
Turning the Tide
The USAAF in North Africa and Sicily
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Ragland
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents Turning The Tide by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, read by Christopher Ragland.
Packed with personal accounts of the action, this is a vivid narrative history of the often-overlooked USAAF campaign in North Africa and Sicily in World War II.
In 1942, the Western Allies needed to take the offensive against the Axis to relieve pressure on the Soviet Union. With planning for a cross-Channel invasion beset by logistical and operational difficulties, in May 1942 President Roosevelt ordered his military leaders to prepare to support the British in the Mediterranean. This led to the first USAAF units arriving in the Middle East in July, firstly as reinforcements for the British and later as part of the Operation Torch landings in French Morocco and Algeria in November.
In little over ten months from the summer of 1942, the USAAF in North Africa grew from nothing to a senior partner, providing aircraft and crews the other Allies were unable to match. The Axis forces that had controlled almost the entire southern shore of the Mediterranean had been swept from the African continent – thanks in no small part to the efforts of the USAAF.
Using first-hand accounts from pilots and other aircrew, Tom Cleaver describes how the USAAF units that landed in Morocco were forced to learn their own lessons in combat with veteran Luftwaffe units, and how the experience gained in the skies over North Africa and Sicily was invaluable in developing the air forces that would dominate the skies over Europe in the latter years of the war.
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Classic Stahel
- By abulbulian on 06-15-24
By: David Stahel
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Hitler's Panzer Generals
- Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded
- By: David Stahel
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz Guderian, are largely unknown. This biographical study of four German panzer army commanders serving on the Eastern Front is based upon their unpublished wartime letters to their wives. David Stahel offers a complete picture of the men conducting Hitler's war in the East, with an emphasis on the private fears and public pressures they operated under.
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Unique and intriguing study of the Panzer Leaders of 1941
- By Rodney W. Schmisseur on 03-06-24
By: David Stahel
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Pacific Thunder
- The US Navy's Central Pacific Campaign, August 1943–October 1944
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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On 27 October 1942, four "Long Lance" torpedoes fired by the Japanese destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo exploded in the hull of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8). Minutes later, the ship that had launched the Doolitte Raid six months earlier slipped beneath the waves of the Coral Sea 100 miles northeast of the island of Guadalcanal and just north of the Santa Cruz Islands, taking with her 140 of her sailors. With the loss of Hornet, the United States Navy now had one aircraft carrier left in the South Pacific.
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Good for what it is, but not what it claims to be
- By David Maher on 12-18-17
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The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945
- Modern War Studies
- By: Robert M. Citino
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world's leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this book, Citino charts the path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a "war of movement," inexorably led to Nazi Germany's defeat.
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The fake English with a pseudo German accent,
- By Neil on 11-29-24
By: Robert M. Citino
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The Air War Through German Eyes
- How the Luftwaffe Lost the Skies over the Reich
- By: Jonathan Trigg
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.
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Somewhat interesting but repetitive & misses stuff
- By B Taub on 08-24-24
By: Jonathan Trigg
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Tidal Wave
- From Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The United States Navy won such overwhelming victories in 1944 that had the Navy faced a different enemy the war would have been over at the conclusion of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. However, in the moment of victory on October 25, 1944, the US Navy found itself confronting an enemy that had been inconceivable until it appeared. The kamikaze, meaning 'divine wind' in Japanese, was something Americans were totally unprepared for; a violation of every belief held in the West.
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Horrible writing
- By DearMrDear on 06-02-18
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Holding the Line
- The Naval Air Campaign in Korea
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Holding the Line chronicles the carrier war in Korea from the first day of the war to the last, focusing on frontline combat while also describing the technical development of aircraft and shipboard operations and how these all affected the broader strategic situation on the Korean Peninsula.
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Get to the point
- By J.Brock on 12-30-19
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Midway
- The Pacific War’s Most Famous Battle
- By: Mark Stille
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Midway is the most famous naval battle of the Pacific War, and one of the most mythologized. The traditional view of the battle, popularized in its immediate aftermath and surviving through to the present day, is of a heavily outnumbered American force snatching victory in the face of overwhelming odds. This view is simplistic and, in many respects, wrong. Pacific War expert Mark Stille provides a detailed analysis of this pivotal battle, and argues that Midway was neither a miraculous American victory, nor a product of good fortune.
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Authors need to leave personal opinions out of history books
- By Roberto G on 12-28-24
By: Mark Stille
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Going Downtown
- The US Air Force Over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 1961–75
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The involvement of the US Air Force in the Southeast Asian Wars began in 1962 with crews sent to train Vietnamese pilots, and with conflict in Laos, and finally ended in 1972 with the B-52 bombing of Hanoi, though there were Air Force pilots unofficially flying combat in Laos up to the end in 1975. The missions flown by USAF aircrews during those years in Southeast Asia differed widely, from attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail at night with modified T-28 trainers, to missions “Downtown,” the name aircrew gave Hanoi, the central target of the war.
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A succinct overview
- By Snippersly on 04-18-24
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The Ride
- Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Timed for the 250th anniversary of one of America’s most famous founding events: Paul Revere’s legendary ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the myth that every American learns in school.
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Interesting Tidbits of History
- By Ellen on 05-19-25
By: Kostya Kennedy
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Race of Aces
- WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky
- By: John R. Bruning
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1942, America's deadliest fighter pilot, or "ace of aces" - the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker - offered a bottle of bourbon to the first US fighter pilot to break his record of 26 enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the "race of aces" as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command.
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Boring, confusing storyline, some technical details wrong
- By ATM on 04-09-20
By: John R. Bruning
Great telling of little told stories
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