Devil Dogs: A New History of the Second World War from the Sunday Times Bestselling Author of SBS Saul David

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But above all there were the enemy and the enemy’s fighting code of Bushido, which places death with honour above life.

From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last.His recent books include Operation Thunderbolt, which was turned into the movie Entebbe; Crucible of Hell, picked as a Best Book of 2020 by The Times and The Telegraph; and SBS: Silent Warriors, which reached No. David decided to tell the story of the Pacific this way – about one unit fighting all the way through – following the example of Stephen Ambrose’s celebrated Band of Brothers, which looked at the progress of a unit from the D-Day beaches through to victory against Germany. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Sledge struggled to find a publisher for his memoir when he first tried in the late 1970s: now that just about everyone is dead (though a gratifying number of the survivors lived well into their nineties), their astonishing bravery and endurance are nearly incomprehensible to a generation whose principal concern is paying their gas bills, and their recollections have a rarity value that makes them highly prized. Although their own bravery is conspicuous – officers and men will expose themselves in the open to try to flush out snipers, for example – there remains a sense of astonishment that the enemy continues to go on its own suicide missions when it knows the battle is lost.

It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. It is like all those films you have seen of the Pacific war; but this is a scholarly work, and the copious footnotes refer the reader to the accounts showing that these remarkable events really happened. The difficult mountainous ground, filth, squalor, smell of rotting corpses, the humidity, the endless artillery and mortar attacks made it one of the hardest campaigns the Amercican forces had to endure.

Until near the very end of the Second World War, once the defeat of Nazi Germany was certain, the war in the Pacific against the Japanese was entirely America’s struggle. The narrative is one of attritional, sickening fighting, but all the time the Japanese are being pushed back, and Japan itself is coming into the Americans’ sights. For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. His recent books include Operation Thunderbolt , which was turned into the movie Entebbe ; Crucible of Hell , picked as a Best Book of 2020 by The Times and The Telegraph ; and SBS: Silent Warriors , which reached No. Saul David's previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021.