The Military category has 1,612 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 5,283 ratings. The most-rated is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
We Were One
Summary
The platoon included four pairs of best friends. Each of the four would lose a best friend forever. Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company's 1st Platoon became one of the first American forces to enter Fallujah, where they encountered some of the most intense hand-to-hand combat since World War II. Civilians were used as human shields or as bait to lure soldiers into buildings rigged with explosives; suicide bombers approached from every corner hoping to die and take Americans with them; radical insurgents, high on adrenaline, fought to the death. Award-winning author and historian Patrick O'Donnell stood shoulder to shoulder with Lima Company's 1st Platoon as they fought through the streets of Fallujah, their casualties mounting. This is their story.
©2006 Patrick K. O'Donnell (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Their Last Full Measure
Summary
As the Confederacy steadily crumbled under the Union army's relentless hammering, dramatic developments in early 1865 brought the bloody war to a swift climax and denouement. Their Last Full Measure relates these thrilling events, which followed one another like falling dominoes - from Fort Fisher's capture to the burning of South Carolina's capital to the fall of Petersburg and Richmond and, ultimately, to Lee's surrender at Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination. Acclaimed historian Joseph Wheelan braids the disparate events into a compelling, fast-paced account of powerful armies; civil and military leaders, both flawed and splendid; and ordinary people, black and white, struggling to survive the war's wreckage in Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
©2015 Joseph Wheelan (P)2015 Tantor
Dare to Resist
Summary
Trapped and tempted, this battle of wills rages all night long. Kady Dresco and Colton Brooks click on a level that defies logic. There are only two problems. One, he's her older brother's irritating best friend, and two, they're bidding on the same military security services contract. When the competition heats up, Colton is torn between wanting to strangle Kady (and her annoying brilliance) and kissing her into submission. Which is a bad idea for a million reasons, because Kady's submission is exactly what he craves. Being trapped in a tiny motel room with the object of his darkest fantasies will require every ounce of his restraint. Kady doesn't want his restraint, but Colton knows better. She deserves love, marriage, and a white picket fence - three things Colton can't give her. But her proximity and the memory of their steamy near-miss three years ago slowly destroys his resolve. And he's not sure how much longer he can keep his hands off - or his heart closed.
©2014 Laura Kaye (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Knights of Bushido
Summary
The war crimes trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo meted out the Allies' official justice; Lord Russell of Liverpool's sensational bestselling books on the Axis' war crimes decided the public's opinion. The Knights of Bushido, Russell's shocking account of Japanese brutality in the Pacific in World War II, describes how the noble founding principles of the Empire of Japan were perverted by the military into a systematic campaign of torture, murder, starvation, rape, and destruction. Notorious incidents like the Nanking Massacre and the Bataan Death March emerge as merely part of a pattern of human rights abuses. Undoubtedly formidable soldiers, the Japanese were terrible conquerors. Their conduct in the Pacific is a harrowing example of the doctrine of mutual destruction carried to the extreme, and begs the question of what is acceptable—and unacceptable—in total war.
©2008 Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Here with Me
Summary
Sawyer LaGrange. He’s my best friend’s older brother. He’s quiet, brooding, sinfully sexy.... Dark hair, a scruffy square jaw, and deep lines of muscle I trace my fingers along slowly, followed by my lips.... He always does what’s right. Until me... They say you get in life what you have the courage to ask for. Well, I’m brave. And I want him. Secrets. Everybody has them. Big, small, innocent...forbidden. Mindy was a line I should never have crossed. But I did. She was beautiful...sassy and tempting. And rules were made to be broken. We broke them all. Now I’m home, released from service with hidden scars. Now my secrets are the demons that grow stronger every day. I try to send her away, but I can’t let her go. She’s my reason to fight, and I’ll walk through hell to be the man she deserves. To give her a reason to stay here with me. (Here with Me is a stand-alone best friend’s older brother, second-chance, military romance. No cheating. No cliff-hangers.)
©2020 TLM Productions LLC (P)2020 TLM Productions LLC
Bloody Okinawa
Summary
A stirring narrative of World War II's final major battle - the Pacific war's largest, bloodiest, most savagely fought campaign - the last of its kind. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, more than 184,000 US troops began landing on the only Japanese home soil invaded during the Pacific war. Just 350 miles from mainland Japan, Okinawa was to serve as a forward base for Japan's invasion in the fall of 1945. Nearly 140,000 Japanese and auxiliary soldiers fought with suicidal tenacity from hollowed-out, fortified hills and ridges. Under constant fire and in the rain and mud, the Americans battered the defenders with artillery, aerial bombing, naval gunfire, and every infantry tool. Waves of Japanese kamikaze and conventional warplanes sank 36 warships, damaged 368 others, and killed nearly 5,000 US seamen. When the slugfest ended after 82 days, more than 125,000 enemy soldiers lay dead - along with 7,500 US ground troops. Tragically, more than 100,000 Okinawa civilians perished while trapped between the armies. The brutal campaign persuaded US leaders to drop the atomic bomb instead of invading Japan. Utilizing accounts by US combatants and Japanese sources, author Joseph Wheelan endows this riveting story of the war's last great battle with a compelling human dimension.
©2020 Joseph Wheelan (P)2020 Hachette Books
Hell from the Heavens
Summary
On the morning of April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey saw what seemed to be the entire Japanese air force assembled directly above. They were about to become the targets of the largest single-ship kamikaze attack of World War II. By the time the unprecedented assault was finished, 32 sailors were dead and more than 70 wounded. Although she lay shrouded in smoke and fire for hours, the Laffey somehow survived. The gutted American warship limped from Okinawa's shore for home, where the ship and crew would be celebrated as heroes. Using personal interviews with survivors, the memoirs of crew members, and their wartime correspondence, John Wukovits breathes life into the story of this forgotten historic event.
©2015 John Wukovits (P)2015 Tantor
Tercios
Summary
Este audio libro relata con extraordinaria épica la aventura de la infantería española desde los tiempos del Gran Capitán, a principios del siglo xvi, hasta la disolución formal de los tercios dos siglos después. La pluma de José Javier Esparza y el pincel de José Ferre Clauzel, como si ambos hubieran estado allí - quizá lo estuvieron - , nos explican cómo se construyó el mejor ejército del mundo, quiénes eran aquellos hombres - y aquellas mujeres - , cómo combatían, cómo vestían, como vivían y cómo morían, por qué y desde cuándo los tercios se llamaron así, cómo se usaban un arcabuz y una pica, por qué hacíamos la guerra en Italia, cómo peleaba la primera infantería de marina de la historia y cómo se hacía un asedio en Flandes. Una lección de historia militar que es también un fascinante paseo por dos siglos de Historia de España. Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2017 José Javier Esparza Torres (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Valley Forge
Summary
The number-one New York Times best-selling authors of The Heart of Everything That Is and Lucky 666 return with an unforgettable and perhaps the most underappreciated chapter in American history - the inspiring, pause-resisting account of Valley Forge, the Continental Army winter camp where George Washington turned the tide of the American Revolution. On December 19, 1777, some 12,000 members of America’s nascent Continental Army staggered into Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a small encampment 23 miles northwest of British-occupied Philadelphia. The starving and half-naked force was reeling from a string of demoralizing defeats at the hands of the King George III’s army and barely equipped to survive the coming winter. Their commander in chief, the focused and forceful George Washington, was at the lowest ebb of his military career. With the Continental Congress in exile and its treasury depleted, the American Revolution appeared lost. As the days and weeks passed, however, Washington embarked on a mission to transform his troops from a bobtail army of citizen soldiers into a professional fighting force. Keeping a wary eye out for a British attack, he was aided by a trio of homegrown generals as well as a young coterie of American advisors and foreign volunteers led by Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, and the Marquis de Lafayette. Within six months, Washington had achieved his miracle. Valley Forge is the riveting true story of an underdog US toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents - and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation - the New York Times best-selling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide a breathtaking account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2018 Bob Drury, Tom Clavin (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio
Supreme Commander
Summary
Seymour Morris, Jr., combines political history, military biography, and business management to tell the story of General Douglas MacArthur’s tremendous success in rebuilding Japan after World War II in Supreme Commander, a lively, in-depth work of biographical history complementary to The Generals, The Storm of War, and Truman. He is the most-decorated general in American history - and the only five-star general to receive the Medal of Honor. Yet Douglas MacArthur’s greatest victory was not in war but in peace. As the uniquely titled Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, he was charged with transforming a defeated, militarist empire into a beacon of peace and democracy - "the greatest gamble ever attempted", he called it. A career military man, MacArthur had no experience in politics, diplomacy, or economics. A vain, reclusive, and self-centered man, his many enemies in Washington thought he was a flaming peacock, and few, including President Harry Truman’s closest advisors, gave him a chance of succeeding. Yet MacArthur did so brilliantly, defying timetables and expectations. Supreme Commander tells for the first time, the story of how MacArthur’s leadership achieved a nation-building success that had never been attempted before - and never replicated since. Seymour Morris, Jr., reveals this flawed man at his best who treated a defeated enemy with respect; who made informed and thoughtful decisions yet could be brash and stubborn when necessary, and who lead the Occupation with intelligence, class, and compassion. Morris analyzes MacArthur’s key tactical choices, explaining how each contributed to his accomplishment, and paints a detailed picture of a true patriot - a man of conviction who proved to be an outstanding and effective leader in the most extraordinary circumstances.
©2014 Seymour Morris Jr. (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
Finest Years
Summary
Preeminent military historian Max Hastings presents Winston Churchill as he has never been seen before. Winston Churchill was the greatest war leader Britain ever had. In 1940, the nation rallied behind him in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering. Himself a hero, he expected others to show themselves heroes also, and was often disappointed. It is little understood how low his popularity fell in 1942, amid an unbroken succession of battlefield defeats. Some of his closest colleagues joined a clamour for him to abandon his role directing the war machine. Hastings paints a wonderfully vivid image of the Prime Minister in triumph and tragedy. He describes the ‘second Dunkirk’, in 1940, when Churchill’s impulsiveness threatened to lose Britain almost as many troops in north-west France as had been saved from the beaches; his wooing of the Americans, and struggles with the Russians. British wartime unity was increasingly tarnished by workers’ unrest, with many strikes in mines and key industries. By looking at Churchill from the outside in, through the eyes of British soldiers, civilians and newspapers - and also those of Russians and Americans - Hastings provides new perspectives on the greatest Englishman. He condemns as folly Churchill’s attempt to promote mass uprisings in occupied Europe, and details ‘Unthinkable’ - his amazing 1945 plan for an Allied offensive against the Russians to liberate Poland. Here is an intimate and affectionate portrait of Churchill as Britain’s saviour, but also an unsparing examination of the wartime nation which he led and the performance of its armed forces. Max Hastings studied at Charterhouse and Oxford and became a foreign correspondent, reporting from more than 60 countries and 11 wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard. He has won many awards for his journalism. Among his best-selling books, Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize. After 10 years as editor and then editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard, in 1996. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was knighted in 2002.
©2009 Max Hastings (P)2014 Audible Studios
Lincoln's Greatest Speech
Summary
After four years of unspeakable horror and sacrifice on both sides, the Civil War was about to end. On March 4, 1865, at his second inauguration, President Lincoln did not offer the North the victory speech it yearned for; nor did he blame the South solely for the sin of slavery. Calling the whole nation to account, Lincoln offered a moral framework for peace and reconciliation. Eventually this "with malice toward none" address would be accepted and revered as one of the greatest in the nation's history. White's compelling description of Lincoln's articulation of our nation's struggle and the suffering of all - North, South, soldier, slave - offers new insight into Lincoln's own hard won victory over doubt and his promise of authority and passion. Delivered only weeks before his assassination, the speech was the culmination of Lincoln's moral and rhetorical genius.
©2002 Ronald C. White, Jr. (P)2002 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Gambling with Armageddon
Summary
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer comes the first effort to set the Cuban Missile Crisis, with its potential for nuclear holocaust, in a wider historical narrative of the Cold War - how such a crisis arose and why at the very last possible moment it didn't happen. In this groundbreaking look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Martin Sherwin not only gives us a riveting, sometimes hour-by-hour explanation of the crisis itself, but also explores the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post-World War II world. Mining new sources and materials and going far beyond the scope of earlier works on this critical face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union - triggered when Khrushchev began installing missiles in Cuba at Castro's behest - Sherwin shows how this volatile event was an integral part of the wider Cold War and was a consequence of nuclear arms. Gambling with Armageddon looks in particular at the original debate in the Truman administration about using the atomic bomb; the way in which President Eisenhower relied on the threat of massive retaliation to project US power in the early Cold War era; and how President Kennedy, though unprepared to deal with the Bay of Pigs debacle, came of age during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here, too, is a clarifying picture of what was going on in Khrushchev's Soviet Union. Martin Sherwin has spent his career in the study of nuclear weapons and how they have shaped our world. Gambling with Armegeddon is an outstanding capstone to his work thus far.
©2020 Martin J. Sherwin (P)2020 Random House Audio
How Carriers Fought
Summary
In November 1921, the first purpose-built aircraft carrier was launched by the Japanese, followed a year later by the launch of the British Hermes. The conversion of battle cruisers into aircraft carriers after World War I required the consideration of issues including handling aircraft on the flight deck and the techniques of attacking enemy ships, and the evolution of carrier operations was ongoing when World War II broke out. With a focus on the conflict in the Pacific between the US Navy and the imperial Japanese fleet, this title examines how aircraft carriers fought during World War II by first considering all the tools and building blocks of carrier operations, and then discussing the various battles that involved aircraft carriers to explore how carrier operations evolved during war. Every aspect of carrier operations is covered; from the technology used on the carriers and in aircraft for navigation and communication, to what life was really like in the cockpit for the pilots. A world of tactical dehydration, amphetamine pills, and illegal smoking is explored, as well as the measures pilots implemented to reduce their risk of death in the event of being hit.
©2018 Lars Celander (P)2019 Tantor
This Mighty Scourge
Summary
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom and many other award-winning books, James M. McPherson is America's preeminent Civil War historian. Now, in this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the most enduring questions about one of the defining moments in our nation's history. Listeners will find insightful pieces on such intriguing figures as Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Jesse James, and William Tecumseh Sherman, and on such vital issues as Confederate military strategy, the failure of peace negotiations to end the war, and the realities and myths of the Confederacy. Combining the finest scholarship with luminous prose, and packed with new information and fresh ideas, this book brings together the most recent thinking by the nation's leading authority on the Civil War.
©2007 James M. McPherson (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
War Beneath the Sea
Summary
Sweeping from the frigid waters of the North Atlantic to the steaming South Pacific, this riveting chronicle of submarine warfare is the first to cover all the major submarine campaigns of the war, describing, in detail, the operations of the British, American, Japanese, Italian, and German submarine and anti-submarine forces. Beginning with a vivid re-creation of the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia by a German U-boat in September 1939, critically acclaimed military historian Peter Padfield's compelling narrative casts an unflinching eye on the devastating consequences of maritime warfare. The often harrowing encounters unfold with urgency and power, balanced by his keen sense of objectivity and perspective. Exploring the full spectrum of the submarine and anti-submarine warfare experience, this brilliantly detailed account pulls no punches. Facts and figures that stagger the imagination are revealed in starkly human terms, and disturbing questions abound. Padfield addresses the controversial issues raised with candor and insight, and the result is not only an impressive achievement but a milestone work in the history of the 20th century.
©2008 Peter Padfield (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
War on the Waters
Summary
Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war’s naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy’s blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war’s early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world’s first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war’s most important strategic victories - as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis. James M. McPherson taught US history at Princeton University for 42 years and is the author of more than a dozen books on the Civil War era. His books have won a Pulitzer Prize and two Lincoln Prizes.
©2012 the University of North Carolina Press (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
A Letter from the King of Poland to His Queen
Summary
In 1683, an Ottoman army of over 140,000 men arrived before the walls of Vienna. The forces of King John III Sobieski of Poland arrived in the nick of time, defeating the Turks and saving the city. This is the king’s account of the events, addressed to his wife, Marie Casimire Louise de La Grange d'Arquien.
Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks
Beloved
Summary
Men suck. They break you. Leave you. Take everything until there's nothing left. And frankly, I'm done allowing them to make me feel insignificant. So, forget men. I'll just throw myself into my job, because at least that never fails me. Jackson has other plans, though. I refuse to be impressed by his perfect body, the cute dimple on his cheek, or the rugged stubble on his face. Jackson Cole can be resisted. But, I'm only fooling myself. He's going to wear me down. I can feel it. In the end he'll prove that once again, I'm no one's beloved.
©2014 Corinne Michaels (P)2020 Corinne Michaels
Mission: Her Defense
Summary
One former special forces Marine. One tall, handsome police detective who pushes all her buttons. One dangerous investigation that forces them to work together. Blair Mason is badass to the bone. She's no stranger to loss and barely survived the mission that ended her military career. Now, as part of Team 52, she never shies away from a fight to ensure pieces of powerful ancient technology don't fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, she's often forced to "liaise" with the team's contact at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. The tall, hard-bodied detective ignites her temper quicker than any man she's ever known...and after a terrible massacre, she's horrified to find that she and MacKade are being ordered to work together. Detective Luke MacKade was born a protector. He takes care of his family, and as a dedicated homicide detective, he protects his city. He is less thrilled with his job of cleaning up after Team 52 after they tear through Vegas on a mission. Blair is a woman who sets him off just by breathing, but even he can't deny the powerful attraction he feels to her strength and skill. When several cursed samurai swords are stolen in a bloody attack, it is up to Luke and Blair to get them back...before more blood is shed. But others are after the swords and their hidden powers. As Luke and Blair's dangerous investigation intensifies, they face danger at every turn. Luke battles his intense need to protect the woman he's falling for, a woman who neither wants or needs his protection. But as their desire burns white-hot, Luke will learn that the toughest defenses are the ones around Blair's heart.
©2019 Anna Hackett (P)2019 Anna Hackett