Best of
Military-History

1962

Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller


Burke Davis - 1962
    Now, Davis offers a no-holds-barred biography of this courageous hero--the only marine in history ever to win five Navy Crosses.

The Sinking of the Bismarck: The Deadly Hunt


William L. Shirer - 1962
    But the Allies had to sink it - or risk losing the war. Shirer, famed WWII correspondent and author of 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', captures every moment of the perilous mission. However, a mixture and luck and new technology turned the tide in the Allies' favour.

Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton


Edward L. Beach - 1962
    Beach, planned a routine shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic. Two weeks before the scheduled cruise, however, Beach was summoned to Washington and told of the immediate necessity to prove the reliability of the Rickover-conceived submarine. His new secret orders were to take the Triton around the world, entirely submerged the total distance. This is Beach's gripping firsthand account of what went on during the 36,000 nautical-mile voyage whose record for speed and endurance still stands today. It brings to life the many tense events in the historic journey: the malfunction of the essential fathometer that indicated the location of undersea mountains and shallow waters, the sudden agonizing illness of a senior petty officer, and the serious problems with the ship's main hydraulic oil system. Intensely dramatic, Beach's chronicle also describes the psychological stresses of the journey and some touching moments shared by the crew. A skillful story teller, he recounts the experience in such detail that readers feel they have been along for the ride of a lifetime.

Persia & the Greeks


Andrew Robert Burn - 1962
    The rise of Greek civilisation was described in the last-named book; in the present work we begin with that of the Persians, one of the great imperial peoples of history, who deserve more sympathetic treatment than, from our inevitably and rightly phil-Hellenic point of view, they have sometimes received. The Persian Wars themselves, too, embrace much more than the great culminating episode of Xerxes' invasion, which Thucydides dismissed as 'settled by two battles at sea and two on land'. He would have been more just if he had compared that, not to the whole length of the Peloponnesian War, but to the one episode of the Sicilian expedition. The Persian wars too, together with the simultaneous struggle against Persia's allies, the Phoenicians, were a prolonged though intermittent series of campaigns, ranging in time from Cyrus' conquest of Ionia in 546 to Kimon's last campaign in Cyprus in 450, and in space extending throughout the whole length of the Mediterranean. To trace the course and connections of these campaigns, together with the rise, just in time to be the decisive factor, of the democracy of Athens and of its sea-power, is a task the more worth attempting for the fact that it has not been the subject of a full-length study since that of Grundy, published in 1899.

A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals Of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861-1865


Charles S. Wainwright - 1962
    Wainwright (1826–1907), later a brevet brigadier general, was commissioned in the First New York Artillery Regiment of the Army of the Potomac in October 1861, he began a journal. As an officer who fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg, and who witnessed the leadership of Generals McClellan, Hooker, Burnside, Meade, Grant, and Sheridan, he brilliantly describes his experiences, views, and emotions. But Wainwright's entries go beyond military matters to include his political and social observations. Skillfully edited by Allan Nevins, historian and author of the classic multivolume Ordeal of the Union, this journal is Wainwright's vivid and invaluable gift to posterity.

Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall


Russell F. Weigley - 1962
    Weigley here wrote a series of biographical essays on the development of American military thought. Starting with the American Revolution, Weigley covers George Washington and Alexander Hamilton; John C. Calhoun; Dennis Hart Mahan; Henry W. Halleck and George B. McClellan; William T. Sherman And Ulysses S. Grant; Emory Upton and his disciples; John A. Logan; John M. Schofield; R. M. Johnston; Leonard Wood; and ending with John McAuley Palmer and George C. Marshall.

Brass-Pounders: Young Telegraphers of the Civil War


Alvin F. Harlow - 1962
    Speed is always key, and in the day of the Civil War, the fastest transmission was by telegraph. As the frontlines advanced and retreated, the wire would have to be strung to the front lines. In this fascinating volume, Alvin Harlow, recounts many of the adventures of the Civil War telegraphers, who despite their civilian status shared the dangers of the soldiers as they sent massages back to the various headquarters and generals. As the title suggests the telegraphers were often no more than teenagers, and their stories form an interesting sidelight on the Civil War.

Marshal of France: The Life and Times of Maurice de Saxe


Jon Manchip White - 1962
    It is not surprising that the writing of the biography of this vivid, talented and entertaining figure should have provided the author with a genial and absorbing task.He came of extraordinary stock; the circumstances of his birth were remarkable; he was the lover of many celebrated women; he won the lifelong friendship of men of the stature of Voltaire; he aspired to a crown, and nearly became the Czar of Russia; his activities spanned a whole continent, from Paris to Dresden, from Dresden to Warsaw, from Warsaw to Moscow. Yet he was more, much more, than an energetic and flamboyant adventurer: he was acknowledged to be the outstanding general of his era, a military genius who linked the epoch of Marlborough with the epoch of Frederick the Great. He led great armies and won great victories.It is part of the purpose of this book to restore him to the pre-eminent place in social and military history to which his achievements entitle him. The study of his campaigns has proved no dutiful or dreary labour, for he was among the wittiest and most elegant military practitioners who have ever lived. There was a touch of diablerie about the manner in which he gained his spectacular triumphs that set him apart from the other great captains of his era.

The Zeppelin In Combat: History of the German Naval Airship Division 1912-1918


Douglas Hill Robinson - 1962
    Fantastic indeed is the story of their reckless attacks on England which Dr Robinson unfolds. All too many of the fragile giants, filled with inflammable hydrogen, fell as easy prey to the incendiary bullets of defending British aeroplanes. They were the first strategic bomber force, and their range, endurance and carrying capacity far exceed those of other aircraft of their day.

Combat: The War With Japan


Don CongdonS.E. Morison - 1962
    From Singapore to Hiroshima - the war in the Pacific - magnificently recreated by the men who fought it.