Within months he was driving big lorries and cranes in the Battle of Britain, recovering crashed planes. He went on to the North African Western Desert, Egypt, Libya, Tunis and El Alamein. From there to Italy: Naples, Monte Cassino, invasion of Sicily. Then Corsica followed by France, landing near St Tropez in the D-Day of the South. Finally after four years abroad, back to the UK, a wedding and release from the RAF. Along the way he was blown up, bombed, burnt, and ill.He was not one of the commanders, or the shooting and bombing action heroes. He was responsible for the transport that contributed to everything else being possible. He tells of the problems in organising vehicles, keeping them on the road, repairing, bodging, cannibalising, improvising and inventing. This is the not often heard voice of an ordinary young bloke going through a terrible time, and doing what he could. That surely makes him a hero too.

    The boats patrolled the coast and rivers of South Vietnam, with the average age of the crew being twenty-four. Their days consisted of deadly combat, intense lightning firefights, storms and many hidden dangers.This action-packed story of combat written by Dan Daly, a Vietnam combat veteran who was the Officer in Charge of PCF 76 makes you part of the Swift Boat crew. The six man crew of PCF 76 were volunteers from all over the United States, eager to serve their country in a highly unique type of duty not seen since the PT boats of WWII. This inexperienced and disparate group of men would meld into a combat team - a team that formed an unbreakable, lifelong bond.After training they were plunged into a 12 month tour of duty. Combat took place in the closest confines imaginable, where the enemy were hidden behind a passing sand dune or a single sniper could be concealed in an onshore bunker, mines might be submerged at every fork in the river. The enemy was all around you, hiding, waiting, while your fifty-foot Swift Boat works its way upriver. In many cases the rivers became so narrow there was barely room to maneuver or turn around. The only way out might be into a deadly ambush. Humor and a touch of romance relieve the tension in this thrilling ride with America's finest.

    So begins The Dying Place, David Maurer’s unflinching look at MACV-SOG, Vietnam, and a young man’s entry into war. Fresh from the folds of the Catholic Church, Sgt. Sam Walden is quickly embraced by another religion, jungle warfare. After four years there may be no resolution between the two; God knows Sam has tried. But how many Hail Mary’s will absolve him of what he has done in Laos? Walden is a war-weary Green Beret, regularly tested beyond normal limits by the ever-changing priorities of the puzzle palace in Saigon. And yet he overcomes, staying alive to go on mission after mission with his one-one and his little people. To them he is everything – strength, compassion, courage. He will not let them down. David Maurer’s own experiences at MACV-SOG’s Command and Control North come to life in this tense action-packed story. The U.S. was not supposed to be in Laos during the Vietnam War and by all accounts, we weren’t. Some know better, and fortunately, Maurer is one of those. With a fine ear for dialogue Maurer takes you back and sets you down squarely on the LZ, where inner turmoil is quelled and external conflict takes over, if only for awhile. If you’re lucky, you just might make it out alive.

    

    At the end of 1811, after four years of hard warfare against the forces of Napoleon, Wellington was not prepared to waste the Winter months and therefore he used them to capture, at great cost, the two ‘keys of Spain’: Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz. With these two now in Allied possession the story continues with Wellington advancing forward into Spain at the head of an Allied army to begin the campaigns of 1812. During this momentous year huge questions dominate the European stage, not least the aftermath of Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia and the loss of an army of 600,000 men and all their horses and equipment. The following twelve months extending into 1813 is a year of titanic set-piece battles which will settle, one way or another, the fate of Spain and Portugal within the French Empire and also events far away over the Atlantic will have their own part to play, with the armies of the new Republic chancing their arm with their own invasions of Canada. Both triumph and tragedy befall the Allied army during 1812, first the complete victory of Salamanca, then the near farce and tragedy of the Burgos siege, followed by a retreat back to Cuidad Rodrigo, worse than that of Coruna due to acute starvation. British Intelligence makes full use of Napoleon’s tragedy, weaving deceit on both sides of the Atlantic, such that El Rey Joseph is ordered to send men back to France and then in 1813 the Allies spring forward from the Portuguese border, with an advance so rapid that within three weeks there comes the triumph of Vitoria and then fighting to open the passes over the Pyrenees into France itself. As part of what is now a formidable army, the 105th Foot Wessex The Prince of Wales Own, must first contend with the retirement of their Colonel, Bertram Lacey, finally worn down by years of intense campaigning and finally the horrors of Badajoz. His replacement is Carr’s old enemy from his last visit back to England after Talavera, this replacement being Sir Ambrose Brockenhurst MP, the Colonel of the 105th’s Militia, him arrived from England to take over from Lacey and the result is incompetence and even humiliation. Carr is promoted to temporary Brevet-Colonel, but their reputation is now sullied, yet the 105th play their part in Salamanca and endure the retreat from Burgos. With the Spring of 1813, all Allied armies advance to Vitoria to play their part in this momentous battle and take part in the conflicts in the Pyrenees, where, on the far right of Wellington’s line at the battle of Sorauren outside Pamplona, the 105th’s reputation is finally restored. Throughout all, the band led by Colour-Sergeant Jedediah Deakin hold together, giving mutual support and comfort, and taking advantage of any opportunity that comes their way which may soften the hard and dangerous life they necessarily lead.

    Flying over Vietnam in two-seater Cessnas, they often made the difference between a soldier returning alive to his family or having the lonely sound of “Taps” played over his grave. Based on extensive interviews, and often in the men’s own words, A Hundred Feet Over Hell puts the reader in the plane as this intrepid band of U.S. Army aviators calls in fire support for the soldiers and marines of I Corps.

    Examples of the many perspectives based on real-life characters include: Hu, a VC “informant” whose false information led the Rangers straight into the jaws of a ferocious ambush; General Tanh, the COSVN commander; Major Nguyen Hiep, the 52d Ranger Commander; and Ranger POWs later returned by the North.Nightingale moreover offers the point of view of an American advisor to elite Vietnamese troops, a vital perspective regrettably underrepresented in the literature of Vietnam, including Burns’ documentary. Added to this are well-informed conjecture of enemy psychology; insight into the dedication and often misunderstood role of the elite Vietnamese Ranger forces; the intelligence acquired from debriefing captured Rangers, whose captors had told them that the entire battle had been a carefully staged attack planned by COSVN as part of a larger Total War strategy developed by the leadership of the North Vietnamese Army; and an eyewitness account by a gifted author who is a rare survivor of one of the most vicious—and heretofore forgotten—battles of the war.

    VT-8 rose from the ashes of the Battle of Midway to become an indispensable air arm in the series of engagements for the Solomon Islands and beyond. In three months, the crack squadron carried out thirty-nine attack missions, sixteen against ships, twenty-three against ground targets. Their motto following the tragedy at Midway was "Attack and Revenge." Herman Wouk paid homage to the squadron in his 1971 novel War and Remembrance, referring to the pilots as, "The soul of America in action." *Includes annotations and images.

    He’s impersonating an SS major assigned as a staff officer at the exclusive Hohenstein Castle, located south of Salzburg, Austria. The castle is known for elegantly hosting high level SS meetings throughout the war. He learns of a dinner meeting with no less than the Führer himself, who is making a rare appearance outside Germany. He advises England, and waits. U.S. Army Ranger Sergeant Tom Dunn’s new assignment takes him and his men to Greece. The plan is to work with the Greek Resistance to destroy a German supply depot because the Germans are preparing to leave western Greece to face off against the Red Army steamrolling through the Balkans. Marston’s request is approved and British Commando Sergeant Malcolm Saunders, recently married, earns the task of breaching the castle. His orders: kill the top Nazis who will be attending. Saunders and his squad rush to rehearse the attack and are then on their way to Austria. At the castle, Hitler reveals surprising and exciting news. Another guest, a member of the Abwehr, Military Intelligence, presents the Führer with an intelligence coup that delights the dictator. Marston immediately recognizes the extreme danger it poses to the U.S. Army. He prays that Saunders arrives on time and can be flexible in his attack. Saunders suddenly faces an impossible situation when things go deadly awry. He has no choice but to call for help from the one man who always delivers, Tom Dunn. But Dunn has serious problems of his own in Greece. Munsterman raises the stakes in book seven of the Sgt. Dunn WWII Action Thriller series. He takes the reader to the mountains of Austria and the coastline of Greece, blending history with an action-packed plot.

    He arrived in Vietnam in 1964 and volunteered to join the worlds first attack helicopter company. The Utility Tactical Transport Helicopter Company (UTT) had deployed to Vietnam in 1962. It came equipped with the U.S. Armys brand new UH-1 Huey, a helicopter originally designed as an aerial ambulance. The crews, not happy with a passive combat role, began experimenting with ways to strap guns on their aircraft and attack the enemy. Through a deadly process of trial and error the pilots pushed their machines to the edge. Mistakes were made, crews were lost and lessons were learned. These lessons evolved into combat tactics and became fondly known as the 12 Cardinal Rules of Attack Helicopter Combat. Upon joining the unit the author learned about the rules. He studied them and on his first day in combat, developed his own 13th rule. Over his ensuing three years in Vietnam, the rules, especially the 13th, helped him survive over one thousand combat missions. This book provides the reader with a cockpit level view of dozens of those missions and describes several additional near disaster situations encountered by the author during over 25 years flying Army Aircraft. The author is successful in striking a balance between the grim realities of combat and the often humorous aspects of life among a group of high spirited aviators who fly into the jaws of death daily without a parachute on their back. He suggests that the 13 rules, although developed during a different war and at a different time, are applicable to armed helicopter combat operations in the 21st Century. The book contains about 200 pages and is nicely illustrated with 50 photographs.

    Oboe entailed the pilot flying dead straight and level for ten minutes on the attack run. Suddenly a tremendous flash lit up the sky about 50 yards ahead of our nose and exactly at our altitude. Within a tenth of a second we were through the cloud of dirty yellowish-brown smoke and into the blackness beyond. I shall never forget the spontaneous reaction of both my pilot and myself. We turned our heads slowly and looked long and deep into one anothers eyes - no word was spoken - no words were needed.The Mosquito was probably World War IIs most versatile combat aircraft. This book contains hundreds of firsthand accounts from many of the twoman crews who flew in them; pilots and navigators. It portrays the dramatic experiences of flying in its many roles as pathfinder, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, precision bombing and low-level ground attack aircraft. It describes many of the RAFs most audacious raids on prime but difficult targets where carpet bombing by heavy bombers was likely to be ineffective and cause unnecessary casualties to civilians. It is a remarkable record of the aircraft and the men that flew them.

    

    It is must-read on every page.” ----THOMAS FLEMING: Author of A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of the Civil War“The Forest of Assassins is a great read, a novel as good as the best journalism, with vivid and accurate details driving a tale of danger and deception and betrayal during the Vietnam War. This book doesn't just feel researched, it feels lived. Whether tightening the suspense – our protagonist, Navy Lieutenant Hank Dillon eyeball to eyeball with a VC soldier and watching for the skin to whiten on the man’s finger curled around the trigger of his AK-47 – or describing the oppressive heat of an innocent afternoon on the Mekong Delta, David Forsmark and Timothy Imholt make you believe every word of it. I couldn't recommend it more highly.-ROBERT FERRIGNO, NY Times best-selling novelist, Prayers for the AssassinAs real as fiction gets. A non-stop ride into combat told with perfection.-BOB HAMER, veteran FBI undercover agent and the author of The Last UndercoverThe Forest of Assassins is a historic thriller set in the earliest days of the American involvement in the Vietnam War. It involved the earliest of Navy SEAL teams. It is set in a time when the NAVY still did not admit these men existed, much less had they determined if those units would survive until the next conflict, or if the experiment would be abandoned. The Forest of Assassins tells the story of Navy SEAL Lieutenant Hank Dillon, a squad commander, deep in the jungles of South Vietnam when America’s involvement in the war was still in the “advisor” stage. Dillon’s mission is to wreak havoc among the Viet Cong guerillas who are terrorizing the countryside.Their mission—and even their presence in the region—is top secret. But Hank has a problem even bigger than a deadly and determined enemy; he has a traitor in the ranks.Meanwhile, a suspicious NCIS cop is nosing around Hank’s mysterious operation, certain that it is a front for drug running and other illegal activities.Things are tense for the young Lieutenant who just wants to go home to his wife…intact.

    Jorgenson spent 7 years in the Army; three as an infantryman and four as a journalist. After surviving a number of missions as a LRRP with Hotel Company (Airborne), Jorgenson transferred to Alpha (aka Apache) Troop, where he walked point for its reaction force, the Blues. Jorgenson brings his considerable experience as a soldier and journalist to bear in this absorbing account.

    But his unit's mission stayed the same: act as the eyes and ears of the 101st deep in the dreaded A Shau Valley--where the NVA ruled.Relentless thick fog frequently made fighter bombers useless in the A Shau, and the enemy had furnished the nearby mountaintops with antiaircraft machine guns to protect the massive trail network that snaked through it. So, outgunned, outmanned, and unsupported, the teams of L Company executed hundreds of courageous missions. Now, in this powerful personal record, Larry Chambers recaptures the experience of the war's most brutal on-the-job training, where the slightest noise or smallest error could bring sudden--and certain--death. . . .