Bøger af Arthur Sharp

The U.S. Army made some serious mistakes during the almost forgotten, but historically significant, Korean War. One of them was assigning combat officers untrained for prison administration as commanders of the United Nations prisoner of war camps. The communist POWs took full advantage of that and made life miserable for them, their guards, and fellow prisoners who were not committed to their ideology. Riots in the prison camps became deadly on an almost daily basis and kangaroo courts cost many POWS their lives via brutal murders-at the hands of their supposed comrades. That was fine with the POWs as long as they kept chaos alive. They brought life to the saying the inmates are running the asylum, which they did until the fourteenth U.S. camp commander finally took back control of the camps in May 1952. The two-and-a-half-year standoff between commanders and communists marked a new era in prisoner of war history which set a precedent for future wars involving westerners versus easterners. This book tells that story in an educational, entertaining, and riveting fashion.

Manchester, England natives Josiah and Elizabeth Potts have the dubious distinction of being the first-and only-married couple ever executed simultaneously in American history. Somehow their bizarre story has escaped the attention of historians and crime reporters for well over a century. The Pottses were convicted of murdering their Carlin, Nevada, neighbor, and fellow Manchester immigrant Miles Faucett, on New Year's Day 1888 for reasons unknown. Their case was shrouded in mystery, as was their past with the victim. The Pottses did not put up a strong defense at their trial, despite the fact that the evidence against them was circumstantial at best, and even their neighbors and arresting officers weren't assured of their guilt. But, Josiah and Elizabeth had secrets to hide and they chose to hang together rather than reveal them. Why? Some, but not all, of them are revealed in this book. The Pottses took their secrets to their graves-which were right next to Faucett's, as if the trio were destined to spend eternity together. Why were they so connected in death as they had been in life? The answers are amazing. It's no wonder the Potts case was the "Trial of the Century" in the late nineteenth century and worthy of extensive coverage in the finest tabloid newspapers-just as it is today. The question is why it took so long to reveal this bizarre story.

The Hoengsong Massacre in the Korean War was one of the most devastating embarrassments in U.S. Army history. The army didn't try to hide what went wrong, but it didn't publicize the debacle either. Ultimate investigations determined that no one person was responsible for the massacre. There was enough blame to go around at high levels, though. This book provides an overview of the massacre and answers some salient questions. Chief among them is why did it happen, who was to blame, and did the leaders learn anything from the battle. The answers might be surprising. .