February 21, 2010
Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II (Oral History Series)
by J. Todd Moye
Oxford University Press, USA
Available 04/12/10 in Hardcover
As the country’s first African American military pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen fought in World War II on two fronts: against the Axis powers in the skies over Europe and against Jim Crow racism and segregation at home. Although the pilots flew more than 15,000 sorties and destroyed more than 200 German aircraft, their most far-reaching achievement defies quantification: delivering a powerful blow to racial inequality and discrimination in American life.
In this inspiring account of the Tuskegee Airmen, historian J. Todd Moye captures the challenges and triumphs of these brave pilots in their own words, drawing on more than 800 interviews recorded for the National Park Service’s Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project. Denied the right to fully participate in the U.S. war effort alongside whites at the beginning of World War II, African Americans–spurred on by black newspapers and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP–compelled the prestigious Army Air Corps to open its training programs to black pilots, despite the objections of its top generals. Thousands of young men came from every part of the country to Tuskegee, Alabama, in the heart of the segregated South, to enter the program, which expanded in 1943 to train multi-engine bomber pilots in addition to fighter pilots. By the end of the war, Tuskegee Airfield had become a small city populated by black mechanics, parachute packers, doctors, and nurses. Together, they helped prove that racial segregation of the fighting forces was so inefficient as to be counterproductive to the nation’s defense.
Freedom Flyers brings to life the legacy of a determined, visionary cadre of African American airmen who proved their capabilities and patriotism beyond question, transformed the armed forces–formerly the nation’s most racially polarized institution–and jump-started the modern struggle for racial equality.
February 13, 2010
I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen — My Journey Home
by Shoshana Johnson
Touchstone
Available 02/02/10 in Hardcover
In March of 2003, when Operation Iraqi Freedom was only days old, world headlines were made when a U.S. army convoy was attacked in the city of An-Nasiriyah en route to Baghdad. Several soldiers were killed and others were taken prisoner.
Jessica Lynch became the face and name associated with this tragedy, but another female soldier, Shoshana Johnson, was also wounded and captured in the ambush. A video of Shoshana being interrogated by her captors was soon broadcast on Spanish-language television and then picked up by American media. Shoshana had become the first black female prisoner of war in United States history. She was held for twenty-two days.
When Shoshana returned to the United States, she received numerous awards for her valor, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Prisoner of War medals. She appeared on news networks and national television shows such as Oprah, Ellen, The Tonight Show, and Larry King Live, but she was bound by a military gag order. She was unable to discuss what really happened in Iraq — until now.
Shoshana holds nothing back in this harrowing account of an ordinary woman caught in an extraordinary circumstance. She reveals decisions made by higher-ups that may have led to the capture, describes the pain of post-traumatic stress disorder, and shares the surprising story of how a specialist in a maintenance company ended up on the front lines of war.
Divulging personal emotions and frustrations while raising fresh political issues, I’m Still Standing is the never-before-told and much anticipated story of the headline-making ambush, capture, and rescue described with the exceptional bravery and candor of a single mom and soldier who became an American hero.
September 27, 2009
Flygirl
by Sherri L. Smith
Putnam Juvenile
Available 01/22/09
Ida Mae Jones dreams of flight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy’s gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her. When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots — and Ida suddenly sees a way to fly as well as do something significant to help her brother stationed in the Pacific. But even the WASP won’t accept her as a black woman, forcing Ida Mae to make a difficult choice of “passing,” of pretending to be white to be accepted into the program. Hiding one’s racial heritage, denying one’s family, denying one’s self is a heavy burden. And while Ida Mae chases her dream, she must also decide who it is she really wants to be.
September 23, 2009
Freedom Bird
by Donnell B. Jones
Xlibris Corporation
Available 06/09/09
The military slogan: Never leave a soldier behind.
It was a destructive war fought in the jungles of Vietnam, which did not limit its casualties to the flesh but also deep through the soul. Many veterans were forgotten, but one soldier, through this memoir, chronicles his life overseas to remind us of those who were forgotten. Revisit the Vietnam War era through the eyes of a brave American soldier, Donell Jones.
Freedom Bird is based on a devastatingly true account of Jones, a determined soldier trained to fight, kill, and survive under extreme conditions. Joining the American army at the early age of eighteen, Jones was trained to fight and defend the United States against its enemies. He was sent to fight against Communist Vietnam.
In Vietnam, Jones was not just a fighter, but also a living eyewitness to all the horror, pain, and death on the battlefield. For him, the battlefield was a place for a bloody, on-the-spot extermination; the very place where enemies were mercilessly shot at the instant one lays eyes on them. Both the Vietcong and his colleagues were brutally killed before his very eyes, leaving a painful psychological trauma on his young mind. The depth of his story is not only his trip through Vietnam and Korea, but also the devastation the war left on his life in the States.
Experience how Freedom Bird became more than just the emancipation from a brutal war, but an escape from a battle that no gun or army could fight. Join him recall a dark period of his past as he writes this chronicle of courage and fearlessness, this expression of his love and devotion for his beloved America.
As he weaves together haunting memories of the Vietnam War, Jones shares a bitter life spent in the combat zone, which portrays a true spirit of heroism every soldier must have.
June 10, 2009
Rescue at Pine Ridge: Based on a True American Story
by Erich Martin Hicks
Outskirts Press
Available 11/14/08
Novel on the Buffalo Soldiers, fiction based on true story. The rescue of the famed 7th Cavalry by the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers.
rescueatpineridge.com
Author rescue at pine ridge
May 25, 2009
Freedom’s Fight by Gary Phillips
Parker Publishing Inc
Available February 27, 2009
World War II changed the landscape of the world and the heart of America. As the war rages across Europe and Africa, a battle is also being fought on American soil. Eager to join the fight, black soldiers are denied the right to defend their country.
One man is charge with a duty that could change the course of the war in Africa. On a spy mission he searches for a traitor, but as he gets closer he must choose between his obligation to his country and his duty to his race.
A woman reporter finds a deep buried secret that could shock the nation. As she digs deeper into a national conspiracy she finds her life in jeopardy. She must chose between the truth and her life.
A patriotic lounge singer gives up his career to serve his country. To do so, he hides his identity and in the heat of battle makes a choice between the man he thought he was and the man he truly is.
A group of courageous people defy the odds and fight the war of their conscience to keep themselves and their country safe.
May 9, 2009
No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864
by Richard Slotkin
Random House, Available 07/21/09
An intellectually dazzling military history that recounts and reassesses one of the most devastating and dramatic battles of the Civil War, July 30, 1864.
Grant’s Petersburg campaign to end the war is in full swing. The Union Army burrows a tunnel underneath the Confederate position, and packs it with four tons of gunpowder. A division of black troops is trained to spearhead the assault. If the operation succeeds, final Union victory will be in sight. But the massive explosion — the largest yet produced by man — creates a huge crater that blocks the advance, and incompetent generals lose control of the attack. The battlefield becomes a bloody hellhole of trench warfare that previews the devastation of World War I. In a final horror, the battle ends with the massacre of black troops by Rebel soldiers — and some of their own white comrades-in-arms. The demoralizing defeat left 4,500 Union dead and a stalemate that prolonged the war for another year. No other battle in the entire Civil War rivals it for sheer starkness, drama, and horror.
Richard Slotkin’s No Quarter stands apart in revealing the true nature of America’s most devastating war and the racial tensions that informed it.
April 30, 2009
A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighter’s Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home
by Peter Nelson
(Basic Civitas Books)
Available 05/11/09
In A More Unbending Battle, journalist and author Pete Nelson chronicles the little-known story of the 369th Infantry Regiment—the first African-American regiment mustered to fight in WWI. Recruited from all walks of Harlem life, the regiment had to fight alongside the French because America’s segregation policy prohibited them from fighting with white U.S. soldiers.
Despite extraordinary odds and racism, the 369th became one of the most successful—and infamous—regiments of the war. The Harlem Hellfighters, as their enemies named them, spent longer than any other American unit in combat, were the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine, and showed extraordinary valor on the battlefield, with many soldiers winning the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor. Replete with vivid accounts of battlefield heroics, A More Unbending Battle is the thrilling story of the dauntless Harlem Hellfighters.
January 14, 2009
Life Against All Odds
by Alfred Cave
Available 11/26/08
Before he was in his teens, Alfred Cave was already an orphan, a runaway, and a homeless person on the mean streets of New York. Five decades later, he would retire after heading the nation’s largest supported work program, as well as his own successful federal contracting company. This amazing story is recounted in Against All Odds, a stirring account of Cave’s surviving and thriving despite all life could throw at him.
A wide-ranging yet intimate memoir, Against All Odds follows Cave beginning with his earliest recollections in a violently racist South. But the deep-seated attitudes there don’t disappear when he escapes to the North and, later, the U.S. Army. Cave brings readers along for the ride as he rises to a Major, commanding two battalions and receiving a Bronze Star. It’s a revealing glimpse into an ambitious African American soldier’s unique experiences navigating the military’s hesitantly integrated ranks, and the challenges of raising a family along the way. As he returns to the private sector, Cave continues to document an engrossing cast of characters – some endearing, others maddening – that readers won’t soon forget.
September 28, 2008
A Cuban Terrorist Training Camp Through The Eyes of a Jamaican
Toronto, ON, September 22, 2008…BookSurge Publishing author Colin Morgan Dennis presents his memoir The Road Not Taken: Memoirs of a Reluctant Guerrilla, which offers a personal and unique perspective of life in a Cuban terrorist training camp. Think Al Qaeda without the religion.
Excerpt from The Road Not Taken: Memoirs of a Reluctant Guerrilla:
I woke up, as if out of a drunken stupor, to the sound of automatic gunfire and for more than a moment I didn’t know where I was. When I had recovered my composure, I was to discover, to my chagrin, I had missed the lesson ‘How to Ambush a Moving Vehicle.’
Originally published 1985 in his native Jamaica in where it was a bestseller, The Road Not Taken has been revised and updated. Morgan Dennis offers a refreshing style –informal and conversational – that belies the strong undercurrents of trauma and emotional tension. This memoir is a must-read.
ISBN 1-4392-0401-2 Format 6X9 paperback SRP: $18.99 ($19.99 CAN)
Genre: Biography & Autobiography/Personal Memoirs
About the Author:
Colin Morgan Dennis was born in Kingston, Jamaica and attended
Manchester High School. He moved to Canada in 1983. In 1991 he
graduated from Concordia University in Montreal with a degree in
political science and in 1993 with a degree in journalism. He later
pursued graduate studies in public policy and public administration at
Concordia and was president of the graduate students association for
two years. His work has appeared in local newspapers. He lives in
Ontario, Canada.
The Road Not Taken: Memoirs of a Reluctant Guerrilla is available now through Amazon.com, BookSurge.com, Alibris.com and Abebooks.com.
Contact Information
Off-Kilter Publishing
905-791-4794
dencoli4@aol.com
Author Colin Morgan Dennis
