World War II Battle Knowledge Center

From the foxholes of Italy and Normandy to the tense Allied high command headquarters in London, the Allied victory in Europe is dramatically recounted in this stirring memoir by a general who was there, making history both in the war rooms and on the front lines. Gavin organized the famous 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.

The Atlas of Special Operations of World War II covers special operations from all parts of the armed forces of the Second World War. From early Fallschirmjager raids to capture strategic targets to the massed airdrops of Operation Market Garden, from the low level raids of the Dam Busters to small scale Commando raids along the Norwegian coast, it covers the formation of specific units, why and how they were employed and details the outcomes of their actions and how these operations affected the wider war. The raids, carried out by select and specially trained men and women of the Allied and Axis forces, are covered from the deserts of North Africa and the Cold Balkan mountains to the deep jungle of Burma and the vast openness of the Pacific Ocean.Featuring eighty photographs and more than one hundred maps detailing the operations, The Atlas of Special Operations of World War II is perfect for anyone who wants to see how the war was really fought, and won!

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 cryptographers'role in the war has come to light. It was a role key to the Allied victory. From the Battle of Britain to the Pacific front to the panzer divisions in Africa, superior cryptography gave the Allies a decisive advantage over the Axis generals. Military intelligence made a significant difference in battle after battle.

During World War II, training in the black arts of covert operation was vital preparation for the "ungentlemanly warfare" waged by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) against Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan. Reproduced here is one of the most comprehensive training syllabi used at SOE's Special Training Schools (STSs) instructing agents on how to wreak maximum havoc in occupied Europe and beyond.

The road to war in Europe took an irrevocable turn when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in October 1935. For the first time the old world powers and the international authority of the League of Nations succumbed to the aggressive ambition of the dictators and their fascist regimes. Mussolini was determined to redress the sense of national impotence that ensued from the settlement of the First World War, in which many Italians believed that Italy failed to receive the rewards due to a victor, by building a new Roman empire in the Mediterranean and assuming the status of a first-rate power from a position of strength.

This volume offers the first comprehensive history of the Security Section of the Special Operations Executive and its relationship with MI5 during the Second World War. The book makes extensive use of recently declassified files in order to examine the development of liaison between the two organizations.

In the fighting graphically portrayed here, Adkins acted with skill and courage, placing himself at the forefront of the action whenever he could. His extremely aggressive delivery of critical supplies to a cut-off unit in an embattled French town earned him a Bronze Star, the first in his battalion.This is a story of a young soldier at war, a junior officer's coming of age amid pulse-pounding combat. Before his death, Andy Adkins was able to face his memory of war as bravely as he faced war itself. He put it on paper, honest and unflinching. In 1944-45, he did his duty to his men and country—and here, he serves new generations of military and civilian readers.

The Battle of the Bulge lives in history as the U.S. Army's largest and bloodiest battle of World War II. This innovative study of American military leadership in action during the battle examines the performance of six generals in the days and weeks after the German attack in December 1944. The Generals covered include Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, among others. Five levels of command are studied: supreme coalition, army group, army, corps, and division/armored combat command. A unique and important history that will appeal to buffs, scholars, and soldiers.

Against the backdrop of the sweeping conquest of Western Europe by Hitler's mighty Panzer Divisons in WWII, Australia produced 66 cruiser tanks - the Sentinel tank - but none ever took the field of battle. The story of Australian tanks in WWII portrays governments under pressure and bureaucratic bungles that saw opportunities lost and precious resources squandered when the nation was under greatest threat.

In the years immediately following World War II, information was disclosed about what has been termed the "shadow war" between hitherto secret agencies. In Germany it was the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst; in Britain it was MIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, and Special Operations Executive; in the United States it was the Office of Strategic Services and the Special Intelligence Service of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; in Japan it was the Kempeitai; and in Italy it was the Servicio di Informazione Militare. Sixty years after World War II, information is still being released about the covert activities that took place. Many countries, even those that were ostensibly neutral, had secret agencies and stealthy operations. Changes in American, British, and Soviet official attitudes to declassification in the 1980s allowed thousands of classified documents to be made available for public examination, and the result was extensive revision of the histories of the conflict, which had previously excluded references to clandestine intelligence sources.

In Hitler's Generals, distinguished historian Correlli Barnett has gathered together an outstanding team of military historians to write about the characters and careers of twenty-six generals of the Third Reich including: Kurt Student, Rommel, Kleist, Halder.

This is the story of Hanns Scharff the master interrogator of the Luftwaffe who questioned captured American fighter pilots of the USAAF Eigth and Ninth Air Forces in World War II. This Intelligence Officer gained the reputation as the man who could magically get all the answers he needed from the prisoners of war. In most cases the POWs being interrogated never realized that their words, small talk or otherwise, were important pieces of the mosaic Hanns Scharff was construction for the benefit of Germany's war effort.

The Soviet-German War of 1941-1945 was the most extensive intelligence/counterintelligence war in modern history, involving the capture, torture, deportation, execution, and 'doubling' of tens of thousands of agents -- most of them Soviet citizens. While Russian armies fought furiously to defeat the Wehrmacht, Stalin's security services waged an equally ruthless secret war against Hitler's spies, as well as against the Soviet population. For the first time, Robert Stephan now combines declassified U.S. intelligence documents, captured German records, and Russian sources, including a top-secret Soviet history of its intelligence and security services, to reveal the magnitude and scope of the brutal but sophisticated Soviet counterintelligence war against Nazi Germany.

Photographs, lists, time lines, tables, glossaries, and maps encapsulate many pieces of complicated information.