SAFELY REST
This is the story of a virtually unknown episode of World War II - the final disposition of American war dead and the return of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers for burial in the United States. The operation took six years, from 1945 to 1951.
SAFELY REST is told through the recollections of survivors - families and military personnel - and the letters and personal histories of the dead themselves. It recalls the efforts of those who struggled to absorb their loss and rebuild their lives - and of those who would never be able to move on. Most memorably, it tells of Lt. Jesse D. "Red" Franks, Jr. -first reported missing, than killed in action, then later reported to be alive - and of his extraordinarily devoted father, the Rev. Jesse D. Franks, a Baptist minister from Columbus Mississippi, who gave up his pastorate to work as a missionary in Europe immediately after the war until he discovered what truly happened to his son.
BLOOD FOR DIGNITY
"COLLEY DESERVES ALL CREDIT FOR WRITING THE FIRST BOOK TO TELL THE STORY OF THESE NEGLECTED TRAILBLAZERS."
---The New York Times Book Review, February 16, 2003---
---New York Times - listed in New & Noteworthy, 2003
AN "ADMIRABLE AND WELCOME BOOK"- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post.
Reviewed by Eye On Books
---Movie Rights sold to Village Roadshow Pictures ---
BLOOD FOR DIGNITY tell the story of the black infantrymen who volunteered for service in white combat divisions in the closing months of WWII. In March, April and May of 1945 some 52 platoons of black soldiers were assigned to various infantry and armored divisions fighting in Germany and eastern France. Not since the Revolution had the army permitted African Americans to fight along side whites.
The story of the "5th Platoons" is told through the eyes of the men in the 5th of K, 294th Regiment, 99th Division, who fought in the Remagen Bridgehead and in the Ruhr. Prior to their duty, blacks had fought only in segregated combat units.
*
*
*
ROAD TO VICTORY - THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE RED BALL EXPRESS
-- WINNER OF THE ARMY HISTORICAL FOUNDATION'S DISTINGUISHED WRITING AWARD IN 2001 --
ROAD TO VICTORY relates the story of the Red Ball Express in the European Theater during WWII. In the late summer of 1944, as the allied armies drove the Germans back to their own frontier, the allies outran their supplies that were being delivered to the continent over the Normandy invasion beaches. In desperation, the army formed the Red Ball, a collection of some 5,000 two-and-a-half ton trucks to race supplies to the front lines in eastern France. For three months the trucks ran, 24/7 to take gasoline, rations, ammuntion, and medical supplies to the fast advancing troops. When the Red Ball ended in Novemeber its trucks had carried 412,143 tons of supplies. A distinguishing feature of the Red Ball was that it was manned largely by African American troops as drivers and mechanics and is remembered as one of the few operations in which black troops were allowed to participate.
*
*
FACES OF VICTORY
"To the choppy Atlantc infested with German submarines, to the landings and support on the beaches of France, you are there in this history of the war in Europe." FACES OF VICTORY was produced by the editors of VFW Magazine as a commemorative issue 40 years after the end of World War II. It is a combination of text depicting the main battles of the war and of well known photos from the conflict. David P. Colley was one of the main contributors to the work.
*
*
*
*
*
SOUND WAVES
TEACHING THE DEAF TO HEAR
The book is about a family's struggle to teach a profoundly deaf child to "learn" how to hear through an audacious and innovative teaching method. Mary Ellen Huber was born profoundly deaf and all the experts said she would never hear and never speak properly. Her mother, Joan, searched for some method to bring her daughter into the hearing world and found the Helen Beebe Clinic in Easton PA. With the help of powerful hearing aids and after years of being "taught" to hear by using residual hearing, Mary Ellen began to hear and to speak. She grew up to be a normal young woman who did not need to learn sign language to communicate. The book also recounts the life of Helen Gullick Beebe of Easton, who developed her pioneering method of teaching deaf children to hear and eventually speak.