Kansas City Remembers World War II

Books on World War II by Kansas City areas writers.

The Pursuit of a Ruptured Duck: When Kansas Citians Went to War. Matheny, Edward T., Jr. (2001; Leathers Publishing)

Book Description
One Jackson County resident not only recorded and preserved his World War II experiences, but has recently made them available for others to enjoy and learn from in his book, Pursuit of a Ruptured Duck: When Kansas Citians Went to War.

Edward T. Matheny, Jr. collected stories and photographs from his wartime mementoes, but also included in an easy-to-read format the recollections of some of his closest friends and colleagues who are also part of the greatest generation.

Edward T. Matheny, Jr., class of '40, was a history major in college, a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, and a managing partner of Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary & Lombardi. He served as president of Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City and chairman of its Foundation, chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri, and first president of Kansas City's public television station, KCPT 19. He is currently of counsel with Blackwell Sanders and director of H. & R. Block Foundation, Dunn Industries, Inc.

Mr. Matheny served on the staffs of two of the great Navy leaders in the Pacific Theatre of Word War II — Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and Raymond A. Spruance, Commander Fifth Fleet. Pursuit of a Ruptured Duck recounts not only his own experiences but those of other Kansas Citians in the armed forces, and those who served on the home front.

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The Enemy Among Us: POWS in Missouri During World War II. David Fiedler. (2003; Missouri Historical Society Press)

Book Description
During World War II, more than fifteen thousand German and Italian soldiers came to Missouri. This was no invasionary force; rather these were prisoners of war, part of a flood of almost a half-million men captured and sent to the United States, held here until the end of the war. In The Enemy Among Us, David Fiedler recounts the creation of the camps and the lives touched when fate brought Missourians and the enemy face-to-face. Though they did not seek those circumstances, none could forget how their lives changed when POWs came to Missouri.

About the Author
David Fiedler is a writer living in Fenton, Missouri. His articles on Missouri, its people, and its history have appeared in publications including Missouri Life and The Missouri Conservationist. Fiedler earned degrees in German and political science from Washington University and was a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve.

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A Battlefield Encounter: Based on the True Story of One Soldier. Rosemary Frost Kidd. (2001; Leathers Publishers)

Book Description
Much is known of the horrendous crimes committed by Adolph Hitler during World War II. But very little is written about the early signs of his destructive nature shown during his rise to power, until now. "A Battlefield Encounter" tells the true story of Jordan Fisk, a young American studying music at the University of Munich in Germany at the time when Hitler began attracting attention. In the book, Kidd follows Jordan on his return home after controversial studies in Germany and then remains with him as he fights the very people he had once called friends. Fisk's experiences include visits to numerous death camps - as a result of his ability to speak many European languages; he helped victims of the war find their way home. Kidd masterfully weaves a tale of WWII battles, while never losing the human element.

About the Author
Rosemary Frost Kidd is well known in the Kansas City area for her travelogues. She has traveled extensively and there are few places in the world Kidd has not visited. She owned and operated Cap'n Kidd Travel Inc. for nearly 30 years before selling the business when her husband, R. Ingram Kidd, attorney, retired. Kidd has three children and in her spare time she enjoys playing golf and fly-fishing.

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Heartland Heroes: Remembering World War II. Ken Hatfield. (2003; University of Missouri Press)

Book Description
Heartland Heroes is a collection of remarkable stories from ordinary men and women who lived through extraordinary times. They resided in places like Lee's Summit, Independence, and Kansas City, yet their experiences were very much like those of World War II veterans everywhere. Some were marines, nurses, or fighter pilots, others were simply civilians who lived through the war under the martial law imposed on the Hawaiian Islands after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In Heartland Heroes, Ken Hatfield gathers the stories of more than eighty men and women, whom he began interviewing in 1984 while reporting for a small weekly newspaper in Liberty, Missouri.

About the Author
After spending twenty-one years as a Missouri newspaper journalist, Ken Hatfield is now a freelance writer who resides in Olathe, Kansas.

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Book Description
Biography of newspaperman, journalist, Joe Snyder and memoirs of his military service.

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From the Heart: Life Before and After the Holocaust. The Kansas City Star and the Center for Holocaust Education. (2001; Kansas City Star Books)

Book Description
This is the story of 52 men and women who began their lives in homelands faraway, who saw their lives unalterably changed by the Holocaust -- a watershed event in human history -- and who rebuilt their lives in America. Now, these men and women tell their stories -- straight from the heart. These witnesses tell about their families, their friends, and their faith as they grew up before World War II in Central and Eastern Europe. Their words form a touching tribute to a world that was taken from them, and to the mosaic of Jewish life that existed in places ranging from cosmopolitan world capitals to isolated farming communities. Having been uprooted from life as they knew it in the Old World, they renewed their lives in the New World. Each eventually called the Midwest home. Each came to metropolitan Kansas City. This volume begins with accounts drawn from interviews of the 52 witnesses. In the interviews they describe their world before and after the war. In addition, their family photographs and photographs from the archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum help capture those times of innocence, fear, pain, and -- eventually -- hope. In the end, the witnesses reflect on their lives, the lessons they learned and the lessons they want the world to learn from their experiences.

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Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps. Andrea Warren. (2001; HarperCollins)

Book Description
What was the secret to surviving the death camps? How did you keep from dying of heartbreak in a place of broken hearts and broken bodies? "Think of it as a game, Jack," an older prisoner tells him. "Play the game right and you might outlast the Nazis."

Caught up in Hitler's Final Solution to annihilate Europe's Jews, fifteen-year-old Jack is torn from his family and thrown into the nightmarish world of the concentration camps.

Despite intolerable conditions, Jack resolves not to hate his captors, and vows to see his family again. He forges friendships with other prisoners, and together they struggle to make it one more hour, one more day. But even with his strong will to live, can Jack survive the life-and-death game he is forced to play with his Nazi captors?

Award-winning author Andrea Warren has crafted an unforgettable true a story of courage, friendship, family love, and a boy becoming a man in the shadow of the Third Reich.

About the Author
Andrea Warren says, "I'm always looking behind facts and dates in search of how extraordinary times impact ordinary people. I think the most engaging way to study history is by seeing it through the eyes of participants. Each of us wants to know, If that had been me at that time, in that place, what would I have done? What would have happened to me?"

Among Warren's honors are the prestigious Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story, which was also selected as an ALA Notable Book. She won the Midland Authors Award for Pioneer Girl. Growing Up on the Prairie. A former teacher and journalist, Warren writes from her home in the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, Kansas.

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Pearl Harbor Child: A Child's View of Pearl Harbor - From Attack to Peace. Dorinda M. Nicholson. (1993; Woodson House Publishers)

Book Description
Dorinda was 6 years old, living with her parents on the Pearl City Peninsula, a finger of land that extends into the harbor. On December 7, 1941, virtually the entire American naval fleet was peacefully anchored within a few hundred yards of her home. When the Japanese planes attacked those ships, some flew directly over her home, so low she could see the pilot's goggles, on the way to their unsuspecting targets in the harbor. This is the first civilian personal account of the attack through the eyes of a child. The book is a child's story, but not just for children. It is a voice from WWII that has not been heard before. The voice is that of an American child who tells what she saw, how it felt, what happened on that day and through the balance of what became Word War II in the Pacific. Illustrated by more than 70 photographs, plus a two-page map pinpointing major events, Pearl Harbor Child will fascinate young readers and be of great interest to any adult concerned with "The Day of Infamy" and the four long years that followed.

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