The inaugural edition of 'SOG Chronicles Volume One' will be the first in a series of books focusing on the many untold stories from that eight-year secret war where Green Berets went deep behind enemy lines without conventional support from artillery, tanks, or ground support troops where communist forces massed 50,000-100,000 troops to combat them while keeping the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply lines open. The centerpiece of 'SOG Chronicles Volume One' is the 1970 story of Operation Tailwind, features a SOG element of 16 Green Berets and 120 indigenous soldiers that went deeper into Laos than any operation during the secret war. Every Green Beret received at least one Purple Heart, including the sole medic, Gary Mike Rose. He is slated to receive the Medal of Honor from President Donald J. Trump in October 2017 for his valor and medical skills tending to more than 60 wounded troops during that four-day mission. “John Meyer’s story about Operation Tailwind does justice to the valor and heroism of the men involved in the four-day battle. Meyer writes about this historic SOG mission with clarity and attention to detail that is long overdue in regards to this top secret mission. 'SOG Chronicles Volume One' is mandatory reading for anyone remotely interested in SOG history or simply in how the Green Berets operate deep behind enemy lines.” —Billy Waugh, SOG/CIA operative

    But who would have thought that the slim and pale looking boy would become one of the most successful fighter pilots of the war? Almost unknown outside the RAF, Sgt. Pilot J.H. Lacey shot down more enemy aircraft in the Battle of Britain than any other fighter pilot. He shot down the Heinkel 111 which had just bombed Buckingham Palace and had the highest score (twenty-three) of enemy aircraft destroyed, as late as 1941. Thereafter commissioned, early in 1941, he was for a time an instructor at an operational training unit, passing on to others the knowledge that he had won in the toughest series of air battles ever fought. Returning to operations, he served under another fabulous air fighter, ‘Paddy’ Finucane; then was posted to rocket (airborne weapons) development, a task almost as dangerous as combat flying. Later he commanded a famous fighter squadron in the Far East. and shot down the first Japanese he encountered. Unorthodox, autocratic in his command but resentful of unreasonable interference from those above him, Ginger Lacey was a boyish-looking figure with a fantastic gift for leadership, and sharp eyes, bravery and an innate sense of timing. He died in 1989, but his amazing story was recorded by an experienced writer who was a fellow officer in the RAF until 1951 and knew him well. It is a memorable and stirring biography. ‘The best all action war story yet produced.’ - Yorkshire Post ‘A top-scoring story.’ - Evening Standard ‘Fast-moving biography.’ - Sunday Times ‘The best biography of a fighter pilot ever written.’ - Yorkshire Evening Post Richard Townsend Bickers volunteered for the RAF on the outbreak of the second world war and served, with a Permanent Commission, for eighteen years. He wrote a range of military fiction and non-fiction books, including ‘Torpedo Attack’, ‘My Enemy Came Nigh’, ‘Bombing Run’, ‘Fighters Up’ and ‘Summer of No Surrender’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    Julian Berrendero's victory in the 1941 Vuelta a Espana was an extraordinary exercise in sporting redemption: the Spanish cyclist had just spent 18 months in Franco's concentration camps, punishment for expressing Republican sympathies during the civil war. Seventy nine years later, perennially over-ambitious cyclo-adventurer Tim Moore developed a fascination with Berrendero's story, and having borrowed an old road bike with the great man's name plastered all over it, set off to retrace the 4,409km route of his 1941 triumph - in the midst of a global pandemic. What follows is a tale of brutal heat and lonely roads, of glory, humiliation, and then a bit more humiliation. Along the way Tim recounts the civil war's still-vivid tragedies, and finds the gregarious but impressively responsible locals torn between welcoming their nation's only foreign visitor, and bundling him and his filthy bike into a vat of antiviral gel.'Bill Bryson on two wheels' Independent

    Dennis Chalker was an original “plankowner” (founding member) of SEAL Team Six, and in One Perfect Op, he takes readers deep inside the remarkable world of America’s Special Forces operatives. With an introduction by Richard Marcinko of Rogue Warrior fame, One Perfect Op describes, step by breathtaking step, one extraordinary SEALs mission, shedding fascinating new light on the training, the planning, the courage and the skill of these exceptional warriors.

    At a time when successful queens regnant were few and far between, Isabella faced not only the considerable challenge of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom riddled with crime, debt, corruption, and religious factionism. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon united two kingdoms, a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Their pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance.Acclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky Middle Ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, truly modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its center. With authority and insight he relates the story of this legendary, if controversial, first initiate in a small club of great European queens that includes Elizabeth I of England, Russia's Catherine the Great, and Britain's Queen Victoria.

    Was she the bereft widow of legend who was driven mad by her loss, or has history misjudged a woman who was ahead of her time? In his stunning new novel, C. W. Gortner challenges the myths about Queen Juana, unraveling the mystery surrounding her to reveal a brave, determined woman we can only now begin to fully understand.The third child of Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand of Spain, Juana is born amid her parents’ ruthless struggle to unify their kingdom, bearing witness to the fall of Granada and Columbus’s discoveries. At the age of sixteen, she is sent to wed Philip, the archduke of Flanders, as part of her parents’ strategy to strengthen Spain, just as her youngest sister, Catherine of Aragon, is sent to England to become the first wife of Henry VIII. Juana finds unexpected love and passion with her handsome young husband, the sole heir to the Habsburg Empire. At first she is content with her children and her life in Flanders. But when tragedy strikes and she inherits the Spanish throne, Juana finds herself plunged into a battle for power against her husband that grows to involve the major monarchs of Europe. Besieged by foes on all sides, her intelligence and pride used as weapons against her, Juana vows to secure her crown and save Spain from ruin, even if it could cost her everything.With brilliant, lyrical prose, novelist and historian C. W. Gortner conjures Juana through her own words, taking the reader from the somber majesty of Spain to the glittering and lethal courts of Flanders, France, and Tudor England. The Last Queen brings to life all the grandeur and drama of an incomparable era, and the singular humanity of this courageous, passionate princess whose fight to claim her birthright captivated the world.

    Doug Chamberlain endured many challenges. One challenge was a direct order to bury the remains of a Marine that had been left behind by another unit and be forced to participate in the following cover-up. The order was in direct contraction of United States Marine Corps Policy and the Warrior's Honor Code of never leaving any Marine behind. Following this order meant committing an act of incomprehensible betrayal and dishonor.In this captivating new book, Capt. Chamberlain explains in detail the events that transpired as he was forced into playing the role of a political pawn in a massive wartime cover-up. Capt. Chamberlain expertly paints a picture of deceit and military malfeasance, sharing with the reader the moral and mental struggles that ate away at him in the decades that followed this horrible act.

    The Russian army was camped on the other side. When the signal came to begin Operation Barbarossa he and his comrades from the German Wehrmacht stormed over the River and began an assault that took millions of Germans deep into Russian territory. For some the journey was brief. For others, like Oskar, it would last for years, and the struggle did not end when the fighting was over. This is the story of one German soldier’s experience in combat and captivity. It is the story of bravery, despair, deception, and survival.

    Doc Norton, leader of 3d Force Recon, recounts his team's experiences behind enemy lines during the tense patrols, sudden ambushes and acts of supreme sacrifice that occurred as they gathered valuable information about NVA operations right from the source.

    . . . Those who like war are aptly named warriors. Some, like me, are fated never to be warriors, as we are more afraid of war than fascinated by it. But I have the consolation that I have walked with warriors and know what kind of men and women they are. I will never be a warrior, but I have known war.” (The Patrol)In 2008, Ryan Flavelle, a reservist in the Canadian Army and a student at the University of Calgary, volunteered to serve in Afghanistan. For seven months, twenty-four-year-old Flavelle, a signaller attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, endured the extreme heat, the long hours and the occasional absurdity of life as a Canadian soldier in this new war so far from home. Flavelle spent much of his time at a Canadian Forward Operating Base (FOB), living among his fellow soldiers and occasionally going outside the wire. For one seven-day period, Flavelle went into Taliban country, always walking in the footsteps of the man ahead of him, meeting Afghans and watching behind every mud wall for a sign of an enemy combatant.The Patrol is a gritty, boots-on-the-ground memoir of a soldier’s experience in the Canadian Forces in the twenty-first century. In the tradition of Farley Mowat’s The Regiment and James Jones’ The Thin Red Line, this book isn’t merely about the guns and the glory—it is about why we fight, why men and women choose such a dangerous and demanding job and what their lives are like when they find themselves back in our ordinary world.

    Twenty-one Sikh soldiers. One epic battle. On 12 September 1897, 21 soldiers of 36th Sikh Regiment stood undeterred as they guarded the post of Saragarhi against the onslaught of almost 10,000 Afghan tribesmen a battle for the ages that ended in them laying down their lives in a final hand-to-hand confrontation. The unparalleled heroics of these 21 men have, however, been long forgotten by history. What led to the Battle of Saragarhi? What was the socio-political scenario at the time? Who were these tribesmen and why did they attack an outpost in such great numbers? Who were the 21 soldiers and how were they able to keep the enemy at bay against all odds? Based on colonial era records and information provided by the 4th Sikh Battalion, the legatee unit of 36th Sikhs, 21 Kesaris attempts to answer these questions while paying homage to the brave soldiers who defended the Kesari flag depicting their Khalsa heritage with their last breaths.

    It was to be their first major war since Waterloo. Having already won international wars with Denmark and France, Britain was ready. Or so they thought … For the first time in history, the British Expeditionary Force set out to cross the Channel under the air cover. With aviation still in its infancy when the war began, with it only being five years since the first flimsy French aeroplane cross the Channel at 45 mph, the air cover provided was rather primitive. Up above the mud-soaked soldiers who fought over the devastated, trench-scarred landscape that was northern France, a new kind of war was being born. Flimsy biplanes and triplanes wheeled and spun, engines roaring, wires screaming and guns chattering. In the skies above the poppy-fields, men became aces and were cut down in their prime: Albert Ball, Jean Navarre. Max Immelmann and Manfred von Richtofen, the ‘Red Baron’. They were the legendary heroes of a whole new age. Alexander McKee was selling aviation articles to flying magazines by the age of eighteen. During the Second World War he wrote for a succession of army newspapers and later became a writer/producer for the British Forces Network. Since 1956 he has been researching and writing books on all branches of naval, military and aviation history. He instigated the excavation of the Tudor ship Mary Rose in the seabed off Portsmouth, which he describes in King Henry VIII’s Mary Rose. In all he has written nineteen books, two of his most recent successes being the books Into the Blue and Dresden 1945. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    As one of the greatest NHL players of all time, he reflects on his 2005-06 rookie season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. From a Canadian phenom dubbed "the next Gretzky" to an 18-year-old carrying the burden of a struggling franchise, he talks candidly about the intense pressure he was under, the surreal experience of lacing up alongside his childhood idol Mario Lemieux and the truth about his rivalry with Alex Ovechkin. Sidney Crosby, with the help of his family, coaches and former teammates, gives listeners an all-access pass to one of the most scrutinized and tumultuous rookie seasons in the history of professional hockey. Hosted by Pittsburgh native and Penguins fan Joe Manganiello.

    This is the story of the trials and exploits, the victories and defeats, of one of those units. This book takes us from the first ever assault against a terrorist ship carrying weapons of mass destruction to attack London, to the epic siege of the terrorist-held Qala-I-Janghi fortress in Afghanistan. In the interim, our half-a-dozen soldier-characters deliver suitcases stuffed with millions of dollars in cash to 'friendly' Afghan warlords; they penetrate the towering heights of the uncharted Naka Valley, where allied intelligence has identified the mother of all terrorist training camps; they fight in the labyrinthine tunnels running beneath the Afghan mountains; and they risk all to rescue their fellow soldiers from a downed aircraft stranded on a snow-blasted mountain peak. The book culminates in the single battle in which more terrorists were killed than any other in Afghanistan: the siege of Qala-I-Janghi, an ancient mud-walled fortress used to imprison the most dangerous Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. The battle for Qala-I-Janghi would last a staggering eight days, from the moment of the first shots being fired at the start of the uprising to the hour that the fort yielded up the last Al Qaeda fighters. It is a battle in which over 500 terrorists would die - but which would also claim the life of a US serviceman and dozens of Northern Alliance allies, with scores of severely wounded British and American soldiers. And in the final denouement, this savage battlefield turns out to be populated by the most ultimately shocking enemy - John Walker Lindh, the white American Taliban who held out in the forts' bunker until the very last. At the same time as the story of the fort siege played out on TV screens all across the world, our band of British and American special forces were involved in a secret, deadly dual to rescue their fellow men - a duel that only one side could win.

    To a public suspicious about the motives for war, he offered some explanation for it and inspired a mood of optimism and humanity that has since been sadly lost. And yet, only two months later Collins was pilloried by two national newspapers and accused of war crimes. But this is only part of his story. From taking command of 1 Royal Irish in the aftermath of the Sierra Leone hostage crisis to combating the Loyalist murder gangs in East Tyrone, Rules of Engagement is a powerful memoir that offers a frank and compelling insight into the realities of warfare and a life lived on the frontline.