Voices of Victory : Powerful eye-witness accounts of the battle to take Germany, Feb 1945 to VE Day

Published 24/04/2025 | Hardback,
Description:

‘Enthralling and enlightening . . . A wonderful look into the personal experiences, that heart and soul, of the fighting soldier towards the end of the Second World War’ – John Nichol, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Unknown WarriorFrom the bestselling author of D-Day: The Unheard Tapes comes a revealing new history of the final bloody battles against Nazi Germany. Published for the 80th anniversary of VE Day and based on audio interviews with those who fought their way to victory, this is a compelling and immersive account of a crucial period in the Second World War.

February, 1945. Eight months have passed since the D-Day landings, when the Allies gained their foothold in North-West Europe. Since then the British Army has fought near continuously against the German military. Now, they stand ready for their final test: the battle for the German homeland.

Drawing on the sound archive of the Imperial War Museums and other personal acounts, military historian Geraint Jones brings this this often-overlooked period of the war vividly to life in the words of British soldiers who were there, from war-weary men who have survived many months of combat to new recruits facing Hitler’s fanatics for the first time.

In Voices of Victory we join the soldiers battling to break through the Siegfried Line and clear the Reichswald forest, where fighting was from one tree to the next. At the crossing of the Rhine we go into action with the commandos, and jump behind enemy lines with the Paras. We are taken into the horror of Belsen when the concentration camp is liberated, hear from the witnesses of the forgotten battles of April, and end the war deep in Germany, with victory in Europe.