This sequel to World War II: The Axis Assault, 1939-42 begins as the global strategic initiative passed to the Allies. As before, each event is relayed through documents consisting of a New York Times article published when the event occurred, an eyewitness account, and a photograph or two. In all, 52 events are covered, opening with sketchy reportage of an American victory at Midway Atoll, paired with a Japanese officer’s graphic memoir of his aircraft carrier’s destruction, and continuing through to the suicide of Hitler and the war’s cataclysmic crescendo in the nuclear bombings of Japan. Combat is not the editors’ exclusive focus: some items pertain to a Nazi murder campaign of scarcely believable enormity, and others to the war’s ramifications for American society, as in the Detroit racial riots of 1943. Together, the news and documentary selections recover the war’s brutal realness and will be an anchor in any basic collection of WWII material.
