Audiobooks by John Toland

During World War II, a group of American fighter pilots roamed the skies over China and Burma, menacing the Japanese war effort without letup. Flamboyant, daring, and courageous, they were called the Flying Tigers. The Tigers—who had been recruited from the Army, Navy, and Marines—first saw action as a volunteer group fighting on the side of the Chiang Kai-shek’s China against Japan. Trained in the unconventional air-combat tactics of their maverick leader Claire Lee Chennault, they racked up some of the most impressive air victory records of World War II. This is the story of Chennault and his magnificent Tigers—and how they performed the impossible.

John Toland (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)

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But Not in Shame: The Six Months after Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941—at exactly 7:55 a.m. on a seemingly peaceful Sunday morning, the United States was plunged into the greatest war in history! What were the events which determined the Pearl Harbor catastrophe? What were the last few days on Wake Island like? What really occurred on the infamous Bataan Death March and why did it happen? How did MacArthur make his dramatic escape from Corregidor? And what is the story behind the greatest capitulation in American history, General Wainwright’s forced surrender of the Philippines? But Not in Shame begins with the race to decode intercepted secret Japanese messages the day before the Pearl Harbor attack, and ends six months later with the stunning victory which unexpectedly turned the tide—the Battle of Midway. More than an exciting narrative of battles and leaders, it is a story of the individuals on both sides who took part in the most critical decisions and momentous events.

John Toland (Author), Traber Burns (Narrator)

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Captured by History: One Man’s Vision of Our Tumultuous Century

Captured by History is an autobiography like none other, for few historians have interviewed as many men and women who helped shape the most momentous events of our century than John Toland. Here, for the first time, Toland reveals how he found these key players and how he persuaded them to talk to him. From disgraced Japanese generals to the German doctor who nearly succeeded in assassinating Hitler, Toland’s sources are remarkable for what they reveal about their subjects, along with the secrets and stories they would tell no one else.

John Toland (Author), Traber Burns (Narrator)

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In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950-1953

In this brilliant narrative of America's first limited war, John Toland shows yet again why, for over two decades, he has been one of this country's most respected and popular military historians. Toland lets both the events and the participants speak for themselves, employing scrupulous archival research and interviews as the bases for the drama and accuracy of his writing. In Mortal Combat reveals Mao's prediction of the date and place of MacArthur's Inchon landing, Russia's indifference to the war, Mao's secret leadership of the North Korean military, and the true nature of both sides' treatment and repatriation of POWs. In addition to being the first Westerner to gain access to Chinese records and combatants, Toland interviewed numerous North and South Korean veterans and over two hundred members of the American military, many of whom had never been approached before. The result is a signal work of compelling readability and lasting importance.

John Toland (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath

A revealing and controversial account of the events surrounding Pearl HarborPulitzer Prize-winning author John Toland presents evidence that FDR and his top advisors knew about the planned Japanese attack but remained silent.Infamy reveals the conspiracy to cover up the facts and find scapegoats for the greatest disaster in United States military history. New York Times bestseller.

John Toland (Author), Traber Burns (Narrator)

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The Dillinger Days

For thirteen violent months in the 1930s, John Dillinger and his gang swept through the Midwest. The criminals of the Depression robbed almost at will, as the Indiana State Police had only forty-one members, including clerks and typists. Dillinger's daring escapes at Crown Point jail or through the withering machine gun fire of FBI agents at Little Bohemia Lodge, along with his countless bank robberies, excited the imagination of a despondent country. He eluded the lawmen of a half-dozen states and the growing power of the FBI, earning him the dubious honor of Public Enemy Number One and captivating Americans to the present day. His brief but significant career is vividly chronicled here in extraordinary detail, as is the entire outlaw era of Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and Machine Gun Kelly. John Toland conducted hundreds of interviews; his research took him through thirty-four states, into the cells where Dillinger was confined, and into every bank he robbed.The Dillinger Days is the inside account of a desperate and determined war between the law and the lawless, a struggle that did not end until a unique set of circumstances led to Dillinger's bloody death outside a Chicago movie house.

John Toland (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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No Man's Land: 1918, the Last Year of the Great War

From freezing infantrymen huddled in bloodied trenches on the front lines to intricate political maneuvering and tense strategy sessions in European capitals, noted historian John Toland tells of the unforgettable final year of the First World War. As 1918 opened, the Allies and Central Powers remained locked in a desperate, bloody stalemate, despite the deaths of millions of soldiers over the previous three and a half years. The arrival of the Americans "over there" by the middle of the year turned the tide of war, resulting in an Allied victory in November. In these pages participants on both sides, from enlisted men to generals and prime ministers to monarchs, vividly recount the battles, sensational events, and behind-the-scenes strategies that shaped the climactic, terrifying year. It's all here-the horrific futility of going over the top into a hail of bullets in no man's land; the enigmatic death of the legendary German ace, the Red Baron; Operation Michael, a punishing German attack in the spring; the Americans' long-awaited arrival in June; the murder of Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family, the growing fear of a communist menace in the east; and the armistice on November 11. The different points of view of Germans, Americans, British, French, and Russians add depth, complexity, and understanding to the tragedies and triumphs of the War to End All Wars.

John Toland (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II in Europ

A dramatic countdown of the final months of World War II in Europe, The Last 100 Days brings to life the waning power and the ultimate submission of the Third Reich. To reconstruct the tumultuous hundred days between Yalta and the fall of Berlin, John Toland traveled more than 100,000 miles in twenty-one countries and interviewed more than six hundred people—from Hitler’s personal chauffeur to Generals von Manteuffel, Wenck, and Heinrici; from underground leaders to diplomats; from top Allied field commanders to brave young GIs. Toland adeptly wove together these interviews using research from thousands of primary sources. When it was first published, The Last 100 Days made history, revealing after-action reports, staff journals, and top-secret messages and personal documents previously unavailable to historians. Since that time it has come to be regarded as one of the greatest historical narratives of the twentieth century. “Brilliant…The reader is in suspense throughout…Each scene is played out close-up and point-blank, as if one were there, listening to the dialogue, counting the stakes, feeling the emotions of the principals.”—New York Times Book Review

John Toland (Author), Geoffrey Howard, Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

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The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945

This Pulitzer Prize–winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, “a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened—muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox.” In weaving together the historical facts and human drama leading up to and culminating in the war in the Pacific, Toland crafts a riveting and unbiased narrative history. “Quite possibly the most readable yet informative account of the Pacific war.”—Chicago Sun-Times

John Toland (Author), Tom Weiner (Narrator)

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Adolf Hitler

A national bestseller with more than 370,000 copies in print, this is “the first book that anyone who wants to learn about Hitler or the war in Europe must read” (Newsweek). Based on previously unpublished documents, diaries, notes, photographs, and dramatic interviews with Hitler’s colleagues and associates, this is the definitive biography of one of the most despised yet fascinating figures of the twentieth century. Eminently readable and painstakingly documented, it is a work that will not soon be forgotten. “The first book that anyone who wants to learn about Hitler or the war in Europe must read. Much that is new or little known…a marvel of fact.”—Newsweek

John Toland (Author), Geoffrey Howard, Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

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Battle: The Story of the Bulge

Battle: The Story of the Bulge, John Toland’s first work of military history, recounts the saga of beleaguered American troops as they resisted Hitler’s deadly counteroffensive in World War II’s Battle of the Bulge—and turned it into an Allied victory. It is a gripping work, painstakingly researched and imbued with such vivid detail that listeners will feel as though they themselves witnessed these events. This is a book not to be missed by anyone interested in this tumultuous era of our world’s history. “The author has devoted years to studying memoirs, interviewing veterans, and consulting military documents, both German and American. He also has revisited the old battlefields in Belgium and Luxembourg…Toland has told the whole story with dramatic realism…It is a story of panic, terror, and of high-hearted courage.”—New York Times Book Review

John Toland (Author), Dan Butler (Narrator)

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