Book picks similar to
A Whisper in the Reeds: 'The Terrible Ones' - South Africa's 32 Battalion at War by Justin Taylor
africa
history
war
unconventional-warfare
Best White and Other AnxiousDelusions
Rebecca Davis - 2015
Her razor-sharp wit combines with her acute powers of observation to produce social and political commentary that will have you in stitches even as it informs and provokes you to think seriously about the topics she discusses. In Best White, Davis offers advice on life’s tricky issues; discusses the perils of being a ‘Best White’; laments the fact that society does not have a universally adopted form of greeting, such as the high five; explores the intricacies of social media and internet dating; considers the future of reading and tackles a range of controversial topics in between.
Twilight at Little Round Top: July 2, 1863--The Tide Turns at Gettysburg
Glenn W. LaFantasie - 2005
A vivid and eloquent book." --Stephen W. Sears, author of Gettysburg"Little Round Top has become iconic in Civil War literature and American memory. In the emotional recollection of our great war, if there was one speck on the landscape that decided a battle and the future of a nation, then surely this was it. The story of the July 2, 1863 struggle for that hill outside Gettysburg goes deeper into our consciousness than that, however. The men who fought for it then and there believed it to be decisive, and that is why they died for it. Glenn W. LaFantasie's Twilight at Little Round Top addresses that epic struggle, how those warriors felt then and later, and their physical and emotional attachment to a piece of ground that linked them forever with their nation's fate. This is military and social history at its finest." --W.C. Davis, author of Lincoln's Men and An Honorable Defeat"Few military episodes of the Civil War have attracted as much attention as the struggle for Little Round Top on the second day of Gettysburg. This judicious and engaging book navigates confidently through a welter of contradictory testimony to present a splendid account of the action. It also places events on Little Round Top, which often are exaggerated, within the broader sweep of the battle. All readers interested in the battle of Gettysburg will read this book with enjoyment and profit." --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War"In his beautifully written narrative, Glenn LaFantasie tells the story of the battle for Little Round Top from the perspective of the soldiers who fought and died in July 1863. Using well-chosen quotes from a wide variety of battle participants, TWILIGHT puts the reader in the midst of the fight--firing from behind boulders with members of the 4th Alabama, running up the hillside into battle with the men of the 140th New York, and watching in horror as far too many men die. This book offers an elegy to the courage of those men, a meditation on the meaning of war, and a cautionary tale about the sacrifices nations ask of their soldiers and the causes for which those sacrifices are needed." --Amy Kinsel, Winnrer of the 1993 Allan Nevins Prize for From These Honored Dead: Gettysburg in American Culture
Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix: A Personal Account
Stuart A. Herrington - 1997
Herrington was an American intelligence advisor assigned to root out the enemy in the Hau Nghia province. His two-year mission to capture or kill Communist agents operating there was made all the more difficult by local officials who were reluctant to cooperate, villagers who were too scared to talk, and VC who would not go down without a fight. Herrington developed an unexpected but intense identification with the villagers in his jurisdiction–and learned the hard way that experiencing war was profoundly different from philosophizing about it in a seminar room.
Bury Him: A Memoir of the Viet Nam War
Doug ChamberlainDoug Chamberlain - 2019
Doug Chamberlain endured many challenges. One challenge was a direct order to bury the remains of a Marine that had been left behind by another unit and be forced to participate in the following cover-up. The order was in direct contraction of United States Marine Corps Policy and the Warrior's Honor Code of never leaving any Marine behind. Following this order meant committing an act of incomprehensible betrayal and dishonor.In this captivating new book, Capt. Chamberlain explains in detail the events that transpired as he was forced into playing the role of a political pawn in a massive wartime cover-up. Capt. Chamberlain expertly paints a picture of deceit and military malfeasance, sharing with the reader the moral and mental struggles that ate away at him in the decades that followed this horrible act.
World War 2: Waffen SS Soldiers - Testimonies of German SS Soldiers
Oliver Mayer - 2015
These six soldiers all had different roles to play, and all look back at their experiences, sharing them to make amends for the cruel times that they lived in. Learn about what it was like to be in a concentration camp, and how a soldier managed when they were at the front. You will discover: - • The experience of a young Aryan soldier • A soldiers in Treblinka • Testimonies from the liberation • The female SS soldier • The Gas Trucks of WWII • All about the Gas Chambers • The meaning of Special Action The experiences that you will discover are bound to leave you with a range of emotions. You may have feelings of anger, remorse, shame or even mercy. At the end of this book, you will have connected with these SS soldiers as well as the plight of those under their power. Learn about the life of an Ayran soldier, and those at Treblinka. Also discover the female SS soldiers and a driver of the gas truck. The gas chambers are explained as well as the ominous special action Read this book for FREE on Kindle Unlimited - Download NOW! In addition to these rich testimonies, you will alo read about what it was like to have a foreign soldier fighting for Germany, and what medical tests were being carried out at the camp. These medical examinations take this book even deeper into the truth about World War II} Just scroll to the top of the page and select the Buy Button. Download Your Copy TODAY!
Cold War Navy SEAL: My Story of Che Guevara, War in the Congo, and the Communist Threat in Africa
James M. Hawes - 2018
Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara attempting to export his revolution a few miles away. Cold War Navy SEAL gives unprecedented insight into a clandestine chapter in US history through the experiences of Hawes, a distinguished Navy frogman and later a CIA contractor. His journey began as an officer in the newly-formed SEAL Team 2, which then led him to Vietnam in 1964 to train hit-and-run boat teams who ran clandestine raids into North Vietnam. Those raids directly instigated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The CIA tapped Hawes to deploy to the Congo, where he would be tasked with creating and leading a paramilitary navy on Lake Tanganyika to disrupt guerilla action in the country. According to the US government, he did not, and could not, exist; he was on his own, 1400 miles from his closest allies, with only periodic letters via air-drop as communication. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara. In vivid detail that rivals any action movie, Hawes describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels on the other side and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission. Complete with never-before-seen photographs and interviews with fellow operatives in the Congo, Cold War Navy SEAL is an unblinking look at a portion of Cold War history never before told.
Iron Spy: The True Story of the Greatest Double Agent in World War II (Espionage)
Ethan Quinn - 2019
While his early life was rife with petty crime, gang activity and a dishonourable discharge from the British military, Chapman’s unique skills were eventually sought out by Nazi Germany, and after convincing them he could use his criminal contacts to sabotage the English forces, he was quickly recruited. But Chapman’s loyalty to his country knew no limits. A talented, handsome, and reckless Englishman, Chapman was a traitor on the surface but a fearless patriot on the inside. After cracking Germany’s military code, the British sought Chapman for their own affairs, and Chapman was happy to oblige. Eventually being awarded the prestigious Nazi Iron Cross for services to Germany while acting as a double agent for Britain, Chapman’s espionage efforts involved masterful deceit and feats which few men alive could ever boast of. Eddie Chapman’s life story is an unbelievable journey of crime, jail-breaks, treachery, and love. He was responsible for saving countless lives during his career, cementing himself as the ultimate double agent during World War II.
Scribbling the Cat
Alexandra Fuller - 2004
Her father's response was a warning to steer clear of him: Curiosity scibbled the cat, he told her. Nonetheless, Fuller began her strange friendhip with the man she calls K, a white African and veteran of the Rhodesian War. A man of contradictions, K is battle-scarred and work-weathered, a born-again Christian and given to weeping for the failure of his romantic life and the burden of his memories. Driven by K's these memories of the war, they decide to enter the heart of darkness in the most literal way, by travelling from Zambia through Zimbabwe and Mozambique to visit the scenes of the war and to meet other veterans. The result is a remarkably unbiased and unsentimental glimpse of life in Africa.
Gunship Ace: The Wars Of Neall Ellis, Gunship Pilot And Mercenary
Al J. Venter - 2012
Apart from flying Alouette helicopter gunships in Angola, he has fought in the Balkan War (for Islamic forces), tried to resuscitate Mobutu’s ailing air force during his final days ruling the Congo, flew Mi-8s for Executive Outcomes, and thereafter an Mi-8 fondly dubbed 'Bokkie' for Colonel Tim Spicer in Sierra Leone. Finally, with a pair of aging Mi-24 Hinds, Ellis ran the Air Wing out of Aberdeen Barracks in the war against Sankoh's vicious RUF rebels. For the past two years, as a “civilian contractor,” Ellis has been flying helicopter support missions in Afghanistan, where, he reckons, he has had more close shaves than in his entire previous four-decades put together.Twice, single-handedly (and without a copilot), he turned the enemy back from the gates of Freetown, effectively preventing the rebels from overrunning Sierra Leone’s capital—once in the middle of the night without the benefit of night vision goggles. Nellis (as his friends call him) was also the first mercenary to work hand-in-glove with British ground and air assets in a modern guerrilla war. In Sierra Leone, Ellis' Mi-24 (“it leaked when it rained”) played a seminal role in rescuing the 11 British soldiers who had been taken hostage by the so-called West Side Boys. He also used his helicopter numerous times to fly SAS personnel on low-level reconnaissance missions into the interior of the diamond-rich country, for the simple reason that no other pilot knew the country—and the enemy—better than he did.Al Venter, the author of War Dog and other acclaimed titles, accompanied Nellis on some of these missions. “Occasionally we returned to base with holes in our fuselage,” Venter recounts, “though once it was self-inflicted: in his enthusiasm during an attack on one of the towns in the interior, a side-gunner onboard swung his heavy machine-gun a bit too wide and hit one of our drop tanks. Had it been full at the time, things might have been different.” The upshot was that over the course of a year of military operations, the two former Soviet helicopters operated for the Sierra Leone Air Wing by Nellis and his boys were patched more often than any other comparable pair of gun ships in Asia, Africa or Latin America. Nellis himself earned a price on his head: some reports spoke of a $1 million reward dead or alive while others doubled it.This book describes the full career of this storied aerial warrior, from the bush and jungles of Africa to the forests of the Balkans and the merciless mountains of today’s Afghanistan. Along the way the reader encounters a multiethnic array of enemies ranging from ideological to cold-blooded to pure evil, as well as well as examples of incredible heroism for hire.
No Room for Error: The Covert Operations of America's Special Tactics Units from Iran To Afghanistan
John T. Carney Jr. - 2001
COL. L. H. “BUCKY” BURRUSS, USA (Ret.) Founding member and Deputy Commander of Delta Force
When the U.S. Air Force decided to create an elite “special tactics” team in the late 1970s to work in conjunction with special-operations forces combating terrorists and hijackers and defusing explosive international emergencies, John T. Carney was the man they turned to. Since then Carney and the U.S. Air Force Special Tactical units have circled the world on sensitive clandestine missions. They have operated behind enemy lines gathering vital intelligence. They have combated terrorists and overthrown dangerous dictators. They have suffered many times the casualty rate of America’s conventional forces. But they have gotten the job done–most recently in stunning victories in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, which Carney calls “America’s first special-operations war.” Now, for the first time, Colonel Carney lifts the veil of secrecy and reveals what really goes on inside the special-operations forces that are at the forefront of contemporary warfare.Part memoir, part military history, No Room for Error reveals how Carney, after a decade of military service, was handpicked to organize a small, under-funded, classified ad hoc unit known as Brand X, which even his boss knew very little about. Here Carney recounts the challenging missions: the secret reconnaissance in the desert of north-central Iran during the hostage crisis; the simple rescue operation in Grenada that turned into a prolonged bloody struggle. With Operation Just Cause in Panama, the Special Tactical units scored a major success, as they took down the corrupt regime of General Noriega with lightning speed. Desert Storm was another triumph, with Carney’s team carrying out vital search-and-rescue missions as well as helping to hunt down mobile Scud missiles deep inside Iraq.Now with the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, special operations have come into their own, and Carney includes a chapter detailing exactly how the Air Force Special Tactics d.c. units have spearheaded the successful campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Gripping in its battle scenes, eye-opening in its revelations, No Room for Error is the first insider’s account of how special operations are changing the way modern wars are fought. Col. John T. Carney is an airman America can be proud of, and he has written an absolutely superb book.
A Rumor of War
Philip Caputo - 1977
Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history’s ugliest wars, he returned home—physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone.A Rumor of War is far more than one soldier’s story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America’s indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as the author writes, of "the things men do in war and the things war does to them.""Heartbreaking, terrifying, and enraging. It belongs to the literature of men at war."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam
Michael Lee Lanning - 1998
. . ."At the start of the war in Vietnam, the United States had no snipers; by the end of the war, Marine and army precision marksmen had killed more than 10,000 NVA and VC soldiers--the equivalent of an entire division--at the cost of under 20,000 bullets, proving that long-range shooters still had a place in the battlefield. Now noted military historian Michael Lee Lanning shows how U.S. snipers in Vietnam--combining modern technology in weapons, ammunition, and telescopes--used the experience and traditions of centuries of expert shooters to perfect their craft. To provide insight into the use of American snipers in Vietnam, Lanning interviewed men with combat trigger time, as well as their instructors, the founders of the Marine and U.S. Army sniper programs, and the generals to whom they reported. Backed by hard information and firsthand accounts, the author demonstrates how the skills these one-shot killers honed in the jungles of Vietnam provided an indelible legacy that helped save American lives in Grenada, the Gulf War, and Somalia and continues to this day with American troops in Bosnia.
Another Day of Life
Ryszard Kapuściński - 1976
In 1975 Kapuscinski's employers sent him to Angola to cover the civil war that had broken out after independence. For months he watched as Luanda and then the rest of the country collapsed into a civil war that was in the author's words 'sloppy, dogged and cruel'. In his account, Kapuscinski demonstrates an extraordinary capacity to describe and to explain the individual meaning of grand political abstractions.
The Walking Dead: A Marine's Story of Vietnam
Craig Roberts - 1989
His memoir is a story of extraordinary challenges met for honor, freedom, and the Corps.
Sniping in France: Winning the Sniping War in the Trenches
H. Hesketh-Prichard - 1920
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.