The Few
The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain
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The Few
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Narrated by:
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Scott Brick
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By:
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Alex Kershaw
About this listen
From the author of national bestsellers The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter comes "a rousing tale of little-known heroes" (Booklist).
The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and risking their U.S. citizenship to fight side-by-side with England's finest pilots in the summer of 1940—over a year before America entered the war. Flying the lethal and elegant Spitfire, they became "knights of the air" and with minimal training but plenty of guts, they dueled the skilled and fearsome pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe. By October 1940, they had helped England win the greatest air battle in the history of aviation. Winston Churchill once said of all those who fought in the Battle of Britain, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." These daring Americans were the few among the "few." Now, with the narrative drive and human drama that made The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter national bestsellers, Alex Kershaw tells their story for the first time.
©2007 Alex Kershaw (P)2024 Hachette BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story5 out of 5 stars 14
In the early morning hours of October 24, 1944, the legendary U.S. Navy submarine Tang was hit by one of its own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface, while the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges. As the air ran out, some of the crew made a daring ascent through the escape hatch. In the end, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived. But the survivors were beginning a far greater ordeal.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating story or survival
- By J. vanDijk on 04-18-25
By: Alex Kershaw
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The Air War Through German Eyes
- How the Luftwaffe Lost the Skies over the Reich
- By: Jonathan Trigg
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Somewhat interesting but repetitive & misses stuff
- By B Taub on 08-24-24
By: Jonathan Trigg
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The Bedford Boys
- One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Story5 out of 5 stars 15
June 6, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia—population just 3,000 in 1944—died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day. They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches in Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost—it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. The Bedford Boys is the true and intimate story of these men and the friends and families they left behind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth Reading
- By Shawna Bleazard on 02-04-25
By: Alex Kershaw
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The Longest Winter
- The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
On a cold morning in December, 1944, deep in the Ardennes forest, a platoon of eighteen men under the command of twenty-year-old lieutenant Lyle Bouck were huddled in their foxholes trying desperately to keep warm. Suddenly, the early morning silence was broken by the roar of a huge artillery bombardment and the dreadful sound of approaching tanks. Hitler had launched his bold and risky offensive against the Allies—his "last gamble"—and the small American platoon was facing the main thrust of the entire German assault.
By: Alex Kershaw
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The First Wave
- The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 820
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 720
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Story5 out of 5 stars 721
Beginning in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, The First Wave follows the remarkable men who carried out D-Day’s most perilous missions. The charismatic, unforgettable cast includes the first American paratrooper to touch down on Normandy soil; the glider pilot who braved antiaircraft fire to crash-land mere yards from the vital Pegasus Bridge; the brothers who led their troops onto Juno Beach under withering fire; as well as a French commando, returning to his native land, who fought to destroy German strongholds on Sword Beach and beyond.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thoughtful and Sobering
- By Anonymous User on 10-07-19
By: Alex Kershaw
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Avenue of Spies
- A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 265
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 265
The leafy Avenue de Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris' hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son, Phillip, at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping, inspirational, and informative!!
- By Constance M. Specht on 09-26-15
By: Alex Kershaw
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Against All Odds
- A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 754
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 690
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Story5 out of 5 stars 687
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice “Footsie” Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Greatest Generation.
- By Jay Voigt on 05-28-22
By: Alex Kershaw
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The Envoy
- The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3
December 1944. Soviet and German troops fight from house to house in the shattered, corpse-strewn suburbs of Budapest. Crazed Hungarian fascists join with die-hard Nazis to slaughter Jews day and night, turning the Danube blood-red. In less than six months, thirty-eight-year-old SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann has sent over half a million Hungarians to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Now all that prevents him from liquidating Europe's last Jewish ghetto is an unarmed Swedish diplomatic envoy named Raoul Wallenberg.
By: Alex Kershaw
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A Wing and a Prayer
- The “Bloody 100th” Bomb Group of the US Eighth Air Force in Action over Europe in World War II
- By: Harry H. Crosby
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 435
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 408
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Story5 out of 5 stars 408
They began operations out of England in the spring of '43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the "Bloody Hundredth" a legend. Harry H. Crosby—soon to be portrayed by Anthony Boyle in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last.
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5 out of 5 stars
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love love love the history
- By Kindle Customer on 01-20-24
By: Harry H. Crosby
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Vanishing Act
- The Enduring Mystery Behind the Legendary Doolittle Raid Over Tokyo
- By: Dan Hampton
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
In the dark days after the devastating Pearl Harbor attacks during the spring of 1942, the United States was determined to show the world that the Axis was not invincible. Their bold plan? Bomb Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25s, known as the Doolittle Raiders, hit targets across Japan before escaping to China. The eighth plane, however, did not follow the other raiders. Instead, Plane 8's pilots, Captain Edward "Ski" York and Lieutenant Bob Emmens, never attacked Tokyo, but headed across Japan to the Soviet Union, supposedly due to low fuel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I never knew
- By A. Canavan on 02-19-25
By: Dan Hampton
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Damn Lucky
- One Man's Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History
- By: Kevin Maurer
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, John Luckadoo
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 297
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 266
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Story5 out of 5 stars 264
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was a world away from John Luckadoo’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. But when the Japanese attacked the American naval base on December 7, 1941, he didn’t hesitate to join the military. Trained as a pilot with the United States Air Force, Second Lieutenant Luckadoo was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group stationed in Thorpe Abbotts, England. Between June and October 1943, he flew B-17 Flying Fortresses over France and Germany on bombing runs devised to destroy the Nazi war machine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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must read
- By td godfrey on 10-06-22
By: Kevin Maurer
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Luck of the Draw
- My Story of the Air War in Europe
- By: Frank Murphy, Chloe Melas, Elizabeth Murphy
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Murphy, Jonas Moore, Chloe Melas
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story5 out of 5 stars 63
Beginning on August 17, 1942, American heavy bomber crews of the Eighth Air Force took off for combat in the hostile skies over occupied Europe. The final price was staggering. 4,300 B-17s and B-24s failed to return; nearly 21,000 men were taken prisoner or interned in a neutral country, and a further 17,650 made the ultimate sacrifice. Luck of the Draw is more than a war story. It’s the incredible, inspiring story of Frank Murphy, one of the few survivors from the 100th Bombardment Group, who cheated death for months in a German POW camp.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Personal Accounting that the Narrator Destroyed
- By David Sajben on 03-09-23
By: Frank Murphy, and others
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Race of Aces
- WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky
- By: John R. Bruning
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,288
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,283
In 1942, America's deadliest fighter pilot, or "ace of aces" - the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker - offered a bottle of bourbon to the first US fighter pilot to break his record of 26 enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the "race of aces" as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Boring, confusing storyline, some technical details wrong
- By ATM on 04-09-20
By: John R. Bruning
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The Panzer Killers
- The Untold Story of a Fighting General and His Spearhead Tank Division's Charge into the Third Reich
- By: Daniel P. Bolger
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 344
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 306
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 305
Two months after D-Day, the Allies found themselves in a stalemate in Normandy, having suffered enormous casualties attempting to push through hedgerow country. Troops were spent, and American tankers, lacking the tactics and leadership to deal with the terrain, were losing their spirit. General George Patton and the other top US commanders needed an officer who knew how to break the impasse and roll over the Germans - they needed one man with the grit and the vision to take the war all the way to the Rhine. Patton and his peers selected Maurice Rose.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pronunciation counts
- By Brian Shivers on 08-22-21
By: Daniel P. Bolger
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Reilly's Luck
- By: Louis L'Amour
- Narrated by: Beau Bridges
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,242
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,094
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,088
Val Darrant was just four years old the snowy night his mother abandoned him. But instead of meeting a lonely death, he met Will Reilly - a gentleman, a gambler, and a worldly, self-taught scholar. For 10 years they each were all the family the other had, traveling from dusty American boomtowns to the glittering cities of Belle Époque Europe - until the day Reilly’s luck ran out in a roar of gunfire. But it wasn’t a gambling brawl or a pack of thieves that sealed Will’s fate. It was a far more complex story that Val would soon uncover.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Great Read By Louis L'Amour
- By Lady M on 11-18-12
By: Louis L'Amour
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Breakthrough
- By: Michael C. Grumley
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,651
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,270
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,261
With the help of a powerful computer system, Alison Shaw and her team are preparing to translate the first two-way conversation with the planet's second smartest species. But the team discovers much more from their dolphins than they ever expected when a secret object is revealed on the ocean floor. One that was never supposed to be found.
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2 out of 5 stars
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It depends on what you want
- By gbcrockett on 11-04-19
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One Square Mile of Hell
- The Battle for Tarawa
- By: John Wukovits
- Narrated by: Gregory Jones
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story5 out of 5 stars 23
In November 1943, the men of the 2d Marine Division were instructed to clear out Japanese resistance on the Pacific island of Betio, a speck at the end of the Tarawa Atoll. When the Marines landed, the Japanese poured out of their underground bunkers — and launched one of the most brutal and bloody battles of World War II.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant
- By Chandler on 02-17-22
By: John Wukovits
Absolutely wonderful story!!
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