These sea raiders, or ‘corsairs’ as they were known, sought captives to enslave in the Ottoman Empire’s galleys, mines and harems. When reports circulated of white Christians being shackled to oars, smashing rocks in mines and being sold into sexual slavery, the American public became incensed. The leaders of the young republic were forced to act and with remarkable dexterity built a fleet of ships that grew into a fighting force powerful enough to withstand its first major test: The Barbary Wars.*Includes annotations and images.

    Sixteen remarkable stories. One blockbuster space opera collection. Welcome to Galactic Frontiers, an epic anthology of space opera and military science fiction stories! From the far reaches of space to the interiors of the human soul. Journey to dystopian futures where humanity fights for survival beyond Earth against overwhelming alien forces. Travel to the galactic fringe where you either kill and get paid or die and stay broke. Experience the ethereal wonders and tragic consequences of godhood. Discover the awe of outer space and coming face to face with the unknown. Featuring contributions ranging from bestselling authors to up and coming writers, the stories in Galactic Frontiers will exhilarate and captivate, taking you to new universes and beyond! “Lori’s War” by CJ Carella “Space Cadets” by HJ Lawson “Battle Beyond Earth: Liberty” by Nick S. Thomas “Retreat: A Pike Chronicles Short Story” by G.P. Hudson “Daughters of Ayor” by David R. Bernstein “Bloodbag Suppressors” by Justin Sloan “Crash Landing” by Ken Lozito. “The Teardrop that became a Torrent” by Rachel Aukes “The Forever Family” by J.N. Chaney “Rift” by Amy DuBoff “The Embrose Contract” by C.C. Ekeke “The Trenches of Centauri Prime” by Craig Martelle “Plenty” by Jenetta Penner “Planetstrider” by Chris Fox “Tombstone” by Jay Allan. First published in 2012. “Last Survivors” by Michael G. Thomas

    Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade posted to northeastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province. Battle Company, the best within the Brigade, was assigned the toughest Area of Operations. It was called the Korengal Valley. During their 15-month tour, Battle Company saw more combat than any unit since Vietnam. Raw and unapologetic, To Quell The Korengal is a first-hand account of life on the front lines. Written by a grunt on the ground, it is rife with gun fights, grueling foot patrols, a villainous Company Commander, the austere routines of the American Soldier, and the kind of humor only a war could love. Though equally appealing to combat-hardened readers, the story is told in a manner any civilian can comprehend. It was the author's wish that the book could serve as a bridge of understanding for a veteran's wife or mom, or anyone curious about the conflict and sacrifices of our nation's troops.

    For the next six weeks, Hunt executed dozens of bombing missions into Kuwait and Iraq, including all-weather low-level attacks, A-6 Intruder missions so hazardous that they would never be flown in combat again. Whether Hunt was dropping laser-guided bombs on precision targets, supporting the Marines on the ground, or conducting attacks along the infamous “highway of death,” America’s mission was clear – to force the invading Iraqi army out of Kuwait.Operation Desert Storm - America’s first full-scale conflict since Vietnam - proved to the world that the U.S. military was still battle-ready after decades of Cold War and set the stage for military interventions for years to come. Hunt’s gripping depiction of A-6 Intruders in combat is a thought provoking account of what America asks of her military every day.This…Gulf War memoir is excellent; it really does put the reader in the cockpit...Peter Hunt’s enthusiastic account is one of the best of the type this reviewer has read in recent years. Peter Mersky, The Hook – Journal of Carrier Aviation Book Review, February 2003.

    

    They were to lead the assault on Omaha Beach and break out inland. Simultaneously, other Ranger units would scale the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc to destroy the ostensibly huge gun battery there and thus protect the invasion fleet from being targeted. But was the Pointe du Hoc mission actually necessary? Why did the Allies plan and execute an attack on a gun battery that they knew in advance contained no field guns? And more importantly, why did they ignore the position at Maisy that did? Using personal interviews with the surviving Rangers who fought on the beach and at Pointe du Hoc, The Cover-Up at Omaha Beach presents exceptionally detailed new research that takes the reader into the middle of the action with the Rangers.Gary Sterne has made a painstaking study of what the Allies actually knew in advance of D-Day, including what was known about Maisy Battery. Maps, orders, and assault plans have been found in US, UK, and German archives, many of which have only been recently released after having been classified for more than sixty years. Radio communications of the Rangers as they advanced inland have been found, and Royal Air Force intelligence evaluations of bombing missions directed at the site have now been released. All these combine to make The Cover-Up at Omaha Beach one of the most up-to-date references on the subject.

    The brave and the low on both sides, and those just trying to survive World War 3.*Contains some sexual content

    Thwarted in his plans to invade, Hitler decided he would starve Britain into submission instead. Operating in conjunction with U-Boats, long-range Condor aircraft manned by élite German airmen attacked Allied ships far beyond the range of any land-based RAF fighters, with devastating results. To counter the Luftwaffe threat, men from the RAF and Fleet Air Arm were asked to volunteer to be catapulted from the foredecks of merchant ships in specially modified Hawker Hurricanes. But with nowhere to land afterwards, it was a one-way mission. If the British fighter pilots survived combat, they would have no option but to bail out into the North Atlantic and hope they were picked up by the one of the convoy escorts. Survival was anything but certain ...

    For months now, Monique doesn’t know who she is anymore.Monique is living under a false identity in German-occupied Paris. No one knows that she is Jewish.Since last summer, Monique has been involved with a Nazi officer, and she knows that she will pay with her life if anyone discovers her secret, but she has no other choice.In the days leading to Christmas, Monique and Herr Ernest, the German officer she lives with, are preparing for a German officers’ reception which they plan to attend. Monique ardently continues to hide her secret. Still, she can’t ignore the signs of her past, and as the evening of the reception progresses, Monique finds it increasingly difficult to keep her true identity a secret, fearing that some may suspect her of hiding something.Monique must keep her secret, but can she continue to deny her identity and heritage?With the backdrop of illuminated Christmas trees and Hanukkah candles, Alex Amit’s short story illuminates the simple and extraordinary acts of courage by a young woman, fighting for her life and identity during those dark and dreadful days, and continuing to believe that next year will bring with it winds of change and hope.

    The United States remained wary of joining the costly and destructive conflict. But for five extraordinary young Americans, the global threat of fascism was too great to ignore. Six months before Pearl Harbor, these courageous idealists left their promising futures behind to join the beleaguered British Army. Fighting as foreigners, they were shipped off to join the Desert Rats, the 7th Armored Division of the British Eighth Army, who were battling Field Marshal Rommel’s panzer division. The Yanks would lead anti-tank and machine-gun platoons into combat at the Second Battle of El Alamein, the twelve-day epic of tank warfare that would ultimately turn the tide for the Allies. A fitting tribute to five men whose commitment to freedom transcended national boundaries, Into Dust and Fire is a gripping true tale of idealism, courage, camaraderie, sacrifice, and heroism.

    What price would you be willing to pay for a cure? Any price? Are you sure?Would it be worth agreeing to join an alien nation offering a cure but without any of the messy details?* who and what are the aliens,* proof they can cure you,* why they want people from Earth,* the alien's specific needs,* what they expect from those they cure,* but knowing they will never see Earth again.Kayla, a seventeen-year-old teenager, and others with an assortment of lethal medical conditions are about to find out the price of life.

    Adolf Hitler, the "Führer" of the German Reich, unexpectedly dies in a plane crash in Hungary. The German High Command takes over the regime, disempowers the Nazi Party and reorganizes the military forces. Germany swiftly has to overcome recent setbacks in North Africa and on the Eastern Front. Furthermore, an allied invasion already casts its long shadow. The German generals understand that it is not about the ultimate victory anymore but merely about achieving a stalemate to save the Reich on the negotiating table. First, they have to stabilize Germany's positions on the Eastern Front. Therefore the High Command gathers its panzer forces and throws them into a daring all or nothing gamble for the city Kursk. Tom Zola, a former sergeant in the German Army, is a military fiction writer, famous for his intense battle descriptions and realistic action scenes. In 2014 the first book of his PANZERS series was released in German language, setting up an alternate history scenario in which a different German Reich tries to turn around the fortunes of war at the pinnacle of the Second World War. Zola doesn’t beat around the bush; his stories involve brutal fighting, inhuman ideologies and a military machine that overruns Europe and the whole world without mercy. He has developed a breathtaking yet shocking alternate timeline that has finally been translated into English.

    forces anywhere in the world. The Pech Valley is surrounded by Taliban-filled mountains on the Pakistan border in the Kunar Province, where the mountain peaks push ten thousand feet. On the night of August 18, 2010 a platoon of Army Rangers were on a direct action raid to capture or kill a high value target in the Pech Valley. More than anything, this is the story of the Rangers who ferociously fought through the night and into the next morning.

    However, it also ventures far beyond the usual soldier's story and approaches a travelogue of the Eastern Front campaign, seldom attained by the memoirs of the period. His self-published book in French is highly regarded by Belgian historian and expert on these volunteers Eddy de Bruyne, and Battle of Cherkassy author Douglas Nash. This book merits attention as the SS volunteer equivalent of Guy Sajer’s The Forgotten Soldier, a bestseller in the USA and Europe. By comparison, Kaisergruber’s story has the advantage of being completely verifiable by documents and serious historical narratives already published, such as Eddy de Bruyne’s For Rex and for Belgium and Kenneth Estes' European Anabasis.Until recent years, very little was known of the tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France and Spain who served voluntarily in the military formations of the German Army and the German Waffen-SS. In Kaisergruber’s book, the reader discovers important issues of collaboration, the apparent contributions of the volunteers to the German war effort, their varied experiences, their motives, the attitude of the German High Command and bureaucracy, and the reaction to these in the occupied countries. The combat experiences of the Walloons echoed those of the very best volunteer units of the Waffen-SS, although they shared equally in the collapse of the Third Reich in May, 1945.Although unapologetic for his service, Kaisergruber makes no special claims for the German cause and writes not from any postwar apologia and dogma, but instead from his firsthand observations as a young man experiencing war for the first time, extending far beyond what had been imaginable at the time. His observations of fellow soldiers, commanders, Russian civilians and the battlefields prove poignant and telling. They remain as fresh as when he first wrote some of them down in his travel diary, ‘Pensées fugitives et Souvenirs (1941–46)’. Fernand Kaisergruber draws upon his contemporary diaries, those of his comrades and his later work with them while secretary of their postwar veteran's league to present a thoroughly engaging epic.

    There were 20,000 Japanese troops on Saipan, but the US obliterated the opposition after a horrific all-arms campaign. The sudden silence only indicated it was now Tinian’s turn.By the time the US 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions switched their sights to Tinian, the island had already been bombarded for a month; meantime both sides had learned their lessons from the previous island-hopping invasions. The Americans had learned the arts of recon, deception, plus preliminary firepower so as not to suffer the huge casualties they’d suffered at Saipan, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa; the Japanese, for their part, had learned not to contest US strength on beaches but to draw it further inland where terrain and bomb-proof fortifications could assist.When the battle for Tinian finally took place the US acted with great skill. Historian Samuel Elliot Morrison called it “the most perfectly executed amphibious operation of the entire war.” Nevertheless, the Japanese resisted with their usual stubbornness, and the already decimated US Marines suffered hundreds of more casualties.During the battle Japanese shore batteries were able to riddle the battleship Colorado, killing scores, plus make multiple hits on a destroyer, killing its captain. On the island itself the US used napalm for the first time, paving the way for Marines painstakingly rooting out strongpoints. One last Banzai attack signaled the end to enemy resistance, as Marines fought toe-to-toe with their antagonists in the dark.In the end some 8,000 Japanese were killed, with only 300 surrenders, plus some others who hid out for years after the war. But those Japanese who resisted perhaps performed a greater service than they knew. After Tinian was secured the US proceeded to build the biggest airport in the world on that island—home to hundreds of B-29 Superfortresses. Among these, just over a year later, were the Enola Gay and Boxcar, which with their atomic bombs would quickly bring the Japanese homeland itself to its knees.