Book one of five

Ten jobs, and what each one cost

The Deadliest Jobs of World War II. Ten deadly jobs an American could be given in the Second World War, one to a chapter: who did it, what it asked of him, and what it cost.

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Secure checkout by Stripe. Your PDF downloads the moment you pay, and the link is emailed to you as well.

192 pages
Archival photographs
Reads on any device

Why this book

The jobs a documentary gives two minutes

A battle is written as arrows on a map. A job is smaller and more exact: one man, one post, and the thing he was there to do while everything around him tried to stop it. This book takes ten of those jobs and stays with each one long enough to see what it asked of the men who did it.

What it meant to fly a mission folded into the ball turret under a heavy bomber, and what the crew could do when the aircraft was hit.
What the landing craft coxswains faced from the moment they turned for the beach until the ramp went down.
What a paratrooper faced in the first hours after a night drop, often miles from the place he had been meant to land.
How the flamethrower men of the Pacific islands were used against caves and bunkers at close range, and what the job asked of them.
What medics and Navy corpsmen carried into the fighting, and what they were expected to do there.
What the war asked of submariners on patrol, of destroyer sailors on the radar picket line, and of the merchant crews who kept the cargo moving.

What is inside

Ten chapters, ten jobs

Each chapter takes one job and stays with it: who was given it, what it asked of him, how it went, and what it cost.

One
Ball Turret and Tail Gunners
The gunners of the heavy bombers over Germany, from takeoff to the moment a crew had to jump.
Two
The First Wave
The landing craft coxswains who drove the troops in and lowered the ramp, from the Pacific islands to Normandy.
Three
Paratroopers
The night drop, and the first hours on the ground far from where the plan said they would be.
Four
Flamethrower Men
The caves and bunkers of the Pacific islands, and the men sent to clear them at close range.
Five
Combat Medics and Navy Corpsmen
Army medics and Navy corpsmen, and the wounded they went out to reach.
Six
Sherman Tank Crews
Five men inside a Sherman, and what they could and could not see from it.
Seven
Submariners on War Patrol
The war patrol: weeks at sea in a hull that one mistake could end.
Eight
The BAR Man and the Replacement Rifleman
The rifle squad's automatic rifleman, and the replacement who joined a unit in the middle of a fight.
Nine
The Picket Line
Destroyer sailors stationed ahead of the fleet, where the air attacks arrived first.
Ten
Merchant Mariners
The civilian crews who carried the war's cargo across oceans full of submarines.

On the record

Every chapter closes with the sources it was built from

This is researched narrative history, not testimony. No interviews were conducted for it, no dialogue has been reconstructed, and no first-person account appears in it that is not attributed to a named published source. It was written from published and public record sources: the official histories and the medical histories of the services, the field and technical manuals the men trained from, the Army's final report of its battle casualties, and the reports of the War Shipping Administration. Those sources are listed at the end of the chapter that used them, and gathered again in the bibliography at the back, so you can go from any page to the records behind it and read them for yourself. Where the sources disagree, the disagreement is printed rather than resolved.

The photographs are genuine archival records: official United States government works held by the National Archives, reproduced with their archive numbers printed in the book, and altered in nothing but tone and cropping. The cover artwork is the one exception. It is AI-generated and depicts no real person, unit, place or event.

The same research feeds the WWII Firsthand YouTube channel.

Before you buy

The things people ask

What exactly do I get, and when?

The complete book as a PDF, with the archival photographs in place. You download it on the next page, the moment the payment clears, and a copy of the link is emailed to you as well so you can come back to it later. Nothing ships and nothing waits.

Can I read it on my phone?

Yes. A PDF opens on a phone, a tablet, a laptop and most e-readers without any extra app, and you can make the text larger on any of them. You can also print it at home or at a copy shop if you would rather read it on paper.

Is this a true account, or a novel?

It is non-fiction. Every chapter is built from documented sources and closes with the list of them, so you can go and look at any of it yourself. Nothing in it is invented and nobody in it is a composite.

I am not a military reader. Will I follow it?

Yes. It is written at ground level for readers with no military background. Where a term or a piece of equipment matters, it is explained on the spot rather than left to a glossary.

What if the file will not open, or I never get the email?

Write to us and it gets fixed, or refunded. A failed delivery, a duplicate charge or a file that will not open is always put right. Read the refund policy.

The book

Read it tonight

Ten jobs, one to a chapter. The figures as the official histories print them, the men as the sources describe them, and a list at the end of every chapter of where all of it came from.

$35 One book, yours to keep

Get the book now

Secure checkout by Stripe. Your PDF downloads the moment you pay, and the link is emailed to you as well. Because delivery is immediate, the EU 14-day withdrawal right does not apply once your download begins. Read the refund policy.

Secure Stripe checkout
Instant download
PDF, reads on any device

The line

The rest of the line

Five books in all: four researched histories of the war, and one guided journal for the family of a man who served in it. Each one is a PDF you download the moment you buy it.