EVERY BOOK PACKAGE: Vols. 1-10 & TNM with Collector's Bookmark.
★★★★★4.9, 143 reviews on this set|Over 500,000 copies sold

The Complete Library: all eleven books

The Things Our Fathers Saw Vols. 1 to 10, A Train Near Magdeburg, collector's bookmark
$179.95 $272.89 Save $92.94
$16.35 per book

Eleven books. Over 3,600 pages. Every one of them is a man or a woman who was there, talking, in their own words, about what happened to them.

  • Recorded first hand, on tape, before these people died
  • Every theater of the war, Pearl Harbor through the liberation of the camps
  • Collected over three decades and published nowhere else in full
Choose your edition
What a signed bookplate isMatthew signs a collector's bookplate for each volume and they arrive mounted inside the front covers. Only available here, never on Amazon. If the set is a gift, or something you mean to pass down, this is the one to get.
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Full description

If you are on this page, you are looking at the entire library. Please see FAQs page for *SIGNED BY AUTHOR* details.

Eleven books.

Over a million words. Over 3600 pages of reading.

Sixteen pounds. Large Print option, 22 pounds! 

 

USE THE DROPDOWN MENU TO CHOOSE FROM PAPERBACKS*, HARDCOVERS,  UNSIGNED, OR AUTHOR AUTOGRAPHED, FROM THE DROPDOWN MENU...

*NEW! ALSO LARGE PRINT EDITIONS! 

 DIGITAL EBOOKS PACKAGE, CLICK HERE

AUDIOBOOK PACKAGE CLICK HERE


Here you will find THE ENTIRE LIBRARY of NARRATIVE ORAL HISTORY AT ITS FINEST written to date by Matthew Rozell. 

Contains VOLS. 1-10 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® Series Book Collection, AND A Train Near Magdeburg, Adult edition (11 books total), paperback or hardcover. Read the reviews on the individual book pages.

This collection is packaged with a collector's bookmark listing titles to date. Each book collection is available in PAPERBACK or collector's HARDCOVER with embossed spine and glossy color dust jacket. Choose your option in the dropdown menu.


 

Volume 1 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® series begins in an upstate NY community, which LOOK Magazine designated as Hometown, USA for a 6-issue patriotic spread in 1944, a microcosm of every other small-town community in the country.

It starts with my quest for a young sailor's body, killed at Pearl Harbor, and follows our young men and women across the Pacific.

Over thirty survivors who fought from Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay give firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed. Includes maps, photos, and never-before-seen portraits. Here are the real stories that LOOK Magazine could not tell.

307 PAGES.


Volume 2 in the series deal with the Air War in the European Theater of the war.

Featuring eight American veterans of the heavy bombers in the air war over Europe during World War II, explaining what it was like to grow up during the Great Depression as the clouds of war gathered, going off to the service, and into the skies over Europe, sharing stories of both funny and heartbreaking, and all riveting and intense. Includes photos and never before seen portraits.

It actually begins with my quest to learn more about a 20-year-old relative's death in the skies over Germany. I was told the entire crew perished on July 29, 1944. I could not be more wrong...

316 PAGES.

 


 

Volume 3 is about the Air War again, and this time I have some of my friends who were fighter pilots, including a Tuskegee Airman who had to deal with racism back home, on top of defeating fascism in Europe.

Fighter pilots, and bomber crews talk about being shot down, the prisoner of war experience, and being reunited again after 60 years, in their own words.



Volume 4 in this series will take you from the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Italy with the men and women veterans of the Italian campaign who open up about a war that was so brutal, news of it was downplayed at home.

The war in the Mediterranean, and particularly the Italian Campaign, is one that for many Americans is shrouded in mystery and murkiness. Yet it was here that the United States launched its first offensive in the west on enemy soil, and it was here that Allied forces would be slogging it out with a tenacious enemy fighting for its life in the longest single American Campaign of World War II. 

296 PAGES.


Volume 5 in this series is really the book I had in mind to write as I began to collect and process WWII interviews after being inspired at our veterans' return to Normandy for the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

From the bloody beach at Omaha through the hedgerow country of Normandy and beyond, American veterans of World War II—Army engineers and infantrymen, Coast Guardsmen and Navy sailors, tank gunners and glider pilots—sit down with you across the kitchen table and talk about what they saw and experienced, tales they may have never told anyone before.

363 PAGES.


Volume 6 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® series

In THE BULGE AND BEYOND, you will be with the soldiers going into the heart of the bloodiest single battle fought by the US Army in American history, the so-called 'Battle of the Bulge'.

19,000 American GIs never saw their mothers again.


— “Hell came in like a freight train. I heard an explosion and went back to where my friend was. His legs were blown off-he bled to death in my arms.”


In Volume 6 in this series, ‘THE BULGE AND BEYOND’, you will be among the columns of young, tired men slogging it out in the malevolent forest, cold, dark, and medieval. You will walk the with the scout to his targeted outpost. You will lay in a freezing minefield by day, hoping to elude the sniper’s bullet, and forever experience the complete inability to ever again feel warm. Nineteen thousand American GIs never saw their mothers again; tens of thousands more were wounded or taken prisoner in Hitler’s last great counter-offensive that shocked the world. In ‘THE BULGE AND BEYOND’, our veterans sit down and speak to you directly about what they experienced. 

It's time to listen to them. REMEMBER how a generation of young Americans truly saved the world. 

309 PAGES


In ‘Across The Rhine’, you will begin to liberate a continent with our veterans as they scale the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc overlooking Omaha Beach. You will jump with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment to capture bridgeheads in the Netherlands, and re-group to slug it out in the freezing Ardennes Forest in the winter of 1944-45. The mission will then push you over the Siegfried Line and all the way to Germany’s most formidable western natural defense, the swift and swollen quarter-mile wide Rhine River. As spring 1945 arrives, you will be with our GIs as they arrive at the gates of Dachau and have their very souls shaken as they become eyewitnesses to the greatest crime in the history of the world—the Holocaust; the Nuremberg War Crimes trials will then bring you face to face with the architects of terror, the most notorious war criminals of the twentieth century. 

358 PAGES

In VOLUME 8 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® series, you will return to the Pacific with our veterans as they recall the chaos in the aftermath at Pearl Harbor, the first challenges on land at Guadalcanal, island hopping with the Marines, Navy, and Army at the Marshalls, Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. You will witness the most horrific bonzai charges of the war, accompany airmen on their B-29 missions over Japan, and lean over navy corpsmen as they work to save the wounded.  374 PAGES.

*****

In VOLUME 9 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® series, ‘Homefront/Women At War’, we will take an often-overlooked view of the story of World War II. You will visit with the people on the homefront, from schoolkids navigating growing up during the Great Depression and the War, to the women on the factory floor and the armed services, newly independent but having to fight for their rights and later, their jobs, laying the seeds of societal change for the future. You will meet war brides on the ships' decks over the Atlantic, and follow the challenges they faced growing up in a Europe at war, meeting their GIs, and then starting new families in a new environment. Lastly, you will sit down with the displaced children of World War II who struggled to survive as totalitarian thugs marched into and upended their worlds for years to come, but who survived to tell their personal tales of suffering, and express their gratitude, to young Americans who took the time to listen to them.

"If it had not been for the women going out the door, there would have been no spring in 1944."

280 PAGES

*****

In VOLUME 10 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® seriesOver The Hump/China, Burma, India, we will visit with the veterans of most overlooked theater of World War II as they prepare to fly over and march through the most inhospitable terrain on the planet, from the Himalaya Mountains to the jungles and mountains of Burma, battling elite Japanese forces, sickness and tropical disease. Ride with the cargo pilots as they are buffeted by 200 MPH+ winds over some of the highest mountains in the world; join fighter pilots taking to the skies to attack Japanese bombers and other aircraft as the enemy tries to disrupt the flow of supplies from India to China. Accompany the long range American penetration forces as they go deep into the heart of enemy held territory to stem the Japanese onslaught. Gain a better understanding of why these forgotten men need to be remembered and celebrated today.

364 PAGES.

*****

SOON TO BE AN EPIC MINI-SERIES!

 

WAR-WEARY AMERICAN SOLDIERS.
Jewish children on a death train.
Nazi murderers.
A teacher on a mission.
What happened will leave you speechless! Be uplifted.

THE UNFORGETTABLE TRUE STORY

A Train Near Magdeburg: A Teacher's Journey into the Holocaust and the reuniting of the survivors and liberators, 70 years on [2016]

In the last days of World War II, American soldiers freed a trainload of Jewish prisoners heading to certain death at Nazi hands. Rich with eyewitness testimony, this gripping narrative follows both the survivors and their liberators in vivid detail, from the Holocaust experience throughout Europe, to emotional reunions decades later, all made possible by a history teacher.

501 PAGES.

Formats and specifications

Paperback, or collector's hardcover with embossed spine and glossy colour dust jacket. The paperback set weighs sixteen pounds. Each set is packaged with a collector's bookmark listing every title to date.

Shipping and returns

PLACEHOLDER, do not publish. Replace with the real shipping windows, carrier options and returns window from Matthew before this page goes live.

The Complete Library: all eleven booksPAPERBACK SET ALL 11 BOOKS
01

Recorded, not researched

Transcripts of interviews, not a historian's account of them. The men and women speak for themselves.

02

Eleven volumes, every theater

Pacific, Air War, Italy, Normandy, the Bulge, the Rhine, Tokyo, the homefront, China Burma India, and the camps.

03

Three decades of interviews

Collected over thirty years. Most of the people in these pages are gone now, and no one can go back and record them again.

From the interviews

This is what you are actually buying.

Three passages, taken word for word from three of the volumes. Nothing here has been tidied up.

Vol. I, OkinawaTranscript
So I had a hard two months, I guess. I kept mostly to myself. I wouldn't talk to people. I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do when I got home. How was I going to tell my mother this? You know what I mean?
Jimmy Butterfield, WWII Marine veteran
Vol. VI, The BulgeTranscript
Hell came in like a freight train. I heard an explosion and went back to where my friend was. His legs were blown off, he bled to death in my arms.
The Bulge and Beyond, Volume VI
Vol. I, Iwo JimaTranscript
I hope you'll never have to tell a story like this, when you get to be 87. I hope you'll never have to do it.
Ralph Leinoff, Marine veteran, to his teenage interviewer
Why most of us never heard it

He told one story, once, and then changed the subject.

Most of these men came home and said almost nothing. Not to their wives, not to their children. Some of them carried it for sixty years without a word.

What I found, over three decades of doing this, is that they would talk. They would not volunteer it, and they would not tell it to us. But when a teenager sat down in front of them with a tape recorder and asked, they opened up completely.

That is what is in these books. The conversation your father would not have with you, that he had with somebody else's grandchild.

Now I know why my father didn't talk about his war, his four years in New Guinea. I now have a much better understanding of why.
Reader, series review
What is in the box

Eleven books, in order.

Every volume is also sold on its own. Add any single title straight to your cart.

Volumes 1 to 5
Volume I: Voices of the Pacific Theater—The Things Our Fathers Saw [2015]
Vol. I, Pacific

Voices of the Pacific Theater

Over thirty survivors, Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay.

307 pages
$21.99
Add to cart
Volume II: War in the Air: From the Great Depression to Combat—The Things Our Fathers Saw, Volume II [2017]
Vol. II, Air War

War in the Air

Eight heavy bomber veterans over Europe.

316 pages
$23.99
Add to cart
Volume III: Combat, Captivity, and Reunion —The Things Our Fathers Saw [2017]
Vol. III, Captivity

Combat, Captivity, and Reunion

Fighter pilots and bomber crews, including a Tuskegee Airman, on being shot down and reunited sixty years on.

$23.99
Add to cart
Volume IV: Up the Bloody Boot/The War in Italy—The Things Our Fathers Saw [2018]
Vol. IV, Italy

Up the Bloody Boot

North Africa to the mountains of Italy. The longest single American campaign of the war.

296 pages
$24.99
Add to cart
Volume V: D-Day and Beyond/The War in France—The Things Our Fathers Saw [2019]
Vol. V, Normandy

D-Day and Beyond

Omaha Beach through the hedgerows.

363 pages
$23.99
Add to cart
Volumes 6 to 10, and A Train Near Magdeburg
Volume VI: The Bulge And Beyond—The Things Our Fathers Saw  [2020]
Vol. VI, The Bulge

The Bulge and Beyond

The bloodiest single battle fought by the US Army. Nineteen thousand GIs never saw their mothers again.

309 pages
$25.99
Add to cart
Volume VII: Across The Rhine—The Things Our Fathers Saw  [2021]
Vol. VII, The Rhine

Across the Rhine

Pointe du Hoc to the Siegfried Line, then the camps, then Nuremberg.

358 pages
$25.99
Add to cart
Volume VIII: On To Tokyo—The Things Our Fathers Saw  [2022]
Vol. VIII, Pacific

On to Tokyo

Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the B-29 missions over Japan.

374 pages
$25.99
Add to cart
Volume IX: Homefront/Women at War—The Things Our Fathers Saw  [2023]
Vol. IX, Homefront

Homefront and Women at War

The factory floor, the services, war brides, and the displaced children of the war.

280 pages
$25.99
Add to cart
VOLUME X: Over The Hump/China, Burma, India—The Things Our Fathers Saw  [2024]
Vol. X, China Burma India

Over the Hump

The most overlooked theater of the war. Cargo pilots in 200 mph winds over the Himalayas.

364 pages
$25.99
Add to cart
A Train Near Magdeburg: A Journey into the Holocaust  [2016]
The Holocaust

A Train Near Magdeburg

American soldiers free a trainload of Jewish prisoners in the last days of the war, and find each other again seventy years later.

501 pages
$25.99
Add to cart
The arithmetic

Buying the set is cheaper than buying the books.

Bought one at a time
$274.89
The complete library
$179.95
You save
$94.9435% off
See the price of each book
Vol. I, Voices of the Pacific Theater$21.99
Vol. II, War in the Air$23.99
Vol. III, Combat, Captivity, and Reunion$23.99
Vol. IV, Up the Bloody Boot$24.99
Vol. V, D-Day and Beyond$23.99
Vol. VI, The Bulge and Beyond$25.99
Vol. VII, Across the Rhine$25.99
Vol. VIII, On to Tokyo$25.99
Vol. IX, Homefront and Women at War$25.99
Vol. X, Over the Hump$25.99
A Train Near Magdeburg$25.99
Collector's bookmarkIncluded
Look inside

Read a page before you buy eleven of them.

Volume I, Pearl Harbor
I was talking to a shipmate of mine waiting for the motor launch, and all at once I saw a plane go over our ship. I did not know what it was, but the fellow with me said, 'That's a Jap plane, Jesus!' It went down and dropped a torpedo. Then I saw the Utah turn over.
Barney Ross, U.S. Navy seaman, Pearl Harbor
Volume I, Liberation, Japan, 1945
Our POW camp tailor worked all night and finished our first American flag! The blue came from a GI barracks bag, red from a Jap comforter and the white from an Australian bed sheet. When I came out of the barracks and saw those beautiful colors for the first time, I felt like crying!
Joe Minder, U.S. Army POW, Japan, 1945

Every volume, and how long it is

  1. Voices of the Pacific Theater307 pp
  2. War in the Air316 pp
  3. Combat, Captivity, and Reunion
  4. Up the Bloody Boot296 pp
  5. D-Day and Beyond363 pp
  6. The Bulge and Beyond309 pp
  7. Across the Rhine358 pp
  8. On to Tokyo374 pp
  9. Homefront and Women at War280 pp
  10. Over the Hump364 pp
  11. A Train Near Magdeburg501 pp
From Matthew

Why I started recording.

It began with a quest for a young sailor's body, killed at Pearl Harbor, and it did not stop. One conversation led to another, and then to a man in Australia, and then to a survivor in Israel who had been on a train that some American tank crews stumbled onto in April 1945.

I kept going for thirty years. Nearly all of the people you will meet in these pages are dead now. That is the plain fact of it, and it is the reason the books exist at all.

Matthew Rozell
Three ways in

Start with one, or take the whole thing.

Start here

Volume I only

$21.99
$21.99 per book
  • Voices of the Pacific Theater
  • 307 pages, over thirty veterans
  • 808 reviews
Add Volume I to cart
The first five

Volumes 1 to 5

$89.95$117.95
$17.99 per book, save $28.00
  • Pearl Harbor to the beaches at Normandy
  • Collector's bookmark included
  • 79 reviews, 96 percent five star
Add the five book set
Best value
Everything

All eleven books

$179.95$272.89
$16.35 per book, save $92.94
  • Vols. 1 to 10 plus A Train Near Magdeburg
  • Over 3,600 pages
  • Collector's bookmark, signed option
Add the complete library
Before you order

Questions people actually ask.

Do I have to read them in order?

No. Each volume stands on its own and covers a different theater of the war. Most people start with the one closest to where their own family served.

What exactly does signed mean here?

Matthew signs a collector's bookplate for each volume, and the bookplates arrive mounted inside the front covers. It is his signature, not a printed stamp, and it is only available through this store.

Is it too dark? I am not sure I can read it.

Parts of it are very hard. If you are unsure, start with Volume I rather than the full set.

Hardcover or paperback?

The hardcovers have embossed spines and glossy colour dust jackets, and buyers who intend to pass the set down almost always choose them. The paperbacks are the same text.

I already own some of the volumes. Is there a smaller set?

Yes. There is a Volumes 1 to 5 set and a Volumes 6 to 10 set, both at $89.95, so you can fill the gap rather than buy duplicates.

Is this a good gift for someone who is not a history reader?

It is the most common reason people buy the set.

How long does shipping take, and what is the returns window?

PLACEHOLDER, do not publish. Real windows and returns policy needed from Matthew.

Dying for freedom isn't the worst thing that could happen. Being forgotten is.

Eleven books. Over 3,600 pages. The people in them are gone, and this is what they said while there was still somebody there to ask.

Get the complete library