Cornelius Ryan, the author of The Last Battle, is one of the most prominent authors of World War II histories. In 1943 he became a war correspondent in the European theater until the German surrender, when he transferred to the Pacific theater until Japan’s surrender. Of the eight books that Ryan has written, The Last Battle and The Longest Day are by far his most famous works. In researching The Last Battle Ryan and his staff interviewed over 2,000 participants of the battle for Berlin. He was allowed into the USSR to conduct interviews with the major Russian participants of the battle, with the exception of Zhukov, and was allowed to do extensive research in the Russian national archives. In the archives he discovered and copied many documents and photographs that prior to this time had never…