"After the battle, we picked up a German soldier who had been wounded," said Arnold Brown, who was a company commander in the 90th Infantry Division during World War II. "He had been shot in the leg with a .50-caliber bullet, and he had laid out overnight in this freezing, subzero weather. Both his arms and both of his legs were frozen stiff as a board. He begged us to shoot him. ..." Brown's is one of nine narratives drawn from oral history interviews conducted by Aaron Elson, founder of the World War II Oral History web site @tankbooks.com and author of "Tanks for the Memories." Each story is as compelling and dramatic as it is a small but important piece of history. "I couldn't do it," Brown went on. "I asked for a volunteer. Even if he survived, he'd have to have both arms and both legs amputated, and this could have been a mercy killing. But these battle hardened soldiers that had been fighting the Germans a few minutes before would not volunteer. One soldier, out of sympathy for the suffering and bravery of this soldier, lit a cigarette and held it to his lips. Another soldier brought him a hot cup of coffee and held it so he could get coffee until we got the litter jeep up there and sent him to the rear." This collection also includes three accounts of the tragic Kassel Mission bombing raid of Sept. 27, 1944, on which 25 B-24 Liberators of the 445th Bomb Group were shot down in a single battle, resulting in the highest one-day losses for a single bomb group in 8th Air Force history.