Should We Fall to Ruin
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Should We Fall to Ruin
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Narrated by:
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David Tredinnick
About this listen
This is the untold story of a remote garrison of Allied soldiers on New Guinea during WWII who stood up to the Japanese invasion despite insurmountable odds.
When the Japanese invade in 1942, the Australian men and women stationed at the New Guinea port of Rabaul flee into the jungle. Written off by their government as ‘hostages to fortune', the little-known garrison on Australia's tropic frontier has been left with no modern equipment, no lifeline to the outside, and no means of escape. Most are captured and killed in the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru, which remains Australia's worst sea disaster. But the surviving soldiers and nurses carry on, to fight the Japanese on other fronts, or to witness the collapse of the Japanese Empire from the inside. Having borne the brunt of defeat, their letters and diaries also record the turning point of the war and the march to victory.
Rich in detail drawn from first-person accounts, Should We Fall to Ruin illuminates this untold period in military history. It is a compelling tale of bravery and resilience in the face of a seemingly unstoppable enemy.
©2022 Harrison Christian (P)2022 W F HowesListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Nazi Germany expected its airborne attack on Crete in 1941 to be a textbook victory based on tactical surprise. Little did they know that the British, using Ultra intercepts, had already laid a careful trap. It should have been the first German defeat of the war, but a fatal misunderstanding turned the battle around.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Engrossing
- By Jean on 02-01-16
By: Antony Beevor
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Ship of Ghosts
- The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of of Her Survivors
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Mark Cashman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 369
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 260
Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.
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4 out of 5 stars
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interesting read
- By Laurie on 05-11-07
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African Kaiser
- General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918
- By: Robert Gaudi
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,010
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 918
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Story5 out of 5 stars 914
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with each other not just in the bloody trenches - but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well Written, Well Read, Well Done!
- By Matthew on 02-25-17
By: Robert Gaudi
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The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,967
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,625
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,620
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
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5 out of 5 stars
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A political as well as military history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-30-15
By: John Toland
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Kokoda
- By: Paul Ham
- Narrated by: Peter Byrne
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
It was a war without mercy, fought back and forth along 90 miles of river crossings, steep inclines and precipitous descents, with both sides wracked by hunger and disease, and terrified of falling into enemy hands. Defeat was unthinkable: the Australian soldier was fighting for his homeland against an unyielding aggressor; the Japanese ordered to fight to the death in a bid to conquer ‘Greater East Asia’.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pulls no Punchs
- By daryl on 10-03-10
By: Paul Ham
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Undefeated
- America's Heroic Fight for Bataan and Corregidor
- By: Bill Sloan
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story5 out of 5 stars 73
Abandoned by their government, the men and women of the American garrison struggled against impossible military odds, rampant disease, and slow starvation to delay inevitable surrender by the largest American military force ever. Rather than picturing these defenders as little more than helpless victims of an overwhelmingly powerful and sadistic enemy-as most previous books about the Philippines campaign have done- Undefeated credits American troops with the unexcelled heroism and indomitable spirit they displayed under the worst imaginable conditions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mesmerizing
- By Amazon Customer on 03-30-17
By: Bill Sloan
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The Story of World War II
- By: Donald L. Miller, Henry Steele Commager
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 24 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,844
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,469
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3,454
Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the most powerful accounts of warfare ever published. Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely fought - and whose outcome was in greater doubt - than one might imagine. This is the war that Americans on the home front would have read about had they had access to previously censored testimony.
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5 out of 5 stars
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INCREDIBLE! WELL-RESEARCHED, COMPLETE & UNBIASED!
- By The Louligan on 07-15-14
By: Donald L. Miller, and others
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Rogue Heroes
- The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,371
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,057
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,052
Britain's Special Air Service - or SAS - was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: Given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war matériel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Those Who Dared, Won!
- By Matthew on 10-07-16
By: Ben Macintyre
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The Jersey Brothers
- A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home
- By: Sally Mott Freeman
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 533
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 481
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Story5 out of 5 stars 480
They are three brothers, all navy men, who end up coincidentally and extraordinarily at the epicenter of three of the war's most crucial moments. Bill is picked by Roosevelt to run his first map room in Washington. Benny is the gunnery and antiaircraft officer on the USS Enterprise, one of the only carriers to escape Pearl Harbor and by the end of 1942 the last one left in the Pacific to defend against the Japanese. Barton, the youngest and least distinguished of the three, is shuffled off to the Navy Supply Corps because his mother wants him out of harm's way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brothers Unbroken
- By Gillian on 05-12-17
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D-Days in the Pacific
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Gary Dikeos
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 83
Although most people associate the term D-day with the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, it is military code for the beginning of any offensive operation. In the Pacific theater during World War II there were more than one hundred D-days. The largest - and last - was the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, which brought together the biggest invasion fleet ever assembled, far larger than that engaged in the Normandy invasion. D-Days in the Pacific tells the epic story of the campaign waged by American forces to win back the Pacific islands from Japan.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Terrific one volume history of the Pacific war.
- By Bill on 12-01-12
By: Donald L. Miller
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D-Day
- The Battle for Normandy
- By: Antony Beevor
- Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 625
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 452
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 453
Renowned historian Antony Beevor, the man who "single-handedly transformed the reputation of military history" (The Guardian) presents the first major account in more than 20 years of the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Paris. This is the first book to describe not only the experiences of the American, British, Canadian, and German soldiers, but also the terrible suffering of the French caught up in the fighting.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A commendable book
- By Michael on 01-19-10
By: Antony Beevor
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An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa (1942-1943)
- The Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1
- By: Rick Atkinson
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,593
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,295
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,287
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern learner can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating book, great performance
- By Ted on 05-30-16
By: Rick Atkinson
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The Great Raid on Cabanatuan
- Rescuing the Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor
- By: William B. Breuer
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 591
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 514
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Story5 out of 5 stars 514
Before General MacArthur could fulfill his stirring promise of "I shall return" and retake the Philippines from Japanese control, a remarkable rescue mission would have to take place. Captured American soldiers, emaciated and ill from brutal mistreatment, were still being held at the notorious Cabanatuan prison camp. A small band of Army Rangers set out on a daring rescue effort: to penetrate thirty miles into Japanese-controlled territory, storm the camp, and escape with the POWs...
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Great Story
- By PCB on 11-08-05
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Dunkirk
- By: Joshua Levine
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Leighton Pugh
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
The Battle of Dunkirk, in May/June 1940, is remembered as a stunning defeat yet a major victory as well. The Nazis had beaten back the Allies and pushed them across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the ultimate race against time, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were daringly evacuated across the Channel. This moment of German aggression was used by Winston Churchill as a call to Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war.
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1 out of 5 stars
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I am so pissed
- By SCOTT on 07-04-17
By: Joshua Levine
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The Fleet at Flood Tide
- America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,341
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,193
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,188
With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hornfischer's Philosophical Summary Up to VJ Day
- By Hollywood Dave on 01-08-17
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Rescue at Los Banos
- The Most Daring Prison Camp Raid of World War II
- By: Bruce Henderson
- Narrated by: Brett Barry
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story5 out of 5 stars 73
In February 1945, as the US victory in the Pacific drew nearer, the Japanese army grew desperate, and its soldiers guarding U.S. and Allied POWs more sadistic. Starved, shot and beaten, many of the 2,146 prisoners of the Los Baños prison camp in the Philippines - most of them American men, women and children - would not survive much longer unless rescued soon.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Edge of your seat story. Great narration
- By Stuart Bruce on 04-16-15
By: Bruce Henderson
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Lonely Vigil
- Coastwatchers of the Solomons
- By: Walter Lord
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
From the best-selling author of Day of Infamy: In the bloodiest island combat of WWII, one group of men kept watch from behind Japanese lines. The Solomon Islands was where the Allied war machine finally broke the Japanese empire. As pilots, marines, and sailors fought for supremacy in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Slot, a lonely group of radio operators occupied the Solomon Islands' highest points. Sometimes encamped in comfort, sometimes exposed to the elements, these coastwatchers kept lookout for squadrons of Japanese bombers headed for Allied positions.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Interesting Subject
- By Martin See on 06-21-21
By: Walter Lord