Krig

RAF Bomber Command's offensive against the cities of Germany was one of the epic campaigns of the Second World War. More than 56,000 British and Commonwealth aircrew and 600,000 Germans died in the course of the RAF's attempt to win the war by bombing. The struggle began in 1939 with a few score primitive Whitleys, Hampdens and Wellingtons, and ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitoes razing whole cities in a single night. Max Hastings traced the developments of area bombing using a wealth of documents, letters, diaries and interviews with key surviving witnesses. Bomber Command is his classic account of one of the most controversial struggles of the war.

Describes the Imperial Guard from its origins in the Consular Guard.

Few soldiers are deemed good enough to be selected and trained as snipers and even fewer qualify. As a result, snipers are regarded as the elite of their units and their skills command the ungrudging respect of their fellows - and the enemy. The Author is one such man who recently served a full tour of duty with 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. James describes the highs and lows of almost daily front line action experienced by our soldiers deployed on active service in arguably the most dangerous area of the world. As part of the Battle Group’s crack Mobile Operations Group, James’s mission was to liquidate as many Taliban as possible. The reader experiences sniper tactics and actions, whether in ambush or quick pre-planned strikes, amid the ever present lethal danger of IEDs. His book, the first to be written by a trained sniper in Afghanistan, reveals the psychological pressures and awesome life-and-death responsibility of his role and, in particular, the deadly cat-and-mouse ‘games’ with the enemy snipers intent on their own kills. These involved the clinical killing of targets at ranges of 1,000 meters or greater. Sniper in Helmand is a thrilling action-packed, yet very human, account of both front line service in the intense Afghanistan war and first-hand sniper action. Andy McNab inspired James to join the army and has written a moving foreword.

'A thrilling, stirring story, well told' Daily Telegraph'Gripping... Garrett's chief strength is her ability to relight the lamps of the past so that they glow anew' The Times'Extraordinary' Jewish ChronicleTHE THRILLING TRUE STORY OF THE SECRET JEWISH COMMANDOS WHO HELPED DEFEAT THE NAZIS DURING WW2June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the entire European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who escaped to Britain just before the War. Many have lost their families, their homes - their whole worlds. And now, in the crucial final battles against the Nazis, they will stop at nothing to defeat them. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad.Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Europe to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp - the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.

25 December 1941 is known to this day by the people of Hong Kong as 'Black Christmas'. The battle for Hong Kong is a story that deserves to be better known.

The incredible, true story of how one soldier survived the numerous perils and hardships of war to return home.

Highly illustrated history of infantry warfare during the Second World War.

In the early months and years of World War II, it was Germany''s cruisers and battleships that most ravaged the Atlantic Convoys. This is the history of those raids, and how the success of 1941''s Operation Berlin led directly to the Kriegsmarine sending into the Atlantic its greatest battleship - the mighty, ill-fated Bismarck.At the outbreak of World War II the German Kriegsmarine still had a relatively small U-boat arm. To reach Britain''s convoy routes in the North Atlantic, these boats had to pass around the top of the British Isles - a long and dangerous voyage to their "hunting grounds". Germany''s larger surface warships were much better suited to this kind of long-range operation. So, during late 1939 the armored cruiser Deutschland, and later the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were used as commerce raiders, to strike at Allied convoys in the North Atlantic. These sorties met with mixed results, but for Germany''s naval high command they showed that this kind of operation had potential. Then, the fall of France, Denmark and Norway in early 1940 dramatically altered the strategic situation. The Atlantic was now far easier to reach, and to escape from. During 1940, further moderately successful sorties were made by the cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper. By the end of the year, with British mercantile losses mounting to surface raiders and U-Boats, plans were developed for a much larger raid, first using both cruisers, and then the two battlecruisers. The climax of this was Operation Berlin, the Kriegsmarine''s largest and most wide-ranging North Atlantic sortie so far. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau remained at sea for two months, destroying 22 Allied merchant ships, and severely disrupting Britain''s lifeline convoys. So, when the operation ended, the German commander, Admiral L├╝tjens was ordered to repeat his success - this time with the brand new battleship Bismarck. The rest, as they say, is history. These earlier Atlantic raids demonstrated that German surface ships could be highly effective commerce raiders. For those willing to see though, they also demonstrated just how risky this strategy could be. Covering a fascinating and detailed analysis of the Kriegsmarine''s Atlantic raids between 1939 and 1941, this book will appeal to readers interested in World War II and in particular in Germany''s naval operations.

A new study of the battles fought between Queen Victoria''s infantry and the formidable Madhist Army in the Sudan, from the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884ΓÇô85 to the battles of Atbara and Omdurman in 1898.In the early 1880s, Britain intervened in independent Egypt and seized control of the Suez Canal. British forces were soon deployed to Egypt''s southern colony, the Sudan, where they confronted a determined and capable foe amid some of the world''s most inhospitable terrain. In 1881 an Islamic fundamentalist revolt had broken out in the Sudan, led by a religious teacher named Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who proclaimed himself al-Mahdi, "The Guided One." In 1884, Mahdist forces besieged the Sudanese capital of Khartoum; Colonel Charles Gordon was sent to the city with orders to evacuate British personnel, but refused to leave. Although the British despatched a relief column to rescue Gordon, the Mahdists stormed Khartoum in January 1885 and he was killed. British troops abandoned much of the Sudan, but renewed their efforts to reconquer it in the late 1890s, in a bloody campaign that would decide the region''s fate for generations. Written by leading expert Ian Knight, this fully illustrated study examines the evolving forces, weapons and tactics employed by both sides in the Sudan, notably at the battles of Abu Klea (January 16ΓÇô18, 1885), Tofrek (March 22, 1885), and Atbara (April 8, 1898).

A highly illustrated study of the battle at Dien Bien Phu, the 56-day siege that eventually led to the surrender of the remaining French-led forces, this iconic battle provided the climax of the First Indochina War.In late 1953, the seventh year of France''s war against the Viet Minh insurgency in its colony of Vietnam, the C-in-C, General Navarre, was encouraged to plant an ''air-ground base'' in the Thai Highlands at Dien Bien Phu, to distract General Giap''s Vietnamese People''s Army from both Annam and the French northern heartland in the Red River Delta, and to protect the Laotian border. Elite French paratroopers captured Dien Bien Phu, which was reinforced between December 1953 and February 1954 with infantry and artillery, a squadron of tanks and one of fighter-bombers, to a strength of 10,000 men. Giap and the VPA General Staff accepted the challenge of a major positional battle; through a total mobilization of national resources, and with Chinese logistical help, they assembled a siege army of 58,000 regular troops, equipped for the first time with 105mm artillery and 37mm AA guns. Here, author Martin Windrow describes how from their first assaults on 13 March 1954, the battle quickly developed into a dramatic 56-day ''Stalingrad in the jungle'' that drew the attention of the world.

A superbly illustrated study of the major warships of Nazi Germany''s Kriegsmarine. While the Kriegsmarine''s capital ships became less important to Hitler following the outbreak of war, these vessels played a key role in projecting power in northern waters in the opening years of the war, disrupting Allied shipping and supporting operations.The opposing heavy cruisers of the German Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy engaged in a global game of cat and mouse during the opening years of World War II. This was a period in which the heavy cruiser still reigned supreme in open waters, with the opposing sides reluctant to risk their battleships, and aircraft yet to dominate the seas. These swift vessels fought each other in the South Atlantic, North Atlantic, the frigid waters of the Denmark Strait and the Arctic approaches to Russia, capturing the public imagination in the process. This fascinating and beautifully illustrated book examines the design, development and technical performance of these opposing warships, and explores the clashes between them at the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, the Christmas Day Battle 1940 and the Battle of the Denmark Strait in May 1941. The ships examined include the Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe and Admiral Hipper-class cruisers, and the Royal Navy County- and York-class heavy cruisers.

100-year-old Benjamin Ferencz is the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, where he prosecuted 22 leading Nazis. PARTING WORDS follows the story of Ben's life, and each chapter includes his learnings on how we can all make the most of ours - from the subjects of ambition and determination, to happiness and love.

and when he realised that the war was lost, he embarked on the annihilation of Germany itself in punishment of the German people who had failed to hand him victory.In September 1939, Hitler declared that he would wear a simple military tunic until the war was won - or otherwise, he would not be there to witness the end.

The international bestselling and life-affirming story of female bravery, Jewish Nazi resistance and surviving the horrors of Auschwitz

This book describes and examines the first phase of the 'bush war' during which the Rhodesian forces honed their individual and joint skills, emerging as a formidable albeit lean fighting force.

A thrilling history of the dramatic siege of Acre in 1291, the bloody climax to the two hundred years of the Holy Land Crusades

The intimate telling of the life of an Avro Lancaster crew during World War Two, bringing together the story of this iconic RAF bomber and its service with the lives of those who flew her.

Hannibal is ';an exciting biography of one of history's greatest commandersa thrilling page-turner' (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about the brilliant general who successfully crossed the Alps with his war elephants and brought Rome to its knees, and who is still regarded today as one of the greatest military strategists in history.Hannibal Barca of Carthage, born 247 BC, was one of the great generals of the ancient world. His father, Hamilcar, imposed Carthaginian rule over much of present-day Spain. After Hamilcar led the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the First Punic War, Hannibal followed in his father's footsteps. From the time he was a teenager, Hannibal fought against Rome. He is famed for leading Carthage's army across North Africa, into Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, and then crossing the Alps with his army and war elephants. Hannibal won victories in northern Italy by outmaneuvering his Roman adversaries and defeated a larger Roman army at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Unable to force Rome to capitulate, however, he was eventually forced to leave Italy and return to Carthage when a savvy Roman general named Scipio invaded North Africa. Hannibal and Scipio fought an epic battle at Zama, which Hannibal lost. Many Carthaginians blamed Hannibal, who was exiled until his death. Hannibal is still regarded as a military genius. Napoleon, George Patton, and Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. are only some of the generals who studied and admired him. His strategy and tactics are still taught in military academies. ';With wonderful energyarcheologist and historian Patrick Hunt distills his survey of literature about the Second Punic War into a brightly dramatic story that covers virtually every anecdote connected with Hannibal' (The Christian Science Monitor). ';Hunt's story of the doomed general, whose exploits are more celebrated than those of his vanquishers, will appeal to any reader interested in military history or strategy' (Publishers Weekly).

Oswald Boelcke was Germany's first ace in World War One with a total of forty victories. His character, inspirational leadership, organisational genius, development of air-to-air tactics and impact on aerial doctrine are all reasons why Boelcke remains an important figure in the history of air warfare.

Clarendon's History chonicles the English Civil War from the perspective of someone intimately involved in the events he describes. This classic work is admired for its literary quality as well as its historical value; this new selection also contains passages from The Life, Clarendon's autobiography, to produce a vivid narrative history.

Examines the reality behind the myths of the legendary RAF fighter aces during the Battle of Britain. This book includes experiences of fighter pilots based on archival research, diaries, letters, published and memoirs and personal interviews with veterans of the war.

Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after the armies he commanded had played such an important part in helping to win the First World War, he was feted as the saviour of his country. On his death in 1928 he was mourned as a national hero. But within ten years his reputation was in ruins. It has never fully recovered. His name has become a byword for military incompetence, a callous and brutal donkey who led the lions of the British Army to their deaths in the trenches. Haig has been mercilessly lampooned by TV shows such as Blackadder and even recent academic studies depict him as a serial blunderer who learned nothing from his mistakes. In this fascinating biography, Professor Gary Sheffield reassesses Haigs reputation, and demonstrates the crucial role he played in leading British forces to victory in the First World War. Using extensive research into primary sources, many of which have been ignored or misinterpreted by other historians, he shows how Haigs experiences on the Western Front made him a highly effective commander. He also assesses his critical role in preparing the army for war and transforming the shambolic amateur force of the Somme in 1916 to the victorious army of 1918. As well as covering his stormy relations with politicians like Churchill and Lloyd George, he reveals important details about Haigs character and personal life, and his key role in post-war Britain, using the influence he wielded as a leader of ex-servicemen to help secure the peace. This is no whitewash, however: Haigs mistakes did have bloody consequences, and when he deserves criticism, the book does not spare him.