Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Illustrations -- A Note on the Language -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Heroic Liaison Pilots of World War II and the Amazing Piper Cub L-4 -- Prologue -- 1 The Pineapple Soldier -- 2 Ninety-Day Wonders and Fair-Haired Boys -- 3 Kauai to Fortification Point -- 4 Tornado Task Force -- 5 Luzon: Lingayen to the Hills -- 6 Over the Hills to Baguio -- 7 Sashaying Around Up North -- Epilogue -- Appendix: History and Specifications of the J-3 Piper Cub -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Index.

Pearl Witherington Cornioley, one of the most celebrated female World War II resistance fighters, shares her remarkable story in this firsthand account of her experience as a special agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Told through a series of reminiscences—from a difficult childhood spent in the shadow of World War I and her family's harrowing escape from France as the Germans approached in 1940 to her recruitment and training as a special agent and the logistics of parachuting into a remote rural area of occupied France and hiding in a wheat field from enemy fire—each chapter also includes helpful opening remarks to provide context and background on the SOE and the French Resistance. With an annotated list of key figures, an appendix of original unedited interview extracts—including Pearl's fiancé Henri's story—and fascinating photographs and documents from Pearl's personal collection, this memoir will captivate World War II buffs of any age.

As a young adolescent, Hollis Dorion Stabler underwent a Native ceremony in which he was given the new name Na-zhin-thia, Slow to Rise. It was a name that no white person asked to know during Hollis's tour of duty in Anzio, his unacknowledged difference as an Omaha Indian adding to the poignancy of his uneasy fellowship with foreign and American soldiers alike. Stabler?s story?coming of age on the American plains, going to war, facing new estrangement upon coming home?is a universal one, rendered wonderfully strange and personal by Stabler?s uncommon perspective, which embraces two worlds, and by his unique voice. ø Stabler's experiences during World War II?tours of duty in Tunisia and Morocco as well as Italy and France, and the loss of his brother in battle?are at the center of this powerful memoir, which tells of growing up as an Omaha Indian in the small-town Midwest of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma in the 1920s and 1930s. A descendant of the Indians who negotiated with Lewis and Clark on the Missouri River, Stabler describes a childhood that was a curious mixture of progressivism and Indian tradition, and that culminated in his enlisting in the old horse cavalry when war broke out?a path not so very different from that walked by his ancestors. Victoria Smith, of Cherokee-Delaware descent, interweaves historical insight with Stabler?s vivid reminiscences, providing a rich context for this singular life.

Abridged by Denis Kelly.

OUR PROUD WOMEN IN UNIFORM/MEMORIES FROM THE FIELD/MAIL CALL.

This volume presents a dramatic collection of significant combat experiences of 79 men in WWII, as told from one combat veteran to another. In the 86 chapters are stories involving all the various branches of combat service and all of the various theaters of war. Within reminiscences, veterans of dangerous encounters are much more apt to open up with details in discussions with men who have also experienced combat. Many find it emotionally distressing to talk of the war with the general public or to recall the horrors of warfare. This is not a history book nor any attempt to tell the big picture of grand campaigns. Instead it is a collection of personal involvements in one-at-a-time incidents of conflict. Many ask what was it like in WWII, for our conflicts in recent years have been vastly different. It has been said that war has become and continues to be an intractable social phenomenon. While some say its elimination is necessary to the survival of mankind, we do not seem to have approached closer to that elimination in the sixty-seven years since WWII ended. Encounters of Warfare remain a stark reality within the present era. That being so, perhaps we should read of what happened as recalled in the most vivid memories of men involved in the most overpowering conflict of modern warfare. Sincerely, John Roush

Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza has carefully crafted his World War II experiences with U.S.-provided Sherman tanks into a highly readable memoir. Between the fall of 1943 and August 1945, Loza fought in the Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. He commanded a tank battalion during much of this period and had three Shermans shot out from under him. Loza's unit participated in such well-known combat actions as the Korsun-Shevchenkovskiy Operation, the Jassy-Kishenev Operation, and the battles for Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. Following the German surrender, Loza's unit was sent to Mongolia, where it participated in the arduous trek across the Gobi Desert to attack the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria. This is the first available detailed examination of the Red Army's exploitation of U.S. war matiriel during World War II and one of the first genuine memoirs available from the Russian front. Loza also provides firsthand testimony on tactical command decisions, group objectives and how they were accomplished, and Soviet use of combat equipment and intelligence. Only after the collapse of the USSR and concomitant relaxing of prohibitions against publication of materials related to the Lend-Lease Program there could this account be made available Dmitriy Loza served as an instructor at the Frunze Academy after the war, retiring in 1967 with the rank of colonel. He resides in Moscow. James F. Gebhardt, now a defense contractor at Fort Leavenworth, is a Vietnam veteran. He is the author of Blood on the Shores: Soviet Naval Commandos in World War II.