True War

This book explores thirteen bizarre “murder” stories that have taken place in Tennessee over the past two centuries. The first story related here takes place around 1798 and the last takes place in 1998. These stories span the breadth of Tennessee from the Smoky Mountains, to the Mississippi River and most points between. Some of these stories are about famous persons and others are about powerful persons. Some are about persons that are unknown to all but a few. One story is about an abused animal.

John McCorkle was a young Missouri farmer of Southern sympathies. After serving briefly in the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard, he became a prominent member of William Clarke Quantrill's infamous guerrillas, who took advantage of the turmoil in the Missouri-Kansas borderland to prey on pro-Union people. McCorkle displayed an unflinchingly violent nature while he participated in raids and engagements including the massacres at Lawrence and Baxter Springs, Kansas; and Centralia, Missouri.

By July of 1944, the Third Reich's days were numbered. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a general staff insider with open eyes (and access to the Fuhrer), was convinced that assassinating Hitler was the only way to prevent the destruction of the Fatherland and the deaths of millions. On July 20, he hid a bomb-stuffed briefcase at a high-level meeting. The explosion tore through the room, but a table leg spared Hitler from the blast. The result was a witch hunt, a wave of executions, and a further pointless year of war. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh deliver an exhilarating and definitive portrait of the anti-Nazi movement (called "Secret Germany") that almost killed Hitler. Secret Germany is the story of "World War II's boldest plot-that-failed" (Time), a coup that was a moral and spiritual necessity.

The story of a dog so brave he saved lives and won hearts. This is the true heart-warming story of Stubby, a small, stump-tailed terrier who fought alongside Allied forces on the Western Front during World War I. This brave and clever dog could detect enemy soldiers, impending gas attacks, and even salute higher-ranking officers! But even more, this is the story of the remarkable friendship between an American soldier named Robert Conroy and the stray who adopted him and his unit.

This book is an unvarnished look at the life of a helicopter pilot and his year in Vietnam. He arrived at the beginning of the great Tet Offensive in 1968. Some stories are humorous, some are not. It's an honest inside look at that war.

A heart-wrenching WWII historical fiction novel set in Nazi-occupied Holland, where love, betrayal, and courage shape the fate of a dancer-turned-resistance hero. Amsterdam, 1939. Edda van der Valk’s life was meant to be lived on stage. A gifted Dutch ballerina, she escapes rivalry and rising fascism to study at a Swiss finishing school, where she finds friendship among other young women destined for resistance—Lili, Océane, Esther, Sable, and Anna. Back in Holland, Edda falls in love with Asher Hoffmann, a fellow dancer from a Jewish family. But their fragile joy is shattered as Nazi ...

A fast-paced World War II historical novel based on the true story of holocaust survivors This historical novel, based on a true story, brings World War Two to a new level of reality and a descriptive intensity that will leave the reader spellbound. It brings to life the dramatic experiences of a woman caught between a ruthless government and the will to survive with her children during the last six months of World War 2 in Nazi Germany as she flees the incoming Russian front in the East and right into the carpet bombing in the West. This book brings this war down to a human level in a way ...

In June of 1941, at the height of World War II, something ancient and terrifying surfaced in the Pacific... On the verge of abandoning his life in Los Angeles, brash arms dealer William Curtis is given the chance for the biggest score of his career. What he has to do is simple: deliver arms smuggled out of Germany to the British aboard a passenger liner, the SS Britannia. But when a German Raider destroys the vessel, Will must fight for his life on the open ocean. And the elements are not his only worry. Those that survived in lifeboats are silently and inexplicably disappearing every night...

At 4' 9" 97 lbs, Richard J. Flaherty is believed to be the smallest man to ever serve in the US military. Needing a congressional waiver just to join the army, he achieved the impossible by becoming a Green Beret Captain and a Vietnam vet war hero, earning the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts - 101st Airborne and 3rd Special Forces Group.

"CANDY: True Tales of a 1st Cavalry Soldier in the Korean War and Occupied Japan" is the coming-of-age autobiography of a small-town teenager going to war in 1950. Kenny LaRue is like many young men at that time who volunteer for the Army out of a sense of patriotism and duty. Through quirky circumstances, he ends up on the front line of Korea, where he remains firmly in denial he might be killed -- until he sees a buddy blown up by an enemy shell. Kenneth J. LaRue, in collaboration with his son William, tells this story in a no-nonsense way steeped in humanity and humor, including ...

In Heroes Beneath the Waves, many brave men who rode submarines to great depths and across the oceans into unknown territory share their experiences, fears, and thoughts. They allow us to travel back in time through their memories. Trained for years to keep silent - for "loose lips sink ships" - many still believe what they know to be classified and refuse to disclose even the minutest of recollections. Others, however, want to leave a legacy of reminiscences for people to learn and live by - to know that freedom is not free.

It begins with a family dinner in Princeton, New Jersey. After months at sea, US Navy Commander Scott Hagan, captain of the USS James Greer, is on leave when he is attacked by an armed man in a crowded restaurant. Hagan is shot, but he manages to fight off the attacker. Though severely wounded, the gunman reveals he is a Russian whose brother was killed when his submarine was destroyed by Commander Hagan's ship. Hagan demands to know how the would-be assassin knew his exact location, but the man dies before he says more.

Inspired by the real-life story of SOE agent Eileen Nearne, this dual timeline historical fiction novel explores the legacy of a forgotten heroine. Torquay, 2007 Dr Mia Thompson is no stranger to silence. But when a new client—reclusive and enigmatic—invites her into a quiet seaside home, Mia uncovers something extraordinary: a past veiled in secrecy and bravery. Her client is Eileen Nearne, once a radio operator for Churchill’s Special Operations Executive. Dropped into Nazi-occupied France, Eileen risked everything to support the Resistance. Her story—marked by betrayal, capture, ...

Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white—for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of eighteen hundred starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Inspired by the history of the Danes and their Jewish neighbors who worked together to defy the Reich, Miracle Across the Sound is a story of bravery, love, and true freedom. It is September 1943, and Jews are still free in German-occupied Denmark. But that is about to change. Jewish college student Fleming Lund and his Lutheran former fiancée, Liesel Prestur, have not spoken since they ended their engagement. When Leisel witnesses the Gestapo hauling her Jewish neighbors from their home in the middle of the night, she sneaks off to warn the Lunds. ...

A powerful WWII spy novel inspired by the real female SOE agents in France—filled with revenge, redemption, and the quiet power of resilience. Scotland, 1940. Sable Montgomery was once a Highland socialite. Now, she’s on the run—from her past, from a broken future, and from a world that never made space for her truth. When she’s offered a place at a Swiss finishing school, she meets other young women destined for resistance—Lili, Océane, Esther, Anna, and Edda. Bonds form. Tensions rise. But Sable doesn’t expect to be recruited. Back in London, a chance encounter with secret ...

In this powerful and wide-ranging collection of essays, Rebecca Solnit turns her attention to the war at home. This is a war, she says, "[W]ith so many casualties that we should call it by its true name, this war with so many dead by police, by violent ex-husbands and partners and lovers, by people pursuing power and profit at the point of a gun or just shooting first and figuring out who they hit later."

What defines true bravery? Go beyond the battlefield headlines and into the heart of conflict with War Stories: Bravery, a gripping collection of 15 unforgettable true tales that redefine courage in the face of unimaginable adversity. From the shell-shocked beaches of Dunkirk and the brutal trenches of World War I to the fierce jungles of Vietnam, the desolate mountains of Afghanistan, and the urban warfare of Iraq, this meticulously researched anthology brings to life extraordinary acts of valor from 20th and 21st-century conflicts. These are the real stories of ordinary individuals pushed...

On October 25, 1944, the Samuel B. Roberts and 12 other vessels stood between Japan’s largest battleship force ever and MacArthur’s transports inside Leyte Gulf. Facing more than 20 Japanese vessels - including the 70,000-ton Yamato - the 1,200-ton Samuel B. Roberts turned immediately to action, churning straight at the enemy in a near-suicidal attempt to deflect the more potent foe and buy time for MacArthur’s forces.

Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail - a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber with the squeeze of a trigger.