Quotes from William Craig

The B-29 itself was an awesome weapon, capable of nearly twice the performance of the time-tested B-17 being used in Europe. Built by Boeing, the silver-painted four-engine aircraft was 99 feet long, 27 feet 9 inches high, with a wing span of slightly over 141 feet. Its armament included twelve 50-caliber machine guns and a 20-millimeter cannon in the tail. The B-29 could operate at 38,000 feet and cruise at over 350 miles per hour. It could fly 3,500 miles with four tons of bombs.

The battle of Okinawa had ended. Over 12,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Japanese were dead. The American flag flew only 350 miles from Japan.

The Italians not only had been given the job of containing any Russian threat from across the river, they also served as a buffer between the Hungarians and the Rumanian Third Army, which was to hold the territory from Serafimovich to Kletskaya deep in the steppe. The German High Command had inserted the Italians between the other two armies to avoid conflict between ancient enemies, who might forget the Russians and go at each other's throats.

Stalin never forgot or forgave. He once told a Russian writer that Ivan the Terrible had not been ruthless enough because he left too many enemies alive.

Man aspires to greatness, but all too often his hopes are submerged by the primitive instinct to survive at any cost.

Contrary to popular belief at the time, German armies were far from total mechanization. In Sixth Army alone, more than twenty-five thousand horses moved guns and supplies.

Ernst von Paulus,

He'll be given everything he's entitled to under the Geneva Convention. We don't want to be accused of doing to him what they did to you.