Search results for ""author john o'sullivan""

A history of Catholics in Cardiff.

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The South Wales Valleys once boasted the richest coalfields and the best anthracite coal in the world. Before the dawn of the twenty-first century all but one of the hundreds of coal pits were closed, destroying jobs and whole communities. Only Tower Colliery at Hirwaun continued to produce coal, thanks to the bid by the miners to keep working. Miners were news at the time of the strikes and disasters but not when they risked life, limb and lung in the bowels of the earth to keep industry turning and the home fires burning. Cardiff, once the biggest coal exporting port in the world, is the magnificent city it is today because of the mine owners who made millions and the miners who worked in damp, dusty and dangerous conditions underground. Cardiff hailed the miners when they gave them the Freedom of the City in 1995. This book also salutes those to who Wales – and the world – owes so much.

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Beginning with a vivid account of the blitz in Wales, and ending with more than fifty personal stories from Welsh people who were touched by the war both at home and abroad, John O'Sullivan's book is a portrait of the principality between 1939 and 1945. He has collected the accounts of those in action overseas and on the Home Front during more than forty years as a journalist in South Wales.This book brings together many remarkable wartime accounts of Welsh men and women, including the stories of Arthur Felix Williams from Barry who led a guerrilla army in Burma; the Catholic priest from Newport who helped run the Vatican escape line and the football, rugby and cricket heroes of the Cardiff-based Sportsmen's Battalion who spend three years in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Also featured here are a wealth of historic images conveying the massive impact the Second World War had on both the landscape of Wales and its people. John O'Sullivan's fascinating picture of life in Wales during the war years will be essential reading for all those who lived through the conflict, and a valuable historical resource for those who want to find out what happened When Wales Went to War.

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This fascinating selection of photographs illustrates the extraordinary transformation that has taken place in Newport during the 20th century. The book offers an insight into the daily lives and living conditions of local people and gives the reader glimpses and details of familiar places during a century of unprecedented change. Many aspects of Newport's recent history are covered, famous occasions and indivuduals are remembered and the impact of national and international events is witnessed. The book provides a striking account of the changes that have so altered Newport's appearance and records the process of transformation. Drawing on detailed local knowledge of the community, and illustrated with a wealth of black-and-white photographs, this book recalls what Newport has lost in terms of buildings, traditions and ways of life. It also acknowledges the regeneration that has taken place and celebrates the character and energy of local people as they move through the first years of this new century.

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A Century of Cardiff offers an insight into the daily lives and living conditions of local people and gives the reader glimpses and details of familiar places during a century of unprecedented change. Many aspects of Cardiff's recent history are covered, famous occasions and individuals are remembered and the impact of national and international events is witnessed. A Century of Cardiff provides a striking account of the changes that have so altered the town's appearance and records the process of transformation. Drawing on detailed local knowledge of the community, and illustrated with a wealth of black-and-white photographs, this book recalls what Cardiff has lost in terms of buildings, traditions and ways of life. It also acknowledges the regeneration that has taken place and celebrates the character and energy of local people as they move through the first years of this new century.

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This fascinating selection of photographs illustrates the extraordinary transformation that has taken place in Swansea during the 20th century. This book offers an insight into the daily lives and living conditions of local people and gives the reader glimpses and details of familiar places during a century of unprecedented change. Many aspects of Swansea's recent history are covered, famous occasions and individuals are remembered and the impact of national and international events is witnessed. The book provides a striking account of the changes that have so altered Swansea's appearance and records the process of transformation. Drawing on detailed local knowledge of the community, and illustrated with a wealth of black-and-white photographs, this book recalls what Swansea has lost in terms of buildings, traditions and ways of life. It also acknowledges the regeneration that has taken place and celebrates the character and energy of local people as they move through the first years of this new century.

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This title combines significant stories from every year of the century with personal memories of the city from its famous children and freemen to create a celebration of the Cardiff in words and pictures.

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Kurt Frank Korf’s story is one of the most unusual to come out of World War II. Although German-Americans were America’s largest ethnic group, and German-Americans—including thousands of native-born Germans—fought bravely in all theaters, there are few full first-person accounts by German- Americans of their experiences during the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing on his correspondence and on oral histories and interviews with Korf, Patricia Kollander paints a fascinating portrait of a privileged young man forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1937 because the infamous Nuremburg Laws had relegated him to the status of “second-degree mixed breed” (Korf had one Jewish grandparent). Settling in New York City, Korf became an FBI informant, watching pro-Nazi leaders like Fritz Kuhn and the German-American Bund as they moved among the city’s large German immigrant community. Soon after, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving in Germany as an intelligence officer during the Battle of the Bulge, and as a prisoner of war camp administrator. After the war, Korf stayed on as a U.S. government attorney in Berlin and Munich, working to hunt down war criminals, and lent his expertise in the effort to determine the authenticity of Joseph Goebbels’s diaries. Kurt Frank Korf died in 2000. Kollander not only draws a detailed portrait of this unique figure; she also provides a rich context for exploring responses to Nazism in Germany, the German-American position before and during the war, the community’s later response to Nazism and its crimes, and the broader issues of ethnicity, religion, political ideology, and patriotism in 20th-century America. Patricia Kollander is Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University. She is the author of Frederick III: Germany’s Liberal Emperor. “I Must Be a Part of This War” is part of her ongoing research into the experiences of some fifteen thousand native-born Germans who served in the U.S. Army in World War II. John O'Sullivan was Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University.

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