They kicked their way into a house and held a mob of 200 at bay for three hours... until they were rescued by a QRF including Cpl Terry Thomson CGC. The QRF lost a man of their own and battled their way through to Bryan and his men with amazing bravery.CSgt Matt Tomlinson CGC RM and Cpl Shaun Jardine CGC ran straight towards men with machine guns, ignoring a hail of fire to kill their attackers.Pte Michelle Norris MC climbed up onto the top of a Warrior armoured vehicle, in the middle of a huge firefight, to save the life of her sergeant. Around 60 rounds were fired at her, some clipping her webbing or hitting the vehicle two inches from her body. (She remains the only woman to win the Military Cross.)LCoH Andrew Radford CGC ran 70 metres through the Taliban's rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire to rescue a terribly injured mate...then ran all the way back with him on his shoulders.Lt Tim Illingworth CGC charged Taliban positions on his own, after the Afghan army men with him were killed or fled.Flt Lt Matt Carter MC jumped out of a flying helicopter, at night, straight into a firefight with the Taliban, because his comrades were in trouble.Lt Hugo Farmer CGC led his men through ferocious Taliban fire to recover the body of Cpl Bryan Budd VC.This list goes on and on... astonishing stories by amazing people, of whom Britain should be tremendously proud.From the elite shock troops of the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marines, to heroes from other famous regiments like The Royal Anglians, The King's Own Scottish Borderers, The Royal Welch Fusiliers, The Life Guards, The Blues and Royals, The Queen's Dragoon Guards, The Queen's Royal Hussars, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, The Light Infantry, The Royal Horse Artillery, The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, The Royal Logistic Corps, The Royal Engineers, The Royal Army Medical Corps, The RAF Regiment, and The Territorial Army, these are tales from the very sharp end of modern warfare.The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan may not enjoy popular support, but our soldiers - who do not have the choice of where and who they're fighting for - do.Each day in these two countries is a desperate battle for survival against deadly and implacable enemy forces, and each day brings new acts of bravery, courage and self-sacrifice that seem to belong to a bygone age. These enthralling and captivating stories shine new light on our fighting men and women.'Enthralling, awe-inspiring, untold stories' - The Daily Mail'Excellent... simply unputdownable. Buy this book.' - The Sun'Modesty and courage go hand-in-hand... an outstanding read.' - Soldier Magazine'The book everyone's talking about' - News of the World'Astonishing feats of bravery' - Independent on Sunday'A book that was crying out to be written' - Defence Focus'A remarkable book...

    He's an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller- pronounced 'jay-tack') - a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A10 tank-busters, F15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own side. Due to his specialist role, Sergeant Grahame usually operates in the thick of the action, where it's at its most fearsome and deadly. Conjuring the seemingly impossible from apparently hopeless situations, soldiers in battle rely on the skill and bravery of their JTAC to enable them to win through in the heat of the danger zone. Fire Strike 7/9 tells the story of Bommer Grahame and his five-man Fire Support Team on their tour of Afghanistan. Patrolling deep into enemy territory, they were hunted and targeted by the Taliban, shot at, blown-up, mortared and hit by rockets on numerous occasions. Under these conditions Sergeant Grahame notched up 203 confirmed enemy kills, making him the difference between life and death both for his own troops and the Taliban.

    Within weeks they were cut off and besieged by some of the world's toughest fighters: the infamous Taliban, who were determined to send the foreigners home again. Defence Secretary John Reid had hoped that Operation Herrick 4 could be accomplished without a shot being fired; instead, the Army was drawn into the fiercest fighting it had seen for fifty years. Millions of bullets and thousands of lives have been expended since then in an under-publicized but bitter conflict whose end is still not in sight. Some people consider it the fourth Anglo-Afghan War since Victorian times. How on earth did this happen? And what is it like for the troops on the front line of the 'War on Terror'?James Fergusson takes us to the dark heart of the battle zone. Here, in their own words and for the first time, are the young veterans of Herrick 4. Here, unmasked, are the civilian and military officials responsible for planning and executing the operation. Here, too, are the Taliban themselves, to whom Fergusson gained unique and extraordinary access. Controversial, fascinating and occasionally downright terrifying, A Million Bullets analyses the sorry slide into war in Helmand and asks this most troubling question: could Britain perhaps have avoided the violence altogether?

    Living in a remote base and under constant threat of attack from all sides by the Taliban, they were on red alert 24 hours a day, seven days a week for every one of those six months. And through that entire period, the man in sole charge was Maj Lewis. Here is his story, a riveting first-person account of incredible bravery, telling what it is like to have 200 soldiers depending on you constantly, to make decisions which can and do cost lives, to see men under your command killed and injured, and to be under the most intense pressure imaginable for every minute of every day for six long months. Based on the journal Maj Lewis kept during the tour, this book takes the reader from the excitement of the beginning of a tour, to the adrenalin of the first contact, through the devastating losses of his soldiers, and the struggle to keep himself at the highest level of performance for the sake of his men as physical and emotional exhaustion kick in. Readers will experience the highs and lows of a tour through the eyes of a leader of men in as close to real time as possible. At the end of the tour Maj Lewis was awarded the Military Cross for his leadership and gallantry over the tour. His citation read: "Resolute in defense, tenacious and courageous in attack, Lewis has set an outstanding example to B Company at significant personal risk and has been an inspiration to all ranks." He still serves in the Parachute Regiment.

    . . within seconds, flaming gasoline was pouring out, burning white and orange . . .” Told by the men who fought in the tanks, with all the searing aggression and violence that they experienced . . . the shocking first hand stories of the SS panzer troops themselves. These are crews of the Panzer IV, the Stug, the Panther, Jagdtiger, Tiger and King Tiger . . . hear the authentic voices of the gunners, commanders and drivers who fought in some of the deadliest battles in human history. In 1962, a German researcher conducted a series of interviews with former members of the Waffen SS Panzer troops who had fought in World War 2. He intended to probe their motivations and psychology, but found them unwilling to discuss these matters in depth. The SS veterans were willing, however, to describe their combat experiences, and gave astonishing accounts of tank battles in Operation Barbarossa, Normandy, Italy, the Russian Front, the massive conflict at Kursk, the Ardennes and during the final desperate battles against the Soviets within the Reich and for Berlin itself. These were men whose memories of the battles were still vivid, and were ready to relate the physical details of combat – the explosive sights, sounds, and sensations of tank fighting, the weapons and tactics that they used, their triumphs and humiliations. Told in ice-cold, clinical detail, with phenomenal drama and sense of crisis, these first-hand accounts stand out today as one of the most remarkable testimonies to the experience of tank warfare in WW2. They will fascinate anyone interested in tank combat, the Waffen SS and the use of armor from 1941 to 1945. This is Book 2 in the series, covering tank battles in: Normandy (Panther) The Ardennes (Jagdtiger) Prussia (Stug IV) Berlin (King Tiger and Wirbelwind) Book 1 in the series ('SS Panzer SS Pride - Barbarossa to Italy') covers battles in: Operation Barbarossa (Panzer IV) Onslaught in the East (Stug III) Kursk (Tiger I) Italy (Elefant and Panther) The full set of interviews from Books 1 and 2 is available in the book 'SS Panzer SS Voices.' This edition also has a preview of the latest publication of eyewitness panzer battles from Sprech Media, 'Hitler's Children - Spitting Fire.'

    The boy who might date your daughter or sister. The young man who might mow your yard. In Vietnam, we weren’t out to be heroes. We just did our jobs. For a helicopter pilot, each day was like all the others. You flew the mission and never stopped to think that it might be your last. You didn’t think about the bullet holes in the helicopter, the cracks in the tail boom, or about any of it until night, lying in bed when you couldn’t think of anything else. The Other Vietnam War is the story of the introduction to a new country, a backward culture, the perils of a combat zone, and the effects on a young lieutenant fresh out of flight school. It does not labor the reader with pages of white-knuckle adventures, as so many other fine books about the Vietnam War do. It instead focuses on the internal battle each soldier fought with himself to make sense of where he was, why he was there, and if he was good enough. The administrative duties of Commissioned officers, while tame compared to the exploits of valiant pilots who wrote about them, caused a deep introspection into life and its value in an enigmatic place like Vietnam. Aside from the fear, excitement, deliverance, and denial that each pilot faced, the inner battle he fought with himself took its toll. Some of us thought we’d find glory. But many of us discovered there is no glory in war.

    His memoir, THE BLADES CARRY ME: Inside the Helicopter War in Vietnam, takes the reader into the CH-47 Chinook helicopter cockpit and the daily life of a 22-year-old pilot. The young man must reconcile his ideals of patriotism, courage, and honor with the reality and politics of a war where victory is measured by body-count ratios instead of territory gained or lost. When it's time to go home, he realized he'll leave more than war behind. On the home front, the pilot's wife, Annie, provides a counterpoint as a pregnant college senior and military spouse during an unpopular war. With letters and tape recordings their sole means of communication, how will they grow up without growing apart.

    

    He was 47 years old. During his time on the ground he kept a diary. Humorous, authentic and sad, it is a warts and all account of infantry soldiering in a hot and dangerous place. This is his storty.

    An essential flight from France crash lands in the North Sea, leaving the four remaining crew members of the RAF Hudson stranded on a dinghy.One man is critically injured, and another, a rocket expert, is carrying a briefcase stuffed with vital war secrets, that could prove devastating if allowed to fall into the wrong hands.As the days begin to stretch out, they can only pray that the rescue team can locate the dinghy in time, before exposure kills them, or worse, the enemy finds them… A novel which charts the daring and courage of four castaways, and the men who rescued them in a breathtaking mission with the most awesome of consequences, perfect for fans of Alexander Fullerton, David McDine and Alan Evans.

    There has never been a satisfactory explanation. This book, although a novel, is based on the personal experiences of the author, a Lynx helicopter pilot and many other true stories that have never been fully told before. So, how do you counter your own weapon system when it’s turned against you? The Falklands War posed just this problem. January 1982 and the Exocet sea skimming missile is a killer. The British should know, they co-developed it with the French. However, the Argentinians have them as well. Marcel Bertrand a French missile expert, who has been made redundant, is recruited to help them. 2 April 1982, Argentina invades the Falklands. Soon after, Lieutenant Jon Hunt flies his Lynx helicopter from HMS Prometheus with a Special Forces team to covertly infiltrate the Argentinian Air base at Rio Grande. His mission is to persuade Marcel who has been kept in the dark about the invasion, to agree to work for them. Once Jon explains the truth about the invasion Marcel and his girlfriend Maria agree to help and manage to modify the missiles warheads with a software update so that they won’t explode. As the war hots up, Argentina desperately tries to make their missiles more effective and the British try just as desperately to develop countermeasures. While down south, Jon Hunt discovers what it’s really like to fly in combat. Eventually Marcel and Maria find themselves in the Islands just as the British are closing in. A rescue attempt to get them out is led by Jon which culminates in a desperate encounter in the mountains surrounding Port Stanley just as the final fight for the Islands takes place around them. This is the first in a series of modern naval adventures, following the career of Lieutenant Jonathon Hunt through the turbulent modern military times of the last three decades

    Following an emotional and traumatic escape from the advancing German forces they arrive in England. As a result of their experiences, and the manner that they combated the Nazi regime, the three sisters, all civilians, are seconded, along with the survivors of their group, into the intelligence section of General De Gaulle’s newly formed Free French Force. After extensive training in England they return to occupied France living in fear of betrayal and capture.

     As the German Blitzkrieg rolls across France, the British Army is forced to retreat back to the coast. It seems, as the net tightens around the surrounded divisions, that only a miracle can save them from destruction. As the Royal Navy attempts to rescue the men from the beaches, the British rearguard is locked in a vicious struggle to prevent the Germans from breaking through. Jack and his section, after weeks of brutal action, are forced to struggle on against the relentless enemy, the men standing together as they fight their way back to the blood soaked beaches, where their only hope of salvation lies beneath the smoke filled skies of Dunkirk. This is the first novel in a new series by Stuart Minor.

    Along the way Sinclair finds himself braving typhoons, treacherous seas and an insane shipmate.And when a fogbound collision threatens to pollute the shores of the British Isles, the race is on to prevent an ecological disaster – before they all go down with the ship.For Sinclair these three years are set to be the most thrilling of his life so far – a rollercoaster ride of blood, sweat and fire.IN THE BLOOD is a rip-roaring, page-turning adventure story following Peter Sinclair during the early years of his maritime career.

     The Third World War Rages After Vietnam attacks The Philippines and Hong Kong at the behest of Moscow, Australia and New Zealand join the Third World War. RAAF F-18s dogfight in the skies above Hanoi -A combined Australian-Zealand Task Force gathers at Singapore -Australian troops come ashore at Haiphong -New Zealanders fight for the lives at Cam Ranh Bay World War 1990: Anzacs