Brigadier General Teté Puebla, the highest-ranking woman in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, joined the struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956, when she was fifteen years old. This is her story--from clandestine action in the cities, to serving as an officer

Brigadier General Teté Puebla, the highest-ranking woman in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, joined the struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956, when she was fifteen years old. This is her story--from clandestine action in the cities, to serving as an officer

"Breaching the Marianas" by John C. Chapin is a book about the WWII campaigns and Marine Corps history. The book gives a detailed account of what happened on the Mariana Islands of Saipan during the war. Excerpt: "Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan by Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret) It was a brutal day. At first light on 15 June 1944, the Navy fire support ships of the task force lying off Saipan Island increased their previous days' preparatory fires involving all calibers of weapons. At 0542, Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner ordered, "Land the landing force." Around 0700, the landing ships, tank (LSTs) moved to within approximately 1,250 yards behind the line of departure. Troops in the LSTs began debarking from them in landing vehicles, tracked (LVTs). Control vessels containing Navy and Marine personnel with their radio gear took their positions displaying flags indicating which beach approaches they controlled."

After suffering devastating losses in the huge naval battles at Midway and the Soloman Islands, the Imperial Japanese navy attempted to counter-attack against the US forces threatening the Home Islands. Involving the US Fifth Fleet and the Japanese Mobile Fleet, the battle of the Philippine Sea took place during the United States' amphibious invasion of the Mariana Islands during the Pacific War. The two fleets clashed on 19-20 June 1944 and the Japanese carrier fighters were shot down in devastating numbers by US aircraft in what became known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”, before US counterattacks and submarine strikes forced the withdrawal of the Japanese fleet. Fully illustrated with stunning specially commissioned artwork, Mark Stille tells the enthralling story of the last, and largest, carrier battle of the Pacific War, the one that saw the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy as a formed fighting force.

“The narrative moves smoothly and crisply. There is effective treatment of strategy, preparations, and then the invasion and battle for Saipan itself.” —Spencer C. Tucker, author of American Revolution In June 1944 the attention of the nation was riveted on events unfolding in France. But in the Pacific, the Battle of Saipan was of extreme strategic importance. This is a gripping account of one of the most dramatic engagements of World War II. The conquest of Saipan and the neighboring island of Tinian was a turning point in the war in the Pacific as it made the American victory against Japan inevitable. Until this battle, the Japanese continued to believe that success in the war remained possible. While Japan had suffered serious setbacks as early as the Battle of Midway in 1942, Saipan was part of her inner defense line, so victory was essential. The American victory at Saipan forced Japan to begin considering the reality of defeat. For the Americans, the capture of Saipan meant secure air bases for the new B-29s that were now within striking distance of all Japanese cities, including Tokyo. “Harold Goldberg’s riveting story of this conflict brings the dead back to life by blending rigorous research with dramatic narratives by hundreds of survivors. He has written a superb account of a pivotal, little-known, and heart-breaking battle.” —Col. Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (ret.),author of Storm Landings “Using recent interviews he conducted with extant US veterans, [Goldberg] skillfully develops the soldiers’ view of the battle for Saipan in an engaging, clearly written and interesting volume.” —The Journal of Military History

In the capture of the southern Marianas, including the recapture of Guam, during the summer of 1944, Army ground and air forces played an important, though subordinate, role to that of the Navy and its Marine Corps. Marine personnel constituted the bulk of the combat troops employed. The objective of this campaign was -to secure control of sea communications through the Central Pacific by isolating and neutralizing the Carolines and by the establish-ment of sea and air bases for operations against Japanese sea routes and long-range air attacks against the Japanese home land.- Its success would pro-vide steppingstones from which the Americans could threaten further attack westward toward the Philippines, Formosa, and Japan itself, and would gain bases from which the Army Air Forces' new very long range bombers, the B-29's, could strike at Japan's heartland. Recognizing and accepting the chal-lenge, the Japanese Navy suffered heavy and irreplaceable losses in the accompanying Battle of the Philippine Sea; and the islands after capture became the base for all the massive air attacks on Japan, beginning in November 1944. In the operations described in the present volume, landings against strong opposition demonstrated the soundness of the amphibious doctrine and tech-niques evolved out of hard experience in preceding Pacific operations. Bitter inland fighting followed the landings, with Army and Marine Corps divisions engaged side by side. The author's account and corresponding Marine Corps histories of these operations provide ample opportunity to study the differences in the fighting techniques of the two services. Dr. Crowl also deals frankly with one of the best-known controversies of World War II, that of Smith versus Smith, but concludes that it was the exception to generally excellent interservice co-operation. With team effort among the military services the order of the day, this record of the Army's experience in working with the Navy and the Marine Corps should be particularly valuable both now and in the future.