A guide to learning more about your relatives’ experience serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. In this fully revised edition of Finding Your Father’s War, military historian Jonathan Gawne has written an easily accessible handbook for anyone seeking greater knowledge of their relatives’ experience in World War II, or indeed anyone seeking a better understanding of the U.S. Army during World War II. With over 470 photographs, charts, and an engaging narrative with many rare insights into wartime service, this book is an invaluable tool for understanding our “citizen soldiers,” who once rose as a generation to fight the greatest war in American history. “Jonathan's Gawne’s book is a 5-star blueprint, well-written and beautifully illustrated, to deciphering a loved one’s WW2 U.S. Army service.” —The Commander’s Voice “A great read not only for genealogists wishing to research an ancestor, but also for those who simply have an interest in the United States Army during World War II . . . written so that anyone, even those with no military background, can understand, yet also includes more advanced information . . . detail is phenomenal . . . a must read reference book for any professional genealogist or military historian.” —APG Quarterly

Here, for the first time is the story of the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion, told in the pictures and memories of the veterans themselves with the son of a mortar company commander as their voice.

Charley Valeras own father had spent almost 4 years fighting during WWII and lived out the rest of his life without a story to tell. To share stories that hadnt been discussed in decades, Valera conducted heartfelt interviews using video to pen and chronicled them in a way to bring the reader into the battlefield, aircraft or destroyer. A combination between The Greatest Generation and Saving Private Ryan.

The author draws on her father's account of the war and her extensive interviews with other veterans of the 92nd Division to describe the experiences of a naive southern white officer and his segregated unit on an intimate level. During the war, the protocol that required the assignment of southern white officers to command black units, both in Europe and in the Pacific theater, was often problematic, but Johnston seemed more successful than most, earning the trust and respect of his men at the same time that he learned to trust and respect them. Gene Johnston and the African American soldiers were transformed by the war and upon their return helped transform the nation. The 92nd Division of the Fifth Army was the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during 1944 and 1945, suffering more than 3,200 casualties. Members of this unit, known as Buffalo Soldiers, endured racial violence on the home front and experienced racism abroad. Engaged in combat for nine months, they were under the command of southern white infantry officers like their captain, Eugene E. Johnston.

The other two, Guadalcanal and Peleliu, are legendary.

A beautifully-wrought and elegiac look at one woman’s search to understand the ravages of war through the eyes of her father.

Addresses the dramatic effects of World War II on the relationship between the men who fought war and their sons and grandsons, drawing on his own and other father-son tales of veterans to reveal how their experiences on the battlefield shaped their lives as fathers.