The inspirational story of Douglas Bader, DSO, DFC.

    Lee, no Confederate general was more feared or admired than Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Once derisively known as “Tom Fool,” Jackson was an innovative battlefield strategist who struck terror in the hearts of Union army commanders and inspired Confederate soldiers to victory after victory in the early days of the Civil War. A fanatically religious man, Jackson prayed at the start and conclusion of every battle—yet showed no mercy when confronting the enemy. Eccentric, enigmatic, and fiercely intelligent, he became the stuff of legend soon after he died from wounds suffered during the Battle of Chancellorsville; his untimely death would help to change the course of the conflict. Based on a wealth of first-person sources, including Jackson’s private papers and correspondences, and the memoirs of family, friends, and colleagues, They Called Him Stonewall is a masterful portrait of the man behind the myth.

    Describes in text and pictures weapons used through the ages, from the stones of prehistoric man to the bombs of modern times.

    F. C. Fuller, a pioneer of mechanized warfare in Great Britain, was one of this century's most renowned military strategists and historians. In this magisterial work he spans military history from the Greeks to the end of World War II, describing tactics, battle lines, the day-to-day struggles while always relating affairs on the field to the larger questions of social, political, and economic change in Western civilization. A masterpiece of scholarship and biting prose, these volumes are available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition. This first volume includes the rise of imperialism, the major battles, and the political and social changes from Greece, Rome, the Carolingian Empire, Byzantium, the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, to the rise of the Spanish and Ottoman Empires and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

    The story is also about the bravery and spirit of the Maltese people who gave their lives to keep the aircraft in the air and the men who toiled to keep the runway fit to fly on. The defense of Malta can justifiably be included among the epics of World War Two. The part played by ‘Faith’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Charity’ is symbolic of the courage and endurance displayed by the people of Malta during the struggle against vastly superior Axis Air Forces.

    It was the motto of those who refused to surrender and who escaped to carry on the fight behind enemy lines. Colonel Russell W. Volckmann commanded this guerrilla force.This is Colonel Volckmann's account of his personal experiences in guerrilla warfare and in the resistance movement against a ruthless enemy. He tells of the many events that led up to the final open conflict with the Japanese occupation forces. Colonel Volckmann recounts for the reader the fateful decision not to obey the surrender order at the fall of Bataan; the tortuous escape from the Japanese and the long flight through the jungle to the north; the friendship of the headhunting Igorots and the dead-shot Hugaos who provided hideouts; the slow building via the underground from the original four men to a guerrilla force of over 20,000 Filipinos and Americans which crushed the Japanese forces is Northern Luzon.This book reveals a side of modern warfare about which little has been told. It is a phase of war that calls for unusual devotion to cause, unswerving determination and courage, true patriotism, and the ingenuity to overcome insurmountable obstacles.

    Professor Verbruggen's major work, outstanding in its field, applies rigorous standards in analysing often very obscure surviving evidence, and reaches conclusions very different from earlier generations of military historians. He begins by analysing the sources for our knowledge of the military history of the period, assessing their reliability: some chroniclers exaggerate, others are careful observers or have access to official records. There follows an examination of the constituent parts of the medieval army, knights and footsoldiers, equipment and terms of service, behaviour on the field, and psychology, before the problematic question of medieval tactics is addressed through analysis of accounts of a series of major battles. Strategy is discussed in the context of these battles: whether to seek battle, fight a defensive war, or attempt a war of conquest. Originally published in Dutch in 1954, now translated and updated. J.F. VERBRUGGEN is a distinguished Belgian military historian of wide experience. Prisoner of war, student, and a member of the resistance movement during the second world war, he subsequently obtained his Ph.D., with greatest distinction, for research into warfare in the middle ages, and remained in the army as a lecturer at the Royal Military School in Brussels until in 1956 he went to the Belgian Congo. He spent twenty years teaching in Africa, retiring as Professor of History, University of Congo, and University of Bujumbura (Burundi) in 1976.

    These are the units that engage in combat, suffer the casualties, and make up the fighting strength of the battalions, regiments, divisions, corps, and finally, of the field army. Combat is a very personal business to members of such a small unit. Concerned with the fearful and consuming tasks of fighting and living, these men cannot think of war in terms of the Big Picture as it is represented on the situation maps at corps or army headquarters. Members of a squad or platoon know only what they can see and hear of combat. They know and understand the earth for which they fight, the advantage of holding the high ground, the protection of the trench or hole. These men can distinguish the sounds of enemy weapons from those of their own; they know the satisfying sound of friendly artillery shells passing overhead and of friendly planes diving at an objective. They know the excitement of combat, the feeling of exhilaration and of despair, the feeling of massed power, and of overwhelming loneliness. The author has tried to describe combat as individuals have experienced it, or at least as it has appeared from the company command post. In so doing, much detail has been included that does not find its way into more barren official records. The details and the little incidents of combat were furnished by surviving members of the squads and companies during painstaking interviews and discussions soon after the fighting was over. Conversely, many facts have been omitted from the narrative presented here. The accounts tell only part of the complete story, intentionally ignoring related actions of cause and effect in order to keep one or two small units in sharper focus. The story of action on Heartbreak Ridge, for example, describes fighting that lasted only one or two hours, whereas the entire battle for that hill went on for several weeks. Sometimes there are obvious gaps because important information was lost with the men who died in the battle. Sometimes the accounts are incomplete because the author failed to learn or to recount everything of importance that happened.

    The landing of American forces on Leyte and the successful conclusion of a campaign which led to the severance of the Japanese mainland from its southern empire