Audiobooks

Imagine being a fly on the wall -- or a tape recorder on a table -- in the hospitality room of a World War II veterans' reunion, where the stories flow like drinks from an open bar. Even faster, since the surviving veterans are on so many medications they can't drink the way they used to. Why, I've seen one bottle of whiskey last for three or four reunions. But I digress. The stories in these audiobooks are not only in the veterans' own words, but in their own voices. No music, no video, but you won't get a clearer picture of what it was like to go through 11 months of combat in a tank, or to be inside a burning B-24 at more than 20,000 feet, or to be wounded in the middle of a chaotic battle.

The Tanker Tapes
Aaron Elson's first oral history audiobook, these 11 CDs feature interviews with a remarkable group of veterans, and feature several stories both powerful and amusing.
$12.95

Once Upon a Tank in the Battle of the Bulge
At the 1991 reunion of the 712th Tank Battalion, Aaron Elson asked Ed Spahr if he was wounded during the war. Ed sort of chuckled and recounted how his lieutenant, a camera buff, asked Ed to take his picture after their tank was knocked out on Jan. 10, 1945. The lieutenant, wounded in the head, had no idea how badly he was bleeding. As he held the camera up, Ed was wounded in the fleshy part of one of his arms. The lieutenant was evacuated, and Ed didn't see him again ... until the battalion's 1992 reunion, when Lt. Jim Gifford showed up, along with tank driver Tony D'Arpino and loader Bob Rossi. That made four of the five crew members in the tank that was knocked out that day. They sat around a table in the hospitality room and reconstructed the incident, and Aaron interviewed each of them individually, as well as Stanley Klapkowski, the gunner, whow as not at the reunion. The result is some of the most remarkable, in-depth accounts of life in a tank battalion you'll ever hear.
$12.95

For You the War Is Over: An Oral History of POWs in World War II
Nine interviews on 10 CDs with former prisoners of war in World War II. Every one of their stories is remarkable.
$12.95

The Kassel Cassettes on CD
On Sept. 27, 1944, one of World War II's most spectacular air battles took place between 35 B-24s and as many as 150 German fighter planes.
$12.95

The D-Day Tapes
A collection of seven interviews on 11 CDs in which veterans describe "the Longest Day" and many long days before and after June 6, 1944.
$12.95

A Bundle of History
Four great interviews on eight CDs: Arnold Brown, Company Commander; A Marine on Tinian; Tail Gunner Sam, and Kill or Be Killed (Vern Schmidt).
$8.95

The Whole Shebangbang
This is a collection of all six oral history audiobooks, some 60 CDs in all.
$49.95