Hiroshima (John Hersey)

Hiroshima 

John Hersey

Blurb: When the bomb dropped - August 6, 1945

Miss Toshinki Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just turned her head to chat with the girl at the next desk.

Dr. Masakazu Fuji, a physician, had just sat down to read the paper on the porch of his private hospital.

Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow, was watching a neighbour from her kitchen window.

Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest, lay on a cot in the mission house reading a Jesuit magazine.

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon, walked along a hospital corridor with a blood specimen for a Wasserman test.

The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, was about to unload a cart of clothes at a rich man's home in the suburbs. 

A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb. These six were among the survivors. John Hersey tells you their stories. And in this new edition, he has returned to find them forty years later...to tell you their fates.

ISBN: 9780679721031 (Paperback)

Year: 1946 / 1985

Publisher: Vintage Books

Pages: 152 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page for the book

2. Sparknotes page for the book

3. Read the full text of the original articles

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Page on the book

Australian War Classics (Various)

Australian War Classics 

Various

Blurb: Four timeless accounts

We Were the Rats - Lawson Glassop

Glassop compellingly captures all the fear, bravery and determination of the so-called 'Rats of Tobruk' - the Australian soldiers who found themselves under protracted siege on the North African coast. We Were the Rats is a novel that paints a quintessential portrait of the fiercely independent and intrinsically larrikin Aussie Digger.

Desert Siege - Chester Wilmot

Tobruk, like Gallipoli, holds a special place in Australia's war annals. Wilmot's gripping account of how the Australian Imperial Force helped hold the besieged coastal fortress against the superior might of the Germans is based on personal observation, official documents, and eyewitness accounts - from both sides.

Behind Bamboo - Rohan D. Rivett

Rivett's saga of life as a Japanese prisoner of war, including the hell of his days on the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway, is brutal in its honesty, haunting in its realism and alive with the Australian POW's indomitable will to survive.

The Ridge and the River - T.A.G. Hungerford

Hungerford's tautly written novel, based on  his own experiences as a commando on Bougainville, recreates the ordeal of face-to-face confrontation with the enemy - and the unassailable Aussie humour and the triumph of sheer guts over the constant fear and group tensions intrinsic to jungle warfare.

ISBN: 0734305222 (Hardback)

Year: 1944 / 1946 / 1952

Publisher: Claremont

Pages: 1243 (Fiction / Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Dymocks

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Australian War Memorial

4. TV Series dealing with Australian's at War

5. Photos of Australian War Graves

The Pacific (Hugh Ambrose)

The Pacific 

Hugh Ambrose

Blurb: Historian Hugh Ambrose deepens the experience of the HBO miniseries The Pacific - revealing the intertwined odysseys of four US Marines and a US Navy carrier pilot and producing a powerful blend of first-person immediacy and historical perspective.

Sidney C Phillips, an easygoing Alabama teenager, enlisted along with a buddy. 'Manila John' Basilone was the son of immigrants who found happiness in the rough-and-ready life of a marine. Eugene B Sledge watched his best friend and his brother go off to war - and finally rebelled against his parents to follow them. 'Shifty' Shofner was the scion of a prominent family with a long record of military service. Ensign Vernon 'Mike' Micheel left the family farm to complete flight school.

Between America's retreat from China in late 1941 and the moment that MacArthur's plane landed in Japan in August 1945, these five men fought many of the key battles of the war in the Pacific. Here, Hugh Ambrose focuses on their real-life experiences and those of their fellow servicemen, enhancing and expanding upon the story told in the HBO miniseries.

Covering nearly four years of combat with unprecedented access to military records, letters, journals, memoirs, photographs, and interviews, this volume offers a unique historical perspective on the war against Japan, from the debacle in Bataan to the miracle at Midway, the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, the black terraces of Iwo Jima, and the killing fields of Okinawa - and ultimately the triumphant yet uneasy return home.

These are the true stories of the men who put their lives on the line for their country, who were dispatched to the other side of the world to fight an enemy who preferred suicide to surrender; men who suffered hardship and humiliation in POW camps; men who witnessed casualties among soldier and civilian alike; and men whose medals came at a shocking price - a price paid in full by all.

ISBN: 9781921656101 (Paperback)

Year: 2010

Publisher: Text Publishing

Pages: 489 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Author's official site

3. Review of the book

4. Conversation with the author

5. Wikipedia for the TV series of the same name

Shadows in the Mist (Brian Moreland)

Shadows in the Mist

Brian Moreland

Blurb: Germany 1944: The Hurtgen Forest is a killing field. But there is something worse than the enemy in the shadows: An ancient power is waiting to be unleashed upon those who oppose the Third Reich - and then the world...

World War II hero Jack 'Grim Reaper' Chambers survived the war, but he still has nightmares about Hurtgen - and the unholy horrors he battled there. Now, he is determined to reveal the truth behind his platoon's massacre...

His grandson, Sean, is given the task of carrying Jack's message. But Sean's quest pulls him into a deadly race against those who wish to bury the truth forever - and those who wish to use it to unleash hell on earth...

ISBN: 9780425224335 (Paperback)

Year: 2006

Publisher: Berkley Books

Pages: 356 (Fiction)

Links

1. Reviews of author

2. Review of book

3. Buy from Amazon

4. Author's blog

5. Q & A with author

The Second Assassin (Christopher Hyde)

The Second Assassin

Christopher Hyde

Blurb: The year: 1939 - and the world is readying itself for a war that is sure to come.

The conspirators: A group of powerful men who want to keep America out of the approaching conflict - at all costs.

The plan: Assassinate the King and Queen of England on American soil, destroying any hope of an alliance between Great Britain and the United States - an ensuring victory for the Nazis in World War II...

From Christopher Hyde, the master of international suspense, comes an electrifying new novel based on actual events that follows two unlikely allies in a desperate race to stop the perfect assassin. Tense, powerful, and startling authentic, The Second Assassin is the most explosive novel of World War II since Eye of the Needle.

ISBN: 0451410300 (Paperback)

Year: 2002

Publisher: Onyx Book

Pages: 394 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Good reads page

3. Penguin page for the book

4. Google books page

5. Review of the book