne Division (the Screaming Eagles), the 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion saw nearly constant action during World War II, from assisting the infantry by landing supplies and providing combat support to fighting on the front lines.
Author : Donald J. Rich
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 21,73 MB
Release : 2013-01-18
Category : History
ISBN : 1603449620
A member of the famed Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division, Donald J. Rich went ashore on D-Day at Utah Beach, was wounded in the bloody conflict at Carentan, landed in a flimsy plywood-and-canvas glider on the battlefields of Holland, and survived the grim siege with the "Battling Bastards of Bastogne" during the Battle of the Bulge. Glider Infantryman is his eyewitness account of how he, along with thousands of other young men from farms, small towns, and cities across the United States, came together to answer the call of their nation. It is also a heartfelt tribute to the many thousands who gave their lives in this struggle. Coauthored by Kevin Brooks, the son of Rich's best friend and World War II comrade, Glider Infantryman covers a span of nearly three years; his return home, five months after the war's end, as a toughened bazooka gunner and veteran of five campaigns. Rich's first-person narrative includes vivid coverage of the action, featuring an especially rare account of arriving on a combat landing zone by glider. Detailed, day-to-day depiction of some of the heaviest fighting in Holland follows, including the action at Opheusden, the center of the infamous "Island." Later highlights include the Battle of the Bulge, where Rich recounts his experiences in some of the hottest defensive fighting of the European Theater, including the epic tank battles at Marvie, Champs, and Foy.
Author : Robert Bowen
Publisher : Casemate
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 28,59 MB
Release : 2010-08-31
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1935149903
A member of the 101st Airborne’s Glider Infantry recalls WWII, from the horror of D-Day to the despair of Nazi captivity, in this compelling memoir. As World War II broke out, Robert Bowen was drafted into Company C, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Soon afterwards, he found himself storming Utah Beach amid the chaos of D-Day, through unfamiliar terrain littered with minefields and hidden snipers. Bowen was wounded during the Normandy campaign but went on to fight in Holland and the Ardennes, where he was captured. That’s when his “trip through hell” truly began. In each of Bowen’s campaigns, the 101st “Screaming Eagles” spearheaded the Allied effort against the Nazi occupation of Europe. At Bastogne, they stood nearly alone against the onslaught of enemy panzers and grenadiers. His insights into life behind enemy lines after his capture provide as much fascination as his exploits on the battlefield. Written shortly after the war, Bowen’s narrative is immediate and compelling. An introduction by the world’s foremost historian of the 101st Airborne, George Koskimaki, further enhances this classic work.
Author : James E. Mrazek
Publisher : Stackpole Books
Page : 514 pages
File Size : 34,58 MB
Release : 2011
Category : History
ISBN : 081170808X
"Long pursued by civilian thrill seekers and dare devils, airborne gliding came of age during World War II as one of that conflict's most dangerous combat operations. The armed forces of Axis and Allied nations developed gliders ... and flew them into battle at Eben Emael, Crete, Normandy, Arnhem, and Bastogne. [The author's] account brings to life both the men who carried out these perilous missions and the gliders that proved vital to the success of airborne attacks"--Page 4 of cover.
Author : Andy Westlake
Publisher : Veloce Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 28,26 MB
Release : 2015-09-15
Category : Sports & Recreation
ISBN : 9781845848354
If you can recall watching motorcycle scrambles and trials on your black and white TV during the 1960s, then this is the book for you. It's a trip down memory lane as the author recalls boyhood journeys in his big brothers ex-GPO van to watch the stars in action, some of the world's best, including scramblers like the Sharp brothers, Badger Goss and Ivor England, trials riders Gordon Jackson, Max King and the Kendalls, and great all-rounders like Ken Heanes, Johnny Giles and the American Bud Ekins. Not only does it include the star riders, but also the main British manufacturers of the time like BSA, Triumph, James, Greeves, Metisse, Cheney and Wasp, the latter two of which are still in existence to this day. However, the book isn't just about bikes - it's about the people and their stories from illustrious and successful careers on two and three wheels, which makes for a thoroughly interesting and captivating read.
Author : Scott McGaugh
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 36,49 MB
Release : 2023-03-02
Category : History
ISBN : 1472852966
The first major history of the American glider pilots, the forgotten heroes of World War II, by a New York Times bestselling author. A story of no guns, no engines and no second chances. This book distills war down to individual young men climbing into defenseless gliders made of plywood, ready to trust the towing aircraft that would pull them into enemy territory by a cable wrapped with telephone wire. Based on their after-action reports, journals, oral histories, and letters home, this book reveals every terrifying minute of their missions. They were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. None faltered. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They landed their gliders ahead of the troops who stormed Omaha Beach, and sometimes miles ahead of the paratroopers bound for the far side of the Rhine River in Germany itself. From there, they had to hold their positions. They delivered medical teams, supplies and gasoline to troops surrounded in the Battle of the Bulge, ahead even of Patton's famous supply truck convoy. These all-volunteer glider pilots played a pivotal role in liberating the West from tyranny, from the day the Allies invaded Occupied Europe to the day Germany finally surrendered. Yet the story of these anonymous heroes is virtually unknown. Here it is told in full – a story which epitomizes courage and sacrifice.
Author :
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
Page : 170 pages
File Size : 33,81 MB
Release : 1991
Category : Air pilots, Military
ISBN : 0938021958
Author : George Koskimaki
Publisher : Open Road Media
Page : 419 pages
File Size : 33,12 MB
Release : 2013-05-07
Category : History
ISBN : 1480406589
A collection of eyewitness accounts of the Normandy landings that “gives you the [feeling] that you are there during the frenzied first hours of the invasion” (Kepler’s Military History Book Reviews). Many professional historians have recorded the actions of D-Day but here is an account of the airborne actions as described by the actual men themselves, in eyewitness detail. Participants range from division command personnel to regimental, battalion, company, and battery commanders, to chaplains, surgeons, enlisted medics, platoon sergeants, squad leaders and the rough, tough troopers who adapted quickly to fighting in mixed, unfamiliar groups after a badly scattered drop. And yet they managed to gain the objectives set for them in the hedgerow country of Normandy. This book is primary source material. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in the Normandy landings, the 101st Airborne Division, and World War II in general. Hearing the soldiers speak is an entirely different experience from reading about the action in a narrative history.
Author : Cornelius Ryan
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 35,22 MB
Release : 2010-02-16
Category : History
ISBN : 1439126461
The unparalleled, classic work of history that recreates the battle that changed World War II—the Allied invasion of Normandy. The Longest Day is Cornelius Ryan’s unsurpassed account of D-Day, a book that endures as a masterpiece of military history. In this compelling tale of courage and heroism, glory and tragedy, Ryan painstakingly recreates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany. This book, first published in 1959, is a must for anyone who loves history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.
Author : Annie Jacobsen
Publisher : Little, Brown
Page : 560 pages
File Size : 30,40 MB
Release : 2019-05-14
Category : History
ISBN : 0316441406
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.
