Kategoria BISAC: History >> Military - United States

The fate of the USS Flier is one of the most astonishing stories of the Second World War. On August 13, 1944, the submarine struck a mine and sank to the bottom of the Sulu Sea in less than one minute, leaving only fourteen of its crew of eighty-six hands alive. After enduring eighteen hours in the water, eight remaining survivors swam to a remote island controlled by the Japanese. Deep behind enemy lines and without food or drinking water, the crewmen realized that their struggle for survival had just begun. On its first war patrol, the unlucky Flier made it from Pearl Harbor to Midway...

According to the Department of Defense's 2004 Base Structure Report, the United States officially maintains 860 overseas military installations and another 115 on noncontinental U.S. territories. Over the last fifteen years the Department of Defense has been moving from a few large-footprint bases to smaller and much more numerous bases across the globe. This so-called lily-pad strategy, designed to allow high-speed reactions to military emergencies anywhere in the world, has provoked significant debate in military circles and sometimes-fierce contention within the polity of the host...

American involvement in World War II greatly transformed U.S. civil-military relations by propelling the U.S. military into a prominent position within the national government. The war established new linkages and a new unity between key civilian and military personnel. And these new civil-military relations became institutionalized with the postwar creation of the national security state. Waddell explores these new developments and examines how they affected the very nature of American governmental power.

War is considered the most significant influence on building and transforming...

Toward the end of World War II, the commander of the Air Corps, General Henry Hap Arnold, remarked: Someday . . . the man holding my job will meet here with a staff of scientists, and they will wear no pilot's wings on their chests. That day may be near. Here, Collins reveals the emerging challenges posed by cyberspace to the traditional culture of the Air Force. The U.S. Air Force added cyberspace to its warfighting mission in December 2005, and the 8th Air Force was assigned operational responsibility for cyberspace in November 2006. These events clearly indicate that the nexus of...

Donald Rumsfeld was a natural for secretary of defense, a position he'd already occupied once before. He was smart. He worked hard. He was skeptical of the status quo in military affairs and dedicated to high-tech innovations. He seemed the right man at the right time-but history was to prove otherwise.

Now Dale Herspring, a political conservative and lifelong Republican, offers a...

The book covers well-known Union field generals like William T. Sherman, George Thomas, George Meade, and Philip Sheridan, as well...

The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is the site of one of America s most famous armed struggles, but the events surrounding Custer s defeat there in 1876 are only the beginning of the story. As park custodians, American Indians, and others have contested how the site should be preserved and interpreted for posterity, the Little Bighorn has turned into a battlefield in more ways than one. In "Stricken Field," one of America s foremost military historians offers the first comprehensive history of the site and its administration in more than half a century.

Jerome A. Greene has...

One of the most enduring and vivid images of Vietnam is the helicopter. There is little doubt that the helicopter revolutionized warfare and how the war in Vietnam (1955-1975) was fought. Helicopters lifted troops, supplies, material, equipment, and vehicles. They conducted visual reconnaissance, command and control, medical evacuation, artillery spotting, fire support, and countless administrative tasks. They were aerial weapons platforms and aerial trucks. The 40,000 pilots were the men behind this revolution.

Many helicopter pilots were thrill seekers to some degree. They liked...

Osprey's examination of the B-26 Marauder Units' participation in World War II (1939-1945). The revolutionary design of the B-26 and its associated flight characteristics initially gained it a reputation as a 'widow maker' receiving nicknames such as 'The Baltimore Whore' and 'The Flying Prostitute' - both a reference to its short wingspan, i.e. no visible means of support Gradual improvements to the design and the development of effective combat tactics enabled these units to make the B-26 a very effective and safe combat aircraft; it went on to play a major role in the defeat of Axis...

They were called Easy Company, but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered 150% casualties while liberating Europe, an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, Dick Winters was their legendary commander. This is his story, told in his own words for the first time, offering readers an astonishing, unvarnished account of...

In 1775 General George Washington secretly armed a handful of small ships and sent them to sea against the world's mightiest navy.

From the author of the critically acclaimed Benedict Arnold's Navy, here is the story of how America's first commander-in-chief--whose previous military experience had been entirely on land--nursed the fledgling American Revolution through a season of stalemate by sending troops to sea. Mining previously overlooked sources, James L. Nelson's swiftly moving narrative shows that George Washington deliberately withheld knowledge of his tiny...