Countdown 1945 PDF Download

Author: Chris Wallace
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982143355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A "behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the Americans attack on Hiroshima"--Dust jacket flap.

Author: Chris Wallace
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982176539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Chronicles the final months of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Author: Eri Hotta
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385350511
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A groundbreaking history that considers the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective and is certain to revolutionize how we think of the war in the Pacific. When Japan launched hostilities against the United States in 1941, argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a war they were almost certain to lose. Drawing on material little known to Western readers, and barely explored in depth in Japan itself, Hotta poses an essential question: Why did these men—military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor—put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm’s way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed—eager to avoid war but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor, tempted by the gambler’s dream of scoring the biggest win against impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally proved inevitable. In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals just how divided Japan’s leaders were, right up to (and, in fact, beyond) their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: many of the same leaders seeking to avoid war with the United States continued to adamantly advocate Asian expansionism, hoping to advance, or at least maintain, the occupation of China that began in 1931, unable to end the second Sino-Japanese War and unwilling to acknowledge Washington’s hardening disapproval of their continental incursions. Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and his facile supporters cemented Japan’s place in the fascist alliance with Germany and Italy—unaware (or unconcerned) that in so doing they destroyed the nation’s bona fides with the West. We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic rivalry between Japan’s army and navy. Roles are recast and blame reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the hawks and skeptics among Japan’s elite. Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it. Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing—both Japanese and Western—to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity. An essential book for any student of the Second World War, this compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember those days of infamy.

Author: Stephen Walker
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061839892
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
The story of the bombing of Hiroshima presented in a new and dramatic way: a minute-by-minute account told from multiple perspectives, both in the air and on the ground British feature and documentary director Stephen Walker tells the story of the bombing of Hiroshima in a way only a filmmaker can—not as a dry history of the sad, regrettable, mission, but as an immediate and perilous drama. Walker has extensively interviewed American soldiers, Los Alamos scientists, and Japanese survivors that were involved in the bombing, and thus is able to tell the story through truly alive-on-the-page characters. The result is a narrative that—without either trivializing the tragedy of the bombing or ignoring its importance in WWII’s end—tells the real story of why and how one of the most important events of the 20th century took place. Shockwave might not change anyone’s opinion about the justification of the Hiroshima bombing, but it will provide readers with an unprecedented viewpoint that is sure to educate and enthrall its audience.

Author: Steve Twomey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476776482
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter chronicles the 12 days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, examining the miscommunications, clues, missteps and racist assumptions that may have been behind America's failure to safeguard against the tragedy, "--NoveList.

Author: Tom Kratman
Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises
ISBN: 1618249525
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
#3 in the Countdown modern-day military adventure series. Welcome to the Philippines outback. It's a true garden spot, if you happen to like drug running, bush-bound revolutionary movements, Balkanized tribal warfare, illegal weapons trading, and kidnapping for fun and profit. It's hostage rescue time once again for Terry Welch's special operations company. But this is turning out to be one of those missions. Starting with no clue as to the hostage's whereabouts topped off by Welch and his crew having to endure a rifle company of hated competitors supposedly sent along for reinforcement. Part of the territory for Welch. But then an attack on both companies' home bases leaves families and friends under threat of death and any available support scurrying to defend. Worse, advance team members sent to reconnoiter have been taken hostage as well. No help, no backup, team members in the soup. Welch knows there's only one solution: do whatever it takes. This is H Hour. And the fight is on. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Author: William L. Laurence
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787206017
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
On August 6, 1945, the world was electrified by the news that an American Army bomber had dropped an atomic bomb, with an explosive power equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, on the important Japanese military center of Hiroshima. Three days later another bomb, of improved design and even greater power, was dropped on Nagasaki. The following day, Aug. 10, the Japanese sued for peace. Newspapers and magazines throughout the world printed many thousands of words about the new weapon and the scientific developments that had made it possible. These stories were based largely on official War Department releases prepared by William L. Laurence, science reporter for The New York Times. At the request of the War Department, Mr. Laurence had been granted a leave by The Times several months earlier. Mr. William L. Laurence was the only newspaper man permitted by the War Department to go to all the plants and inspect the processes of production of the atomic bomb, the only newspaper man allowed to witness the secret trial of the bomb in New Mexico, and the only newspaper man who witnessed the actual dropping of one of the bombs on Japan, from a plane above Nagasaki. This book, first published in 1946, is the full story, so far as it may yet be revealed, of the atom bomb, written by the man who is unquestionably the best qualified to write it for the layman.

Author: Bill Sloan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743292472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
The Ultimate Battle tells the full story of the Battle of Okinawa as it has never been told before, utilizing the same up-close narrative style and "grunt's-eye" view of the action that distinguishes Sloan's Brotherhood of Heroesfrom other war books. It is a gripping story of heroism, sacrifice, and death in the largest land-sea-air operation in US history. From April through June 1945, more than 250,000 American and Japanese lives were lost (including those of nearly 150,000 civilians who either committed suicide or were caught in the crossfire). The Ultimate Battle is a searing re-creation of the Okinawa campaign as seen through the eyes of men who were in the midst of it, and it is filled with fresh insights that only these men can provide.

Author: Lesley M.M. Blume
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982128550
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 New York Times bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume reveals how one courageous American reporter uncovered one of the deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century—the true effects of the atom bomb—potentially saving millions of lives. Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the US government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating nature of these experimental weapons. The cover-up intensified as Occupation forces closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing leaks about the horrific long-term effects of radiation which would kill thousands during the months after the blast. For nearly a year the cover-up worked—until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world. As Hersey and his editors prepared his article for publication, they kept the story secret—even from most of their New Yorker colleagues. When the magazine published “Hiroshima” in August 1946, it became an instant global sensation, and inspired pervasive horror about the hellish new threat that America had unleashed. Since 1945, no nuclear weapons have ever been deployed in war partly because Hersey alerted the world to their true, devastating impact. This knowledge has remained among the greatest deterrents to using them since the end of World War II. Released on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Fallout is an engrossing detective story, as well as an important piece of hidden history that shows how one heroic scoop saved—and can still save—the world.

Author: Colin Mason
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136555110
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.