The book follows individual operations where special forces, aircraft, and the latest surveillance technology are fused together - in order to capture key figures or simply take out an enemy stronghold.The books account is both gritty and graphical as it follows the SAS, battling at times against overwhelming odds in a hostile country. Fighting a war hardened enemy with years of experience fighting occupying forces. Even these elite soldiers with advanced weaponry and immense fire support at their disposal are put to the ultimate test of skill and courage fighting in the 'Stan.'

    A member of Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame, Shames saw combat in some of the most ferocious battles of World War II. From jumping behind the lines of Normandy on D-Day with the 101st Airborne Division, to the near victory of Operation Market Garden, to the legendary stand at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, Shames fought his way across Europe and into Germany itself.In Airborne Shames and writer Ian Gardner (Tonight We Die As Men) tell the gripping true story of what it was like to be at the spear point of World War II in Europe. Neither the book nor TV series of Band of Brothers ever showed the real Ed Shames. Although he started as a private, combat soon forged Shames into a tough and inspired leader who would win a battlefield commission in Normandy. Seeming always to be where the fighting was, his two goals were to prevail in each fight against the Germans, and to keep his men alive. “Shames, you are the meanest, roughest son of a bitch I've ever had to deal with. But you brought us home,” was what he considered to be the highest compliment he received from one of his men.Even though he was wounded in the Ardennes, Ed Shames never stopped fighting until Germany surrendered and the war was won. He has never stopped being a warrior.

    An American pilot shot down over Laos in 1966 tells of his inhumane treatment and torture at the hands of the Communist Pathet Lao and his daring escape from a prison camp five months after capture.

    

    a great tale with a deep message' George Robertson 'a thrilling escapade' Bournemouth Echo At the age of nineteen, Glasgow-born John McCallum signed up as a Supplementary Reservist in the Signal Corps. A little over a year later, he was in France, working frantically to set up communication lines as Europe once more hurtled towards war. Wounded and captured at Boulogne, he was sent to the notorious Stalag VIIIB prison camp, together with his brother, Jimmy, and friend Joe Harkin. Ingenious and resourceful, the three men set about planning their escape. With the help of Traudl, a local girl, they put their plan into action. In an astonishing coincidence, they passed through the town of Sagan, around which the seventy-six airmen of the Great Escape were being pursued and caught. However, unlike most of these other escapees, John, Jimmy and Joe eventually made it to freedom. Now, due to the declassification of documents under the Official Secrets Act, John McCallum is finally able to tell the thrilling story of his adventure, in which he recaptures all the danger, audacity and romance of one of the most daring escapes of the Second World War.

    The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised.In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Momuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis.

    

     However, the passion of Major Hesketh-Prichard – hunter and excellent marksman – for the promotion and advancement of sniping practices led to the implementation of brand new sniping methods by the British Army. These new practices contributed to the reversal of fortune of the Allied forces, tipping the balance in their favour towards victory in the sniping war. This excellent book, as told in the inimitable style of Major Hesketh-Prichard, recounts the genesis, development, and advancement of sniping style and practice, intermingled with a charming autobiographical style. Truly a classic account of war, this is a must read for avid military enthusiasts. Major Hesketh-Prichard, born in India in 1876, led a vibrant life as an explorer and adventurer, big-game hunter turned animal rights activist, novelist and travel writer, excellent cricket player, and marksman. He contributed significantly to the advancement of sniping practice in the British Army during the First World War, and the measures he introduced are credited as saving the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Maybe your teacher took the controversial stand that the Civil War was all about states’ rights… or maybe you learned all about the horrors slavery, but never quite figured out why things didn’t get better after the war ended. If you didn’t go to school in the United States, things are even more confusing. When the media is full of references to the Confederate flag, the legacy of slavery, and poverty in the American South, you might have a vague sense that things are bad because of the Civil War… but why? Why does a war that happened over a hundred and fifty years ago still cast a shadow over the United States? This book will tell you why. It will lead you, step-by-step, through the causes of the Civil War, and the effects. But unlike your high school history teacher, it won’t put you to sleep with long-winded biographies and lists of dates. The names you’ll learn are the big players, the ones with big personalities, who made big differences. In just a few minutes a day, you can read bite-sized stories from the Civil War – quick, easy explanations to guide you through the main points, with just enough scary, surprising, or just plain strange facts to keep you coming back for more. Each chapter ends with a bonus helping of trivia and some quick questions to test your knowledge. By the time you’re finished, you’ll know all the facts your history teacher never taught you – from who said slavery was a “positive good” (and why they thought that), to who dressed up in women’s clothing to escape from Union soldiers.

    Yellin enlisted two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on his 18th Birthday. After graduating from Luke Air Field as a fighter pilot in August of 1943, he spent the remainder of the war flying P-40, P- 47 and P-51 combat missions in the Pacific with the 78th Fighter Squadron. He participated in the first land based fighter mission over Japan on April 7, 1945, and also has the unique distinction of having flown the final combat mission of World War II on August 14, 1945 – the day the war ended. On that mission, his wing-man (Phillip Schlamberg) was the last man killed in a combat mission in WWII. After the war ended, Jerry struggled with severe undiagnosed PTSD. He always wondered why he survived, while so many of his comrades died during the war.Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer and Special Assistant United States Attorney, is the author of eleven bestselling legal and military books. His work includes the novel Treason (2005) and the exposé Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of Team Seal Six (2015), a highly detailed account of the most deadly American loss-of-life in the Afghan War—the shoot-down of a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter carrying thirty Americans, including seventeen members of the vaunted SEAL Team Six.

    Shares the stories of thirty-three couples who met and fell in love during World War II, offering a view of the personal side of the wartime experience and the legacy of relationships forged in the midst of tragedy.

    Navy fighter/attack pilot from 1956 to 1980. (What it was like to fly jets off aircraft carriers in the days before smart bombs, GPS, and automated carrier landing systems.) After two years at the University of Arizona, the author entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in Pensacola, Florida, and became a carrier-qualified jet pilot at age twenty. As a naval aviator, he flew 3,669 hours in thirteen different types of aircraft, made 652 carrier landings (163 of them at night), and flew 183 combat missions during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and thirteen Air Medals. He went on to command Attack Squadron 35 aboard USS Nimitz.This is the story.

    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.

    Anne Boleyn: ambitious upstart. Jane Seymour: virtuous mother. Anne of Cleves: Flanders Mare. Katherine Howard: adulterous whore. Katherine Parr: the one that got away. These are our lingering historical afterimages of the six women who married Henry VIII over the course of his thirty-six-year reign. At the age of 18, Henry succeeded to the English throne and married the Spanish princess who had briefly been the wife of his brother Arthur. Katherine of Aragon was both a virgin and a widow when the prince died at the age of fifteen, enabling Henry to marry her himself. Their marriage lasted sixteen contented years, until suddenly, Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn and sundered England from Rome in order to keep her. But Henry VIII would not be satisfied even after he took Anne Boleyn for his wife. His vanity, his ego, and his desperate need for a male heir, led him to marry four more women during the last ten years of his life. In this book, you will read about the lives, loves, and secret passions of these women. Four of them died for Henry’s pleasure—but two escaped to tell their stories.

    The daughter of Ulrich von Hassell, Hitler's Ambassador to Italy, her marriage to Italian aristocrat Detalmo Pirzio-Biroli brought with it a castle and an estate in the north of Italy. Beautiful and privileged, Fey and her two young sons lead a tranquil life undisturbed by the trauma and privations of war. But with Fascism approaching its zenith, Fey's peaceful existence is threatened when Ulrich and Detalmo take the brave and difficult decision to resist the Nazis.When German soldiers pour over the Italian border, Fey is suddenly marooned in the Nazi-occupied north and unable to communicate with her husband, who has joined the underground anti-Fascist movement in Rome. Before long, SS soldiers have taken up occupancy in the castle. As Fey struggles to maintain an air of warm welcome to her unwanted guests, the clandestine activities of both her father and husband become increasingly brazen and openly rebellious. Darkness descends when Ulrich's foiled plot to kill the Fuhrer brings the Gestapo to Fey's doorstep. It would be months before Detalmo learns that his wife had been arrested and his two young boys seized by the SS.Suffused with Catherine Bailey's signature atmospheric prose, A Castle in Wartime tells the unforgettable story of the extraordinary bravery and fortitude of one family who collectively and individually sacrificed everything to resist the Nazis from within. Bailey's unprecedented access to stunning first-hand family accounts, along with records from concentration camps and surviving SS files, make this a dazzling and compulsively readable book, opening a view on the cost and consequences of resistance.