Frank Carlson Library

When Lieutenant Dorothea Oliver signed up to serve her country during WWII, she had no clue of the terror she would face while providing frontline medical care as a member of the Army Nurse Corps. Ollie and her fellow nurses, who called themselves the Fort Riley Five, braved unexpected enemy attacks as they travelled to the battlefield. They fought back terror as they disembarked from a military transport ship timed in between giant swells down a...

If Wallis Simpson had not died on the operating table in December 1936, Edward VIII would not have been King of England three years later. He would have abdicated for "the woman he loves," but now, the throne beckons. If Henry Bannister's car had not careened off the Colombo back-road in the summer before the war, Cynthia Kirkpatrick would never have found out about The Faction. It is autumn 1939, and everything in history is just as it was. Except,...

Berlin, 1934. Ilse Meyer is the aristocratic wife of a scientist whose post-WWI fortunes change for the better when Ilse's husband, Jurgen, is recruited for Hitler's new rocket program. Although Ilse and Jurgen do not share the popular political views rising in Germany, Jurgen's new job forces them to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their financial security. But too late they realize the Nazi's plans to weaponize Jurgen's technology...

When I saw Frank Kessler's collection of photographs I was struck by how different they were from the movie-camera views I see on television. No public relations pictures here, intended to glorify battle and rally support. These were up-close snapshots of the dirty, damp, and disheveled men in the rifle companies and tank units. It was the war as they endured it, as they struggled through it from the beaches of France to the streets of Berlin until

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The American Provisional Tank Group had been in the Philippines only three weeks when the Japanese attacked the islands hours after the raid on Pearl Harbor. One of the tankmen parked his half-track on a runway and shot down a Japanese Zero that day, but the group's first tank-on-tank action – indeed the first American armor battle of World War II – would come two weeks later. Sent north to meet the Japanese landings in Lingayen Gulf, the men...

As the German Luftwaffe subjected Britain's major cities and ports to unremitting waves of aerial bombardment, doctors, nurses, and first aiders constantly risked their lives to give urgent treatment to the severely wounded. Over 80,000 casualties were sustained during this period and city hospitals, especially in London, were working under extreme conditions. The diaries of London nurses reveal that they were confronted by a vast array of appalling...

"We were the dreamers of dreams, the singers of songs. We were the music makers. We would not hear nor play nor love without each other. This is a prelude to our experience, an overture to who we were and how we arrived on the shores of friendship." Beginning in 1939 prewar Prague, While the Music Played focuses on the story of young Max Mueller, a curious bright romantic-a budding musician, piano tuner, and nascent journalist. Max is on the cusp...

The only way you'll leave Auschwitz is through the chimney.The words still rang in Agnes Markx's head as she left the Judenramp and the hive of activity around the train behind. As a nurse assigned to Block 10, she realizes the stories of the horrors transpiring here weren't exaggerated. Now an unwilling accomplice in the Nazi doctors' medical experiments, she vows to save as many women under her care as possible.Electrician Joel Kozak has access...

This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct. In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage-in all its forms-as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you'll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations,...

This is a fine World War 2-era historical novel (based on Allan Cole's family experiences) set in Florida, on the "Home Front". Nazi submarine attacks off the coast are but the start of the problems for local residents. But human will to overcome obstacles in the face of adversity will surely save the day...won't it? The author writes: "Between February and May of 1942, German U-boats operated with impunity off the Florida coast, sinking nearly two...