Prisoners of war Books
The University Press of Kentucky The Enemy in Our Hands Americas Treatment of
Book SynopsisThe controversy surrounding photos and descriptions of inhumane treatment of enemy prisoners of war, or EPWs, from the war on terror marked a watershed momentin the study of modern warfare and the treatment of prisoners of war.
£23.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd The Ukulele Man
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£18.70
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Death March Escape: The Remarkable Story of a Man
Book SynopsisIn June 1944, the Nazis locked eighteen-year-old Dave Hersch into a railroad boxcar and shipped him from his hometown of Dej, Hungary, to Mauthausen concentration camp, the harshest, cruellest camp in the Reich. After ten months in the granite mines of Mauthausen's nearby sub-camp, Gusen, he weighed less than 80lbs, nothing but skin and bones. Somehow surviving the relentless horrors of these two brutal camps, as Allied forces drew near Dave was forced to join a death march to Gunskirchen concentration camp, over thirty miles away. Soon after the start of the march, and more dead than alive, Dave summoned a burst of energy he did not know he had and escaped. Quickly recaptured, he managed to avoid being killed by the guards. Put on another death march a few days later, he achieved the impossible: he escaped again. Dave often told his story of survival and escape, and his son, Jack, thought he knew it well. But years after his father's death, he came across a photograph of his father on, of all places, the Mauthausen Memorial's website. It was an image he had never seen before - and it propelled him on an intensely personal journey of discovery. Using only his father's words for guidance, Jack takes us along as he flies to Europe to learn the secrets behind the photograph, secrets his father never told of his time in the camps. Beginning in the verdant hills of his father's Hungarian hometown, we travel with Jack to the foreboding rock mines of Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps, to the dust-choked roads and intersections of the death marches, and, finally, to the makeshift hiding places of his father's rescuers. We accompany Jack's every step as he describes the unimaginable: what his father must have seen and felt while struggling to survive in the most abominable places on earth. In a warm and emotionally engaging story, Jack digs deeply into both his father's life and his own, revisiting - and reflecting on - his father's time at the hands of the Nazis during the last year of the Second World War, when more than mere survival was at stake - the fate of humanity itself hung in the balance.
£23.75
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Great Escape Forger: The Work of Carl Holmstrom -
Book SynopsisAs one of many artists confined in Stalag Luft III, Carl Holmstrom's superb artwork depicts life as a Kriegie created with the perspective only a prisoner of war could draw upon as an eyewitness to history. He spent the majority of his captivity in that camp made famous by The Great Escape, later made into an award-winning film. While a POW, he sketched his fellow prisoners and encouraged others to take up drawing as hobby, thus breaking the boredom of camp life. But his artistic ability proved to be even more important. Carl forged invaluable official German documents for escape purposes for other prisoners-work that was tedious and painstaking. Remarkably, he saved over 200 examples of his work by carrying them on the appallingly-arduous 1945 winter march through Germany when the camp was evacuated as the Russians closed in from the east Post war, Carl Holmstrom said, 'The drawings were made during imprisonment and represent a sincere effort to portray to the American people and especially to the relatives of the prisoners, intimate glimpses of Kriegie life.' His words proved to be prophetic. His daughter, Susan Holmstrom Kohnowich, spent five years working on an expansion of Carl's earlier self-published Kriegie Life book. Extensive research went into the write-ups under the drawings and the biographies of the men in the portraits. This superb book honours Carl's exceptional artistic gift. Indeed, it has strong claim to contain the finest collection of POW art to emerge from Nazi-occupied Europe.
£23.75
Savas Beatie Destined to Fail: The Johnson-Gilmor Cavalry Raid
Book SynopsisThe Johnson-Gilmor Raid represents one of three attempts to free prisoners of war during the American Civil War. Like the other two, it was destined to fail for a variety of reasons, mostly because the timetable for the operation was a schedule impossible to meet. The mounted raid was a fascinating act of increasing desperation by the Confederate high command in the summer of 1864, and award-winning cavalry historian Eric J. Wittenberg presents the gripping story in detail for the first time in Destined to Fail: The Johnson-Gilmor Cavalry Raid around Baltimore, July 10-13, 1864.The thundering high-stakes operation was intended to ease the suffering of 15,000 Confederate prisoners held at Point Lookout, Maryland, a peninsula at the confluence of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. The story includes a motley cast of characters on both sides and fast-paced drama in a deeply researched study that draws upon published and unpublished primary sources, including contemporary newspapers.Part of Wittenberg’s cogent analysis compares and contrasts this raid to a pair of other unsuccessful attempts to free Union prisoners of war – the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid of February-March 1864, and the Stoneman Raid on Macon, Georgia of July 1864 – as well as Gen. George S. Patton’s attempt to free his son-in-law and other American prisoners in March of 1945. This book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in the Civil War, high-stakes cavalry operations, or the politics of Civil War high command.
£18.99
Casemate Publishers Churchill'S Abandoned Prisoners: The British
Book SynopsisWinner of the Britain at War Book of the Month Award for May 2019.Churchill's Abandoned Prisoners tells the previously suppressed story of fifteen British prisoners captured during the Russian civil war. The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 seriously compromised the Allied war effort. That threat rather than an ideological wish to defeat the Bolsheviks was the driving force behind the formation of an Allied force including British, American, French, Czech, Italian, Greek and Japanese troops, who were stationed to locations across Russia to suppor t the anti-Bolsheviks (the ‘White Russians’). But war-weariness and equivocation about getting involved in the Civil War led the Allied powers to dispatch a sufficient number of troops to maintain a show of interest in Russia's fate, but not enough to give the 'Whites' a real chance of victory.Caught up in these events is Emmerson MacMillan, an American engineer who through loyalty to his Scottish roots joins the British army in 1918. Emmerson travels to England, where he trains with the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps and volunteers for service in the Far East.The book explains how the bitter fighting ebbed and flowed along the Trans-Siberian Railway for eighteen months, until Trotsky’s Red Army prevailed. It includes the exploits of the only two British battalions to serve in the East, the “Diehards” and “Tigers”. An important chapter describes the fractious relationships between the Allies, together with the unenviable dilemmas faced by the commander of the American Expeditionary Force and the humanitarian work of the Red Cross.The focus turns to the deeds of Emmerson and the other soldiers in the select British group, who are ordered to “remain to the last” and organise the evacuation of refugees from Omsk in November 1919. After saving thousands of lives, they leave on the last train out of the city before it is seized by the Bolsheviks. Their mad dash for freedom in temperatures below forty degrees centigrade ends abruptly, when they are captured in Krasnoyarsk.Abandoned without communications or mail, they endure a fearful detention with two of them succumbing to typhus. The deserted group become an embarrassment to the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George and the War Secretary, Winston Churchill after a secret agreement fails to secure the release of the British prisoners. Deceived in Irkutsk, they are sent 3,500 miles to Moscow and imprisoned in notorious jails. After a traumatic incarceration, they are eventually released, having survived against all the odds.The spectre of armed conflict between Russia and the West has dramatically increased with points of tension stretching from the Arctic to Aleppo, while cyber warfare and election interference further increase pressure. As a new Cold War hots up it is ever-more important to understand the origins of the modern relationship between Russia and the West. The events described in this book are not only a stirring tale of courage and adventure but also only lift the lid on an episode that did much to sow distrust and precipitate events in World War Two and today.Trade Review...a rousing account of resilience and courage [...] this book also provides detailed informance about the experience of British prisoners of war during the Russian Civil War, making it an invaluable source for... anyone researching events of the Russian Civil War. * University of Middle East Technical University, founder and editor of IJORS 30/07/2019 *This is a fascinating account of a relatively unknown conflict which has drifted out of public consciousness following the overwhelming tragedy of WW1. * Army Rumour Service 26/02/2019 *Rupert Wieloch has written a genuinely interesting history that provides a useful entry point into the confusion of the Russian Civil War. * War History Online 28/02/2019 *Based on an impressive array of published and unpublished sources, this is a gripping account of the adventures and misadventures in Siberia in 1919 of a group of British and American servicemen who were involved in the disorderly Allied intervention in the chaos of Russia's post-revolutionary civil wars and who were captured by the Reds. * Queen Mary University of London, author of The `Russian' Civil Wars, 1916--1926: Ten Years that Shook the World 11/12/2018 *It is a very informative account of a lesser-known conflict. * Soldier Magazine 07/03/2019 *
£23.47
Fonthill Media LLc American Prisoner of War Camps in Arizona and
Book Synopsis
£19.54
Fonthill Media LLc American Prisoner of War Camps in Northern
Book SynopsisAmerican Prisoner of War Camps in Northern California describes the impact of the large number of prisoners of war on the population of Northern California, as well as the impact of the people of Northern California on those imprisoned there. Providing detail on the care and employment of prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention of 1929, the lives of POWs in this region is illustrated, along with the details of camp locations in Northern California and the deaths and burials that occurred among them. Some prisoner names are included, as well as references to source materials at various repositories. Historical photographs serve to provide depth to the story.
£20.39
Fonthill Media LLc American Prisoner of War Camps in Washington and
Book Synopsis
£20.39
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants 1933 - 1945
Book SynopsisUsing many rare and unpublished images this book identifies and delves into the characters of the notorious men who were instrumental in one of the greatest crimes against humanity in World history. Through words and pictures the chilling truth emerges. In many respects these monsters were all too normal. Rudolf Hoss, the Commandant of Auschwitz, was a family man and hospitable host and yet while there is no record of his committing acts of violence personally he presided over a regime that accounted for over a million deaths. Others such as Amon Goeth and Josef Kramer personally promoted violence and terror and took pleasure from ever more brutal practices. They were competitive in obtaining 'results'. While following orders from above they did not hesitate to use their own initiative in pursuit of their barbaric objectives. Every occupied country in Europe was touched by the 'Final Solution' and despite the capture, trials and punishment of these leading perpetrators the stain of man's inhumanity to man, woman and child remains ineradicable. Justice came too late for millions but the lessons learnt must never be forgotten and this book throws new light on the managers of the murderous Holocaust process.
£18.59