CLICK HERE FOR MY NEW STORE!!
‘I get a little emotional. I’m almost 93; I hope to see them all again in heaven.’― John Swarts, B-17 Tail Gunner
In their own words.
This is the place where you can learn more about my books. Right now I have 5 that I have written, one ‘stand-alone’, and 4 in my WWII narrative history series.
I’m happy to report that all of the titles are best sellers; most have hit the Top 100 for The Every-Single-Ebook-On-Amazon List (out of 7,000,000+ ebooks and counting) at one time or another, and all titles are usually in the Top 50 in the World War II category there; you can usually find me also resting in the Amazon Top 100 History Authors list for history ebooks. So the readers have spoken!
If you click on the covers below, it will take you directly to Amazon where you can read the descriptions, check reviews, even preview the first 10% of each title, or select the ebook, paperback, or audio versions. I also run specials on signed paperback books and book bundles. See below.
The Things Our Fathers Saw Vol. I Pacific War
The Things Our Fathers Saw® series started with my first book on the oral history of the men and women who served in the Pacific Theater of the war. But you don’t have to start with this book—I constructed them so that you can pick up any of the series books and start anywhere—but it’s up to you. An audio version is also available.
Vol. II War in the Air 1
Volumes 2 and 3 in the series deal with the Air War in the European Theater of the war. I had a lot of friends in the heavy bombers; here they tell you their stories, some funny, some sad, but all are riveting and intense. An audio version is also available.
Vol. III War in the Air 2
As stated, Volume 3 is about the Air War again, and this time I have some of my friends who were fighter pilots, including a Tuskegee Airman who had to deal with racism back home, on top of defeating fascism in Europe. There is also the story of my B-17 friends, sitting around a table and telling about the day they were all shot down over Germany, and how they survived the prisoner-of-war experience in the last year of the war. An audio version is also available.
Vol. IV The War in Italy
The War in the Mediterranean as told by an Army Ranger, a captain and a nurse who met in Italy and began a 65-year courtship, an escaped PoW on the run behind enemy lines, hitting and killing Germans near Rome, a soldier and his best combat buddy (the dog he trained to scout and carry messages along the front lines), and the stories of the elite mountain troops who seized vital mountain outposts by doing the impossible and scaling cliffs at night. And others!
Vol. V- D-Day And Beyond
From the bloody beach at Omaha through the hedgerow country of Normandy and beyond, American veterans of World War II–Army engineers and infantrymen, Coast Guardsmen and Navy sailors, tank gunners and glider pilots–sit down with you across the kitchen table and talk about what they saw and experienced, tales they may have never told anyone before.
And coming fall 2020….
Vol. VI
The Bulge And Beyond
COMING FALL 2020
A Train Near Magdeburg
A Train Near Magdeburg was my second book. It was 10 years in the making. And it nearly killed me. But read some of the reviews. And it led to this; there is also a documentary in the works. An audio version is also available.
The Young Adult version is here.
The Young Adult version is slimmed down by 80 pages, and includes a link to the free discussion guide.
Can’t decide? Looking for that perfect Fathers Day or holiday gift? A title or two to wake up that teenage grandkid of yours? I’ll ship one title or a bundle of them, if you want. Click on the link above.
More detailed descriptions also follow below for some of my titles. Here’s a link to my Amazon page.
If you have questions or comments, you can contact me at matthew@teachinghistorymatters.com. Don’t forget to leave an Amazon review, I’ll take it as a hug for a job well done! It’s really important if you liked it, and I read them all. (If you found a problem, just let me know at the email above. I’ll fix it, I promise!)
And, to be the first to learn of my upcoming releases, sign up at bit.ly/RozellNewBook. I won’t share your email with anyone else, and I will not clutter your inbox, only contacting you when a new book is out, or some other such exciting news!
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A Train Near Magdeburg
A Teacher’s Journey into the Holocaust, and the Reuniting of the Survivors and Liberators, 70 years on
–Featuring testimony from 15 American liberators and over 30 Holocaust survivors
-10 custom maps
-73 photographs and illustrations, many never before published.
-extensive notes and bibliographical references
INCLUDED:
BOOK ONE–THE HOLOCAUST
BOOK TWO–THE AMERICANS
BOOK THREE–LIBERATION
BOOK FOUR–REUNION
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–From the author of ‘The Things Our Fathers Saw’ World War II narrative history trilogy–
From the book:
– ‘I survived because of many miracles. But for me to actually meet, shake hands, hug, and cry together with my liberators—the ‘angels of life’ who literally gave me back my life—was just beyond imagination.’–Leslie Meisels, Holocaust Survivor
– ‘Battle-hardened veterans learn to contain their emotions, but it was difficult then, and I cry now to think about it. What stamina and regenerative spirit those brave people showed!‘–George C. Gross, Liberator
– ‘Never in our training were we taught to be humanitarians. We were taught to be soldiers.’–Frank Towers, Liberator
– ‘I cannot believe, today, that the world almost ignored those people and what was happening. How could we have all stood by and have let that happen? They do not owe us anything. We owe them, for what we allowed to happen to them.’–Carrol Walsh, Liberator
– ‘[People say it] cannot happen here in this country; yes, it can happen here. I was 21 years old. I was there to see it happen.’–Luca Furnari, US Army
– ‘[After I got home] I cried a lot. My parents couldn’t understand why I couldn’t sleep at times.’–Walter ‘Babe’ Gantz, US Army medic
– ‘I grew up and spent all my years being angry. This means I don’t have to be angry anymore.’–Paul Arato, Holocaust Survivor
– ‘For the first time after going through sheer hell, I felt that there was such a thing as simple love coming from good people—young men who had left their families far behind, who wrapped us in warmth and love and cared for our well-being.’–Sara Atzmon, Holocaust Survivor
– ‘It’s not for my sake, it’s for the sake of humanity, that they will remember.’–Steve Barry, Holocaust Survivor
THE HOLOCAUST was a watershed event in history. In this book, Matthew Rozell reconstructs a lost chapter—the liberation of a ‘death train’ deep in the heart of Nazi Germany in the closing days of the World War II. Drawing on never-before published eye-witness accounts, survivor testimony and memoirs, and wartime reports and letters, Rozell brings to life the incredible true stories behind the iconic 1945 liberation photographs taken by the soldiers who were there. He weaves together a chronology of the Holocaust as it unfolds across Europe, and goes back to literally retrace the steps of the survivors and the American soldiers who freed them. Rozell’s work results in joyful reunions on three continents, seven decades later. He offers his unique perspective on the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations, and the impact that one person, a teacher, can make.
PREVIEW THE BOOK here
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The Things Our Fathers Saw
Volume I
The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA
Voices of the Pacific Theater
PREVIEW THE BOOK here
Description
At the height of World War II, LOOK Magazine profiled a small American community for a series of articles portraying it as the wholesome, patriotic model of life on the home front. Decades later, author Matthew Rozell tracks down over thirty survivors who fought the war in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay. The book resurrects firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed. Here are the stories that the magazine could not tell, from a vanishing generation speaking to America today. It is up to us to remember—for own sakes, as much as theirs.
-Featuring over a dozen custom maps and 35 photographs, including never-before published portraits. Extended notes and companion website.
How soon we forget. Or perhaps, we were never told. That is understandable, given what they saw. But, it happened.
From the book:
— ‘I was talking to a shipmate of mine waiting for the motor launch, and all at once I saw a plane go over our ship. I did not know what it was, but the fellow with me said, ‘That’s a Jap plane, Jesus!’ It went down and dropped a torpedo. Then I saw the Utah turn over.’ ~U.S. Navy seaman, Pearl Harbor
— ‘Rage is instantaneous. He’s looking at me from a crawling position. I didn’t shoot him; I went and kicked him in the head. Rage does funny things. After I kicked him, I shot and killed him.’ ~Marine veteran, Battle of Guadalcanal
— ‘Marched to Camp I at Cabanatuan, a distance of six miles, which is the main prison camp here in the Philippines. Food is scarcer now than anytime so far. Fifty men to a bucket of rice!’ ~U.S. Army prisoner of war, Corregidor
— ‘They were firing pretty heavily at us… it’s rather difficult to fly when you have a rosary in each hand. I took more fellas in with me than I brought home that day, unfortunately.’ ~U.S. Navy torpedo bomber pilot, Guadalcanal
— ‘I remember it rained like hell that night, and the water was running down the slope into our foxholes. I had to use my helmet to keep bailing out, you know. Lt. Gower called us together. He said, ‘I think we’re getting hit with a banzai. We’re going to have to pull back.’ Holy Jesus, there was howling and screaming! They had naked women, with spears, stark naked!’ ~U.S. Army veteran, Saipan
— ‘After 3½ years of starvation and brutal treatment, that beautiful symbol of freedom once more flies over our head! Our camp tailor worked all night and finished our first American flag! The blue came from a GI barracks bag, red from a Jap comforter and the white from an Australian bed sheet. When I came out of the barracks and saw those beautiful colors for the first time I felt like crying!’ ~U.S. Army prisoner of war, Japan, at war’s end
— ‘There was a family that lost two sons in World War II. The family got a telegram on a Monday that one of the boys was killed, and that Thursday they got another telegram saying that his brother had been killed. There were about 35 young men from our town who were killed in World War II, and I knew every one of them; most were good friends of mine.’ ~U.S. Navy seaman, Tokyo Bay
— ‘I hope you’ll never have to tell a story like this, when you get to be 87. I hope you’ll never have to do it.’ ~Marine veteran, Iwo Jima
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The Things Our Fathers Saw- VOL II, Book One: War in the Air
Dying for freedom isn’t the worst that could happen. Being forgotten is.
— “You flew with what I would call ‘controlled fear’. You were scared stiff, but it was controlled. My ball turret gunner–he couldn’t take it anymore… I guess he was right. He’s dead now. But he had lost control of the fear. He never got out of that ball turret; he died in that ball turret.” –B-24 bombardier
Here are the stories that the magazine could not tell, from a vanishing generation speaking to America today.
By the end of 2018, fewer than 400,000 WW II veterans will still be with us, out of the over 16 million who put on a uniform. But why is it that today, nobody seems to know these stories?
Maybe our veterans did not volunteer to tell us; maybe we were too busy with our own lives to ask. But they opened up to the younger generation, when a history teacher told their grandchildren to ask.
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The Things Our Fathers Saw- VOL III, Book Two: War in the Air
UPCOMING TITLES
FROM MATTHEW ROZELL
2018
The Things Our Fathers Saw, Volume IV
The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA–
Up the Bloody Boot: The War in Italy
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The Things Our Fathers Saw, Volume V
The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA–
D-Day and Beyond
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MATTHEW ROZELL is an award-winning history teacher, author, blogger and speaker. He has been featured as the ABC World News ‘Person of the Week’ and has had his work filmed for CBS News, NBC Learn, the Israeli Broadcast Authority, the New York State United Teachers, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Visit his blog at TeachingHistoryMatters.com.
can’t wait to read and then pass on to my family to read especially my son-in-law a history buff I am sure my husband will want to read it too thank you wish readings like this were available when I was in school
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