Last Days of World War II

While much has been written about the major battles of World War II, little has been written about the final actions of the war. Where were the soldiers on the Last Days? How did the combat unfold as columns advanced against an all-but defeated enemy who nonetheless used every trick in the book to slow their own defeat. The most dangerous time in war is the end, or so said one soldier. The victor knows its over but not the vanquished. How right he was. April, 1945. Soviet troops enter Berlin. Hitler commits suicide. Millions of slave laborers and concentration victims have been freed - but were to? Cities lay in devastated ruins. Food, clothing and housing is near non-existent. And snipers seem to be everywhere as bullets take their toll on the G.I.s. Still, the soldiers prevail and out of it they are changed. They talk about the future, values, building new lives for themselves. Keeney's last chapters are an inspiring end to a never-before- history of the war's end The Last Days of World War II draws from over 50,000 hours of oral histories from the Shoah Foundation, The National World War II Museum, and others. Wars may be fought by armies, but they are made up of people who wrote touching letters, took candid photos, and recorded their impressions and memories that bring those days back to life. The Last Days of World War II is a page-turning read.

Over the course of his career as an author L. Douglas Keeney has written twenty-two books, many on WWII and it genesis including The Eleventh Hour, the meeting in Tehran that finalized to D-Day, The Pointblank Directive on the air war against Germany, and 15 Minutes, the story of Strategic Air Command and the blossoming Cold War. His most recent book is The Lives They Saved, the story of the medics and marines on 9.11 who rescued so many. His books have been well reviewed by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal. and many others. Keeney has appeared on Fox, CBS, PBS, The Learning Channel and others. The Last Days is his groundbreaking history of the final actions of WWII. Keeney holds a Masters Degree from the University of Southern California and is married to the journalist Jill Johnson Keeney.