Discover the Best Audio Stories in History, Military

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/482625 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Above the Reich: Deadly Dogfights, Blistering Bombing Raids, and Other War Stories from the Greatest American Air Heroes of World War II, in Their Own Words

Author: Colin Heaton, Anne-Marie Lewis

Narrator: Barrett Leddy, Macleod Andrews, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Patricia Santomasso, Dominic Hoffman, Peter Bradbury, Mark Bramhall, Fred Sanders, Arthur Morey

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 54 minutes

Release date: June 8, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2 of Total 1

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

Sensational eyewitness accounts from the most heroic and legendary American aviators of World War II, never before published as a book They 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.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/487813 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Rifle: Combat Stories from America's Last WWII Veterans, Told Through an M1 Garand

Author: Andrew Biggio

Narrator: Shawn Compton

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 3 minutes

Release date: June 1, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.3 of Total 10

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

The Rifle is the inspirational story of a twenty-eight-year-old US Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all—WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a US Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for fifty years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine's mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America's last-living WWII veterans. Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. Ninety-six signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/462993 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History

Author: Margalit Fox

Narrator: Richard Elfyn

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 54 minutes

Release date: June 1, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Great Escape for the Great War: the astonishing true story of two World War I prisoners who pulled off one of the most ingenious escapes of all time. FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR® AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR • “Fox unspools Jones and Hill’s delightfully elaborate scheme in nail-biting episodes that advance like a narrative Rube Goldberg machine.”—The New York Times Book Review Imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during World War I, having survived a two-month forced march and a terrifying shootout in the desert, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, join forces to bamboozle their iron-fisted captors. To stave off despair and boredom, Jones takes a handmade Ouija board and fakes elaborate séances for his fellow prisoners. Word gets around, and one day an Ottoman official approaches Jones with a query: Could Jones contact the spirit world to find a vast treasure rumored to be buried nearby? Jones, a trained lawyer, and Hill, a brilliant magician, use the Ouija board—and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception—to build a trap for their captors that will ultimately lead them to freedom.  A gripping nonfiction thriller, The Confidence Men is the story of one of the only known con games played for a good cause—and of a profound but unlikely friendship. Had it not been for “the Great War,” Jones, the Oxford-educated son of a British lord, and Hill, a mechanic on an Australian sheep ranch, would never have met. But in pain, loneliness, hunger, and isolation, they formed a powerful emotional and intellectual alliance that saved both of their lives.  Margalit Fox brings her “nose for interesting facts, the ability to construct a taut narrative arc, and a Dickens-level gift for concisely conveying personality” (Kathryn Schulz, New York) to this tale of psychological strategy that is rife with cunning, danger, and moments of high farce that rival anything in Catch-22.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/456122 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis

Author: Leah Garrett

Narrator: John Lee

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 54 minutes

Release date: May 27, 2021

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. June 1942. The Third Reich is victorious everywhere. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who escaped to Britain just before the War. Many have lost their families, their homes - their whole worlds. And now, in the crucial final battles against the Nazis, they will stop at nothing to defeat them. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Europe to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp - the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. © Leah Garrett 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

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Title: Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941

Author: Robert C. Tucker

Narrator: Paul Woodson

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 34 hours 4 minutes

Release date: May 25, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

In 1929, Stalin plunged Soviet Russia into a coercive 'revolution from above,' a decade-long effort to amass military-industrial power for a new war. He forced twenty-five million peasant families into state-run collectives and transformed the Communist Party into a servile instrument. In 1939, he concluded the pact with Hitler that enabled him to grasp at Eastern Europe while Hitler made war in the West. This book forms the second volume of Robert C. Tucker's biography of Joseph Stalin, following Stalin as Revolutionary. The author shows that Stalin was a Bolshevik of the radical right whose revolution cast the country deep into its imperial, autocratic past. Tucker brings a fresh analysis to these events and to the terror of the 1930s, revealing the motives and methods of what he calls the greatest murder mystery of this century.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/486017 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: War on the Border: Villa, Pershing, the Texas Rangers, and an American Invasion

Author: Jeff Guinn

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Release date: May 18, 2021

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

An “engagingly written” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the “Punitive Expedition” of 1916 that brought Pancho Villa and Gen. John J. Pershing into conflict, and whose reverberations continue in the Southwestern US to this day. Jeff Guinn, chronicler of the Southwestern US and of American undesirables (Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Manson, and Jim Jones) tells the “riveting and supremely entertaining narrative” (S.C. Gwynne, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of the Summer Moon) of Pancho Villa’s bloody raid on a small US border town that sparked a violent conflict with the US. The “Punitive Expedition” was launched in retaliation under Pershing’s command and brought together the Army, National Guard, and the Texas Rangers—who were little more than organized vigilantes with a profound dislike of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Opposing this motley military brigade was Villa, a guerrilla fighter who commanded an ever-changing force of conscripts in northern Mexico. The American expedition was the last action by the legendary African American “Buffalo Soldiers.” It was also the first time the Army used automobiles and trucks, which were of limited value in Mexico, a country with no paved roads or gas stations. Curtiss Jenny airplanes did reconnaissance, another first. One era of warfare was coming to a close as another was beginning. But despite some bloody encounters, the Punitive Expedition eventually withdrew without capturing Villa. Today Anglos and Latinos in Columbus, New Mexico, where Villa’s raid took place, commemorate those events, but with differing emotions. And although the bloodshed has ended, the US-Mexico border remains as vexed and volatile an issue as ever.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/486408 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Operation Pedestal: The Fleet that Battled to Malta 1942

Author: Max Hastings

Narrator: John Hopkins

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 29 minutes

Release date: May 13, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 3

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

The Sunday Times bestseller ‘One of the most dramatic forgotten chapters of the war, as told in a new book by the incomparable Max Hastings’ DAILY MAIL In August 1942, beleaguered Malta was within weeks of surrender to the Axis, because its 300,000 people could no longer be fed. Churchill made a personal decision that at all costs, the ‘island fortress’ must be saved. This was not merely a matter of strategy, but of national prestige, when Britain’s fortunes and morale had fallen to their lowest ebb. The largest fleet the Royal Navy committed to any operation of the western war was assembled to escort fourteen fast merchantmen across a thousand of miles of sea defended by six hundred German and Italian aircraft, together with packs of U-boats and torpedo craft. The Mediterranean battles that ensued between 11 and 15 August were the most brutal of Britain’s war at sea, embracing four aircraft-carriers, two battleships, seven cruisers, scores of destroyers and smaller craft. The losses were appalling: defeat seemed to beckon. This is the saga Max Hastings unfolds in his first full length narrative of the Royal Navy, which he believes was the most successful of Britain’s wartime services. As always, he blends the ‘big picture’ of statesmen and admirals with human stories of German U-boat men, Italian torpedo-plane crews, Hurricane pilots, destroyer and merchant-ship captains, ordinary but extraordinary seamen. Operation Pedestal describes catastrophic ship sinkings, including that of the aircraft-carrier Eagle, together with struggles to rescue survivors and salvage stricken ships. Most moving of all is the story of the tanker Ohio, indispensable to Malta’s survival, victim of countless Axis attacks. In the last days of the battle, the ravaged hulk was kept under way only by two destroyers, lashed to her sides. Max Hastings describes this as one of the most extraordinary tales he has ever recounted. Until the very last hours, no participant on either side could tell what would be the outcome of an epic of wartime suspense and courage.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/423605 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: SAS: Sea King Down

Author: Stuart Tootal, Mark Aston

Narrator: Simon Darwen

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 55 minutes

Release date: May 13, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.63 of Total 16

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. Pre-order the riveting account of SAS action in the Falklands war 'BRILLIANT. A ROLLERCOASTER OF BLISTERING ACTION, SURVIVAL AND BEHIND-THE-LINES DARING' DAMIEN LEWIS After passing the world's toughest Special Forces selection and joining the elite ranks of D Squadron, 22 SAS in 1979, Mark 'Splash' Aston thought the hard part was over. Then on April 2 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Days later D Squadron joined the cutting edge of Britain's campaign to retake the islands. Facing extreme weather and a determined enemy, Splash and the men of D Squadron fought in one extraordinary contact after another. The action never let up. When tragedy struck their Sea King helicopter and it crashed in the freezing South Atlantic, Splash was one of just nine survivors. Evacuated to a hospital ship, Splash defied orders and a suspected broken neck to re-join his unit until the fight was won. An unputdownable, edge-of-the-seat insight into still classified Special Forces operations during the Falklands War, SAS: Sea King Down will take its place alongside classics like Bravo Two Zero as military adventure writing of the highest order. 'Gripping, fast moving and completely authentic. A brilliant piece of work. Better than Bravo Two Zero' - Mike Rose, former Commanding Officer of the SAS © Mark Aston, Stuart Tootal 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/487693 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

Author: Daniel James Brown

Narrator: Louis Ozawa

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 17 hours 40 minutes

Release date: May 11, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.44 of Total 25

Ratings of Narrator: 4.67 of Total 9

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of NPR's 'Books We Love' of 2021 Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography  Winner of the Christopher Award    “Masterly. An epic story of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for military service and displayed uncommon heroism… Propulsive and gripping, in part because of Mr. Brown’s ability to make us care deeply about the fates of these individual soldiers...a page-turner.” – Wall Street Journal From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and resistance, focusing on four Japanese American men and their families, and the contributions and sacrifices that they made for the sake of the nation. In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best—striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/486714 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: A Short History of Vietnam

Author: Dk

Narrator: Chris Hoekstra

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 14 hours 1 minute

Release date: May 6, 2021

Genres: Military

Publisher's Summary:

This is the definitive story of one of the longest and most controversial conflicts in US history. Created in association with the Smithsonian Institution, this authoritative history of the Vietnam War examines its people, politics, events, and lasting effects from a global perspective. A Short History of the Vietnam War is both an all-encompassing showcase of every aspect of the conflict, from the struggle for civil rights to the treatment of prisoners. Detailed descriptions of events, from Operation Passage to Freedom to the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon, are enhanced by eyewitness accounts giving you a truly immersive look at this controversial conflict. A Short History of The Vietnam War shows exactly how battles and decisive moments unfolded, along with an insight into the roles of significant individuals including Henry Kissinger, General Thieu, and President Nixon. A powerful gift for the military enthusiast, A Short History of the Vietnam War is a stirring record of the suffering, sacrifice, and heroism that occurred in America's bloodiest conflict of the 20th century. Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum and research complex - including the National Museum of American History (Armed Forces Division). The Smithsonian consultants are Dr. F. Robert van der Linden, Curator of Air Transportation and Special Purpose Aircraft, National Air and Space Museum; Dr. Alex M. Spencer, Curator of British Military Aviation and Flight Material, National Air and Space Museum; and Jennifer L. Jones, Chair, Armed Forces Division, National Museum of American History. © 2021 Dorling Kindersley © 2021 DK Audio