Table of Contents
Introduction 10
The Seeds of War 1914-1939
This is a war to end all wars 18
The Great War
A peace built on quicksand 20
A flawed peace
Democracy is beautiful in theory 22
Italy and the rise of fascism
Cruelty commands respect 24
Rise of the Nazis
Heil Hitler 30
Establishing the Nazi state
The culmination of alienation 34
Dictators and fragile democracies in Europe
There will be no communism 40
The Spanish Civil War
To make the nation free, we must sacrifice freedom 42
China in turmoil
Expansion is the destiny of the Japanese people 44
Japan on the march
We demand land and territory 46
German expansion
Savagery triumphant 48
Kristallnacht
It is us today. It will be you tomorrow 50
Failure of the League of Nations
Peace for our time 51
Appeasing Hitler
Europe Goes to War 1939-1940
A turning point in the history of Europe 56
Europe on the brink
They will never emerge from the German embrace 58
The destruction of Poland
There is a hush over all Europe 64
The Phony War
Men … stand firm 66
Preparations for war
Attack at once, by day or night 67
Battle of the River Plate
The wolves will eat well this winter 68
The Winter War in Finland
German planes bombed and strafed us 69
The invasion of Denmark and Norway
If the tanks succeed then victory follows 70
Blitzkrieg
A miracle of deliverance 76
Dunkirk
Crushed by the forces hurled against us 80
The fall of France
I only need a few thousand dead 88
Italy enters the war
Defense of the mother country 90
Colonial ties
Never was so much owed by so many to so few 94
The Battle of Britain
Stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions 98
The Blitz
We shall never surrender 100
Britain organizes for total war
The Widening War 1941-1942
We must be the great arsenal of democracy 108
The end of US neutrality
She went down with her colors flying 109
The sinking of the Bismarck
One torpedo, one ship 110
The U-boat war intensifies
I have never seen such defiance of death 114
War in the Balkans
The desert is a godforsaken land 118
North Africa and the Mediterranean
Join hands with Russia through Iran 122
Control of the Middle East
The world will hold its breath 124
Operation Barbarossa
Fight for Motherland and victory! 132
The Great Patriotic War
The Holocaust of bullets 136
Nazi massacres
This means war with America 137
Japan's dilemma
A date which will live in infamy 138
The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
Accept no result save victory 146
America at war
I shall die only for the emperor 154
Japanese advances
How does India profit … in Britain's war? 158
India in World War II
The Pacific struggle 159
Defending Australia
A momentous victory is in the making 160
The Battle of Midway
A northern saga of heroism, bravery, and endurance 166
Attacks on Arctic convoys
The most bombed place on Earth 167
The siege of Malta
Might makes right 168
Nazi Europe
The Final Solution 172
The Holocaust
We must defend the city or die in the attempt 178
The Battle of Stalingrad
We were not just prisoners but slaves 184
Prisoners of war
The cruel reality 188
Germany and the reality of war
The end of the beginning 192
From Gazala to El Alamein
At last we are on our way 196
Operation Torch
The geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled 198
The secret war
Turning the Tide 1943-1944
They are finished 208
Victory in the desert
The enemy is vicious, clever, and ruthless 210
The invasion of Italy
The graveyard of the Japanese army 212
The battle for the Solomons and New Guinea
The enemy's new location devices make fighting impossible 214
A showdown in the Atlantic
A mighty fire hurricane raced through the streets 220
Bombing of Germany
We must use our full resources 224
Germany's war industry
Friends in fact, in spirit, and in purpose 225
Allied summits
Awake and fight! 226
Resistance movements
They were around us, on top of us, and between us 232
The Battle of Kursk
Loose lips might sink ships 236
Propaganda
The magnificent heroic struggle 242
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Every man should do his utmost 244
The western Pacific
Kill All, Burn All, Loot All 250
China and Japan at war
Rome is more than a military objective 254
The fall of Rome
Overpaid, oversexed, and over here 255
US troops in Britain
The tide has turned 256
The D-Day landings
Dawn brought no relief, and cloud no comfort 264
V-weapons
The road of revenge! 266
Operation Bagration
It is time that something was done 270
The plot to kill Hitler
Warsaw was to be razed to the ground 271
The Warsaw Uprising
Nonstop convoys of trucks of all shapes and sizes 272
The Allies sweep eastward
I think it is a suicide operation 274
Operation Market Garden
It is just a question of crossing the Rhine 275
Battles at the border
We must be superhuman to win the war 276
The Battle of Leyte Gulf
The daily duty … is to die 277
Kamikaze pilots
One hundred million hearts beating as one 278
The Japanese home front
A violent and costly sortie 280
The Battle of the Bulge
Endgame 1945
The final defeat of the common enemy 286
The Allies invade the Reich
Now they are going to reap the whirlwind 287
The destruction of German cities
The Eastern Front is like a house of cards 288
The Soviets push into Germany
Seize Rangoon before the monsoon 290
The Allies fight back in Burma
No human being could then conceive … what we saw 294
Liberating the death camps
We fought for a cause and not for conquest 296
Last stand in Italy
The world must know what happened, and never forget 298
Victory in Europe
We shall defend this island … to the end 304
Japan under siege
My God, what have we done? 308
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The skies no longer rain death 312
Japan surrenders
For your tomorrow, we gave our today 314
The cost of war
Civilization cannot survive these wrongs being repeated 318
The Nuremberg Trials and denazification
Preserve in peace what we won in war 320
Aftermath
Index 328
Quote Attributions 335
Acknowledgments 336
