Bracketing The Enemy

The Grumman F6F Hellcat and Mitsubishi A6M Zero-sen were the two principal opposing fighters in the brutal aerial clashes of the Pacific War from 1943 onwards. Reminiscent of the preceding F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat was designed specifically to counter the earlier A6M2 Zero-sen, the strengths and weaknesses of which became fully understood by US designers after an undamaged example was recovered in the Aleutians. The powerful Hellcat had an impressive top speed, rate of climb and armament, and it retained its predecessor's incredible ruggedness. The A6M5 Zero-sen was also born out of an earlier type, but was intended merely as a stop-gap until more modern Japanese fighters could be produced to restore performance parity with Allied aircraft. The chaotic conditions of the Japanese Aircraft industry and war economy prevented new types from being built.Featuring detailed artwork illustrating the technical specifications of these two types and the dramatic encounters between them, this volume focuses on how these iconic fighters came into being, and how they fared as they faced one another over the Pacific skies of World War II.

Techniques, technologies, and applications - the arts and sciences of interrogating criminal suspects, their victims, and the witnesses to their crimes. Sounds exciting, don’t it? ad–ver–saŕ–ial!“Oooooh,†kindâ€a gets you all tingly. Wow! And doesn’t it just set you to thinking about gladiators locked in the deadly dance of hand-to-hand combat? Secrets takes you through the entire process of interrogation from start to finish; BUT, if you were expecting â€waterboarding†and other inefficient methods of torture – FORGET IT! The Adversarial Interview not only works but it’s legal!

By the fall of 1944 the Western Allies appeared to be having it all their own way. The summer’s Normandy invasion had finally succeeded and the Germans had been driven out of northern France and most of the Low Countries. In September the invasion of France’s southern coast had met less opposition and Allied divisions had begun lining up along the Rhine. But while the Americans were about to meet a nasty surprise in the Ardennes, the Germans never did let go of the province of Alsace, and in a hard pocket around the city of Colmar continued to resist. On New Year’s Eve they launched a counteroffensive, Operation Northwind, that nearly put Allied forces back on their heels. While the Allies were eventually able to take care of their Ardennes problem the Colmar one still remained. On January 12, 1945, Eisenhower could only tell George Marshall, “It is a very bad thorn in our side today." This is the story of the Sixth Army Group (7th US & 1st French Armies) which fought on the southern flank of the SHAEF front. The French had multiple problems during this campaign so that increasing number of US divisions needed to take part. In the process the 3rd and 28th Infantry Divisions, and 10th and 14th Armored, among others were able to cover themselves with heroism, though hardly less than the threadbare German 19th Army, which bravely resisted against enormous odds until finally the west bank of the Rhine was cleared. Amidst a horrific winter and rough terrain, interspersed by demolished towns, both sides traded blows in a ferocious campaign often neglected in histories of the war. This book informs us fully of the tremendous and costly struggle waged on that often-neglected sector of the front.

“The difficult fighting in the Colmar Pocket is brought to vivid life” in this WWII chronicle of the Allied 6th Army Group (WWII History). By the fall of 1944, the Western Allied forces appeared to be unstoppable. The summer’s Normandy invasion had driven the Germans out of northern France and most of the Low Countries. In September, they liberated France’s southern coast with little opposition. Then, Allied divisions began lining up along the Rhine. While the Americans met a nasty surprise in the Ardennes, the Germans also held on to the province of Alsace, maintaining a hard pocket around the city of Colmar. On New Year’s Eve, they launched Operation Northwind, a counteroffensive that nearly put Allied forces back on their heels. On January 12, 1945, Eisenhower could only tell George Marshall that Colmar was “a very bad thorn in our side today.” This is the story of the Sixth Army Group, a unit that combined US and French forces, and its unexpectedly bloody and protracted battle for the Colmar Pocket. Amidst a horrific winter and rough terrain, interspersed by demolished towns, the Allied Army Group traded blows with the German 19th in a ferocious campaign. This book informs us fully of the tremendous and costly struggle waged in an often-neglected sector of World War II’s European Theater.

In Fire and Fortitude—winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History—John C. McManus presented a riveting account of the US Army's fledgling fight in the Pacific following Pearl Harbor. Now, in Island Infernos, he explores the Army’s dogged pursuit of Japanese forces, island by island, throughout 1944, a year that would bring America ever closer to victory or defeat. “A feat of prodigious scholarship.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Wonderful.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch • “Outstanding.”—Publishers Weekly • “Rich and absorbing.”—Richard Overy, author of Blood and Ruins • “A considerable achievement, and one that, importantly, adds much to our understanding of the Pacific War.”—James Holland, author of Normandy ’44 After some two years at war, the Army in the Pacific held ground across nearly a third of the globe, from Alaska’s Aleutians to Burma and New Guinea. The challenges ahead were enormous: supplying a vast number of troops over thousands of miles of ocean; surviving in jungles ripe with dysentery, malaria, and other tropical diseases; fighting an enemy prone to ever-more desperate and dangerous assaults. Yet the Army had proven they could fight. Now, they had to prove they could win a war. Brilliantly researched and written, Island Infernos moves seamlessly from the highest generals to the lowest foot soldiers and in between, capturing the true essence of this horrible conflict. A sprawling yet page-turning narrative, the story spans the battles for Saipan and Guam, the appalling carnage of Peleliu, General MacArthur’s dramatic return to the Philippines, and the grinding jungle combat to capture the island of Leyte. This masterful history is the second volume of John C. McManus’s trilogy on the US Army in the Pacific War, proving McManus to be one of our finest historians of World War II.

Florida Historical Society Rembert Patrick Award Chesterfield Smith spearheaded the American Bar Association’s condemnation of Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Smith’s damning statement “No man is above the law” turned him into a national figure. But his outsized accomplishments, and equally outsized personality, had already made the Florida attorney a legend in his home state. Mary Adkins’s biography follows the epic life of a person driven by the motto “do good.” A child of the rural South turned war hero, Smith put himself through law school and rose fast to lead the Florida Bar and mastermind the drafting of a new state constitution. At the same time, he grew his small firm into Holland & Knight, a legal leviathan he imbued with his own sense of public duty. His idealism further manifested in his hiring of women and people of color while his expansive professional network led to a close friendship with future Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Adkins also examines Smith’s mentoring of several outstanding legal figures and the community service organizations still influenced by his humane vision of the law. Fully realized and long overdue, Chesterfield Smith, America’s Lawyer illuminates the complexities of a defining Florida figure who became a legal giant.

Gripping exposé of the act of hostage-taking, and of being a hostage, in the spheres of war and terrorism in post-communist geographies of global Islam.