The legendary "Fighting 69th" took part in five major engagements during World War I. It served in the front lines for almost 170 days, suffering hundreds killed and thousands wounded. This highly decorated unit was inspired by its chaplain, the famous Father Francis Duffy (whose statue stands in Times Square), and commanded by the future leader of the OSS (predecessor of the CIA), "Wild Bill" Donovan. One of its casualties was the poet Joyce Kilmer. Due in large part to the classic 1940 movie The Fighting 69th, starring James Cagney and Pat O'Brien (as Duffy), the unit still has strong name recognition. But until now, no one has recounted in detail the full story of this famous Irish outfit in World War I. The exciting Duffy's War brings to life the men's blue-collar neighborhoods--Irish mostly and Italian and overwhelmingly Catholic. These boys came from the East Side, the West Side, Hell's Kitchen, the Gashouse, and Five Points; from Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island City, and Staten Island; and from Father Duffy's own parish in the Bronx. They streamed out of the tenements and apartment houses, enlisting en masse. Brothers joined up, oftentimes three and four from one family. Published during a resurgent interest in the doughboy experience of World War I, Duffy's War also tells the fascinating history of New York City and the Irish experience in America. With this book, Stephen L. Harris completes his outstanding trilogy on New York National Guard regiments in World War I.

A rip-roaring account of the famous Irish regiment from New York City

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 On January 3, 1942, an assembly of top army officers was flying in to meet with their naval counterparts, with whom they rarely agreed on anything. The meeting was to discuss the invasion of New Guinea, which lay just eleven hundred miles to the southwest. #2 In 1940, the Imperial Army had promoted Horii to major general and assigned him command of the South Seas Detachment, an elite amphibious landing unit that was part of the Imperial Navy’s South Seas Force. The detachment participated in the successful battle for Wake Island against American forces, then joined in on the swift move south that conquered island after island. #3 The town of Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, had been abandoned in 1937 after a series of volcanic eruptions destroyed most of its buildings. It was just starting to reestablish itself when the war began. The town’s defenses were slim, consisting of only fifteen hundred men and women, even less than the figure reported to Horii. #4 The Australian government decided not to reinforce Rabaul, and instead sent fourteen Royal Australian Air Force planes to defend it. They were not prepared for the tropical jungles that covered the islands they were now expected to defend.

First published in 1987. War in the 18th century was a bloody business. A line of infantry would slowly march, to the beat of a drum, into a hail of enemy fire. Whole ranks would be wiped out by cannon fire and musketry. Christopher Duffy's investigates the brutalities of the battlefield and also traces the lives of the officer to the soldier from the formative conditions of their earliest years to their violent deaths or retirement, and shows that, below their well-ordered exteriors, the armies of the Age of Reason underwent a revolutionary change from medieval to modern structures and ways of thinking.

Father Francis Duffy, U. S. Army chaplain during World War One, recalls his time fighting alongside the famous 69th Infantry Regiment on the western front. Comprised mostly of Irish Catholic volunteers who enlisted in and around New York City, the 'Fighting Sixty-Ninth' already had a long history and a reputation for bravery and grit. Father Duffy is frank and upfront, recalling the conversations and mood of his fellow troops during their training and deployment to Europe. The bloodiness and terror of battles in World War I is related, as are the many injuries and horrors of that war. Despite the grim situation, Father Duffy never loses his spirit. Indeed, the adversity faced by the young men in the 69th gave opportunity for them to show their courage and great capacity for morale. The witty humor and can-do attitude of the Irish is also amply displayed, this liveliness countering the darker aspects of war. Each of the major battles and offensives undertaken by the 69th is told from a first-hand perspective, with participating troops named and credited for their valor. This reprint of Duffy's memoirs includes the twelve photographs and map illustrations appended to the first edition. Depicting the battles, troops and their commanding officers, these pictures constitute a helpful supplement to the text.

In the summer of 1812, having defeated almost every army in Europe, Napoleon finally began is attack on the Russian empire. For ten terrible weeks the Grande Armee swept all before them, and by September they had reached Borodino on the western approaches to Moscow. It was here that the full force of the French and Russian armies finally clashed. What ensued was a battle the Russian commander Kutuzov called the most bloody battle of modern times.

In the early hours of January 31, 1968, eighty-thousand North Vietnamese and Vietcong combat troops attacked every major city and military base in South Vietnam. The perimeter of the massive Saigon Airbase, Tan Son Nhut, was breached, and fighting raged all morning. Both gritty and intimate, From Chicago to Vietnam tells the powerful story of the ensuing epic battle, the Tet Offensive, from the perspective of one brave American soldier, Michael Duffy, whose life, like so many others, would forever be changed. Duffy's war experience begins when he exits a C-130 cargo plane onto the Tan Son Nhut tarmac-a chaotic scene of blasts, explosions, and small arms fire. Sprinting to a waiting helicopter, he is lifted up and over the city, where he gets a bird's-eye view of Saigon under attack. The helicopter lands on a road outside Bien Hoa Base Camp, and Duffy crawls in under enemy fire, tumbling into a fox-hole under cover of two GIs. Later, he meets up with his younger brother, Danny Duffy, in an ammunition convoy driving up Highway 1 to the village of Xuan Loc. After his brutal one-year tour in Vietnam, Duffy returns to Chicago, where he enjoys a Christmas dinner with his family before enrolling as a freshman at Colorado College. Like many vets, his return from the war would be met with curiosity, indifference, and, at times, scorn. This harrowing memoir was thirty years in the making.