Colin D. Heaton Bücher

DIVIn The German Aces Speak II, Colin Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis profile the WWII air war over Europe through the eyes of Johannes Steinhoff, Erich Alfred Hartmann, Guther Rall, and Dieter Hrabak—four of the Luftwaffe’s’s most interesting and significant pilots. /div

When The German Aces Speak published in 2011, Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine welcomed Colin Heaton’s and Anne-Marie Lewis’s masterful command of interview-based narrative, writing, “. . . what might have been numbing recitations of dogfights are instead vivid descriptions of life as a warrior during World War II.” Indeed, it is this unexpected perspective, brought to life by the authors’ neutrality and thoughtful research, that illuminates a side of war largely hidden from the American public: the experience of the German Luftwaffe pilot. In The German Aces Speak II, Heaton and Lewis paint a picture of the war through the eyes of four more of Germany’s most significant pilots—Johannes Steinhoff, Erich Alfred Hartmann, Gunther Rall, and Dieter Hrabak—put together from numerous interviews personally conducted by Heaton from the 1980s through the 2000s. The four ex-Luftwaffe fighter aces bring the past to life as they tell their stories about the war, their battles, their off-duty lives, their lives after the war, and, perhaps most importantly, how they felt about serving under the Nazi leadership of Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler. Together, the memories of the events captured in The German Aces Speak II continue one of today’s most unique World War II book series, unearthing a facet of the war that has gone widely overlooked for the American public.

Sensational eyewitness accounts from the most heroic and legendary American aviators of World War II, never before published as a bookThey are voices lost to time. Beginning in the late 1970s, five veteran airmen sat for private interviews. Decades after the guns fell silent, they recounted in vivid detail the most dangerous missions that made the difference in the war. Ed Haydon dueled with the deadliest of German aces—and forced him to the ground. Robert Johnson racked up twenty-seven kills in his P-47 Thunderbolt, but nearly lost his life when his plane was shot to ribbons and his guns jammed. Cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay was the Air Corps general who devised the bomber tactics that pummeled Germany's war machine. Robin Olds was a West Point football hero who became one of the most dogged, aggressive fighter pilots in the European theater, relentlessly pursuing Germans in his P-38 Lightning. And Jimmy Doolittle became the most celebrated American airman of the war—maybe even of all time—after he led the audacious raid to bomb Tokyo. Today these heroes are long gone, but now, in this incredible volume, they tell their stories in their own words.

The German invasion, conquest, and occupation of Europe sparked a civilian insurgency response never before witnessed in history. Understanding Germany's military and political failure is crucial in today's world, where unwelcome occupation forces, often in the guise of peace keepers, as well as invaders, attempt to maintain order in a world gone mad. This new book uses exclusive interviews with German and Allied soldiers and commanders as well as civilian irregulars who participated in irregular warfare, either as partisans or guerrillas during World War II. These interviews prove pivotal in supporting the records of both sides, separating fact from fiction, and finally determining the actual causation of political, nationalist, or even personal actions that destroyed a continent.

Three legendary fighter pilots from the Pacific War—all recipients of the Medal of Honor—tell their own stories in this remarkable collection. Marine ace Pappy Boyington is perhaps the most celebrated of all American pilots in the war against Japan, fighting in the skies with both the famed Flying Tigers and his own Black Sheep Squadron. Marine Joe Foss joined Guadalcanal’s Cactus Air Force and destroyed a Japanese Zero on his first mission—the first of twenty-six aerial kills achieved during the war. Navy captain David McCampbell didn’t notch his first kill until June 1944, but he would quickly go on to assemble one of the most remarkable aerial-combat records in history with thirty-four victories, including nine in one day. In this gripping oral history—which spans the entire war— from the Americans who fought the Japanese in China to the final, desperate battle for Okinawa, these three heroes tell their own stories, in their own words. These interviews, personally conducted by military veteran and historian Colin Heaton, are the final testimony of some of America’s greatest warriors.

Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906) painted almost 200 portra its, including twenty - six of himself and twenty - nine of his wife . This book presents twenty - four 'highlights' from a major international exhibition that explores the portraiture of this remarkable artist, whom both Matisse and Picasso called 'the father of us all'. In bringing together a broad selection of Cézanne's portraits, the book reveal s arguably the most personal , and therefore most human, aspect of his art, and one that has hitherto received surprisingly little attention. They range from the artist 's earliest surviving self - portrait , dating from the 1860s, through portraits of his uncle Dominique, his wife Hortense, his son Paul and a range of friends and associates, to his final portrait of Vallier, the gardener at his hou se near Aix - en - Provence, made shortly before the artist's death in 1906. The art historian Mary Tompkins Lewis , author of Cézanne : Art and Ideas (200 0 ) and Cézanne's Early Imagery ( 1989 ) , contributes an illuminating introductory essay on the artist and his portraiture for a genera l readership. Also included is an illustrated chronology of Cézanne's life and work .