In two world wars, some of the largest and most magnificent passenger ships were commandeered by the military and converted to hospital ships, armed merchant cruisers or troopships. Some were converted into dummy battleships, pretending to be something they never could be.
This is the only comprehensive guide to the 124 aircraft and experimental flying machines used by the United States Army since 1947. The definitive reference source on its subject.
When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe
May 1945. Hitler is dead, and the Third Reich little more than smoking rubble. No GI wants to be the last man killed in action against the Germans. But for cigar-chewing, rough-talking, hard-drinking, hard-charging Captain Jack Lee and his men, there is one more mission: rescue fourteen prominent French prisoners held in an SS-guarded castle high in the Austrian Alps. It’s a dangerous mission, but Lee has help from a decorated German Wehrmacht officer and his men, who voluntarily join the fight. Based on personal memoirs, author interviews, and official American, German, and French histories, The Last Battle is the nearly unbelievable story of the most improbable battle of World War II — a tale of unlikely allies, bravery, cowardice, and desperate combat between implacable enemies.
Anfang Mai 1945: Hitler ist tot, Nazi-Deutschland steht vor der Kapitulation. Doch Captain Jack Lee hat noch eine schwierige Mission: Er soll vierzehn prominente französische Häftlinge befreien, die auf einem Schloss in den Alpen gefangen sind – darunter Édouard Daladier, ehemaliger Premierminister Frankreichs, Paul Reynaud und die Schwester von Charles de Gaulle. Gemeinsam mit einem Wehrmachtsoffizier, der seine Soldaten und die Bevölkerung schützen will, stellt er sich den fanatischen SS-Einheiten entgegen – ein einmaliges Bündnis. Der amerikanische Historiker Stephen Harding hat ein spannendes, genau recherchiertes Buch über die Ereignisse auf Schloss Itter geschrieben.