Full Reviews

Fighting Fifteen: The Navy’s Top Ace and the Deadliest Hellcat Squadron of the Pacific War (Stephen L. Moore, Dutton Caliber (PenguinRandomHouse), New York, NY, 432 pp., Nov. 18, 2025 $35 HC)

Patton and the Battle for Sicily: The General, The Navy, and Operation Husky (Flint Whitlock, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 320 pp., 5 Maps, 12 b/w photos, Nov. 18, 2025 $29.95 HC)

The Road to Cisterna: Darby’s Rangers and Their Most Consequential Battle in World War II (David Lyle Williams, LSU Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 401 pp., 22 illustrations, 12 maps, Sept. 26, 2025, $44.95 HC)

Reflections (Raquel Ramsey, Independent, 198 pp., 2025, $19.95 SC)

Pearl Harbor: Japan’s Greatest Disaster (Mark Stille, Osprey/Bloomsbury Publishing, 368pp., 16-pages b.w photos, appendices, Nov. 4, 2025 $35 HC)

Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor (Christine Kuehn, Celadon Books, New York, NY, 272 pp., Nov. 25, 2025 $29.99 HC)

World War II Aerial Combat 1937-1945: The Allied and Axis Air Forces A Visual History (Donald Nijboer, Firefly Books, Richmond Hill, Ont., Can., 368 pp., 300+ color and b/w photographs, index, aircraft schematics and cockpit diagrams, 2025 $39.95 HC)

The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising (Elizabeth R. Hyman, Harper Perennial, New York, NY, 352 pp., Oct. 14, 2025 $19.99 SC)

Midnight Flyboys: The American Bomber Crews and Allied Secret Agents Who Aided the French Resistance in World War II (Bruce Henderson, Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster), 336 pp. Nov. 11, 2025 $30 HC)

New and Noteworthy

Preserving the Legacy: Creating The National WWII Museum (Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, with forward by Tom Brokaw, LSU Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 400 pp., June 6, 2025 $34.95 HC) The story of the official National WWII Museum dedicated to the greatest generation and those who have dedicated themselves to preserving their legacy.

Defeating Japan in 1945 (Norman Reynolds, Independent, 116 pp., $20 SC) A revised 2nd edition of the meticulously researched overview of the pivotal event of the 20th century, defeat of the Japan, with extensive maps, photographs and diagrams.

Japanese Aircraft Carriers, 1920-1945 (Ermanno Martino, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 128 pp., Nov. 11, 2025 $65 HC) In 1922, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Hosho was the first purpose-designed aircraft carrier. This book features a chapter each on 29 ships, with more than 200 photos, plans, line drawings, and color camouflage schemes.

Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War (Alice Lovejoy, University of California Press, Oakland, CA, 256 pp., Aug. 26, 2025 $27.95 HC) Kodak’s Tennessee factory refined uranium for the Manhattan Project; Germany’s Agfa made rayon with camp labor in WWII and chemical weapons in the Great War.

The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival Hardcover (Anne Sebba, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 400 pp., Sept. 16, 2025 $32 HC) Fifty female prisoners from 11 different nations at Auschwitz-Birkenau were forced to form an orchestra by German SS officers in 1943—playing marches for the forced laborers.

World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews (Jochen Hellbeck, Penguin Press, New York, NY, Oct. 21, 2025 $35) The “Jewish-Bolshevik” theory–that the Jewish revolutionaries were preparing the Soviet Union to destroy Germany—was the primary motive behind the Final Solution and the Holocaust.

Unknown Enemy: The Hidden Nazi Force That Built the Third Reich (Charles Dick, Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY, 368 pp., Nov. 11, 2025 $29.99 HC) “Organisation Todt” (OT) was named for Hitler’s favorite engineer, Fritz Todt, who built the Siegfried Line, and ran a paramilitary engineering organization on slave labor for the German war effort.

Seeds of Victory: Defeat, Triumph, and the American Way of War (James Ellman, Stackpole Books, Essex, CT (Dist. by Simon & Schuster), 336 pp., notes, bibliography, index, July 2025 $29.95 HC) From the Revolutionary War to the Korea, Ellman examines eight “pivot point” land, sea and air battles that shaped the American way of war and then uses them as a benchmark to examine more recent conflicts such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

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