H. P. Willmott

WARFARE & DEFENCE. Inside AIR FORCE: Air forces of World War II - Fighter planes - Bombing runs - Escort duty - Key missions - Battle of Britain - Combat units - D-Day, plus much more! Get tough with some of World War II's fighting men and units. From battlefield frontlines to Naval convoys, from secret missions to aerial dogfights, Action Force brings together the people, weapons, vehicles, the stats and the facts in one all-action World War II series. You want action packed? Read Action Force! Ages 9+.

Leading historian of the war in the Far East, P.H. Willmott, provides a concise, readable account of the conflict. The book is fully illustrated throughout and incorporates computer generated graphics that bring the battlefields to life.

In late 1943 as the prospect of victory over Germany became discernible, the British high command's attention turned toward the Pacific. At issue was Great Britain's role in what would be the final stage of the Japanese war. Given conflicting strategic considerations, the lack of facilities, supplies, and men, and a navy unfamiliar with large-scale carrier operations, the search for a national strategy against the Japanese was to take a full year. Within the British high command, a bitter debate raged between a prime minister intent upon an Indian Ocean-based amphibious strategy and the service chiefs who recognized that an Upper Burma commitment was unavoidable and saw that the employment of a carrier force in the central Pacific was highly desirable. With this book a noted British naval and military historian follows the debate, tracing the way that policy was shaped as much by the unfolding of events as by deliberate calculations. Drawing on British Cabinet, service, and planning papers, H. P. Willmott examines a process and issues that remain relevant today - the formulation of national policy, its joint-service application and reconstitution, and the confusion of political and military arguments at the highest levels of policy-making. In addition, he examines the decisions that were made against the record of achievement in 1944-1945.

Records and analyzes how the military events in France, Italy, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific decided the war and the future of the world.

Produced by Bison Books ; Troy, Mich. First published in the USA for K Mart Corp., ©1980.

"This high-interest series, aimed at reluctant readers, looks at secret campaigns behind the major conflicts of the past 100 years. Biographical sidebars focus on heroic or notorious personalities. Highlighted fact features include special operations and their results, resistance movements, propaganda and the history of the time - as is known....and not readily known"--Provided by publisher.

Traces the rise of Japan as a military power and the emergence of the United States as a world superpower that found itself drawn into World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor.