"In the annals of World War II, certain groups of soldiers stand out, and among the most notable were the Sherwood Rangers. Originally a cavalry unit in the last days of horses in combat, whose officers were landed gentry leading men who largely worked for them, they were switched to the "mechanized cavalry" of tanks in 1942. Winning acclaim in the North African campaign, the Sherwood Rangers then spearheaded one of the D-Day landings in Normandy...

The most loyal and ruthless enforcers of the Third Reich began as a small squad of political thugs. Yet by the end of 1935, the SS had taken control of all police and internal security duties in Germany--ranging from local village "gendarmes" all the way up to the secret political police and the Gestapo. And by 1944, the militarized Waffen-SS had more than eight hundred thousand men serving in the field, rivaling even Germany's regular armed forces,...

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...

Using interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, Brown portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons, who volunteered for 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to shutter the businesses, surrender their homes, and...