Profiling World War II veterans who became famous Hollywood personalities, this book presents biographical chapters on celebrities like Audie Murphy, "e;America's number one soldier"e;; Clark Gable, the "e;King of Hollywood"e;; Jimmy Stewart, combat pilot; Gene Autry, the "e;singing cowboy,"e; who flew the infamous Hump; the amorous Mickey Rooney; Jackie Coogan, "e;the Kid"e; who crashed gliders in the jungle; James Arness, who acquired his Gunsmoke limp in the mountains of Italy; Tony Bennett, who discovered his voice during the Battle of the Bulge; and Lee Marvin, a Marine NCO who invaded 29 islands.
Focusing on Ireland's literary and artistic response to World War I, this book explores works from a range of perspectives that intervened in Irish political and cultural discourse.
World War II began for the United States with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, followed by the invasion of the Philippine Islands the next day.
Vietnam's Year of the Rat explores the lunar New Year 1960 and the dynamic relationship between two competing groups vying for control in the Republic of Vietnam.
The story of Hitler's Wehrmachtsgefolge (armed forces auxiliaries) is less well known than that of Germany's other armed forces in World War II, such as the panzer divisions, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine.
Reuel Long's experiences as an MD in the emergency rooms of Flint, Michigan, prepared him for only some of what he would see in a mobile army surgical hospital.
In the five months after Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy won a string of victories in a campaign to consolidate control of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.
"e;Now that the United States has declared war upon the German Empire, and that men will more than likely be conscripted into the service, I shall feel embarrassed should I fail to be among the first to go to the training camp,"e; wrote Dae Hinson of Leesville, Louisiana, in April 1917.
Creating a guerrilla movement to fight the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1942-1945) presented Colonel Wendell Fertig with some formidable challenges.
During World War I, the American Expeditionary Force Second Division saw more action and captured more ground and enemy combatants than any other, including the vaunted First Division.
In 1968, Theodore Hammett entered a war he believed was wrong, pressured by his father's threat to disown him if he withdrew from a Marine Corps officer candidate program.
In the many historical accounts of D-Day, the Navy, Coast Guard and merchant marine, who transported troops to the invasion beaches and supported the attack, are often given scant attention.
Before unmanned combat drones, there was the Grumman OV-1C Mohawk, a twin-engine turboprop fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft loaded with state-of-the-art target detection systems.
It was not Robert Oppenheimer who built the bomb--it was engineers, chemists and young physicists in their twenties, many not yet having earned a degree.
Although the Paris Peace Accords ended direct United States military involvement in Vietnam on January 27, 1973, the process of withdrawal lasted over three years.
During the first half of 1969, Bravo Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division operated northwest of Saigon in the vicinity of Go Dau Ha, fighting in 15 actions on the Cambodian border, in the Boi Loi Woods, the Hobo Woods and Michelin Rubber Plantation and on the outskirts of Tay Ninh City.