Not real conflict but war as it has filtered down to generations of boys and men through toys, comics, games, and movies. Harry Pearson belongs to the great battalion of men who grew up playing with toy soldiers—refighting World War II—and then stopped growing up. Inspired by the photos of the gallant pilot uncles that decorated the wall above his father's model-making table, by toys such as Action Man (according to Pearson—not a doll) and board games such as Escape from Colditz, dressed in Clarks' commando shoes and with the Airfix Army in support, he battled in the fields and on the beaches, in his head and on the living room floor, and across his bedroom ceiling. And 30 years later he still is. This hilariously self-deprecating memoir is a celebration of those glory days, a boy's own story of the urge to play, to conquer, and to adopt very bad German accents, shouting "Donner und Blitzen!" at every opportunity. This is a tale of obsession, glue, and plastic kits. It is the story of one boy's imaginary war and where it led him.

    Within just one month, during a holiday called Tet, the Communists would launch the largest single attack of the war--and he would be right in the thick of it. . . .In Vietnam, Richard Burns operated in live-or-die situations, risking his life so that other men could keep theirs. As a Pathfinder--all too often alone in the middle of a hot LZ--he guided in helicopters disembarking troops, directed medevacs to retrieve the wounded, and organized extractions. As well as parachuting into areas and supervising the clearing of landing zones, Pathfinders acted as air-traffic controllers, keeping call signs, frequencies, and aircraft locations in their heads as they orchestrated takeoffs and landings, often under heavy enemy fire.From Bien Hoa to Song Be to the deadly A Shau Valley, Burns recounts the battles that won him the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and numerous other decorations. This is the first and only book by a Pathfinder in Vietnam . . . or anywhere else.From the Paperback edition.

    Britain stands alone against Nazi Germany. Only the RAF can protect Britain from falling to the Germans. 'Scramble' is the thrilling story of the epic battle that turned the tide of Nazi invasion in the summer of 1940. In more than 450 first-hand accounts, combatants, civilians, politicians, journalists and others who were part of the day-to-day heroism that was England’s finest hour tell a tale of war from an individual perspective. And what a revealing tale it is — of the shortages of every kind, with groundcrew racing against time to get the battered planes operational, to the tactical battles and controversies revealed by Air Ministry papers. Above all, it evokes the terror, rage and frustration of Britain besieged, and the spirit which held it all together: the courage to live to fight another day. Praise for 'Scramble' ‘We now have an accurate account It is the first one to get it right’. — Group Captain Dennis David ‘Deftly combining interviews, speeches, news reports, military communications and occasional unobtrusive narrative, Gelb presents a many-sided picture of war that reflects the feeling of the battle’ — New York Times Praise for 'Dunkirk' “Norman Gelb demonstrates in Dunkirk how productive it is to focus on an individual operation or battle … Dunkirk is both a good adventure read and an instructive case study yielding modern lessons.” — John Lehman, Former Secretary of the Navy, The Wall Street Journal “Norman Gelb finds fresh angles … Dunkirk stands as an exemplar of the perils of vacillation and the possibilities of action.” — The New York Times Book Review “Mr. Gelb has excavated beneath surface events, delved into political and psychological factors, and produced an intelligent, fast-moving narrative.” — Professor Arnold Ages, Baltimore Sun “Vivid and comprehensive … Absorbing … Sets a high standard for other reconstructions” — Kirkus Reviews Norman Gelb (b.1929) was born in New York and is the author of seven highly acclaimed books, including 'The Berlin Wall', 'Dunkirk', and 'Less Than Glory'. He was, for many years, correspondent for the Mutual Broadcasting System, first in Berlin and then in London. He is currently the London correspondent for New Leader magazine.

    

    The Traitors is the story of how they came to do so.

    Navy history. In only 76 days of combat, Blackburn's Jolly Rogers downed a record 154 enemy warplanes, and Blackburn himself emerged as one of VF-17’s leading aces with eleven aerial combat victories to his credit. A complete history of the squadron from its commissioning in January 1943 to its disbanding in April 1944—including a harrowing account of the squadron’s intense, winning campaign against the Japanese over the northern Solomon Islands and Fortress Rabaul—this book offers a fascinating look at Blackburn’s approach to organizing, training, and leading his pilots—thirteen of whom, the author included, became air aces.

    At the time, he would have done anything to escape; only upon reflection years later did he realize that the self-confidence instilled in him by his drill instructors had probably saved his life in Vietnam. A few months after boot camp, Private Ball was shipped out to Vietnam, joining F Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, near Khe Sanh. As a grunt, in the vernacular of the Corps, Ball, like the other youths of F Company, did a difficult and deadly job in such places as the A Shau Valley, Leatherneck Square, the DMZ and other obscure but critical I Corps locales. His--their--fear of death mingled with homesickness. Little did they realize that the horrors of the Vietnam War--horrors that while in-country they often claimed did not even exist--would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

    Aquino III, during which the Philippines metamorphosed from a free-wheeling republic into a brutal dictatorship that eventually gave way to a turbulent return to democratic rule. Sheer longevity, proximity to power and a forceful personality have made Enrile difficult to trivialize, much less ignore. Neither his friends nor his enemies have the power to exaggerate or misrepresent his gifts as well as his faults; they would have to reckon with the man’s personal point of view, here most eloquently told from where he stood and contributed his share to the nation’s narrative.

    Prize-winning novelist Cai Emmons praises Sterry by saying she really knows how to tell a story. Sterry grew up in a succession of isolated one-room schools in northern and central Montana, where her mother, a teacher, eked out a living. A must read for anyone who loves Montana and its rich history.

     From 1941 to 1944, Bignor Manor, a farmhouse in Sussex provided board and lodging for men and women of the French Resistance before they were flown by moonlight into occupied France. Barbara Bertram, whose husband was a conducting officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), became hostess for these daring agents and their pilots during their brief stopovers in their house. But who were these men and women that passed through the Bertram’s house? And what activities did they conduct whilst in France that meant that so many of them never returned? Edward Wake-Walker charts the experiences of numerous agents, such as Gilbert Renault, Christian Pineau and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, and the networks of operatives that they created that provided top-secret intelligence on German defences and naval bases, U-boats, as well as Hitler’s devastating new weapons, the V-1 and V-2 flying bombs. A House For Spies provides fascinating insight into the lives of SIS agents and their Lysander pilots who provided invaluable intelligence to Allied forces. This is a much-forgotten aspect of the Second World War that is only now being told by Edward Wake-Walker. “Utterly fascinating, very moving and funny. I couldn't have enjoyed it more.” — Hugh Grant “Edward Wake-Walker's meticulously researched chronicles of desperate resistance, audacity, duty, determination and daring are a valuable addition to the history of World War II” — Bel Mooney, Daily Mail “It kept me up at night as I wanted to know what happened to all the various characters [brought] so admirably back to life” — Russell England, Director of Bletchley Park: Codebreaking's Forgotten Genius and Operation Mincemeat

    In this searing and inspiring memoir, he tells an unforgettable story of his service overseas–and of the emotional wars that continue to rage long after our fighting men come home.Raised in a tiny blue-collar town in Ohio, Jeremiah Workman was a handsome and athletic high achiever. Having excelled on the sporting field, he believed that the Marine Corps would be the perfect way to harness his physical and professional drives.In the Iraqi city of Fallujah in December 2004, Workman faced the challenge that would change his life. He and his platoon were searching for hidden caches of weapons and mopping up die-hard insurgent cells when they came upon a building in which a team of fanatical insurgents had their fellow Marines trapped. Leading repeated assaults on that building, Workman killed more than twenty of the enemy in a ferocious firefight that left three of his own men dead.But Workman’s most difficult fight lay ahead of him–in the battlefield of his mind. Burying his guilt about the deaths of his men, he returned stateside, where he was decorated for valor and then found himself assigned to the Marine base at Parris Island as a “Kill Hat”: a drill instructor with the least seniority and the most brutal responsibilities. He was instructed, only half in jest, to push his untested recruits to the brink of suicide. Haunted by the thought that he had failed his men overseas, Workman cracked, suffering a psychological breakdown in front of the men he was charged with leading and preparing for war.In Shadow of the Sword, a memoir that brilliantly captures both wartime courage and its lifelong consequences, Workman candidly reveals the ordeal of post-traumatic stress disorder: the therapy and drug treatments that deadened his mind even as they eased his pain, the overwhelming stress that pushed his marriage to the brink, and the confrontations with anger and self-blame that he had internalized for years. Having fought through the worst of his trials–and now the father of a young son–Workman has found not perfection or a panacea but a way to accommodate his traumas and to move forward toward hope, love, and reconciliation.

     They had raced four hundred miles across northern France, from the beaches of Normandy to the banks of the Moselle River, in less than one month. Facing them were the German forces that held the territory between the Moselle and the Sarre Rivers. Having had such success in the invasion of France the men of the Third Army were confident that they could smash their way into Nazi Germany. Yet, almost immediately, their progress was halted. A drastic shortage of fuel slowed the advance to a crawl, giving time for German reinforcements to arrive from across Germany and Italy. New Panzer divisions also arrived to support the Nazi forces and drive back the Allied forces. Over the next three and a half months Patton and his men fought against these battle-hardened troops and brutally powerful tanks in operations that have become subsequently known as the Lorraine Campaign. Hugh M. Cole’s The Lorraine Campaign is the definitive history of these bloody months of conflict. It records each phase of the campaign in brilliant detail, including the initial days when Patton’s army was brought to a halt at the banks of the Moselle, the Battle of Metz, and the offensive across the Saar River towards the Siegfried Line before the Germans launched their counteroffensive in the Ardennes. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the European Theater of World War Two and how Patton and his Third Army were able to overcome huge obstacles in their drive to reach Berlin. Hugh M. Cole was an American historian and army officer, best known as the author of The Lorraine Campaign and The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, two volumes of the U.S. Army official history of World War II. During the Second World War he was assigned as a historical officer on the staff of General Patton's Third Army, with whom he participated in four campaigns in northern Europe. The Lorraine Campaign was first published in 1950. Cole passed away in 2005.

    

    Survivor.Hero. Legend.Completed just two days before Louis Zamperini's death at age 97, Don't Give Up, Don't Give In shares a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and humor from one of America's most inspiring lives. Zamperini's story has touched millions through Laura Hillenbrand's biography Unbroken, soon to be a major motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie. Now, in his own words, Louis Zamperini reveals, with warmth and great charm, the essential values and lessons that sustained him throughout his remarkable journey.He was a youthful troublemaker from California who turned his life around to become a 1936 Olympian and a world-class miler at the University of Southern California. Putting aside his superstar track career, Louis Zamperini volunteered for the army before Pearl Harbor and was thrust into the violent combat of World War II as a B-24 bombardier. While on a rescue mission, his plane went down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where he survived, against all odds, drifting two thousand miles in a small raft for forty-seven days. His struggle was only beginning: Zamperini was captured by the Japanese and, for more than two years, he courageously endured torture and psychological abuse in a series of prisoner-of-war camps. He returned home to face more dark hours, but in 1949 Zamperini's life was transformed by a spiritual rebirth that would guide him through the next sixty-five years of his long and happy life.Cowritten with longtime collaborator David Rensin, Louis Zamperini's Don't Give Up, Don't Give In is an extraordinary last testament that captures the wisdom of a life lived to the fullest.A son of Italian immigrants, Louis Zamperini (1917-2014) was a U.S. Olympic runner, World War II bombardier, and POW survivor. After the war, he returned to the United States to found the Victory Boys Camp for at-risk youth and became an inspirational speaker. Zamperini's story was told in his 2003 autobiography Devil at My Heels, as well as in Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 biography Unbroken.David Rensin worked closely with Louis Zamperini for many years and cowrote Devil at My Heels, as well as fifteen other books, including five New York Times bestsellers.

    To some, nuclear deterrence appeared as utter madness, and was in fact commonly referred to as M.A.D. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction provoked protests and marches, and the architect of M.A.D, General Curtis LeMay, became a symbol of madness himself.