Alex Kershaw

Alex Kershaw
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Subject	World War II
Notable works	The Bedford Boys The Longest Winter The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

Alex Kershaw is an author of books on World War II, including the New York Times best-sellers The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter.

Born in York, England, in 1966, Kershaw attended University College, Oxford where he studied politics, philosophy and economics. He taught history before working as a journalist for several British newspapers, including The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Times.

Kershaw's journalism has appeared in many magazines and newspapers since 1990, varying from investigative pieces and reportage to interviews with subjects ranging from Frank Zappa, Alger Hiss and Gary Kasparov to the boxer Max Schmeling and dozens of World War II veterans.

While writing a 2002 biography, Blood and Champagne, about Robert Capa, the celebrated war photographer, Kershaw came across the story of Bedford, Virginia and its sacrifice on D-Day, 6 June 1944, on Dog Green sector of Omaha beach. The resulting book, The Bedford Boys, 2003, became a New York Times best-seller. His next book, about the Battle of the Bulge, The Longest Winter, 2004, focused in particular on World War II's most decorated platoon, an I&R unit commanded by 20-year-old Lyle Bouck Jr. of the 99th Infantry Division. It was followed by other titles: The Few, 2006, the story of eight American pilots who fought illegally in the Battle of Britain;Escape from the Deep, 2008, the tale of the only successful escape from a submerged American submarine, the USS Tang, without surface assistance in late October 1944; and The Envoy, 2010, an account of Raoul Wallenberg's rescue efforts in Hungary during the Holocaust, based on extensive interviews with survivors saved by Wallenberg.

Kershaw has also worked as a screenwriter and in television, penning an award-winning 2004 documentary for Arte on Bobby Kennedy. Several of his books have been optioned by Hollywood, including The Few which was selected as the Military Book Club's first-ever book of the year in 2006. Kershaw has appeared as a narrator in several documentaries, including the "Battle Of The Bulge" episode of When Weather Changed History, "WWII IN 3D", the History Channel's "The Last Days of WWII", 2014's PBS Masters' 200th anniversary episode, "Salinger", and PBS's "D-Day 360".

His most recent book, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau, tells the story of Texas-born Felix Sparks, an officer in the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, who participated in four amphibious invasions in Europe and commanded the Thunderbird unit that liberated Dachau on 29 April 1945. It has been praised for its gritty realism and described by the Wall Street Journal as an "exceptional chronicle of one soldier's experience in WWII." His next book, Avenue of Spies, published in August 2015, tells the story of the Avenue Foch in Paris in World War II, focusing in particular on Gestapo officer Helmut Knochen and an American doctor and his family.

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