Although critically injured and virtually without supplies, he evaded capture in savage terrain for six weeks. Finally caught and placed in a holding camp, he overpowered his guards and escaped, only to be captured again. He resisted his interrogators to the end, and he died two weeks later in Hanoi. His courage was an inspiration to other American prisoners of war, and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

    From the earliest operations in the Pacific through the decisive Battle of Midway, it offers a narrative account of how ace fighter pilots like Jimmy Thach and Butch O'Hare and their skilled VF squadron mates--called the first team--amassed a remarkable combat record in the face of desperate odds. Tapping both American and Japanese sources, historian John B. Lundstrom reconstructs every significant action and places these extraordinary fighters within the context of overall carrier operations. He writes from the viewpoint of the pilots themselves, after interviewing some fifty airmen from each side, to give readers intimate details of some of the most exciting aerial engagements of the war. At the same time he assesses the role the fighter squadrons played in key actions and shows how innovations in fighter tactics and gunnery techniques were a primary reason for the reversal of American fortunes. After more than twenty years in print, the book remains the definitive account and is being published in paperback for the first time to reach an even larger audience.

    With gut-wrenching realism and immediacy, Hastings reveals the terrible human cost that this battle exacted. Moving beyond just the storming of Omaha beach and D-Day, he explores the Allies’ push inward, with many British and American infantry units suffering near 100 percent casualties during the course of that awful summer. Far from a gauzy romanticized remembrance, Hastings details a grueling ten week battle to overpower the superbly trained, geographically entrenched German Wehrmacht. Uncompromising and powerful in its depiction of wartime, this is the definitive book on D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.

    forces in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg, achieveing what had been considered impossible -- total surprise. In the most abysmal failure of battlefield intelligence in the history of the U.S. Army, 600,000 American soldiers found themselves facing Hitler's last desperate effort of the war.The brutal confrontation that ensued became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the greatest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army -- a triumph of American ingenuity and dedication over an egregious failure in strategic intelligence. A Time for Trumpets is the definitive account of this dramatic victory, told by one of America's most respected military historians, who was also an eyewitness: MacDonald commanded a rifle company in the Battle of the Bulge. His account of this unique battle is exhaustively researched, honestly recounted, and movingly authentic in its depiction of hand-to-hand combat.Mingling firsthand experience with the insights of a distinguished historian, MacDonald places this profound human drama unforgettably on the landscape of history.

    In this first complete English translation, the Strategikon is an invaluable source not only for early Byzantine history but for the general history of the art of war. Describing in detail weaponry and armor, daily life on the march or in camp, clothing, food, medical care, military law, and titles of the Byzantine army of the seventh century, the Strategikon offers insights into the Byzantine military ethos. In language contemporary, down-to-earth, and practical, the text also provides important data for the historian, and even the ethnologist, including eyewitness accounts of the Persians, Slavs, Lombards, and Avars at the frontier of the Empire.

    combatant types, as well as plans, profiles, and numerous detailed photographs.

    BUT CHARLIE OWNED THE CLOCK! One morning there was nothing but hot, thick jungle and steaming swamp. And the Viet Cong. The next morning there were three hundred sweating, groaning men chopping and chain sawing a hole in that particular hunk of hell. And that's where Captain Mack Gerber and his Scorpion Squad were going to set up shop. Right in the VC's backyard. Gerber's orders were simple: Let the VC know they didn't own the delta anymore; let them know they were in a lastditch fight; and make sure it was the last thing they'd ever know. But Victor Charlie had their own plans. A clock was ticking. Soon all hell would break loose and there wouldn't be enough survivors left to do a ... body count.

    Pegasus Bridge was the first engagement of D-Day, the turning point of World War II.This gripping account of it by acclaimed author Stephen Ambrose brings to life a daring mission so crucial that, had it been unsuccessful, the entire Normandy invasion might have failed. Ambrose traces each step of the preparations over many months to the minute-by-minute excitement of the hand-to-hand confrontations on the bridge. This is a story of heroism and cowardice, kindness and brutality—the stuff of all great adventures.

    This stirring tribute to The USS Abercrombie and her sister ships captures the wartime navy from the sailor's view.

    Army World War II ground combat force units from battalion through division, 1939-1946 Weapons, equipment, vehicles, and combat photographs Thoroughly updated with newly uncovered unit data collected over the twenty years since publication of the original Order of Battle, U.S. Army, World War II Includes: Units Overseas Service Ports of Embarkation Insignia Combat Narratives Organizational Charts Campaigns Stateside Service Post, Camps, & Stations

    Army's UH-1H "Huey" Iroquois helicopter. He experiences screaming descents into hot landing zones to place military assault troops and rescue wounded soldiers. He has the clarity of mind to survive seven days of horror in a Vietnamese jungle swamp while the psychology of a fellow soldier is severely tested. He's got the guts to buck military orders and battle his own brass to pursue an investigation when a botched operation spells disaster for the men under him. Based on the authors' personal experiences in the Vietnam War, Huey is an authentic, action-filled book of historical fiction. Originally published 30 years ago, this moving novel became a New York Timesbestseller within days of publishing. Now it's available again on Kindle.

    The book is an extensively revised and extended version of the author's 1984 work The King's Ships Were at Sea. It covers the first six months of the First World War because very important things occurred in that time and, despite the loose ends that inevitably remain with four more years of conflict to follow, important things can be said. The focus is primarily on the British, but both the Germans and the Russians are integral to the study because neither the British nor the Germans' North Sea activities can be fairly assessed without giving due weight to the Baltic theatre of operations. This is an operational history, which balances coverage of the major incidents with treatment of the continuum of activity. The intent within the scene setting chapters is not to attempt a complete survey of the events of the previous decade, but to situate each navy within the environment of 1914.Before Jutland includes the battles of Heligoland Bight and the Dogger Bank, as well as the shock of the submarine and its effect on the operations of all the protagonists. In analysing these events, it seeks to provide the context within which the protagonists were actually working, without the application of excessive hindsight, because in 1914 so much was new and experimental. Observers are inclined to consider what is known as the 'Fisher Era' as a continuum from Admiral Fisher's accession as First Sea Lord in the British Admiralty in 1904; in reality the pace of operational development not only accelerated but became truly multi-lane only after about 1909, just before the great reformer went into his first retirement. The pressures at all levels within navies were therefore intensifying in the years immediately before the outbreak of the war in ways that were not fully understood.

    Here are stories of one of the Andrews Sisters visiting a military hospital, and a young man recalling the awe General Patton inspired in his troops. Here too, are those who stayed at home: the relief workers, the big shots in Washington, the young men surrounded by a sudden supply of young women. And here are the accounts of the panic that struck the West Coast after Pearl Harbor—and the full story of "the Bomb," told by a scientist who developed it and the pilot who dropped it. Terkel spoke not only with Americans, but also with those who lived through the war in Japan, Russia, Germany, England and France. He shows us both sides of the war, what it was like to shell as well as to be shelled.

    Every soldier who fought in Vietnam was changed by the war. Frederick Downs, Jr. served in the infantry, patrolling the jungles until his left arm was blown off & the rest of his body mutilated. He had stepped on the trigger of a land mine on January 11, 1968. That story was told in The Killing Zone, published in 1978. He nearly died, but by sheer will he was able to rekindle a remarkable spirit that carried him forth into a new life. There were daily operations & weeks of wracking pain. This is the story of how one man put his life together again after he left the hospital.

    Moving beyond other studies by its focus on the reader's role in giving meaning to the text, it reveals Thucydides' use of objectivity not so much as a standard for the proper presentation of his subject matter as a method for communicating with his readers and involving them in the complexity and suffering of the Peloponnesian War. W. Robert Connor shows that as Thucydides' themes and ideas are reintroduced and developed, the initial reactions of the reader are challenged, subverted, and eventually made to contribute to a deeper understanding of the war.

    Navy in the age of sail is filled with brilliant insights and daring assessments of famous naval figures.

    This colorful and compact volume provides a useful guide to the aircraft manufactured by the Axis countries of WWII, including Messerschmitt AG, Kawasaki, and Fiat.

    Ranging far beyond pure military history the story is multi-layered, combining objective analysis with a sensitive account of human reaction in the face of bitter, cruel warfare, disease and an inhospitable terrain. Military events are painstakingly detailed, and set in their political and cultural context. Equal attention is paid to both sides of the conflict with informative insights made into Japanese plans and responses.

    With defective torpedoes, a semi-trained crew, and a primitive ventilation system (hence the nickname), she nevertheless sank two enemy vessels and eluded pursuit to fight again in the Solomons. This is the little-known story of how an unprepared navy fought with what it had until the tide could be turned. Bobette Gugliotta was one of the S-39 wives. With the technical assistance o

    It thus provides a model against which the military development of other countries can be measured in terms of the composition, control and cost of armies. Above all, it redresses the imbalance whereby only the naval forces of Venice have been studied seriously. It is thus an essential contribution to an understanding of the extension and maintenance of an empire by land and sea, and of the strength in troops and fortifications that preserved Venice as the one truly independent state in sixteenth-century Italy. It also adds significantly to an understanding of the relationship between Venice and the republic's subject territories.

    

    It then proceeds through the Dark Ages, the Norman Conquest, the Scottish struggles, the Wars of the Roses, the Civil Wars, the Jacobite Rebellion and finally to our one battle in the air, the battle of Britain.

    

    

    A guide to Britain's role in major conflicts from 1945 to 1948 discusses the strategies and tactics of every major campaign and battle and covers Britain's development of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist techniques.

    As the title indicates, these were years of beginnings that ushered in the present-day era of service unification and saw the development of policies and programs that would have lasting impact on national security. A richly documented volume, it draws on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources to present a commanding account of the evolution of both defense organization and national security policy during the critical post-World War II years.The book opens with the swearing-in of the first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, who faced the dual challenge of effecting unification of the armed forces and of reconstituting U.S. defense policy to meet an increasing array of problems and threats abroad, the Cold War with the Soviet Union heading the list. As Forrestal discovered, to make unification work, he needed more authority and assistance than the 1947 National Security Act gave him. His successor, Louis Johnson, had the benefit of amendments in 1949 that enhanced the secretary's power. But like Forrestal, Johnson confronted fierce interservice competition for scarce funds and deeply divisive quarrels, especially between the Air Force and the Navy, over the assignment of roles and missions. A series of chapters on the making of the defense budgets for the period strikingly illuminates the intricate relationships among strategic policies, military programs, roles and missions, and money.Problems abroad threatened to embroil the United States in conflicts for which it was largely unprepared. Students of foreign affairs will be especially interested in the chapters on assistance to Greece and Turkey under the Truman Doctrine, the partitioning of Palestine and the ensuing Arab-Israeli conflict, the civil war in China and its repercussions throughout the Far East, including the early stages of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and the Berlin crisis of 1948-49, which nearly led to a military showdown with the Soviet Union. Subsequent chapters examine the development of the atomic energy program and growing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the origins of the worldwide Mutual Defense Assistance Program, and the drafting of NSC 68, the landmark policy paper that in 1950, on the eve of the Korean War, proposed an unprecedented program of peacetime rearmament.

    The outcome was a series sea/air battles at close quarters, fought with increasing ferocity until the last days of the war. The Germans tried everything against the Beaufighters and Mosquitos of the Strike Wings fighters, intense flak, parachute mines and even flame-throwers and the casualties were appallingly heavy on both sides. In this classic account of one of the neglected, yet crucial theaters of the air war Roy Nesbit, himself a survivor of strike aircraft of Coastal Command, describes these complex battles from British and German records, assisted by first-hand accounts from some of the brave airmen who took part. He also analyzes the effects of the tactics employed on the German war economy, with some startling conclusions. The result is a fascinating, clearly written and vivid history of events that were little publicized during the war for reasons of security. His book includes detailed diagrams of some of the key attacks and features some astonishing photographs taken in action."

    Just like American military leaders who had an obsession for all things Russian during the Cold War in order to understand the Soviets, the war on al-Qaida and the complex nuances of the Arab Spring demand a deeper comprehension of the Middle East from direct sources. The memoirs of General Mohamed Fawzi, Egyptian War Minister from 1967 to 1971, were first published in 1984, but his work has not ben translated and remains undiscovered by English speaking readers. Many in the United States Armed Services have yet to be introduced to his ideas, perspectives, and the seeds by which the 1973 Yom-Kippur War were laid. In this new contribution to his series of essays written for Infantry Journal, Aboul-Enein has determined to bring to life the military thoughts of this Arab War Minister. This book is a joint Infantry-Naval Institute Press project that has condensed the entire collection of essays on Fawzi to a single volume, to provide future generations of America's military leaders with access his ideas. Fawzi is unique among Arab generals for his scathing critique of his own armed forces, and from his critical examination of what went wrong in 1967, he was able to slowly resurrect the Egyptian Armed Forces to a level that enabled Sadat to consider an offensive in 1973. This Egyptian general will provide insights into the level of Soviet cooperation and military aid provided Egypt after the 1967 Six-Day War, known simply in Arabic by one word, al-Naksah (the setback), not to be confused with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War known by one word, al-Nakbah (the catastrophe). While Fawzi lapses into conspiracy, indulges in wishful thinking, and employs the language of pan-Arabism on occasion, much like Soviet military theorists couched their ideas in Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, this will not stop serious American students of war from recognizing his brilliance about the lessons learned from the crushing defeat of Egyptian arms in the 1967 Six-Day War.

    

    By 1865, a variety of breech-loading and repeating arms had been invented there were both easier to use and more accurate. This encyclopedic study, part one of a two-part book, traces the development and uses of firearms on the frontier during that period, drawing on primary sources such as correspondence and diaries, newspaper accounts, government reports, and patent materials. Equally significant are the many rare photographs and illustrations that accompany the text. Then, as now, most of the advances in weaponry were made in response to the military's needs, becoming available somewhat later to civilians, and then to Indians. The authors thoroughly cover the refinements and adaptations of weapons for employ by these three groups and by explorers and trappers, describing in detail each gun, its modifications, operations, and uses. Some of the varieties of the weapons discussed include rifles, smoothbores, carbines and musketoons, and pistols. In many ways the history of firearms on the frontier parallels the history of the development of the West. This engrossing, detailed study adds an important new dimension to our understanding of many of the pivotal events in the settlement of the region, broadening, too, our knowledge of the individuals who took part in them.