Posted by Normandy Allies on Apr 1, 2013 in Book Notes
Visions Of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders, Gerhard L. Weinberg (Cambridge University Press, 2005, 292 pages, maps, paperback), Visions of Victory provides a useful analytic overview of WW II from the points of view of the wartime leaders of the eight major powers: Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Tojo (Japan), Chaing-Kai-Shek (China), Stalin (USSR), de Gaulle (France), Churchill (Great Britain), and Roosevelt (USA). What were their war aims? How did...
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Posted by Normandy Allies on Aug 1, 2012 in Book Notes
Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under the Nazi Regime, Charles Glass, (The Penguin Press, 2009) In the late 1930s, nearly 30,000 Americans lived in or near Paris. As the prospects of war grew more ominous, many left. But when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, there were still some 5,000 remaining who chose or were obliged to stay on. The number had dwindled to less than 3,000 by June 1940, when the German army arrived in Paris and set up its occupation...
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Posted by Normandy Allies on Mar 1, 2012 in Book Notes
The Clay Pigeons of St. Lô, Glover Johns (Stackpole Press, 2002, pb) The US 29th Division landed on Omaha Beach on June 6 1944. Its three infantry regiments, each consisting of three battalions, headed toward the cross-roads city of St. Lô, some 20 miles inland. Along the way, on June 14, Major Glover Johns took command of the 115th Regiment’s 900-man First Battalion, replacing a man who was removed for insufficient aggressiveness. On June 17 the division arrived at...
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Posted by Normandy Allies on Aug 1, 2011 in Book Notes
Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World, Margaret MacMillan (Random House Trade Paperback Edition, 2003) The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 between Germany and the Entente (the US, Britain, France, and their allies) ending what came to be known as World War I, is commonly cited as a leading cause of World War II. The Treaty is said to have humiliated Germany and left it economically burdened, reduced in territory, partially occupied, saddled with blame,...
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Posted by Normandy Allies on Mar 1, 2011 in Book Notes
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and France’s Greatest Treasure, Don and Petie Kladstrup, (Coronet Books, paperback, 2001) Although Adolf Hitler is known to have disliked wine, many if not most of the German military officers and men did. Having invaded and occupied France in 1940, the German army quickly seized vast quantities of bottles and barrels and shipped them back to the fatherland. French vineyards were controlled and assigned quotas of new product to be...
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Posted by Normandy Allies on Aug 1, 2010 in Book Notes
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2008 Aug. 2010) During World War II the German military occupied vast regions beyond those in which actual combat raged. The inhabitants of those occupied regions suffered much from Nazi tyranny, plunder, and brutality, yet displayed considerable endurance, courage, and resilience until their eventual liberation. In the novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato...
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