The Big E participated in nearly every major engagement of the war against Japan and earned a total of twenty battle stars. The Halsey-Doolittle Raid; the Battles of Midway, Santa Cruz, Guadalcanal, the Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf; and the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa are all faithfully recorded from the viewpoint of the men who served her so well. The author, a naval aviator, focuses on the exploits of the famous ship's air groups, capturing the reality of their encounters and provoking a range of emotions from readers.This superb study of a great ship, her crew, and the action they saw has been called one of the finest pieces of naval writing to emerge from the war. What it is like inside the cockpit of a Dauntless dive bomber as it bores in on its target or the effort required to unstick the ship's huge rudder when damaged by a bomb are just two of the nuggets Edward Stafford mined from the mountain of research and lengthy interviews he conducted to write the book. Literate and scholarly as well as highly dramatic, the book will appeal to historians and the general public alike.

    Antiquated as it was, the "Stringbag" still outmaneuvered almost any other aircraft—especially with Lamb at the controls. Go with him into the thick of the action—landing on the Courageous just before she sinks; flying 29 sorties over northern Europe; attacking E-boats through the nine days of Dunkirk. Also experience the terror of being shot down...and living to soar again, defending Malta and the Mediterranean. A rare story of courage. 5 X 7 3/4.

    Brings together interviews with more than eighty survivors to recount one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, the 1967 campaign in the mountains of Dak To, during which members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade found themselves caught up in a deadly struggle against overwhelming odds, often cut off from supplies, communications, and reinforcements.

    just days after the horrific events of 9/11, a handful of Green Berets from the decorated 5th Special Forces Group were secretly inserted deep behind enemy lines in Northern Afghanistan to set the stage for the upcoming War on Terror. Their mission was to seek out and kill as many Taliban and Al Qaida forces as they could find. Read as the now infamous 'Triple Nickel' is alerted and put into isolation to prepare for their mission. Follow them as they are inserted into the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul and link up with the CIA and the rebel forces of the Northern Alliance to begin attacks against enemy positions. Go inside the legend of one of Americas most elite units in this exciting and sometimes humorous account of their avenging the most horrific terrorist attack we have ever experienced. Nothing we know of the War in Afghanistan would be possible had it not been for what these men did, and they did it all with no way out, no rules, and no mercy.

    Chosen as a Main Selection of the Military Book Club.

    Called to Captain Ironside’s cabin, they learn their fate. Three are made sublieutenant, the fourth is pushed out of the Navy, a failure.There was no tolerance in the Royal Navy for weaklings and incompetents who failed to master the basics. They were beaten for every infraction of the rules of seamanship, encouraging them to conform or to get out.Adams, born to the elite, is made sublieutenant and posted to Iron Duke, flagship of the Grand Fleet, and the latest and largest of superdreadnoughts.McDuff goes to Good Hope cruiser bound for the South Atlantic. An old ship, and he had hoped for better, but there were chances to specialise on an armoured cruiser.Sturton, able and slightly maverick, hoped to be sent to another battleship where he could become a gunnery specialist, but instead goes to Sheldrake, a destroyer joining the Mediterranean Fleet. Destroyers were wet, cold, and uncomfortable, but it could be the making of his career.Baker, the failure, had never fit in. He came from the wrong background and was ostracised aboard ship, left on his own to survive the best he could. Rejected by the Navy, he is forced to join the Territorial Army or be disowned by his rich, vulgar father. Nineteen years of age and dumped on the scrapheap.War comes in August and the four young men meet its challenges in surprising ways.

    Ross, who has a fondness for animals and shares a strong bond with his wheelchair-bound sister, trades his comfortable surroundings in Canada for the nightmare world of trench warfare. We watch Ross's slow unravelling as he moves from home to train to barracks and, finally, to the mud, smoke, and chlorine gas of the front line in France. With death and dying everywhere around him, Ross makes a desperate attempt to show his faith in life. Cruelty, heroism, terror and honour--"The Wars" takes us deep inside the mind of a soldier and straight onto the bloody battlefield. "The Wars" is one of Canada's most beloved novels, winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1977. This adaptation evokes the spirit, imagery, and heart of the novel, and adds the immediacy of the theatrical form.

    A radical reassessment of this important World War II naval battle

    They were the forces that were feared by the enemy and praised by their allies. The two lightning bolts on the collar tabs and on their helmets were the mark of the soldiers of the New Order believing in the final victory of the Reich. The Waffen SS grew into a huge force of thirty-eight combat divisions comprising over 950,000 men. In the Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen SS was condemned as part of a criminal organisation, and therefore Waffen SS veterans were denied many of the rights afforded other German combat veterans. However the Nuremberg Trials exempted conscripts from that condemnation.On several occasions, the Waffen SS was criticised by Heer commanders for their reckless disregard for casualties while taking or holding objectives. However, the Waffen SS divisions eventually proved themselves to a skeptical Heer as capable soldiers.The poor initial performance of the Waffen SS units was mainly due to the emphasis on political indoctrination rather than proper military training before the war. This was largely due to the shortage of experienced NCOs, who preferred to stay with the regular army. Despite this, the experience gained from the Polish, French and Balkan campaigns and the peculiarly egalitarian form of training soon turned Waffen SS units into elite formations.These are the stories of the men that once were part of this elite force. In this book you get a bit of history about the SS and Waffen SS, the war crimes committed by them and against them, their training, but most important of all you'll get the stories from veterans of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking, Hohenstaufen, Maria Theresia, Langemarck, SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500 and Luftwaffe Fallschirmjäger, Italien, Wallonie, Nederland, 1st Estonian, and the notorious Dirlewanger Brigade. Seven decades after the war they finally have a voice...

    

     Launched in 1918, she spent the interwar years cruising the oceans of the world, the largest vessel afloat and a proud symbol of the Royal Navy. ‘The greatest and most graceful ship of her time, perhaps of any time, she was the last of the Leviathans — those mighty ships, whose movement upon the high seas had determined policy since the last quarter of the 19th century. A generation of British seamen had been trained in her. To millions of people she had represented British sea power and imperial might. With her passed not only a ship, but a whole era swept away on the winds of the world.’ Bradford tells the fascinating story of two ships coming out — the new Prince of Wales, and the old, world-famous Hood, whose history remained in the memories of all those who sailed on her. Their silhouettes visible now against the lines of the sea and the islands: the long sweep of their foredecks, the banked ramparts of their guns, and the hunched shoulders of bridges and control towers. We shall never see their like again, but no one who has ever watched them go by will forget the shudder that they raised along the spine. The big ships were somehow as moving as the pipes heard a long way off in the hills. There was always a kind of mist about them, a mist of sentiment and of power. Unlike aircraft, rockets, or nuclear bombs, they were a visible symbol of power allied with beauty — a rare combination. The thrilling history of a ship who battled the infamous Bismarck, inspired alliances and revenge in a time of great uncertainty and went out with a bang when her one fatal flaw was exploited... Ernle Bradford (1922-1986) was an historian who wrote books on naval battles and historical figures. Among his subjects were Lord Nelson, the Mary Rose, Christopher Columbus, Julius Caesar and Hannibal. He also documented his own voyages on the Mediterranean Sea.

    At the age of twenty-two, he was a hero—the recipient of the Navy Cross, the second-highest honor a U.S. Marine can receive, for extraordinary heroism under fire in the Iraq War. Hard Corps tells the story of his incredible transformation and of his experiences on the front lines of the War on Terror.Writing with passion and candor, Martinez brings us back to his gang days, detailing experiences that make him “shudder in shame” to remember. And he recalls the moment that changed everything for him, when he spotted a barrel-chested U.S. Marine Corps recruiter at his high school. Immediately, he saw an opportunity to alter the course of his aimless life. Martinez takes us with him through the grueling ordeal of Marine boot camp and the even-more-punishing training at the School of Infantry to show just how warriors are made. He reveals how he and his fellow grunts prepared tirelessly for battle, seeing combat not as a burden but as a privilege, the ultimate baptism by fire.For Martinez, that baptism came in Iraq. In Hard Corps, he unfolds a warrior’s tale as riveting, harrowing, and immediate as any ever written. He takes us onto the narrow, treacherous streets of Baghdad, where enemy fire rains down from all directions; alongside his Marine squad as they patrol through the most dangerous war zone imaginable; and into a brutal terrorist ambush that calls upon reserves of ferocity and courage none of the Marines could ever be certain they possessed and that proves the value of every moment of their torturous training. Martinez also recounts stunning reminders of why we fight: the Iraqi man he met whose tongue had been chopped off for speaking out against Saddam Hussein’s regime, the ghastly evidence of human experimentation that Martinez’s squad discovered at an abandoned Iraqi military barracks, and the horrifying mass graves the Marines unearthed in the Iraqi desert.Hard Corps gives us a visceral sense of what it means to know that you are ready to die for your brother Marines and that they would do the same for you. It tells us how it feels when words like duty, honor, and country are not an empty slogan. And, ultimately, it captures the traditions and ooh-rah spirit of the U.S. Marine Corps and the valor of all the Marines, sailors, soldiers,From the Hardcover edition.

    After two years of college he couldn't afford to continue so he was forced to relinquish his student deferment and enter the draft. He tried various strategies to get a non-combat job; nevertheless he ended up in the infantry and was assigned to Vietnam. The stories in this book depict the year Doug spent in Alpha Company where he spent days on patrols finding and killing North Vietnamese soldiers along the hundreds of miles of trails heading for the Saigon. These stories range from funny to tragic, from uplifting to extremely frustrating and from touching to horrifying. This book gives the reader a sense of life in the infantry in 1968 and 1969.

    Most books on world history overly emphasize the role of Western nations in the vast saga of mankind - the author of this book rectifies the gaps in books by Western historians by beginning the narration of world history with East Asia, and progresses from there through the rest of Asia to the Middle East.

    Who were these 15 to 17 year-old Hitler Youth soldiers, why were they so fanatical, and how could they be cleanly defeated? The Allied mood turned to bitterness and hatred as the brutal cunning and sheer ruthlessness of the boy soldiers and their adult leaders became clear. This book assembles a range of astonishing eyewitness testimony to the ferocious combat between Hitler Youth panzer troops, snipers and infantry against British and Canadian forces after D-Day. There are the disturbing combat experiences of surviving 12th SS Panzer fighters themselves, recorded after the war; eyewitness accounts from Allied soldiers who fought tank-to-tank and hand-to-hand against these opponents in the hedgerows, fields and streets of Normandy; and accounts too from terrified French civilians caught up in the firefights. The accounts featured are: The Tank Destroyer (Jagdpanzer IV) The Bocage Ambush (British Sergeant) The Battle for the Bunkers (12th SS Panthers) The Flail Tanks (French Civilian) The Panzerfaust Fighters (Hitlerjugend Panzergrenadiers) The Sniper (Canadian Captain) The War Crimes (12th SS Panzer Radio Operator) Panthers in the Smoke (British Cromwell Commander) Thunderbolts, Typhoons and Flak (12th Panzer Flak Unit) These are graphic and often shocking accounts of one of the strangest phases of the second world war in the west, and one that left a dreadful mark on so many who were involved in it. Sprech Media is an independent researcher and publisher of eyewitness testimonies to armed conflict in the 20th century.