What makes 2nd Lieutenant Phil Larimore’s story special is what happened in World War II’s closing days and the people—and horses—he interacted with in this Forrest Gump-like tale that is emotional, heartbreaking, and inspiring. Growing up in the 1930s in Memphis, Tennessee, Phil Larimore is the ultimate Boy Scout—able to read maps, put a compass to good use, and traverse wild swamps and desolate canyons. His other great skill is riding horses. Phil does poorly in school, however, leading his parents send to him to a military academy. After Pearl Harbor, Phil realizes he is destined for war. Three weeks before his eighteenth birthday, he becomes the youngest candidate to ever graduate from Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia. Landing on the Anzio beachhead in February 1944, Phil is put in charge of an Ammunition Pioneer Platoon in the 3rd Infantry Division. Their job: deliver ammunition to the frontline foxholes—a dangerous assignment involving regular forays into No Man’s Land. As Phil fights his way up the Italian boot, into Southern France and across the Rhine River into Germany, he is caught up in some of the most intense combat ever. But it’s what happens in the final stages of the war and his homecoming that makes Phil’s story incredibly special and heartwarming. An emotional tale of courage, daring, and heroism, At First Light will remind you of the indomitable human spirit that lives in all of us.

“The infantryman’s war is . . . without the slightest doubt the dirtiest, roughest job of them all.” He went in as a military history buff, a virgin, and a teetotaler. He came out with a war bride, a taste for German beer, and intimate knowledge of one of the darkest parts of history. His name is Dean Joy, and this was his war. For two months in 1945, Joy endured and survived the everyday deprivations and dangers of being a frontline infantryman. His amazingly detailed memoir, self-illustrated with numerous scenes Joy remembers from his time in Europe, brings back the sights, sounds, and smells of the experience as few books ever have. Here is the story of a young man who dreamed of flying fighter aircraft and instead was chosen to be cannon fodder in France and Germany . . . who witnessed the brutality of Nazis killing Allied medics by using the cross on their helmets as targets . . . and who narrowly escaped being wounded or killed in several “near miss” episodes, the last of which occurred on his last day of combat. Sixty Days in Combat re-creates all the drama of the “dogface’s” fight, a time that changed one young man in a war that changed the world.

The final volume in one of the most acclaimed works of military history of this generation. Here is Peter Caddick-Adams' third volume in his trilogy about the final year of the Western front in World War Two. Fire & Steel covers the war's final 100 days-beginning in late January 1945 and continuing until May 8th, 1945, when the German high command surrendered unconditionally to all Allied forces. Caddick-Adams' previous two volumes in the acclaimed series-Sand & Steel, which covers the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, and Snow & Steel, the definitive study of the Battle of the Bulge, the German's final offensive in the war-have set the stage for this concluding volume. In these final months of World War Two, all of Germany is ablaze, from daily bombing runs launched from just across its borders and incessant artillery fire from the east. In the west, the Allied progress was inexorable, with Eisenhower's seven armies taking on Germany's seven armies, town by town, bridge by bridge. With his customary narrative verve and utter mastery of the material, Caddick-Adams does these climactic final months full justice, from the capture of the Ludendorff Railway Bridge at Remagen, to the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, to the taking of Munich on Hitler's birthday, April 20th, and through to VE Day. Fire & Steel ends with the return of prisoners, demobilization of servicemen, and the beginning of the occupation of Germany. A triumphant concluding volume to one of the most distinguished works of military history of this generation.

On July 11, 1943, General Lucian Truscott received the Army's second-highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross, for valor in action in Sicily. During his career he also received the Army Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, and the Purple Heart. Truscott was one of the most significant of all U.S. Army generals in World War II, pioneering new combat training methods—including the famous “Truscott Trot”— and excelling as a combat commander, turning the Third Infantry Division into one of the finest divisions in the U.S. Army. He was instrumental in winning many of the most important battles of the war, participating in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Anzio, and southern France. Truscott was not only respected by his peers and “dogfaces”—common soldiers—alike but also ranked by President Eisenhower as second only to Patton, whose command he took over on October 8, 1945, and led until April 1946. Yet no definitive history of his life has been compiled. Wilson Heefner corrects that with the first authoritative biography of this distinguished American military leader. Heefner has undertaken impressive research in primary sources—as well as interviews with family members and former associates—to shed new light on this overlooked hero. He presents Truscott as a soldier who was shaped by his upbringing, civilian and military education, family life, friendships, and evolving experiences as a commander both in and out of combat. Heefner’s brisk narrative explores Truscott’s career through his three decades in the Army and defines his roles in key operations. It also examines Truscott’s postwar role as military governor of Bavaria, particularly in improving living conditions for Jewish displaced persons, removing Nazis from civil government, and assisting in the trials of German war criminals. And it offers the first comprehensive examination of his subsequent career in the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as senior CIA representative in West Germany during the early days of the Cold War, and later as CIA Director Allen Dulles’s deputy director for coordination in Washington. Dogface Soldier is a portrait of a man who earned a reputation for being honest, forthright, fearless, and aggressive, both as a military officer and in his personal life—a man who, at the dedication ceremony for the Anzio-Nettuno American cemetery in 1945, turned away from the crowd and to the thousands of crosses stretching before him to address those buried there. Heefner has written a definitive biography of a great soldier and patriot.

For the soldier on the front lines of World War II, a lifetime of terror and suffering could be crammed into a few horrific hours of combat. This was especially true for members of the 99th Infantry Division who repelled the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and engaged in some of the most dramatic, hard-fought actions of the war. Once Upon a Time in War presents a stirring view of combat from the perspective of the common soldier. Author Robert E. Humphrey personally retraced the path of the 99th through Belgium and Germany and conducted extensive interviews with more than three hundred surviving veterans. When Humphrey discovered that many 99ers had gone to their graves without telling their stories, he set about to honor their service and coax recollections from survivors. The memories recounted here, many of them painful and long repressed, are remarkable for their clarity. These narratives, seamlessly woven to create a collective biography, offer a gritty reenactment of World War II from the enlisted man’s point of view. Although focused on a single division, Once Upon a Time in War captures the experiences of all American GIs who fought in Europe. For readers captivated by Band of Brothers, this book offers an often tragic, sometimes heartwarming, but always compelling read.

*The instant New York Times bestseller* The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II—all Medal of Honor recipients—from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler’s own mountaintop fortress, by the national bestselling author of The First Wave “Pitch-perfect.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Riveting.”—World War II magazine • “Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action.”—Martin Dugard As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice “Footsie” Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be—and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?

Basing this compelling war memoir on his original World War II diary, Pfc. Richard D. Courtney tells what it was like to be a combat infantryman in the greatest and most destructive war in history. Courtney relates a true first-person account of his travels across Europe as a front line soldier with the 26th Division of General Patton's Third Army.

Author Al Brown, like a few million others, was a civilian one day and a serviceman the next. In My Comrades and Me: Staff Sergeant Al Brown's WWII Memoirs, he gives readers a glimpse into his life as a soldier and his personal experiences during the Second World War. In My Comrades and Me, Brown takes readers through basic infantry training where they were drilled to follow the do something, even if it is wrong rule, the longest, loneliest night of his life, his first day in combat on a dark moonless morning, January 22, 1944, when he almost drowned, and more. He also shares his comrades' stories. Brown hopes that, with these memoirs, families and descendants of WWII soldiers will find answers to their questions about their soldier's combat experiences, experiences that soldiers never revealed to their families after their return or because they never returned. Rarely did the combat soldier reveal them in letters home. Sergeant Brown notes that all infantry combat experiences are fundamentally the same. Only the dates and settings are different for different soldiers.