True stories from WWII are inspiring, illustrating how people can triumph against what appear to be insurmountable odds. Learn more about the era that created heroes and horrors in a book from the Lititz Public Library.
Hell’s Angels: The True Story of the 303rd Bomb Group in World War II by Jay A. Stout
One of the standout units of the early war’s strategic bombing campaign against the Luftwaffe was the 303rd Bomb Group.
Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
A history of the WWII’s largest concentration camp for woman reveals the tortuous experiences of 130,000 women from over twenty different European countries.
Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor by James M. Scott
In December 1941, senior military counselors planed an ambitious and controversial counterstrike against Japan led by a daredevil flying ace.
The Last Escaper by Peter Tunstall
A celebrated British POW devised an ingenious method for smuggling coded messages back to London.
Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance by Christopher McDougall
A band of Resistance fighters in the mountains of Crete plotted the bold abduction of a German general.
Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope by Wendy Holden
Three Eastern European women separated from their husbands and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp live in fear their pregnancies will be discovered by the Nazis.
Salt Mines and Castles: The Discovery and Restitution of Looted European Art by Thomas Carr Howe, Jr.
First published in 1946, a group of art curators, scholars and architects are sent on a mission to identify and protect cultural sites from Allied bombing.
The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II by Jan Jarboe Russell
Between 1942 and 1948, a secret American internment camp in Texas held hundreds of prisoners for the purpose of being exchanged for other Americans behind enemy lines in Japan and Germany.
Beyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot’s Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front by Lee Trimble
Near the end of WWII, an undercover rescue mission saved hundreds of Allied ex-POWs who were stranded without food, shelter or supplies behind Soviet lines along the Eastern Front.
Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II by Richard Reeves
A journalist examines the causes and consequences of Japanese-American confinement in relocation camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
No Better Friend: One Man, One Dog and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage and Survival in WWII by Robert Weintraub
In an internment camp, a purebred pointer, who instinctively mistrusted anyone in enemy uniform, became a symbol of hope for the prisoners.
The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris by Tilar J. Mazzeo
During the Nazi occupation of Paris, the glamorous Hotel Ritz became a hotbed of intrigue, treachery and courageous acts of defiance.
17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis and the Biggest Cover-up in History by Andrew Morton
Churchill, Eisenhower and King George VI attempted to cover-up the Duke of Windsor’s relationship with Hitler and the bizarre wartime Nazi plot to make him a puppet kind after the invasion of Britain.
August 21, 2015