At a displacement weight of over 75,000 tons, she was the biggest ship ever built to that time, with 18" guns that could hurl 4,000 pound projectiles over 25 miles. A battleship-converted-to-carrier, the Shinano was a military marvel that the Japanese hoped would reverse the war fortunes of an entire nation. On her maiden voyage she was escorted by three battle-savvy destroyers and manned by a crew of thousands. Who could have ever foretold that she would sink within days of leaving drydock?

    For ten days they pounded the city with over 9,000 tons of bombs, with the intention of erasing it entirely from the map. The fires they created were so huge they burned for a month and were visible for 200 miles.The people of Hamburg had no time to understand what had hit them. As they emerged from their ruined cellars and air raid shelters, they were confronted with a unique vision of hell: a sea of flame that stretched to the horizon, the burned-out husks of fire engines that had tried to rescue them, roads that had become flaming rivers of melted tarmac. Even the canals were on fire.Worse still, they had to battle hurricane-force winds to escape the blaze. The only safe places were the city's parks, but to reach them survivors had to stumble through temperatures of up to 800C and a blizzard of sparks strong enough to lift grown men off their feet."Inferno" is the culmination of several years of research and the first comprehensive account of the Hamburg firestorm to be published in almost thirty years. Keith Lowe has interviewed eyewitnesses in Britain, Germany, and America, and gathered together hundreds of letters, diaries, firsthand accounts, and documents. His book gives the human side of an inhuman story: the long, tense buildup to the Allied attack; the unparalleled horror of the firestorm itself; and the terrible aftermath. The result is an epic story of devastation and survival, and a much-needed reminder of the human face of war. Includes nineteen maps and thirty-one photographs, many never seen before.350 pages narrative, 489 pages in total

    As the last chance to escape the dire implications of a winter campaign, Hitler directed seventy-five German divisions, almost two million men and three of Germany's four panzer groups into the offensive, resulting in huge victories at Viaz'ma and Briansk – among the biggest battles of the Second World War. David Stahel's groundbreaking new account of Operation Typhoon captures the perspectives of both the German high command and individual soldiers, revealing that despite success on the battlefield the wider German war effort was in far greater trouble than is often acknowledged. Germany's hopes of final victory depended on the success of the October offensive but the autumn conditions and the stubborn resistance of the Red Army ensured that the capture of Moscow was anything but certain.

    Combining Guderian’s land offensive with Luftwaffe attacks, the Nazi Blitzkrieg decimated the defenses of Poland, Norway, France—and, very nearly, Russia—at the war’s outset. But in 1941, when Guderian advised that ground forces should take a step back, Hitler dismissed him. In these pages, the outspoken general shares his candid point of view on what would have led Germany to victory, and what ensured that it didn’t. In addition to providing a rare inside look at key members of the Nazi party, Guderian reveals in detail how he developed the Panzer tank forces and orchestrated their various campaigns, from the breakthrough at Sedan to his drive to the Channel coast that virtually decided the Battle of France. Panzer Leader became a bestseller within one year of its original publication in 1952 and has since been recognized as a classic account of the greatest conflict of our time.

    Herbert A. Werner, one of the few surviving German U-boat commanders, served on five submarines from 1941 to 1945. From the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, from the English Channel to the North Sea, he takes the reader with him through the triumphant years of 1941 and 1942, when German U-boats nearly strangled England, to the apocalyptic final years of destruction, disillusionment, and defeat.

    To reconstruct the tumultuous hundred days between Yalta and the fall of Berlin, John Toland traveled more than 100,000 miles in twenty-one countries and interviewed more than six hundred people—from Hitler’s personal chauffeur to Generals von Manteuffel, Wenck, and Heinrici; from underground leaders to diplomats; from top Allied field commanders to brave young GIs. Toland adeptly weaves together these interviews using research from thousands of primary sources. When it was first published, The Last 100 Days made history, revealing after-action reports, staff journals, and top-secret messages and personal documents previously unavailable to historians. Since that time, it has come to be regarded as one of the greatest historical narratives of the twentieth century.

    Tow ferocious, excruciating years later, his forces met a final devastating defeat in the frozen streets of Stalingrad. Now this entire campaign has been recreated so accurately and vividly by the author of The Foxes of the Desert that you can hear its noise, feel its exhaustion, gasp at the blunders on both sides, follow every movement of the great armies.

    submariners. As a young ensign, William J. Ruhe kept a journal on eight action-filled patrols in the South Pacific. His colorful memoir has earned a place with the best naval fiction, among such books as Run Silent, Run Deep and The Hunt for Red October.

    At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever.In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice. Symonds begins with the arrival of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after the devastating Japanese attack, and describes the key events leading to the climactic battle, including both Coral Sea--the first battle in history against opposing carrier forces--and Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid of Tokyo. He focuses throughout on the people involved, offering telling portraits of Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance and numerous other Americans, as well as the leading Japanese figures, including the poker-loving Admiral Yamamoto. Indeed, Symonds sheds much light on the aspects of Japanese culture--such as their single-minded devotion to combat, which led to poorly armored planes and inadequate fire-safety measures on their ships--that contributed to their defeat. The author's account of the battle itself is masterful, weaving together the many disparate threads of attack--attacks which failed in the early going--that ultimately created a five-minute window in which three of the four Japanese carriers were mortally wounded, changing the course of the Pacific war in an eye-blink.Symonds is the first historian to argue that the victory at Midway was not simply a matter of luck, pointing out that Nimitz had equal forces, superior intelligence, and the element of surprise. Nimitz had a strong hand, Symonds concludes, and he rightly expected to win.

    It was fought over a territory the size of France. It cost the Russians as many casualties as the British lost in the whole of the World War I. And it marked the first strategic defeat the Wehrmacht had suffered in its hitherto unstoppable march across Europe. During the first half of 1941 Moscow and its people were living in a kind of peace in a world of war. In spite of the horrors of Stalinism many ordinary people managed to find their own ways of enjoying themselves, and when war surprised a country unprepared, thanks to Stalin's obduracy, most rose with enthusiasm to defend their country and their city. One of the points of the book is to try and show how people find a kind of normality even in the hardest of circumstances, in peace and in war. On the 22 June the Nazi armies invaded and raced across the country. By the end of the year they were held, finally, in the suburbs of Moscow (as it were on the A4 at Heathrow). Based on huge research and scores of interviews, this book offers an unforgettable and richly illustrated narrative of the military action; telling portraits of Stalin and his generals, some apparatchiks, some great commanders. It also traces the stories of individuals, soldiers, politicians and intellectuals, writers and artists and dancers, workers, schoolchildren and peasants. The war remains a highly emotional matter for Russia and there are troubling questions like the role of Stalin or the appalling cost of victory. The book concludes with reflections on these issues.

    While this book looks at the lives of all eight vessels to bear the name (between 1596 and the 1990s), it concentrates on the truly epic story of the seventh vessel, a super-dreadnought battleship, conceived as the ultimate answer to German naval power, during the arms race that helped cause WW1. Warspite fought off the entire German fleet at Jutland, survived a mutiny between the wars and then covered herself in glory in action from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean during WW2. She was the flagship of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham when he mastered the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean, her guns inflicting devastating damage on the enemy at Calabria in 1940 and Matapan in 1941. She narrowly avoided destruction by the Japanese carrier force that had earlier devastated Pearl Harbor. She provided crucial fire support for Allied landings in Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Walcheren. A lucky ship in battle, she survived dive-bombers off Crete and glide bomb hits off Salerno. The Spite had a reputation for being obtuse at unexpected moments, running aground and losing her steering several times; she broke free from her towropes on the way to the breakers and ending up beached at St Michael's Mount where it took a decade to dismantle her. She had fought to the end.But this is not just the story of a warship. Wherever possible the voices of those men who fought aboard her speak directly to the reader about their experiences. Warspite is also the story of a great naval nation which constructed her as the ultimate symbol of its imperial power and then scrapped her when the sun set on that empire.About the AuthorIain Ballantyne is a much published naval author. His other books for Pen & Sword are HMS London, HMS Rodney and Victory as well as Strike From the Sea and Killing the Bismarck. He is editor of WARSHIPS IFR magazine. For more details on Iain Ballantyne and his books, visit: www.iainballantyne.com

    Victory in the forthcoming air battle would mean national survival; defeat would establish German tyranny.The Luftwaffe greatly outnumbered the RAF, but during the Battle of Britain it was the RAF that emerged triumphant, thanks to two key fighter planes, the Spitfire and the Hurricane. The Hurricane made up over half of Fighter Command`s front-line strength, and its revolutionary design transformed the RAF`s capabilities. Leo McKinstry tells the story of the remarkable plane from its designers to the first-hand testimonies of those brave pilots who flew it; he takes in the full military and political background but always keeps the human stories to the fore - to restore the Hawker Hurricane to its rightful place in history.

    Just a few months later, this same army was on the verge of total defeat, as the Germans had won victory after victory and were threatening to overrun Egypt and the Middle East.Here is the classic biography of the man who masterminded this great turnabout, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the German Afrika Korps. The man who burned Hitler's order to execute British raiders and who gave Allied prisoners the same food and medical treatment as his German troops. The tough general who personally conducted reconnaissance under fire in an open car while his tank commanders hid in armored turrets.The author of this book, Brigadier General Desmond Young, fought against Rommel in North Africa, was captured by him, and after his release at the end of the war visited Rommel's family and talked with many of his fellow officers. Thus, he is able to tell us about intrigues that went on in the German High Command during the war, he is able to give a blow-by-blow description of such decisive battles as Tobruk and El Alamein, and he is able to give personal anecdotes about Rommel and to sort out the facts from the legends that have sprung up around this extraordinary general.

    Translated from German by Richard and Clara Winston.

    It was a duty few men could handle—and even fewer would survive.This is the true story of those brave men who served and too often died under the ocean surface, written by a man who was there. Edward L. Beach masterfully weaves his gripping experiences aboard the USS Trigger with those of other boats fighting the war in the Pacific. Part action-packed combat chronicle, part testament to the courageous sacrifices made by those who never came back, this is a compelling eyewitness account of the war as few have seen it.