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Sojourn in Silesia: 1940-1945
Author: Arthur Charles, CBE Evans
ISBN-10: 1898030820
ISBN-13: 9781898030829
Published: 2004-03-01
Publisher: Braiswick
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Book Description:
Arthur Charles Evans was born in 1916 in the Wirral, Cheshire. The first years of his employment were at Lever Bros, soapworks at Port Sunlight, and then with the New Zealand Shipping Company. One voyage to Australia and then another to New Zealand convinced him he was not meant to be a sailor. To further his ambition to become a policeman, he enlisted in the Irish Guards in 1936. In May 1940, he was wounded and taken prisoner in Boulogne and spent the remainder of the war in prison camps in Upper Silesia. He returned to England in May 1945 and upon demobilisation, joined the Kent County Constabulary. Whilst still a Police Constable, and from 1956-1967 he was the General Secretary of the Police Federation for England and Wales, and it was in this capacity that he was appointed C.B.E. He was married to his wife Freda for 62 years, and they have 3 daughters. He retired aged 65, and spent much of his time gardening, bowling and cooking in his Kent home, and in later years caring for Freda. In March 2010, both Arthur and Freda moved into a local nursing home and where sadly Arthur passed away 3 days short of his 95th birthday. Freda remains in the good care of the nursing home.Profit from the sale of this book will be donated to The British Red Cross at the expressed wish of Arthur in the days before he died. He never forgot their role in his survival during his imprisonment.
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The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
Author: Slavomir Rawicz
ISBN-10: 1558216847
ISBN-13: 9781558216846
Published: 1997-12-01
Publisher: The Lyons Press
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Book Description:
The harrowing true tale of escaped Soviet prisoners¿ desperate march out of Siberia, through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India.
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GHOST SOLDIERS The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission
Author: Hampton Sides
ISBN-10: 0316858145
ISBN-13: 9780316858144
Published: 2001
Publisher: Doubleday
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The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days
Author: Karen Greenberg
ISBN-10: 0195371887
ISBN-13: 9780195371888
Published: 2009-03-16
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
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Book Description:
Named one of the Washington Post Book World's Best Books of 2009, The Least Worst Place offers a gripping narrative account of the first one hundred days of Guantanamo. Greenberg, one of America's leading experts on the Bush Administration's policies on terrorism, tells the story through a group of career officers who tried--and ultimately failed--to stymie the Pentagon's desire to implement harsh new policies in Guantanamo and bypass the Geneva Conventions. Peopled with genuine heroes and villains, this narrative of the earliest days of the post-9/11 era centers on the conflicts between Gitmo-based Marine officers intent on upholding the Geneva Accords and an intelligence unit set up under the Pentagon's aegis. The latter ultimately won out, replacing transparency with secrecy, military protocol with violations of basic operation procedures, and humane and legal detainee treatment with harsh interrogation methods and torture. Greenberg's riveting account puts a human face on this little-known story, revealing how America first lost its moral bearings in the wake of 9/11.
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Escape From Davao: The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War
Author: John D. Lukacs
ISBN-10: 0451234103
ISBN-13: 9780451234100
Published: 2011-05-03
Publisher: NAL Trade
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Book Description:
One of the greatest Pacific war stories never told. On April 4, 1943, ten American prisoners of war and two Filipino convicts executed a daring escape from one of Japan's most notorious prison camps. Called the "greatest story of the war in the Pacific" by the War Department in 1944, the full account has never been told until now. A product of years of in-depth research, John D. Lukacs's gripping description of the escape brings this remarkable tale to life, so a new generation can admire the resourcefulness and patriotism of the men who fought in the Pacific.
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We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese
Author: Elizabeth M. Norman
ISBN-10: 0671787187
ISBN-13: 9780671787189
Published: 2000-05-01
Publisher: Atria Books
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Book Description:
Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as a "grippingly told" story of "power and relevance," here is the true, untold account of the first American women to prove their mettle under combat conditions. Later, during three years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Japanese, they also demonstrated their ability to survive. Filled with the thoughts and impressions of the women who lived it, "every page of this history is fascinating" (The Washington Post). We Band of Angels In the fall of 1941, the Philippines was a gardenia-scented paradise for the American Army and Navy nurses stationed there. War was a distant rumor, life a routine of easy shifts and evenings of dinner and dancing under the stars. On December 8 all that changed, as Japanese bombs rained on American bases in Luzon, and the women's paradise became a fiery hell. Caught in the raging battle, the nurses set up field hospitals in the jungles of Bataan and the tunnels of Corregidor, where they saw the most devastating injuries of war, and suffered the terrors of shells and shrapnel. But the worst was yet to come. As Bataan and Corregidor fell, a few nurses escaped, but most were herded into internment camps enduring three years of fear and starvation. Once liberated, they returned to an America that at first celebrated them, but later refused to honor their leaders with the medals they clearly deserved. Here, in letters, diaries, and firsthand accounts, is the story of what really happened during those dark days, woven together in a compelling saga of women in war.
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Long Way Back to the River Kwai: Memories of World War II
Author: Loet Velmans
ISBN-10: 1559707410
ISBN-13: 9781559707411
Published: 2005-05-18
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
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Book Description:
Loet Velmans was 17 when the Germans invaded his native Holland in 1940.Almost immediately, he and his family decided to escape to London, which they did on board the Dutch Coast Guard cutter, Seaman's Hope.Deciding theyt would be safer in the Far East, the family sailed to the Dutch East Indies-now Indonesia-where Loet joined the Dutch army.In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the archipelago, conquered it in a week, and made prisoners of the local Dutch soldiers.For the next three and a half years Loet and his fellow POW's were sent to slave labor camps to build a railroad through the dense jungle on the Burmese-Thailand border, to invade and conquer India.Some 200,000 POW's and slave laborers died in building this Railroad of Death.Loet, though suffering from malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, and unspeakable maltreatment, never gave up hope...and survived.Fifty-seven years later he returned to revisit the place where he should have died and where he had buried his closest friend.From that emotional visit came this stunning memoir.
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The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of WWII's Most Decorated Platoon
Author: Alex Kershaw
ISBN-10: 0306814404
ISBN-13: 9780306814402
Published: 2005-10-25
Publisher: Da Capo Press
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Book Description:
On the morning of December 16, 1944, eighteen men of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon attached to the 99th Infantry Division found themselves directly in the path of the main thrust of Hitler's massive Ardennes offensive. Despite being vastly outnumbered, they were told to hold their position "at all costs." Throughout the day, the platoon repulsed three large German assaults in a fierce day-long battle, killing hundreds of German soldiers. Only when they had run out of ammunition did they surrender to the enemy. But their long winter was just beginning. As POWs, the platoon experienced an ordeal far worse than combat-surviving in wretched German POW camps. Yet miraculously the men of the platoon survived-all of them-and returned home after the war. More than thirty years later, when President Carter recognized the platoon's "extraordinary heroism" and the U.S. Army approved combat medals for all eighteen men, they became America's most decorated platoon of World War II. With the same vivid and dramatic prose that made The Bedford Boys a national bestseller, Alex Kershaw brings to life the story of these little-known heroes-an epic tale of courage, duty, and survival in World War II and one of the most inspiring episodes in American history. The Longest Winter is an intensely human story about young men who find themselves in frightening wartime situations, who fight back instinctively, survive stoically, and live heroically.
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Counting the Days: POWs, Internees, and Stragglers of World War II in the Pacific
Author: Craig B. Smith
ISBN-10: 1588343553
ISBN-13: 9781588343550
Published: 2012-05-08
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
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Book Description:
Counting the Days is the story of six prisoners of war imprisoned by both sides during the conflict the Japanese called the "Pacific War." As in all wars, the prisoners were civilians as well as military personnel. Two of the prisoners were captured on the second day of the war and spent the entire war in prison camps: Garth Dunn, a young Marine captured on Guam who faced a death rate in a Japanese prison 10 times that in battle; and Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, who suffered the ignominy of being Japanese POW number 1. Simon and Lydia Peters were European expatriates living in the Philippines; the Japanese confiscated their house and belongings, imprisoned them, and eventually released them to a harrowing jungle existence caught between Philippine guerilla raids and Japanese counterattacks. Mitsuye Takahashi was a U.S. citizen of Japanese descent living in Malibu, California, who was imprisoned by the United States for the duration of the war, disrupting her life and separating her from all she owned. Masashi Itoh was a Japanese soldier who remained hidden in the jungles of Guam, held captive by his own conscience and beliefs until 1960, 15 years after the end of the war. This is the story of their struggles to stay alive, the small daily triumphs that kept them going—and for some, their almost miraculous survival.
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