The History Press [new releases]

Author Margaret Shiels Konitzky reveals the stories of local heroes and the relentless spirit of midcoast Maine.

While World War II raged overseas, the people of midcoast Maine responded with remarkable achievements on the homefront. The shipyard at Bath Iron Works launched a new destroyer every seventeen days. Bowdoin College had more military than civilian students and held three commencements per year. Boothbay Harbor, Bailey Island and Damariscotta all had military bases, and anyone who owned or sailed a boat was recruited for coastal defense. Women worked at machine shops, registered their neighbors for rationing and volunteered for the Civil Defense and Red Cross. Author Margaret Shiels Konitzky reveals the stories of local heroes and the relentless spirit of midcoast Maine.

Marvel at the mettle of Montanans in World War I.

World War I continued with fury in the spring of 1918 as American Yanks endeavored to play the key role in stemming the German tide. Montana’s Marines suffered the bloodiest day in their history as they became “Devil Dogs,” charging through hell on earth at Belleau Wood. Locals in the Wild West Division stormed “over the top” into the Argonne Forest, while nurses, “hello girls,” Navy Yeomanettes and YMCA workers blazed new gender roles. And young Seaman Mike Mansfield, future legendary senator, served on convoy duty against lurking German U-boats.

Award-winning historian Ken Robison illuminates the story of young and vibrant Montanans of all ethnicities as they fought for elusive democracy, at home and abroad, in this world war to end all wars.

From January to July 1942, more than seventy-five ships sank to North Carolina's "Graveyard of the Atlantic" off the coast of the Outer Banks. A Standard oil tanker sank just sixty miles from Cape Hatteras.

German U-boats sank ships in some of the most harrowing sea fighting close to America's shore. Germany's Operation Drumbeat, led by Admiral Karl Donitz, brought fear to the local communities. The U-85 was the first U-boat sunk by American surface forces, and local divers later discovered a rare Enigma machine aboard. Author Jim Bunch traces the destructive history of world war on the shores of the Outer Banks.

Following the success of World War II Rhode Island, author Christian McBurney returns, with new coauthors Norman Desmarais and Varoujan Karentz, to present extraordinary personal stories of local contributions to the war effort.

From John F. Kennedy's training as a PT boat commander at Melville to George H.W. Bush's training as a pilot at Charlestown, the smallest state played an oversized role preparing navy officers and sailors. Important innovations are credited here too. Radar used on night-flying aircraft was developed at Jamestown's Spraycliff Observatory and tested at Charlestown, and at Davisville, Seabees developed a pontoon aircraft landing field tested on Narragansett Bay. Scituate was home to the nation's most successful spy listening station. After these and more captivating stories are revealed, the final chapter details existing World War II sites across the state readers can visit.

Montana's cowboys, miners, foresters, farmers and nurses entered World War I in April 1917 under the battle cry that would resonate on the battlefields in France—Powder River, Let 'Er Buck!

Montana men served in a greater percentage per capita than any other state. Hundreds responded to the call, including local women and minorities, from the nation's first congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin, to young women serving as combat nurses on the front lines. Additionally, the state provided vital supplies of copper and wheat. Learn what role celebrities like cowboy artist Charlie Russell played in the war and how Montanans mobilized, trained and deployed.

Acclaimed historian Ken Robison uncovers new and neglected stories of the Treasure State's contributions to the Great War.

Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States began to prepare to enter World War II.

When the army decided to build a depot in Seneca County in 1941, dozens of families were given only days to vacate the homes they loved and land they had farmed for generations. The depot provided vital jobs for residents, but it also continued to cause controversy even after it was established--all while providing critical support for the army through the Persian Gulf War. Since the base closed in 2000, the community has grappled with what to do with the property, including protecting the area population of white deer. Join local historians Carolyn Zogg and Walter Gable as they tell the story of the Seneca Army Depot and the lives it has affected.

During the American Revolution, the Eastern Shore was filled with both Patriots and Loyalists. Both sides attacked the other using privateers - pirates to their enemies.

These enterprising locals plundered and pillaged, and motivated by profit, some even fought for both sides. The Chesapeake Bay was the site of one of the last and bloodiest naval battles of the Revolution, and privateers were instrumental in the eventual American victory in the war. Author Leonard Szaltis uses local records to bring these legendary Eastern Shoremen and their exploits to life.

A pivotal moment in American history, as told by our forefathers

On October 7, 1780, American Patriot and Loyalist soldiers battled each other at Kings Mountain, near the border of North and South Carolina. With over one hundred eyewitness accounts, this collection of participant statements from men of both sides includes letters and statements in their original form - the soldiers' own words - unedited and unabridged. Rife with previously unpublished details of this historic turning point in the American Revolution, described as the war's "largest all-American fight," these accounts expose the dramatic happenings of the battle, including new perspectives on the debate over Patriot Colonel William Campbell's bravery during the fight. Robert M. Dunkerley's work is an invaluable resource to historians studying the flow of combat, genealogists tracing their ancestors and anyone interested in Kings Mountain and the Southern Campaign.

Resurrecting the legend of Wyoming's Forgotten Female Militia

In the summer of 1890, an army of teenage women with swords drawn and rifles at the ready marched resolutely toward the state capitol to deliver a message to Governor Francis E. Warren and the nation: women want equal rights. As Company K walked alongside women's suffrage pioneer Esther Morris, one could hear the rhythm of their feet keeping step in perfect cadence. Western history remembers murderers, outlaws, prostitutes and saloon girls but not the famous Girl Guards, whose military precision rivaled that of West Point cadets.

Author Dan J. Lyon offers the definitive and evocative account of the young women warriors who defined the Equality State.

Rhode Island's contribution to World War II vastly exceeded its small size.

Narragansett Bay was an armed camp dotted by army forts and navy facilities. They included the country's most important torpedo production and testing facilities at Newport and the Northeast's largest naval air station at Quonset Point. Three special, top-secret German POW camps were based in Narragansett and Jamestown. Meanwhile, Rhode Island workers from all over the state - including, for the first time, many women - manufactured military equipment and built warships, most notably the Liberty ships at Providence Shipyard. Authors from the Rhode Island history blog smallstatebighistory.com trace Rhode Island's outsized wartime role, from the scare of an enemy air raid after Pearl Harbor to the war's final German U-boat sunk off Point Judith.

Michael S. Adelberg brings to life the struggles within Monmouth County, a place that New Jersey governor William Livingston called "the theatre of spoil and destruction."

Like much of New Jersey during the American Revolution, Monmouth County was contested territory in between the great armies. As the Battles of Trenton, Princeton and Bound Brook raged nearby, the people of Monmouth County fought their own internal revolution; Loyalist partisans led insurrections and raids that laid waste to entire neighborhoods. In 1778, General George Washington rallied his Continental army and fought the British within Monmouth's borders, barely holding the field. Monmouth Countians joined the fight and then spent the following weeks caring for the wounded and burying the dead. The remaining war years brought more hardships, as they grappled with a local civil war charged with racial, religious and economic undercurrents - a local civil war that continued long after the Battle of Yorktown supposedly ended hostilities.

Honoring the legacy of the Madison County veterans that gave the ultimate sacrifice...

Madison County answered the call to service and has left behind a generation of those who served in World War One and World War Two and lost their lives in service to the nation and freedom around the globe. This harrowing title covers the lives and stories of those service members.