"For most people, the start of World War II means German soldiers marching into Poland. Historian Antony Beevor begins and ends his new book, The Second World War with something different: the story of a German soldier who was actually Korean, was captured in Normandy, and wound up living in Illinois."

"In 1938, 18-year-old Yang Kyoungjong was conscripted by the Japanese — who then controlled Korea — and was sent to fight in Manchuria. "He was taken prisoner, put in a labor camp, then forced into the Red Army, captured again by the Germans, and then forced into the German Army, when he was finally captured by American paratroopers," Beevor tells NPR's Scott Simon. Yang's story "emphasized the global nature of the war," he adds. 'And it underlined how the average individual had no control over their own fate.'"

"Combat was grueling on the ground and in the air. Gunners in particular often suffered frostbite when their plug-in flight suit heaters failed — and there was almost no way to relieve yourself while in flight. "Then there was the problem of anoxia, of actually passing out through lack of oxygen, because quite often the oxygen pumping wasn't working properly," Beevor says. 'It certainly caused sort of mental problems in some of them because of oxygen to the brain. It was a terrible life for all of them.'"