France World War

Lily Barnett, a failure in medical school through no fault of her own, enters the new nursing program at St Joseph's Hospital. At the very beginning of the War to End All Wars, she steps up and joins the British Medical Corps.

As far as the public knew, Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) did not exist. After the defeat of the French Army and Britain's retreat from the Continent in June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the top-secret espionage operation to "set Europe ablaze". Of the many brave men and women conscripted, two Anglo-American recruits, the Starr brothers, stood out to become legendary figures to the guerillas, assassins, and saboteurs they led.

In the spring of 1917, Walter “Pat” Lusk sits at his desk shuffling papers and dreaming of glory on the battlefield. Frustrated, he’s convinced the Great War will remain forever out of reach until one day his friend Aubrey arrives with the thrilling news that the United States has finally declared war on Germany! With his path to adventure now clear, Pat immediately enlists in the Army, where he trains as a surgeon’s assistant. Sent to France with Evacuation Hospital No. 4, will Pat finally attain the glory he seeks treating desperately wounded soldiers through the war’s darkest ...

This is the true story of four brave women secretly sent into the darkness of Nazi-occupied France to carry out Winston Churchill’s plan to "set Europe ablaze." Caught in a web of deception surrounding the preparations for the D-Day invasion, their mission ended in betrayal and sacrifice. An engrossing history based on first-hand interviews with agents of the Special Operations Executive and revelations about the secret organization and the courageous women who served it.

On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht comes this untold story of a teenager whose act of defiance would have dire international consequences. On the morning of November 7, 1938, a seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, Herschel Grynszpan, walked into the German embassy in Paris and in an act of desperation assassinated Ernst vom Rath, a low-level Nazi diplomat. He did it, he said, out “of love for my parents and for my people.”

The French painter Jean Hélion’s unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Hélion’s infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, “They shall not have me!” but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor.

Fought from February to December 1916, the Battle of Verdun was intended to “bleed the French white” and bring their army to the point of collapse. Instigated by the Germans under the command of General Erich von Falkenhayn, it became a war of attrition that would benefit neither side. With its devastating death toll and the appalling number of wounded, the Battle of Verdun is one of the deadliest in history.

Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort, is a compilation of articles Wharton wrote for Scribner’s Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post, reporting from the Western Front during WWI. Living in Paris, she was trapped in France when travel became impossible after Germany declared war and French mobilization began. She was one of a number of expatriate American writers living there, primarily women, who became involved in war charities during the opening months of the conflict, years before the United States abandoned its official policy of neutrality.

A daredevil pilot in the famed 352nd Fighter Squadron, the author of this remarkable memoir bailed out of his burning Mustang two days after D-Day and was launched on a thrilling adventure on the ground in Occupied France.

Doctors at War tells the stories of physicians in France working to impede the German war effort and undermine French collaborators during the Occupation from 1940 to 1945. Determined to defeat the Third Reich's incursion, one group of prominent Paris doctors founded a medical network to treat injured Resistance fighters who they then secretly transported to Allied countries to avoid forced labor in Germany. Doctors at War stands as a dramatic, character-driven account of physicians' courage and resilience in the face of evil.

When a small town constable sees an elderly woman scavenging in the bins behind the general store he is not sure what to do with her. The woman seems confused and speaks only French so he enlists the help of the local school teacher as translator. They are shocked to learn the woman thinks she is in Occupied France and that the war is still going. The following day the woman has recovered and is once more speaking in English. They learn her name is Mary and they coax Mary into telling her story. She is at first reluctant, saying that the story is not really hers, but the story of how a ...

Raised in a lush suburb of 1920s Paris, Noor Inayat Khan was an introspective musician and writer, dedicated to her family and to her father’s spiritual values of harmony, beauty, and tolerance. She did not seem destined for wartime heroism. Yet, faced with the evils of Nazi violence and the German occupation of France, Noor joined the British Special Operations Executive and trained in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance. For crucial months of the war, Noor was the only wireless operator in France sending critical information to London.

Die Französische Revolution der späten 1790er Jahre war eines der entscheidenden Ereignisse in der Geschichte Europas. Sie war der Wendepunkt – ein historischer Erdrutsch, der die Welt in eine neue, völlig andere Epoche führte. Leider kommen solche Veränderungen immer mit einem hohen Preis. In der Folge der Revolution brach eine Reihe von großangelegten Konflikten aus, die zusammenfassend als Napoleonische Kriege bekannt sind.

The incredible true story of British special agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne, sisters who risked everything to fight for freedom during the Second World War. When elderly recluse Eileen Nearne died, few suspected that the quiet little old lady was a decorated WWII war hero. Volunteering to serve for British intelligence at age 21, Eileen was posted to Nazi-occupied France to send encoded messages of crucial importance for the Allies, until her capture by the Gestapo.

When the Italian dictator Mussolini saw that Hitler was conquering Europe, he decided that he too would have a share of the plunder. He declared war on the Allies, vowed to control the Mediterranean, and with his 300,000 troops stationed in Libya, take Egypt and the Suez Canal. But he knew that this could not be accomplished while the strategic island of Malta remained in Allied hands. For the next two years Malta and its people suffered for almost continuous bombardment, but never gave in.

Never underestimate the power of a good hat... or a sharp hatpin. 9-Book Series! Paris 1917. Sent by the War Office to follow the notorious Fredrick Fredricks, file clerk turned secret agent Fiona Figg is under strict orders not to get too close and not to wear any of her usual "get-ups." But what self-respecting British spy can resist a good disguise? Within hours of her arrival in Paris, Fiona is up to her fake eyebrows in missing maids, jewel thieves, double agents, and high treason. When Fiona is found dressed as a bellboy holding a bloody paperknife over the body of a dead countess, ...

Deep in the Blitzkrieg, one unlucky tourist must fight to survive. When aspiring pilot John Archer finds himself caught in the middle of the devastating Nazi invasion of France, he quickly realizes that his vacation could cost him his life. As an American swept up in a wave of refugees fleeing the chaos of the German advance, deep down he knows he’s in way over his head. When an unfortunate capture leads to Archer discovering vital information about the Nazi’s plans, he knows he has no choice but to slip out from under his enemy’s nose and tell the Allies what he’s found.

In pursuit of revenge, former French commando Rene Roccard embarks on a cause to assassinate underground leader Ruben Um that takes him from New York to Europe and Africa. Relentless on his heels is veteran American journalist Clement Coulther as they join a motley bunch in a journey of love and betrayal, fear and hope, damnation and salvation, war and death, redemption, and peace. Rene leads the bloody campaign by the Franco-Cameroonian army against the Ruben-inspired rebellion, a dirty war steals the innocence of bright-eyed Gavin by exposing the child to a world of power, glory, money, ...

Alan Riding introduces a pageant of 20th-century artists who lived and worked under the Nazis and explores the decisions each made about whether to stay or flee, collaborate or resist. We see Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf singing before French and German audiences; Picasso painting and occasionally selling his work from his Left Bank apartment; and Marcel Carné and Henri-Georges Clouzot, among others, directing movies....

The 1942 raid on Dieppe was an attempt to test the enemy readiness, and take some pressure off the Russian front. It was a costly disaster, but lessons learned there were of the utmost importance to the D-Day planning. After a massive build up of men and materials, the D-Day landings finally took place in Normandy on June 6th, 1944. Despite vicious battles and stubborn resistance, within 12 weeks the Allied forces invaded Paris.