Then along came the Vietnam War. It seemed he fulfilled his destiny there, becoming someone Radio Hanoi dubbed "the mad dog." This is what is known about his exploits in-country.

    Not easily deterred he eventually became a tank driving instructor in the ranks.In 1942 accidental circumstances saw his recruitment into Buckmaster s F Section of the Special Operations Executive. His faultless French and upbringing in Paris were to prove invaluable. Commissioned overnight and after intensive training he was parachuted into France for the first of his three missions.His adventures included crossing the Pyrenees, sabotage, forming his own circuits, being captured by the Gestapo, a daring escape and black-marketeering. In 1944, now a Major, he was advisor to the Maquis in the Mont Ventoux area where they fought the Germans in pitched battles and won.Although this refreshingly modest account does not admit to it, Goldsmith s extraordinary war is best summed up by his DSO, MC, three Croix de Guerre and Legion d honneur.Accidental Agent is as thrilling an account of war behind enemy lines as has ever been written. The author s descriptions of his experiences and the many colorful characters he came across are a joy to read."

    Control stick hard left into a sharp left turn and let the nose drop quickly but smoothly to 40° down. Down. My heart is pumping hard. I'm in a sharp dive. I have to do it right and fast. Line up the target in the sight. It's getting bigger as I get closer to the ground. Airspeed is increasing! Quick! Right there! Pickle at 8,000 feet, only 2,000 feet from roll-in altitude. Not much time. NOW! Pull out! Pull hard, but don't over G! All the remaining ordnance is trying to pull the airplane toward the ground. Smoothly pull to four Gs. Watch the artificial horizon. It's the only visual reference I can count on. Pull! Get the nose up! Don't go below 7,000 feet because rocks can be anywhere below seven. There's level. Bring it on up. Twenty-five degrees nose high. I have plenty of speed, so keep the nose up. Here comes 8,000 feet. Then 9,000. I can let the nose down a little now and look around to see if anyone is shooting. It is 1969 and Dick Diller is on his way to flying warplanes in the Vietnam conflict. He is commissioned to fly A-1 Skyraiders in sometimes harrowing nighttime missions over Laos-surviving not only the danger of the missions he flew, but also the bureaucracy of the air force, from fitness testing to additional duties assigned, to attacking impossible-to-find targets in the dead of night-with minimal fuel supplies. At once entertaining and riveting, as well as thought-provoking, Firefly is the story of one man's journey in a world at war, and a day-to-day description of the fighting force that was flying A-1 Skyraiders in combat. Firefly contains actual transcriptions of dialogue of pilots locating a target and making a strike in northern Laos.

    Not only was it the first decisive victory for British troops against the Japanese, more significantly, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. The lessons learned in this tiny and otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East, set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General Slim’s Fourteenth Army finally turned defeat into victory.It is an amazing and thrilling story: more gripping than that of Rorke’s Drift, with a more justifiable enemy, and with every bit as many moments of extreme heroism. In this fifteen-day battle of terrifying violence, there was incredible human drama: bloody-hand-to-hand fighting, daring airborne drops, valiant attempts to break the siege, increasingly desperate and suicidal charges by the Japanese, repeated breakthroughs that needed counter-attacking, tragedy, black humour and the ultimate triumph of the defenders.

     Serving under Wellington with the 95th Rifles Leach saw action in Denmark, Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium. Leach’s memoir of his years of service provides fascinating insight into life serving on the frontlines across Europe as Wellington and his men attempted to end Napoleon’s domination of the continent. Through the course of the memoir Leach gives in depth analysis of various battles that he served in, including Roleia, Vimeira, Barba Del Puerco, the Coa, Buzaco, Sabugal, Fuentes D’Onoro, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Nivelle, Toulouse, Quatre Bras, and of course Waterloo. Yet he also gives insight into what life was like as a soldier away from the heat of battle whilst serving in the Napoleonic Wars, how they entertained themselves, how they trained, and how the local populations viewed them. Jonathan Leach’s Captain of the 95th (Rifles) an Officer of Wellington's Sharpshooters During the Peninsular, South of France and Waterloo Campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars is essential reading for any student of the Napoleonic era. No other memoir of this period provides such brilliant insight into the life of a fighting man serving under Wellington. Jonathan Leach was captain of 1st Battalion in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars. His book Captain of the 95th (Rifles) was first published in 1831 and Leach passed away in 1855.

    Out of the Blue: The Final Landing: Yet more scary and often funny tales from the Royal Air Force and Friends Foreword by Air Marshall Cliff Spink CB CBE FCMI FRAeS RAF Ret'd

    Officers and men lined the rails, watching in stunned silence. The twisted, smoldering superstructure of the Arizona was still aflame, and there was a stench of charred wood and fuel oil in the air."Morale went to nothing just about then," said an officer on one of the escorting cruisers. "We were sick and shocked. We couldn't believe that this had happened to us." Through the night, the crew of the Enterprise, under the command of Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, took on fuel, provisions, and ammunition. Before dawn it was back at sea.The Enterprise was just one of the carriers that won the war in the Pacific. Here is the extraordinary story of the men and ships that turned the tide of the war.

    The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.Hogs in the Sand is the gripping journey of one of those pilots as he fights an increasingly terrifying war, all the while attempting to win over a woman and keep control of his internal demons. For anyone who has admired the Warthog, seen it in action, or called upon it to be their salvation, this story will fulfill a desire to virtually strap into the cockpit, while gaining unprecedented understanding of the mind of a modern combat pilot.

     A well-researched, highly readable account of a B-17 combat crew's experience In 1943, when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance, B-17 crews of the Eighth Air Force flew harrowing, unescorted daylight bombing missions deep into Occupied Europe and Germany. These devastating raids have long been storied in film and fiction, but here is a firsthand, blow-by-blow account of these perilous missions as they really happened. In these pages, you'll see the events unfold as they were recorded and recalled by one crew's officers and enlisted men (pilot, copilot, navigator, radioman, and gunners), corroborated by other crews they flew with, and painstakingly correlated with the official records of the men's 303rd Hell's Angels Bomb Group.The publication of Half a Wing, Three Engines, and a Prayer in 1989 prompted a flood of fresh recollections, correspondence, and personal records from other veterans of the 303rd. This Special Revised Edition incorporates that wealth of new material into a vivid, thorough recreation -- complete with actual combat photographs -- of one of the most dramatic chapters in military aviation history.New in this Special Revised Edition: * New veteran interviews* Expanded coverage * Revised data * 90 photographs & illustrations* Epilogue: crewmen's post-war careersA well-researched, highly readable account of a B-17 combat crew's experience...excellent. -- Roger A. Freeman, author of The Mighty EighthThe best collection of stories about a B-17 Bomb Group that has ever been published. -- Harry D. Gobrecht, President, 303rd Bomb Group Association and author of Might in Flight: Daily Diary of the Eighth Air Force's 'Hell's Angels' Bomb Group

     The victories won by British arms in the years which followed that great deliverance have made men forget those soldiers – the first of the many – upon whom it fell to withstand the shock of Hitler’s great attack. It is now fitting that these men and their Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort, should be worthily remembered, and their story fully told, from those first landings in France, in the autumn of 1939, until the climax of Dunkirk. The authors, both professional writers, themselves served as officers with the B.E.F., and have recaptured the gallantry and comradeship of that little force. The result is a moving story of courage and devotion in the face of odds which no other British Force has ever been called upon to face. It is chivalrous to admire a gallant enemy, and of that chivalry we have lately seen much. Justice demands that the courage and devotion of our own fighting men be no less clearly recognised. There were no medals for the B.E.F., hardly even today the laurels of memory. They were soldiers, doing a soldier’s job against odds which no British Force had ever been called upon to face, and which, it is to be hoped, no British Force will ever face again. What were they then, the men of that small Expeditionary Force, a mere army in one of the groups of French armies? How did they spend the months of what has been called the “twilight war”, and how, when the shock of battle came at last, did they withstand the blow? Dunkirk tells the true story of those brave men who fought to save the lives of so many. With the 2017 movie release of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk now is the time to remember the real history of the battle in the words of those who experienced it. Lt. Colonel Ewan Butler and Major J. Selby Bradford M.B.E., M.C. served in France as young officers during the last months of 1939 and the first five of 1940 with that small British Expeditionary force commanded by Lord Gort, which first faced the full might of Nazi Germany. Dunkirk was first published in 1950 under the title Keep The Memory Green. It was used as inspiration for the 1958 film, Dunkirk, starring Richard Attenborough.

    Very touching, page turner.

    From its inception, Pan American Airways operated as the ?wings of democracy,? spanning six continents and placing the country at the leading edge of international aviation. At the same time, it was clandestinely helping to fight America?s wars. Utilizing government documents, declassified Freedom of Information Act material, and company documents, the authors have uncovered stories of Pan Am?s stunning role as an instrument of American might: The airline?s role in building air bases in Latin America and countering Axis interests that threatened the Panama Canal Creating transatlantic and trans-Africa supply lines for sending Lend-Lease equipment to Britain Cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese nationalist government to pioneer the dangerous ?Hump? route over the Himalayas The dangerous seventeen-thousand-mile journey that took President Roosevelt to the high-stakes Casablanca Conference with Winston Churchill The daring flight that delivered uranium for the atomic bomb. Filled with larger-than-life characters, and revelations of the vision and technology it took to dominate the skies, Pan Am at War provides a gripping unknown history of the American Century.

    

    W4964 was the seventieth Lanc to arrive on squadron, in mid April 1943. She flew her first op on the 20th, by which time No 9 had lost forty one of their Lancs to enemy action and another five had been transferred to other squadrons and lost by them. A further thirteen of the seventy would soon be lost by No 9. All of the remaining eleven would be damaged, repaired, transferred to other squadrons or training units, and lost to enemy action or crashes except for three which, in some kind of retirement, would last long enough to be scrapped after the war. Only one of the seventy achieved a century of ops or anything like it: W4964 WS-J. Across all squadrons and all the war, the average life of a Lancaster was 22.75 sorties, but rather less for the front-line squadrons going to Germany three and four times a week in 1943 and '44, which was when W4964 was flying her 107 sorties, all with No 9 Squadron and all from RAF Bardney. The first was Stettin (Szczecin in modern Poland), and thereafter she went wherever 9 Squadron went, to Berlin, the Ruhr, and most of the big ops of the time such as Peenemunde and Hamburg. She was given a special character as J-Johnny Walker, 'still going strong' and on September 15 1944, skippered by Flight Lieutenant James Douglas Melrose, her Tallboy special bomb was the only one to hit the battleship Tirpitz. During her career, well over two hundred airmen flew in J. None were killed while doing so, but ninety-six of them died in other aircraft. This is their story, and the story of one lucky Lancaster.

    They are 300 times more effective than an ordinary patrol... If we are going to have murderers and terrorists roaming the towns, then we have to have somebody who is able to go out and find them.” Contemporary press report Some think it stood for ‘Military Reconnaissance Force’, others ‘Mobile Reconnaissance Force’. Many people thought it didn’t exist at all and was made up, a figment of the press’s imagination. To the members of the group that was just fine. It added to the illusion, and the speculation about the unit’s name and mission only added to the uncertainty amongst their targets — terrorists — members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the IRA, the provos. For decades there has been argument in the media and amongst politicians about the possible existence and extent of a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland. MRF Shadow Troop confirms there was such an agenda in the early, chaotic days of British military intervention across the Irish Sea. Amongst the mountain of speculation there is little of any accuracy or authority relating to this period. Simon Cursey was recruited into the Military Reaction Force — the unit’s true name — in 1972. This book is his personal account of his time with the group and in it he reveals the truth about their operations — the briefings, missions, political wrangling, and government-sanctioned law-bending. With documents and photographs to corroborate all his revelations, MRF Shadow Troop is a fascinating, exciting but above all accurate historical text about the pioneers of counter-terrorism.