Books like A dawn like thunder by Robert J. Mrazek

Hell Hawks! is the story of a band of young American pilots and their gritty, close-quarters fight against Hitler's vaunted military. They were the 365th Fighter Group, three squadrons of fighter-bomber pilots. Beginning just prior to D-Day, June 6, 1944, these pilots fresh from flight training in the United States (most were barely twenty years old) flew in close support of Eisenhower's ground forces as they advanced across France and into Germany. They flew the rugged, heavily armed P-47 Thunderbolt -- affectionately known as "the Jug" -- a big tub of a plane that could absorb a pounding from the enemy and still fly back home. Living in tents amid the cold mud of their front-line airfields, the 365th's daily routine had much in common with the GIs they supported. - Jacket flap.

Dr. Bryan Fugate argues that Soviet war‑planning, led by Zhukov and Timoshenko, and a defense-in-depth along the Dnepr were decisive in halting Army Group Center, overturning the view that Hitler’s interference alone caused the failure of Operation Barbarossa.

An intimate memoir of eight daring patrols on the USS Jack, a World War II U.S. submarine, tracing the crew’s hardships, victories, and the author’s rise from ensign to seasoned sailor.

An insightful examination of how the Civil War’s unprecedented loss of life transformed American attitudes toward death, mourning, and citizenship.

Perhaps the most famous aviator of World War II, Butch O'Hare captured America's hearts and headlines in 1942 after saving the carrier Lexington in what has been called the most daring single action in the history of combat aviation - the downing of five attacking Japanese bombers. Yet the untimely and still controversial death of this Medal of Honor recipient the next year cast a shadow over O'Hare's legacy. This first full biography, written with the O'Hare family's cooperation and utilizing recently released Japanese war records, chronicles the short but eventful life of the American hero and sheds new light on his mysterious death. Seasoned naval aviation historians, the authors describe in fascinating detail O'Hare's awe-inspiring feats of aerial combat and his key role in developing tactics such as the Thach Weave and the night-fighting techniques that helped defeat the Japanese.

The Pacific War changed abruptly in November 1943 when Adm. Chester W. Nimitz unleashed his Central Pacific drive, spearheaded by U.S. Marines. The sudden American proclivity for bold amphibious assaults into the teeth of prepared defenses astonished Japanese commanders, who called them "storm landings" because they differed sharply from earlier campaigns. This is the story of seven now-epic long-range assaults executed against murderous enemy fire at Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa - and a potential eighth, Kyushu. The author describes each clash as demonstrating a growing U.S. ability to concentrate an overwhelming naval force against a distant strategic objective and literally kick down the front door. The battles were violent, thoroughly decisive, and always bloody, with the landing force never relinquishing the offensive. The cost of storming these seven fortified islands was great: 74,805 combat casualties for the Marines and their Navy comrades. Losses among participating Army and offshore Navy units spiked the total to 100,000 dead and wounded. Award-winning historian Joseph Alexander relates this extraordinary story with an easy narrative style bolstered by years of research in original battle accounts, new Japanese translations, and fresh interviews with survivors. Richly illustrated and abounding with human-interest anecdotes about colorful "web-footed amphibians," Storm Landings vividly portrays the sheer drama of these three-dimensional battles whose magnitude and ferocity may never again be seen in this world.

A detailed account of the final months of World War II, focusing on the emergence of kamikaze tactics and the fatal attack on the USS Bunker Hill.

A daring B‑17 bomber crew takes on the Japanese Empire in 1943, engaging in the longest dogfight in history and dramatically shifting the Pacific war—at great cost.