It is the only sub since World War Two to have sunk an enemy ship. Conqueror's sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano made inevitable an all-out war over the future of the Falkland Islands, and sparked off one of the most controversial episodes of twentieth century politics. The controversy was fuelled by a war-diary kept by an officer on board HMS Conqueror, and as a young TV producer in the 1980s Stuart Prebble scooped the world by locating the diary's author and getting his story on the record. But in the course of uncovering his Falklands story, Stuart Prebble also learned a military secret which could have come straight out of a Cold War thriller. It involved the Top Secret activities of the Conqueror in the months before and after the Falklands War. Prebble has waited for thirty years to tell his story. It is a story of incredible courage and derring-do, of men who put their lives on the line and were never allowed to tell what they had done. This story, buried under layers of official secrecy for three decades, is one of Britain's great military success stories and can now finally be told.

     Attu was the westernmost island in the Aleutian chain, located one thousand miles from Alaska, and subject to brutal weather all year round. Prior to the war it had been home to two Americans and forty-five Aleut hunters and their families, but in June 1942 the Japanese had seized the island and now had over two-thousand troops on the barren island threatening the security of the U.S. mainland. The Battle of the Komandorski Islands in the Bering Sea on March 26, 1943, cleared the way for attempt to retake the island of Attu. Code-named Operation Landgrab, the U.S. military planned for the invasion to take place in May. Army planners had initially thought this would be a quick operation, but instead of being a short invasion it dragged on for over two weeks. The Japanese had realized that their options were limited and so launched a last-ditch banzai charge against the American frontline that was suffering from brutal Arctic conditions, equipment failures and food shortages. Although the U.S. military was able to recapture the island it had cost the lives of over five hundred American soldiers. Robert J. Mitchell, Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond’s book The Capture of Attu provides fascinating insight into this ferocious conflict. Part One of the book provides an overview of the military campaign while Part Two provides personal narratives of the soldiers who fought. This book attempts to put the reader on the battlefield with the ground soldier. Men who fought on Attu, officers and enlisted men, told their stories to Lieutenant Robert J. Mitchell of the 32d Infantry, one of the regiments engaged. These stories tell of the discomforts and perils, the failures and successes, the fear and courage, the many fights between small groups and the occasional humor, of which battle consists. Robert J. Mitchell served as a lieutenant in the US Army's 7th Infantry Division in World War II, being stationed on Attu Island off of Alaska as well as other areas of the Pacific. He was shot in the chest while on Attu and carried the bullet for the rest of his life. While recuperating, he wrote the stories of the other men in his hospital tent. For this he was made an aide to the general in charge of media for the rest of the war. He passed away in 1992. His co-authors Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond also served on Attu and passed away in 1946 and 1999 respectively. Their book The Capture of Attu was first published in 1944.

    O’Keefe takes us on a heart-pounding journey at the sharp end of combat during the infamous Normandy campaign. More than 300 soldiers from the Black Watch found themselves pinned down, as the result of strategic blunders and the fog of war, and only a handful walked away. Thrust into a nightmare, Black Watch Highlanders who hailed from across Canada, the United States, Great Britain and the Allied world found themselves embroiled in a mortal contest against elite Waffen-SS units and grizzled Eastern Front veterans, where station, rank, race and religion mattered little, and only character won the day. Drawing on formerly classified documents and rare first-person testimony of the men who fought on the front lines, O’Keefe follows the footsteps of the ghosts of Normandy, giving a voice yet again to the men who sacrificed everything in the summer of 1944.

    

    Much of it is told by the men who flew the Blenheim, Boston, Mitchell and Mosquito aircraft that carried out many daring daylight and night-time raids on vitally important targets in Nazi occupied Europe and Germany. These were not the famous thousand bomber raids that hit the wartime headlines, but low-level, fast-moving surprise raids flown by small formations of fleet-footed and skilfully piloted twin-engine light bombers. Their targets were usually difficult to locate and heavily defended because of their strategic importance to the Nazis. 2 Group also played a vital part in the invasion of Europe both before and after D-Day. Often they would fly at wave-top height across the English Channel or North Sea to avoid detection and then hedge-hop deep into enemy territory to deliver their precision attack. Enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire were a constant risk. This is a remarkable story of skill and bravery by a little known branch of the RAF.

    It is primarily a story to share with family and friends about my personal involvement in the conflict and the turbulent decade of the 60s and does not attempt to question the politics of the era. It begins with a brief description of my quest to gain admittance to the United States Air Force Academy, my four years at the Academy, and the subsequent year of pilot training. I flew three different types of aircraft in combat and the book provides insight into the training that took place for the C-130 Hercules, the F-105 Thunderchief, and the A-1 Skyraider. Each of the three tours in combat over Laos and Vietnam is described with emphasis on the more memorable flights including a bailout in the A-1 and the final crash on takeoff that ended my active duty Air Force career. My time in various hospitals is described at the end of the book and the epilogue tells briefly of my life after retirement from the United States Air Force. The book has been described as a combination of Band of Brothers, Top Gun, and Forrest Gump.

    

    

    It is the true story of the man behind Pearl Harbor---Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto---and the courageous young American fliers who flew the million-to-one suicide mission that shot him down.Yamamoto was a cigar-smoking, poker-playing, English-speaking, Harvard-educated expert on America, and that intimate knowledge served him well as architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next sixteen months, this military genius, beloved by the Japanese people, lived up to his prediction that he would run wild in the Pacific Ocean. He was unable, however, to deal the fatal blow needed to knock America out of the war, and the shaken United States began its march to victory on the bloody island of Guadalcanal.Donald A. Davis meticulously tracks Yamamoto's eventual rendezvous with death. After American code-breakers learned that the admiral would be vulnerable for a few hours, a desperate attempt was launched to bring him down. What was essentially a suicide mission fell to a handful of colorful and expendable U.S. Army pilots from Guadalcanal's battered "Cactus Air Force":- Mississippian John Mitchell, after flunking the West Point entrance exam, entered the army as a buck private. Though not a "natural" as an aviator, he eventually became the highest-scoring army ace on Guadalcanal and the leader of the Yamamoto attack. - Rex Barber grew up in the Oregon countryside and was the oldest surviving son in a tightly knit churchgoing family. A few weeks shy of his college graduation in 1940, the quiet Barber enlisted in the U.S. Army. - "I'm going to be President of the United States," Tom Lanphier once told a friend. Lanphier was the son of a legendary fighter squadron commander and a dazzling storyteller. He viewed his chance at hero status as the start of a promising political career.- December 7, 1941, found Besby Holmes on a Pearl Harbor airstrip, firing his .45 handgun at Japanese fighters. He couldn't get airborne in time to make a serious difference, but his chance would come. - Tall and darkly handsome, Ray Hine used the call sign "Heathcliffe" because he resembled the brooding hero of Wuthering Heights. He was transferred to Guadalcanal just in time to participate in the Yamamoto mission---a mission from which he would never return.They flew the longest over-water fighter mission ever and ambushed and killed Yamamoto. After his death, the Japanese never won another major naval battle. But the victorious American pilots seemed cursed by the samurai spirit of the admiral and were tormented for the rest of their lives by what happened that day. Davis paints unforgettable personal portraits of men in combat and unravels a military mystery that has been covered up at the highest levels of government since the end of the war.

    British morale was low. The sinking of the Bismarck was a matter of life and death. But before the British could engage her, they had to find her. The British Admiralty received a report that two large German warships had been seen steaming northward through the Kattegat, between Denmark and Sweden. Six days later the shattered hulk of the Bismarck turned bottom up and disappeared beneath the waves a few hundred miles from Brest. In those six days an awe-inspiring drama played itself out. The history of this terrible chase is a story of ups and downs, hopes and anxieties, bitter disappointment and miraculous recovery — a marvellous picture of naval action. In addition the battle is illuminated by comments on strategy and tactics that every reader can appreciate. Praise for Russell Grenfell: "Captain Grenfell has both the background and literary ability to bring the whole dramatic story brilliantly alive" - San Francisco Chronicle "A remarkably lucid account" - Time Magazine "Thoroughly rewarding" - New York Times "Full of dramatic interest" - Times Literary Supplement Russell Grenfell (1892-1954) was promoted to Lieutenant a few years after he first went to sea. Having served on battleships, he was appointed to command destroyers. Prior to his retirement, he served as senior commander at the Royal Naval Staff College in Greenwich. Grenfell authored many naval books, including Main Fleet to Singapore, Nelson the Sailor and Unconditional Hatred.

    The teenager endured its horrors for more than a year. After surviving the Holocaust, he arrived penniless in America, barely speaking English. In 1950, Tibor volunteered for service in the Korean War. After acts of heroism that included single-handedly defending a hill against an onslaught of enemy soldiers, braving sniper fire to rescue a wounded comrade, and commandeering a machine gun after its crew was killed, he was captured. As a POW, Tibor called on his experience in Mauthausen to help fellow GIs survive two and half years of captivity. Tibor returned from Korea in 1953, but it wasn’t until 2005—at age 76—that he was invited to the White House, where he received the Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush. It had taken over half a century for Tibor’s adopted homeland to recognize this Jewish immigrant for acts of valor that went “beyond the call of duty.” But when it did, the former Hungarian refugee became the only survivor of the Holocaust to have earned America’s highest military distinction. Drawing on eyewitness accounts and extensive interviews, author Daniel M. Cohen presents the inspiring story of Tibor “Teddy” Rubin for the first time in its entirety and gives us a stirring portrait of a true hero. INCLUDES PHOTOS

    Marines against an entrenched North Vietnamese Army force. By official accounts it was a tactical and moral victory for the Marines and the United States. But here survivor Nicholas Warr describes with urgency and outrage the Marines' savage house-to-house fighting--ordered without air, naval, or artillery support by officers with no experience in that type of combat.Sparing few in the telling, Warr's firsthand narrative tells of desperate Marine suicide charges and of the Marines' selfless devotion to their comrades. His riveting account of the most vicious urban combat since World War II offers an unparalleled view of how a small-unit commander copes with the conflicting demands and responsibilities thrust upon him by the enemy, his men, and the chain of command.

     He ordered a superhuman effort to make Britain a nuclear power. Although Britain had been a junior partner in the Manhattan Project which had produced the American bombs, no British scientist had more than partial knowledge of the complex physics involved. The war over, the Americans cut off all help. At a time of daunting economic difficulty and amid the growing tension of the Cold War, the project hurriedly took shape behind a cloak of almost paranoid secrecy and in an atmosphere of constant stringency and shortage. Brian Cathcart’s book ranges over politics, diplomacy, espionage and science, but above all it tells the story of the brilliant young scientist William Penney, his team and their struggle. The men who worked behind the security fences at Aldermaston have been allowed to speak. The tales include fearsome risks, vast resourcefulness, bureaucratic obstruction, naval intransigence and a measure of black humour. The veil is also lifted on the extraordinary contribution of Klaus Fuchs, the Soviet spy. Finally the high drama of the test itself, conducted off the coast of Australia after a naval operation which came close to total fiasco, is recounted in gripping detail. Test of Greatness draws on what at the time the book was published were newly declassified documents. Cathcart also speaks uses primary sources, such as the words of the participants, illustrating and illuminating in vivid, human terms a secret but crucial chapter of post-war British history. Praise for Brian Cathcart: ‘The story of the British bomb mixes science, politics, espionage, Essex and morality. A nation is changed for ever when it decides to become a nuclear power. Brian Cathcart takes this complicated array of factors and makes them rise out of the page and walk to a very wide audience.’ – Sir Peter Hennessy, military historian Brian Cathcart was Assistant Editor of the Independent on Sunday when he wrote Test of Greatness. Since then he has taken up a position at Kingston University London and founded Hacked Off in the aftermath of the tabloid phone-hacking scandal. He has just published his eighth book, The News from Waterloo. His previous works include accounts of the murders of Jill Dando and Stephen Lawrence.

    At one time or another he operated in almost every theater of the undersea war, from Norway to the Indian Ocean, and became the second most successful German U-boat ace in World War II, sinking more than 220,000 tons of merchant shipping. A master in the art of military leadership, Luth was the youngest man to be appointed to the rank of captain and the youngest to become commandant of the German Naval Academy. Nevertheless, his accomplishments were overshadowed by those of other great aces, such as Prien, Kretschmer, and Topp.The publication of this book in hardcover in 1990 marked the first comprehensive study of Luth's life. Jordan Vause corrects the long neglect by providing an entertaining and authoritative biography that places the ace in the context of the war at sea. This new paperback edition includes corrections and additional information collected by the author over the past decade.

    But to the women locked up there it was something else. A Living Hell. More than 4,000 internees were held there from January 1942 until February 1945.'Living Hell' is their harrowing story. The book is based on the diaries of Isla Corfield. An Englishwoman whose comfortable life in Shanghai was suddenly disrupted by the outbreak of World War Two, she fled with her daughter Gill on an evacuee ship.But the ship was captured by the Japanese -- and Isla and Gill would have to struggle to survive as prisoners of war in both Santo Tomas and Los Banos internment camps.In the communities of the camps, Isla and her daughter experienced the extremes of both friendship and loss. Cut-off from information about the war and with no end to their internment in sight, the pair experience starvation, disease and desperation.Finally liberated by the Americans after four years, Isla's story is both humbling and life-affirming - the story of one brave Englishwomen's battle to survive against terrible odds.It is one of the great untold stories of World War Two. "An incredible story of bravery and will-power." - Robert Foster, best-selling author of 'The Lunar Code'. Celia Lucas is a writer of children’s fiction and biography. She is a journalist, feature writer and public relations consultant. Winner of Tir na Nog Prize 1988 she has also collaborated on a TV series with husband Ian Skidmore. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.