Books

The first time I attended a reunion of my father's tank battalion from World War II, it was like my feet were glued to the floor while I listened intently to the veterans telling stories. I soon realized that the stories these men told at their reunions stayed at their reunions, and were rarely shared with their families. Often when I interview a veteran, his wife will sit in for all or part of the interview, and despite being married for upwards of thirty or forty, sometimes fifty years, the wife will at some point remark, "I never heard that." These stories should be in a book, I thought. And so I launched Chi Chi Press, in honor of my dad, 2nd Lt. Maurice Elson. "Chi Chi," from the Italian "cicciolino," or dumpling, was the term of endearment my mother used, as in "Chi Chi, would you bring home some milk?"

Tanks for the Memories: Expanded Second Edition
The 712th Tank Battalion spent 311 days in combat from Normandy to Czechoslovakia. This colorful, often deeply moving collection of stories in the tankers' own words follows the battalion from its origins in the horse cavalry to its return from the war.
$9.95

9 Lives: An Oral History
In this collection of narratives excerpted from oral history interviews, you will meet a remarkable group of veterans, from Jim Koerner, a former prisoner of war who literally had nine lives; to Chuck Hurlbut of the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion, a D-Day veteran of Omaha Beach; to Kay Brainard Hutchins, a Red Cross girl whose brother Newell was murdered on the ground after his B-24 was shot down during the ill-fated Kassel Mission; to Pfc. Patsy J. Giacchi, who survived the sinking of an LST.
$8.95

A Mile in Their Shoes: Conversations With Veterans of World War II
In this unusual collection of edited interview transcripts, you'll meet, among others: four 101st Airborne Division veterans of the siege of Bastogne; three veterans who served not only in World War II but in Korea and Vietnam; A father who fought in World War II and his son who fought in Vietnam; a survivor of Exercise Tiger who was awarded the Bronze Star for saving the life of a fellow sailor as they clung to the burned-out shell of a life raft for four and a half hours; and a pair of tankers who give credence to the saying that an army travels on its stomach.
$4.95

Love Company
A look at World War II through the eyes of a "dogface," this moving memoir is the story of John Khoury, a veteran of the 100th Infantry Division.
$12.95

Follies of a Navy Chaplain
In this gem of a memoir, Connell J. Maguire writes touchingly on a number of subjects: his childhood in Ireland; his large and colorful family; his arrival in America during the Great Depression; Philadelphia history; Irish history; the Navy; the priesthood; his service in Vietnam; and the adventures of retirement.
$12.95