San Antonio College Library

This book is an illustrated history of the secret weapons that changed the course of World War II. Deep in the bunkers of Nazi Germany, many of the world's top scientists worked to create a new generation of war winning super weapons. A few of these, such as jet aircraft and the V2 rocket, became realities at the end of the war, others never made it off the drawing board. Written by a noted research scientist, this book charts the history of secret...

"The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had...

Almost from the moment in 1940 that Otto Frisch and Rudofl Peierls suggested, from their small office in the University of Birmingham, that an atomic weapon could be miniaturized and delivered to its target by aircraft, the concept of atomic espionage can be said to have existed. No sooner had the famous Frisch-Peierls Memorandum been received by the British War Cabinet than a Soviet mole, John Cairncross, passed the details on to his Soviet contact....

May 10, 1940. The Germans launch an offensive into Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg. The French and British armies are caught off guard and find themselves surrounded, so they are ordered to pull back to Dunkirk. 400,000 men crowd onto the beaches and wait to be embarked back to England: Operation Dynamo begins as General Guderian's Panzer divisions speed towards the town. As Guderian is about to launch a decisive assault on Dunkirk, he receives a...

Historian Peter Barton concludes his history of the battle in the final months of the campaign. He shows how a remarkable German tactical revolution begun in the summer of 1916 continued throughout this period to frustrate the Allied advance. This would have profound implications, tragically extending the entire First World War far beyond Allied expectations. Barton also presents a new narrative which argues that the battle of the Somme ended not...

Inspired by newsreels, France, England, and Germany reveal their versions of the "truth" to their citizens. Between September 1939 and June 1940, we view how each side saw the inexorable plunge Europe took into chaos.

"Here, for the first time, former high level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking first-hand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that...

"A thrilling narrative of scientific triumph-and the unimaginable, world-ending peril it brought us. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom, the United States marshaled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction with unimaginable explosive power. It would begin with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured by humans. In a matter of months, a city designed to...

"The epic history of the AR-15 rifle, America's most controversial weapon"-- In the 1950s an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. He sought to devise a lightweight, easy-to-use weapon that could replace the M1s touted by soldiers in World War II. What he did create was a lethal handheld icon of the American century. McWhirter and Elinson track the AR-15 from inception to ubiquity. How did...

In this lively approach to recording the impact of technology on the war at sea, Kenneth Poolman presents comprehensive descriptions of new technical developments and then offers dramatic examples of their use in action during World War II. He explains how Allied navies deployed new weapons to combat the savage campaign mounted by German submarines and surface raiders against the Allies' supply lines. Weapons like ASDIC (sonar), radar, high frequency...