
The Force
The Legendary Special Ops Unit and WWII's Mission Impossible
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $6.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Matthew Waterson
-
By:
-
Saul David
About this listen
Hailed as "masterly" (Wall Street Journal) and a "monumental achievement" (Douglas Brinkley), this book tells the riveting, true story of the group of elite US and Canadian soldiers who sacrificed everything to accomplish a crucial but nearly impossible WWII mission.
In December of 1943, as Nazi forces sprawled around the world and the future of civilization hung in the balance, a group of highly trained US and Canadian soldiers from humble backgrounds was asked to do the impossible: capture a crucial Nazi stronghold perched atop stunningly steep cliffs. The men were a rough-and-ready group, assembled from towns nested in North America's most unforgiving terrain, where many of them had struggled through the Great Depression relying on canny survival skills and the fearlessness of youth. Brought together by the promise to take part in the military's most elite missions, they formed a unique brotherhood tested first by the crucible of state-of-the-art training—including skiing, rock climbing, and parachuting—and then tragically by the vicious fighting they would face.
The early battle in the Italian theatre for the strategic fort cost the heroic US-Canadian commando unit—their first special forces unit ever assembled—enormous casualties. Yet the victory put them in position to continue their drive into Italy, setting the stage for the Allies' resurgence toward victory in WWII. The unit, with its vast range of capabilities and mission-specific exercises, became a model for the "Green Berets" and other special forces groups that would go on to accomplish America's most challenging undertakings behind enemy lines.
Knitting first-hand accounts seamlessly into the narrative-drawing on interviews with surviving members and their families; the memoirs, letters, and diaries of Forcemen; and declassified documents in the American, Canadian, British, and German archives—The Force tells a story that is as deeply personal as it is inspiring.
©2019 Saul David (P)2019 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Devil Dogs
- From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan
- By: Saul David
- Narrated by: Adam James
- Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The "Devil Dogs" of King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines—part of the legendary 1st Marine Division—were among the first American soldiers to take the offensive in World World II—and also the last. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in August 1942—the first US ground offensive of the war—and were present when Okinawa, Japan's, most southerly prefecture finally fell to American troops in June 1945. Ordinary men, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army—and defeat it.
-
-
Narration is among worst I've heard
- By Train63 on 11-02-24
By: Saul David
-
The Last Ridge
- The Epic Story of America’s First Mountain Soldiers and the Assault on Hitler’s Europe
- By: McKay Jenkins
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939-40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers.
-
-
Disappointingly Average
- By Dave on 09-23-22
By: McKay Jenkins
-
The Last Hill
- The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle That Defined WWII
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were known as “Rudder’s Rangers,” the most elite and experienced attack unit the Army had. In December 1944, they would be the spearhead into Germany, taking the war into Hitler’s homeland at last. Their colonel was given this objective: Take Hill 400. After two days, when they were finally relieved, only 16 Rangers remained to stagger down from the top of Hill 400. The Last Hill is filled with unforgettable action and characters—a gripping, finely detailed saga of what the survivors of the battalion would call “our longest day.”
-
-
more a history of the rangers in ww2
- By M. Johannes on 10-12-23
By: Bob Drury, and others
-
Operation Chastise
- The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, Peter Noble
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know.
-
-
Wish He Had Stuck to the Core Story
- By John on 06-22-20
By: Max Hastings
-
The Flying Tigers
- The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan
- By: Sam Kleiner
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma.
-
-
This really happened.
- By Jason on 07-26-20
By: Sam Kleiner
-
A Bridge Too Far
- By: Cornelius Ryan
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Bridge Too Far is Cornelius Ryan’s masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshaled the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly twice as many casualties as D-day. In this compelling work of history, Ryan narrates the Allied effort to end the war in Europe in 1944 by dropping the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Focusing on a vast cast of characters, Ryan brings to life one of the most ill-fated operations of the war.
-
-
Great story much better than the movie
- By Amazon Customer on 07-26-12
By: Cornelius Ryan
-
Devil Dogs
- From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan
- By: Saul David
- Narrated by: Adam James
- Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The "Devil Dogs" of King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines—part of the legendary 1st Marine Division—were among the first American soldiers to take the offensive in World World II—and also the last. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in August 1942—the first US ground offensive of the war—and were present when Okinawa, Japan's, most southerly prefecture finally fell to American troops in June 1945. Ordinary men, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army—and defeat it.
-
-
Narration is among worst I've heard
- By Train63 on 11-02-24
By: Saul David
-
The Last Ridge
- The Epic Story of America’s First Mountain Soldiers and the Assault on Hitler’s Europe
- By: McKay Jenkins
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939-40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers.
-
-
Disappointingly Average
- By Dave on 09-23-22
By: McKay Jenkins
-
The Last Hill
- The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle That Defined WWII
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were known as “Rudder’s Rangers,” the most elite and experienced attack unit the Army had. In December 1944, they would be the spearhead into Germany, taking the war into Hitler’s homeland at last. Their colonel was given this objective: Take Hill 400. After two days, when they were finally relieved, only 16 Rangers remained to stagger down from the top of Hill 400. The Last Hill is filled with unforgettable action and characters—a gripping, finely detailed saga of what the survivors of the battalion would call “our longest day.”
-
-
more a history of the rangers in ww2
- By M. Johannes on 10-12-23
By: Bob Drury, and others
-
Operation Chastise
- The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, Peter Noble
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know.
-
-
Wish He Had Stuck to the Core Story
- By John on 06-22-20
By: Max Hastings
-
The Flying Tigers
- The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan
- By: Sam Kleiner
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma.
-
-
This really happened.
- By Jason on 07-26-20
By: Sam Kleiner
-
A Bridge Too Far
- By: Cornelius Ryan
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Bridge Too Far is Cornelius Ryan’s masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshaled the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly twice as many casualties as D-day. In this compelling work of history, Ryan narrates the Allied effort to end the war in Europe in 1944 by dropping the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Focusing on a vast cast of characters, Ryan brings to life one of the most ill-fated operations of the war.
-
-
Great story much better than the movie
- By Amazon Customer on 07-26-12
By: Cornelius Ryan
-
Operation Swallow
- American Soldiers' Remarkable Escape from Berga Concentration Camp
- By: Mark Felton
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this little-known story from World War II, a group of American POW camp leaders risk everything to save hundreds of fellow servicemen from a diabolical Nazi concentration camp. Their story begins in the dark forests of the Ardennes during Christmas 1944 and ends at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in the spring of 1945. This appalling chapter of US military history and uplifting Holocaust story deserves to be widely known and understood. Operation Swallow provides a historical, first person perspective of how American GIs stood up against their evil SS captors.
-
-
Incredible Story
- By J.Brock on 04-02-20
By: Mark Felton
-
This Hallowed Ground
- A History of the Civil War
- By: Bruce Catton
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 18 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is the classic one-volume history of the American Civil War by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. Covering events from the prelude of the conflict to the death of Lincoln, Catton blends a gripping narrative with deep, yet unassuming, scholarship to bring the war alive in an almost novelistic way. It is this gift for narrative that led contemporary critics to compare this book to War and Peace, and call it a "modern Iliad." Now over 50 years old, This Hallowed Ground remains one of the best-loved and admired general Civil War books.
-
-
Still one of the best!
- By Homer on 04-21-19
By: Bruce Catton
-
Target Tokyo
- Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
- By: James M. Scott
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo.
-
-
Vengence is Mine, Thus Sayeth Doolittle
- By Jonathan Love on 06-13-16
By: James M. Scott
-
Against All Odds
- A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice “Footsie” Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy.
-
-
The Greatest Generation.
- By Jay Voigt on 05-28-22
By: Alex Kershaw
-
Every Man a Hero
- A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War
- By: Ray Lambert, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventy-five years ago, he hit Omaha Beach with the first wave. Now, Ray Lambert, 98 years old, delivers one of the most remarkable memoirs of our time, a tour de force of remembrance evoking his role as a decorated World War II medic who risked his life to save the heroes of D-Day.
-
-
A must read for fans of you are there WWII war memoirs
- By Mary A. on 09-18-19
By: Ray Lambert, and others
-
Band of Brothers
- E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Tim Jerome
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. Band of Brothers is the account of the men of this remarkable unit.
-
-
High Expectations Met
- By Audrey on 02-12-13
-
Never in Finer Company
- The Men of the Great War's Lost Battalion
- By: Edward G. Lengel
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first week of October, 1918, six hundred men attacked into Europe's forbidding Argonne Forest. Against all odds, they surged through enemy lines—alone. They were soon surrounded and besieged. As they ran out of ammunition, water, and food, the doughboys withstood constant bombardment and relentless enemy assaults. Seven days later, only 194 soldiers from the original unit walked out of the forest. The stand of the US Army's "Lost Battalion" remains an unprecedented display of heroism under fire.
-
-
An Amazing story
- By Bradley on 11-28-18
By: Edward G. Lengel
-
Marine Raiders
- The True Story of the Legendary WWII Battalions
- By: Carole Engle Avriett
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States' first Special Forces unit in World War II was known as the Marine Raiders. As one Raider explained, Raiders learned a deadly proficiency with the bayonet, they learned to use knives in hand-to-hand combat, and they learned to throw them with the infallible accuracy of vaudeville experts. Marine Raiders gives a gripping account of what it took to become a member of the elite battalions known as Raiders and how they survived their desperate fight in the South Pacific.
-
-
Unreal heroes!
- By Stacey Clark on 12-31-21
-
Taking Paris
- The Epic Battle for the City of Lights
- By: Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
May 1940: The world is stunned as Hitler's forces invade France with a devastating blitzkrieg aimed at Paris. Within weeks, the French government has collapsed, and the City of Lights, revered for its carefree lifestyle, intellectual freedom, and love of liberty, has fallen under Nazi control — perhaps forever.
-
-
Incorrectly titled
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-11-22
By: Martin Dugard
-
Four Hours of Fury
- The Untold Story of World War II's Largest Airborne Operation and the Final Push into Nazi Germany
- By: James M. Fenelon
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the morning of March 24, 1945, more than 2,000 Allied aircraft droned through a cloudless sky toward Germany. Escorted by swarms of darting fighters, the armada of transport planes carried 17,000 troops to be dropped, via parachute and glider, on the far banks of the Rhine River. Four hours later, after what was the war’s largest airdrop, all major objectives had been seized....
-
-
personal and powerful.
- By TXcustomer on 07-09-19
By: James M. Fenelon
-
SOG
- The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam
- By: John L. Plaster
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Plaster’s riveting account of his covert activities as a member of a special operations team during the Vietnam War is “a true insider’s account...this eye-opening report will leave readers feeling as if they’ve been given a hot scoop on a highly classified project” (Publishers Weekly). Code-named the Studies and Observations Group, SOG was the most secret elite US military unit to serve in the Vietnam War - so secret that its very existence was denied by the government.
-
-
More, give me more.
- By LEE on 03-06-19
By: John L. Plaster
-
The Winter Army
- The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors
- By: Maurice Isserman
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the start of World War II, the US Army had two cavalry divisions - and no mountain troops. The German Wehrmacht, in contrast, had many well-trained and battle-hardened mountain divisions, some of whom by 1943 blocked the Allied advance in the Italian campaign. Starting from scratch, the US Army developed a unique military fighting force, the 10th Mountain Division, drawn from the ranks of civilian skiers, mountaineers, and others with outdoor experience.
-
-
great history.
- By Daniel Goodwin on 12-07-24
By: Maurice Isserman
Critic reviews
"The Force brilliantly recounts the heroic exploits of the first U.S. and Canadian Special Operations team, tasked with decommissioning a supposedly impregnable Nazi stronghold. Every chapter is filled with harrowing adventure, life and death struggle, and bedrock patriotism. The amount of new cutting-edge research is impressive. A monumental achievement!"—Douglas Brinkley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Hitler and Stalin
- The Tyrants and the Second World War
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two 20th century tyrants stand apart from all the rest in terms of their ruthlessness and the degree to which they changed the world around them. Briefly allies during World War II, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin then tried to exterminate each other in sweeping campaigns unlike anything the modern world had ever seen, affecting soldiers and civilians alike. Millions of miles of Eastern Europe were ruined in their fight to the death, millions of lives sacrificed.
-
-
Biased in favor of capitalism
- By Gerald Paduano on 04-10-21
By: Laurence Rees
-
Lucky 666
- The Impossible Mission
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the authors of the New York Times best-selling The Heart of Everything That Is and Halsey's Typhoon comes the dramatic untold story of a daredevil bomber pilot and his misfit crew who fly their lone B-17 into the teeth of the Japanese Empire in 1943, engage in the longest dogfight in history, and change the momentum of the war in the Pacific - but not without making the ultimate sacrifice.
-
-
A WWII Pacific Tale
- By A. L. DeWitt on 11-15-16
By: Bob Drury, and others
-
The Bastard Brigade
- The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During World War II, in the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research; Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses—dubbed the Alsos Mission—and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club.
-
-
Awesome
- By Solar red on 07-12-19
By: Sam Kean
-
They Called Us ""Lucky""
- The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War's Hardest Hit Unit
- By: Ruben Gallego, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Ruben Gallego, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first, they were “Lucky Lima”. Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in Lima Company—3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, young men drawn from blue-collar towns, immigrant households, Navajo reservations—returned unscathed on patrol after patrol through the increasingly violent al Anbar region of Iraq, looking for weapons caches and insurgents trying to destabilize the nascent Iraqi government. After two months in Iraq, Lima didn't have a casualty, not a single Purple Heart, no injury worse than a blister. Lucky Lima.
-
-
My perspective as a 3/25 insider...
- By R-N on 06-25-22
By: Ruben Gallego, and others
-
The Desert and the Sea
- 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
- By: Michael Scott Moore
- Narrated by: Corey Snow
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.
-
-
Wow!
- By Jonathan on 08-04-18
-
Indestructible
- One Man's Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII
- By: John R. Bruning
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times best-selling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family - imprisoned by the Japanese - and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way. From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur.
-
-
You will love Pappy's story
- By A. L. DeWitt on 11-15-16
By: John R. Bruning
-
Hitler and Stalin
- The Tyrants and the Second World War
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two 20th century tyrants stand apart from all the rest in terms of their ruthlessness and the degree to which they changed the world around them. Briefly allies during World War II, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin then tried to exterminate each other in sweeping campaigns unlike anything the modern world had ever seen, affecting soldiers and civilians alike. Millions of miles of Eastern Europe were ruined in their fight to the death, millions of lives sacrificed.
-
-
Biased in favor of capitalism
- By Gerald Paduano on 04-10-21
By: Laurence Rees
-
Lucky 666
- The Impossible Mission
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the authors of the New York Times best-selling The Heart of Everything That Is and Halsey's Typhoon comes the dramatic untold story of a daredevil bomber pilot and his misfit crew who fly their lone B-17 into the teeth of the Japanese Empire in 1943, engage in the longest dogfight in history, and change the momentum of the war in the Pacific - but not without making the ultimate sacrifice.
-
-
A WWII Pacific Tale
- By A. L. DeWitt on 11-15-16
By: Bob Drury, and others
-
The Bastard Brigade
- The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During World War II, in the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research; Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses—dubbed the Alsos Mission—and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club.
-
-
Awesome
- By Solar red on 07-12-19
By: Sam Kean
-
They Called Us ""Lucky""
- The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War's Hardest Hit Unit
- By: Ruben Gallego, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Ruben Gallego, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first, they were “Lucky Lima”. Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in Lima Company—3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, young men drawn from blue-collar towns, immigrant households, Navajo reservations—returned unscathed on patrol after patrol through the increasingly violent al Anbar region of Iraq, looking for weapons caches and insurgents trying to destabilize the nascent Iraqi government. After two months in Iraq, Lima didn't have a casualty, not a single Purple Heart, no injury worse than a blister. Lucky Lima.
-
-
My perspective as a 3/25 insider...
- By R-N on 06-25-22
By: Ruben Gallego, and others
-
The Desert and the Sea
- 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
- By: Michael Scott Moore
- Narrated by: Corey Snow
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.
-
-
Wow!
- By Jonathan on 08-04-18
-
Indestructible
- One Man's Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII
- By: John R. Bruning
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times best-selling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family - imprisoned by the Japanese - and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way. From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur.
-
-
You will love Pappy's story
- By A. L. DeWitt on 11-15-16
By: John R. Bruning
-
Shoot for the Moon
- The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11
- By: James Donovan
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, a moment forever ingrained in history. Perhaps the world's greatest technological achievement - and a triumph of American spirit and ingenuity - the Apollo 11 mission, and the entire Apollo program, was a mammoth undertaking involving more than 410,000 men and women dedicated to putting a man on the Moon and winning the Space Race against the Soviets.
-
-
Well Told, But Over Plowed Ground
- By John on 07-24-19
By: James Donovan
-
Cracking the Nazi Code
- The Untold Story of Agent A12 and the Solving of the Holocaust Code
- By: Jason Bell
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an MI6 spy—known as secret agent A12—in Berlin in 1919, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for World War II, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, as well as to various prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, Dr. Bell’s intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only now revealed in Cracking the Nazi Code.
-
-
World war 1 never ended.
- By Kurt Carlson on 05-20-24
By: Jason Bell
-
The Cold War's Killing Fields
- Rethinking the Long Peace
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this sweeping, deeply researched book, Paul Thomas Chamberlin boldly argues that the Cold War, long viewed as a mostly peaceful, if tense, diplomatic standoff between democracy and communism, was actually a part of a vast, deadly conflict that killed millions on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy peace hung over Europe, ferocious proxy wars raged in the Cold War’s killing fields, resulting in more than 14 million dead - victims who remain largely forgotten and all but lost to history.
-
-
Interesting but Biased
- By Jonathan W Schneider on 08-13-18
-
The Unfathomable Ascent
- How Hitler Came to Power
- By: Peter Ross Range
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night of January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler leaned out of a spotlit window of the Reich chancellery in Berlin, bursting with joy. The moment seemed unbelievable, even to Hitler. After an improbable political journey that came close to faltering on many occasions, his march to power had finally succeeded. While the path of Hitler's rise has been told in books covering larger portions of his life, no previous work has focused solely on his eight-year climb to rule: 1925-1933.
-
-
The best account of Hitler’s rise to power.
- By Deal W. Hudson on 08-26-20
By: Peter Ross Range
-
The Court at War
- FDR, His Justices, and the World They Made
- By: Cliff Sloan
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the summer of 1941, in the ninth year of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had molded his Court. He had appointed seven of the nine justices—the most by any president except George Washington—and handpicked the chief justice. But the wartime Roosevelt Court had two faces. One was bold and progressive, the other supine and abject, cowed by the charisma of the revered president. The Court at War explores this pivotal period.
-
-
Fascinating history
- By Richard on 03-14-24
By: Cliff Sloan
-
No Surrender
- A Father, a Son, and an Extraordinary Act of Heroism That Continues to Live on Today
- By: Christopher Edmonds, Douglas Century
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part contemporary detective story, part World War II historical narrative, No Surrender is the inspiring true story of Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville-born enlistee who risked his life during the final days of World War II to save others from murderous Nazis, and the lasting effects his actions had on thousands of lives - then and now.
-
-
Personal and impactful
- By Rodney on 10-10-19
By: Christopher Edmonds, and others
-
Empireworld
- How British Imperialism Shaped the Globe
- By: Sathnam Sanghera
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world.
-
-
Great info about colonialism
- By Ayako E. on 10-04-24
By: Sathnam Sanghera
-
Operation Vengeance
- The Astonishing Aerial Ambush That Changed World War II
- By: Dan Hampton
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, the United States military began to plan one of the most dramatic secret missions of World War II. Its code name was Operation Vengeance. Naval Intelligence had intercepted the itinerary of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, whose stealth attack on Pearl Harbor precipitated America’s entry into the war. Harvard-educated, Yamamoto was a close confidant of Emperor Hirohito and a brilliant tactician who epitomized Japanese military might.
-
-
I want 1/2 my money back
- By DPM on 08-11-20
By: Dan Hampton
-
Escape from the Deep
- A True Story of Courage and Survival During World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early morning hours of October 24, 1944, the legendary U.S. Navy submarine Tang was hit by one of its own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface, while the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges. As the air ran out, some of the crew made a daring ascent through the escape hatch. In the end, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived. But the survivors were beginning a far greater ordeal.
-
-
Dang!! Why didn’t I know about this!?
- By Andy on 06-18-25
By: Alex Kershaw
-
1453
- The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West
- By: Roger Crowley
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history and the end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley's listenable and comprehensive account of the battle between Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium, illuminates the period in history that was a precursor to the current jihad between the West and the Middle East.
-
-
A well written narrative with bizarre and biased commentary
- By Patrick D. Flynn on 08-17-17
By: Roger Crowley
-
The Damascus Events
- The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
- By: Eugene Rogan
- Narrated by: Ronan Summers
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawn from never-before-seen eyewitness accounts of the Damascus Events, eminent Middle East historian Eugene Rogan tells the story of how a peaceful multicultural city came to be engulfed in slaughter. He traces how rising tensions between Muslim and Christian communities led some to regard extermination as a reasonable solution. Rogan also narrates the wake of this disaster, and how the Ottoman government moved quickly to retake control of the city, end the violence, and reintegrate Christians into the community.
-
-
Facts and facts, not bias
- By maher dahdel on 08-11-24
By: Eugene Rogan
-
Book of Queens
- The True Story of the Middle Eastern Horsewomen Who Fought the War on Terror
- By: Pardis Mahdavi
- Narrated by: Pardis Mahdavi, Shila Ommi, Suzanne Toren, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The untold story of generations of Middle Eastern freedom fighters—horsewomen who safeguarded an ancient breed of Caspian horse—and their efforts to defend their homelands from the Taliban and others seeking to destroy them, Book of Queens reaches back centuries to the Persian Empire and a woman disguised as a man, facing an invading army, protected only by light armor and the stallion she sat astride. Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present.
-
-
The amazing story
- By Emily Herndon on 05-11-25
By: Pardis Mahdavi
Good story that felt rushed at the end
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Average History, Average Performance
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great story, not so great narrating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Matthew Waterson's narration is stirring. He draws the reader in and deeply engaged. Can't recommend higher.
Amazing Brave Men
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Simply fascinating and amazing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The force
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A lot of Force build up info…not too much on the actual fighting
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Story itself is potentially engaging. Given the lackluster narration, however, I cannot recommend this audio.
I gotta say, seems to me that a lot of that rage is self-inflicted. I mean, ‘com on, ya sorta have to be some kind of idiot not to reject out of hand, you know, one who claims dems support “post-birth abortions.” Being mad as hell can’t justify not taking vociferous objection to blatant idiocy.
Important military action rendered uninspiringly
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A gritty military history about singularly extraordinary men
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The detail of the training and the operations these men is very well done. These guys were absolute studs, yet you never hear anything about them... Until now.
well Done
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.