Commager Henry Steele - The Story of World War II

PRAISE FOR THE EXPANDED, UPDATED EDITION OF

The Story of World War II

With his superb narrative flair, masterful eye for detail, and perfect blend of colorful anecdote with historical context, Donald Miller has given vibrant new life to a valued work. This account of World War II is likely to remain a classic for generations to come.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of No Ordinary Time

Rousing. A compelling history.

The Tampa Tribune

Miller returns to Commagers text, adding the perspective of time, historical context, and additional details for a sweeping account of the war from the Nazi conquests in Europe to Japans defeat.

Alissa MacMillan, Daily News

A thorough history that is faithful in feeling to the original.

Sandra Dallas, The Denver Post

This is a stunning achievement. Weaving extraordinary anecdotes and firsthand accounts of combat into the epic drama of World War II, Donald L. Miller has crafted a suspenseful and riveting retelling of perhaps the greatest story in human history.

Andrew Carroll, editor of War Letters

This combination of popular history and soldier testimony is a unique and wonderfully successful event. Put together with skill and sensitivity, it is a chronicle of ruin and agony, both a tribute and a warning. Enthusiastically recommended.

Paul Fussell, author of Wartime and Doing Battle

The distinguished historian Don Miller has taken a great book and made it even better. A compelling amalgamation of the old and the new-absorbing history interwoven with riveting personal narratives of the war. If youre interested in learning more about the Second World War, this is a grand place to start.

Dr. Douglas Brinkley, Director, The Eisenhower Center for American Studies, University of New Orleans

A publishing milestone. Thoughtful, exhilarating. Among the quintessential books penned on the subject.

Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer

ALSO BY DONALD L. MILLER

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America

Lewis Mumford, A Life

The Lewis Mumford Reader

The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields (with Richard Sharpless)

The New American Radicalism

ALSO BY HENRY STEELE COMMAGER

The American Mind

The Blue and the Gray, 2 vols.

The Spirit of Seventy-Six, 2 vols. (with Richard B. Morris)

Freedom, Loyalty and Dissent

The Nature and Study of History

Freedom and Order

The Commonwealth of Learning

The Defeat of America

The Search for Racial Equality

Theodore Parker: A Biography

The Growth of the American Republic, 2 vols. (with Samuel Eliot Morison)

Britain Through American Eyes

America in Perspective

Jefferson, Nationalism and the Enlightenment

Documents of American History

Heritage of America, 2 vols. (with Allan Nevins)

Empire of Reason

Donald L. Miller

REVISED EXPANDED, AND UPDATED
FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXT BY
HENRY STEELE COMMAGER

SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS
New York London Toronto Sydney

This book is for my mother, Frances, and in memory of my father, Donald L. Miller.

With love and gratitude.

Simon & Schuster Paperbacks Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020

Copyright 1945 by Henry Steele Commager

Copyright renewed by Lou Reda Productions and Mary Steele Commager

Revisions and introduction copyright 2001 by Donald L. Miller

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Simon & Schuster paperback edition 2006

SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com.

Designed by Richard Oriolo

Maps by Guenter Vollath

Manufactured in the United States of America

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Miller, Donald L. The story of World War II / Donald L. Miller ; original text by Henry Steele Commager.

p. cm.

Rev., updated, and reworked version of: The story of the Second World War / edited with historical narrative by Henry Steele Commager. 1945.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

1. World War, 1939-1945. I. Title: Story of World War Two. II. Title: Story of World War 2. III. Commager, Henry Steele, 1902- IV. Story of the Second World War. V. Title.

D743.M546 2001

940.53-dc21 2001049638

ISBN-13: 978-0-743-22718-6

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-12822-0

PHOTO CREDIT KEY

LRP-Lou Reda Productions USAAF-U.S. Army Air Force

M25-M25 Studio USCG-U.S. Coast Guard

NA-National Archive USMC-U.S. Marine Corps

SC-U.S. Army Signal Corps USN-U.S. Navy

www.SimonandSchuster.com

MY DEBTS ARE SUBSTANTIAL. TO LOU REDA, who assisted in every way with his terrific energy. To his wonderfully cooperative staff and collaborators, who went out of their way to help me: Mort Zimmerman, Joan York, Norman Stahl, Sharon Stahl, John McCullough, Joseph H. Alexander, Samuel Jackson, Tracy Conor, Lydia Bruneo, Douglas Joiner, Lous beautiful wife, Timi, and Rod Paschall, editor of the Military History Quarterly, who read this book in manuscript. Mort Zimmerman, Mark Natola, and John McCullough were especially helpful with the photographs and Mark Natola loaned me transcripts of interviews he conducted with B-29 crewmen. At Lou Redas studios I was fortunate to be working with three World War II veterans, Lou, Mort Zimmerman, and John McCullough, all of whom I interviewed for this book. Lou helped steer me to many other veterans and opened doors for me all over the country.

Special thanks to Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans, and to Stephen E. Ambrose, its founder and presiding spirit, who made available to me their vast collection of oral histories, written memoirs, and letters; and to others at the Center, especially Kevin Willey and Michael Edwards, who made the Eisenhower Center a welcoming home away from home during work on this book. Thanks also to the immensely helpful librarians at Lafayette College, especially Douglas Moore and Therry Schwartz, who ran a nonstop interlibrary loan operation for me. To Margaret Drain at WGBH-TV Boston, who provided me with transcripts of interviews from World War II film documentaries presented on The American Experience. To Benis M. Frank, former director of the U.S. Marine Corps Oral History Project, who gave me voluminous source material on the Marines in the Pacific and shared with me his experiences as a young warrior in the assaults on Peleliu and Okinawa.

I wish to thank Mary Commager, Henry Steele Commagers widow, for providing me with biographical material on Commager from the Henry Steele Commager Papers at Amherst College and for encouraging me to write this book. I owe a special debt to Lafayette Colleges Excel Program and its former director, Jeff Bader, for providing me with two superb student assistants, Rebecca Waxman and Janine Stavrovsky. They were with me every step of the way, and I am grateful to them. Two other Lafayette students helped with the photographs, Carter Figueroa and Pete Gannon. And Lauren Sheldon, another Excel scholar, was an indispensable fact-checker. Lafayette students Rose Pilato and John Krystofik also helped with some of the research.