A compelling tale of courage and heroism, glow and tragedy, The Longest Day painstakingly recreates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany.For this new edition of The Longest Day, the original photographs used in the first 1959 edition have been reassembled and painstakingly reproduced, and the text has been freshly reset. Here is a book that is a must for any follower of history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.

    A field adviser to the army when US involvement was just beginning, he quickly became appalled at the corruption of the S. Vietnamese regime, their incompetence in fighting the Communists & their brutal alienation of their own people. Finding his superiors too blinded by political lies to understand the war was being thrown away, he secretly briefed reporters on what was really happening. One of those reporters was Neil Sheehan.--Amazon (edited) Neil Sheehan was a Vietnam War correspondent for United Press International & the NY Times & won a number of awards for reporting. In 1971 he obtained the Pentagon Papers, which brought the Times the Pulitzer gold medal for meritorious public service. A Bright Shining Lie won the National Book Award & the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. He lives in Washington DC.MapsThe funeral Going to war Antecedents to a confrontation The Battle of Ap Bac Taking on the system Antecedents to the man A second time aroundJohn Vann staysAcknowledgmentsInterviewsDocumentsSource NotesBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

    His website, wreckchasing.com, is the go-to source for enthusiasts who want to know more about how to locate vintage airplane wrecks and then tell their stories.In this engaging new book, Veronico explores the romantic era of World War II Warbirds and the stories of some of its most famous wrecks, including the Dotty Mae (a P-47 submerged for over 60 years in the Traunsee in Austria, excavated and recovered with great care), the Swamp Ghost (a B-17E which crashed in New Guinea in the latter days of World War II and which was only recently discovered), and Glacier Girl (a P-38, part of "The Lost Squadron," which crashed in a large ice sheet in Greenland in 1942). Throughout, Veronico provides a history of the aircraft, as well as the unique story behind each discovery and recovery with ample illustrations. Hidden Warbirds is aviation history at its best.

    Hamilton Jr., and the veteran military history writer and bestselling author of One Shot One Kill,, Hill 488, and Crosshairs on the Kill Zone, Charles W. Sasser, detailing how Hamilton brought together a combination of Navy, Army, and CIA training methods to shape the United States’ unconventional military force, culminating in the Navy Seals, the world's most effective warriors in combating terrorists and international criminals, whose Team Six carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

    Army’s 240th Assault Helicopter Company and Green Beret staff sergeant Roy Benavidez, who risked everything to rescue a Special Forces team trapped behind enemy linesIn Legend, acclaimed bestselling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War, as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A twelve-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia—where U.S. forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. What the team didn’t know was that they had infiltrated a section of jungle that concealed a major enemy base. Soon they found them¬selves surrounded by hundreds of NVA troops, under attack, low on ammunition, and stacking the bodies of the dead as cover in a desperate attempt to survive the onslaught.When Special Forces staff sergeant Roy Benavidez heard the distress call, he jumped aboard the next helicopter bound for the combat zone without hesitation. Orphaned at the age of seven, Benavidez had picked cotton alongside his family as a child and dropped out of school as a teen before joining the Army. Although he was grievously wounded during his first tour of duty in Vietnam and told he would never walk again, Benavidez fought his way back—ultimately earning his green beret.What followed would become legend in the Special Operations community. Flown into the foray of battle by the courageous pilots and crew of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company, Benavidez jumped from the hovering aircraft and ran nearly 100 yards through withering enemy fire. Despite being immediately and severely wounded, Benavidez reached the perimeter of the decimated team, provided medical care, and proceed¬ed to organize an extraordinary defense and rescue. During the hours-long battle, he was bayoneted, shot, and hit by grenade shrapnel more than thirty times, yet he refused to abandon his efforts until every survivor was out of harm’s way.

    Tom Clancy traces the transformation of the Special Forces from the small core of outsiders of the 1950s through the cauldron of Vietnam and to the rebirth of the SF in the late 1980s and 1990s as the bearer of the largest, most mixed and most complex set of missions in the US military. From Vietnam to Laos to Panama and El Salvador to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, these are stories of raids, counter-terrorism, hostage rescues, reconnaissance, counter-insurgency and psychological operations - and also of building settlements, teaching civilians, cleaning up water supplies and saving lives.

    He found their defenses woefully unprepared. At dawn the next morning, three North Vietnamese Army regiments—some 6,000 men—crossed the Cambodian border and attacked. Outnumbered three dozen to one, Albracht’s men held off repeated ground assaults by communist forces with fierce hand-to-hand fighting, air support and a dangerously close B-52 strike. For days, the NVA blanketed Kate in a rain of rockets, mortars, artillery, machineguns, and small arms, blocking efforts to resupply, reinforce, or evacuate the outpost. Albracht continually exposed himself to enemy fire to direct air strikes, to guide re-supply helicopters, to distribute ammunition and water to his men, to retrieve the dead and to rescue the wounded, often shielding men with his own body. Wounded by rocket shrapnel, he refused medical attention or evacuation. Exhausted from days without sleep, he continued to rally his men to beat off each new enemy attack. After five days, Kate’s defenders were out of ammo and water. Aerial resupply was suicidal, and reinforcements were denied by military commanders who had written off Kate. Albracht refused to surrender or die in place. Refusing to allow his men to surrender, Albracht led his troops, including many wounded, off the hill and on a daring night march through enemy lines. Abandoned in Hell is an astonishing memoir of leadership, sacrifice, and brutal violence, a riveting journey into Vietnam’s heart of darkness, and a compelling reminder of the transformational power of individual heroism. Not since Lone Survivor and We Were Soldiers Once, And Young has there been such a gripping and authentic account of battlefield courage.INCLUDES PHOTOS

    This true story of the Prairie Fire FACs describes the impossible rescues and harrowing day-long missions these courageous fliers experienced as they took the war into the enemy's backyard. Photographs. Martin's.

    Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

    The graduating class of 1915, the class the stars fell on, was particularly noteworthy. Of the 164 graduates that year, 59 (36%) attained the rank of general, the most of any class in. Although Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, both five-star generals, are the most recognizable, other class members contributed significantly to the Allied victory in World War I, World War II and played key roles either in the post-war U.S. military establishment or in business and industry after World War II, especially in the Korean War and the formation of NATO. For more than half a century, these men exerted tremendous influence on the shaping of modern America, which remains substantial to this day. Individually, the stories of these military and political leaders are noteworthy. Collectively, they are astonishing. West Point, 1915 explores the achievements of this remarkable group.

    From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power.Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14, from the Gulf of Sidra to the Iran-Iraq War to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.

    The relentless and unstoppable German advances that had seen the panzers sweep hundreds of miles into Russia was finally brought to a halt. The elite German 6th Army was first fought to a standstill, then surrounded and forced to surrender.Over 1.5 million people lost their lives during the six months of fighting, many of them civilians caught up in the campaign. For the first time in the war, the German army had been defeated on the field of battle. Before Stalingrad the Russians never won; after Stalingrad they could not lose.This book looks at the titanic struggle that ended in the total destruction of the second city of the Soviet Union, the greatest battle the world has ever seen.

    An invasion force on a scale not seen since the days of the Romans. One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles ever fought. This riveting book explains why the Norman Conquest was the single most important event in English history.Assessing the original evidence at every turn, Marc Morris goes beyond the familiar outline to explain why England was at once so powerful and yet so vulnerable to William the Conqueror's attack. Why the Normans, in some respects less sophisticated, possessed the military cutting edge. How William's hopes of a united Anglo-Norman realm unravelled, dashed by English rebellions, Viking invasions and the insatiable demands of his fellow conquerors. This is a tale of powerful drama, repression and seismic social change: the Battle of Hastings itself and the violent 'Harrying of the North'; the sudden introduction of castles and the wholesale rebuilding of every major church; the total destruction of an ancient ruling class. Language, law, architecture, even attitudes towards life itself were altered forever by the coming of the Normans. Marc Morris, author of the bestselling biography of Edward I, A Great and Terrible King, approaches the Conquest with the same passion, verve and scrupulous concern for historical accuracy. This is the definitive account for our times of an extraordinary story, a pivotal moment in the shaping of the English nation.

    The author describes how, with no French language ability, he approached recruiters for the French Foreign Legion in Paris and the demanding selection process that followed. When he was accepted, he and other prospective legionnaires were sent to Southern France to begin the harsh recruit training course. The mix of different nationalities and backgrounds among his fellows was enormous. New members are traditionally allowed to change their identities - the author chose to alter his age becoming 28 not 38! Elite paratrooper training followed in Corsica before the author earned his 'wings'.The FFL is never far from the front line and we read of challenging active service in former French colonies in Africa as well as during the First Gulf War, evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and operations in Bosnia and Sarajevo.This is a completely authentic book that lifts the veil of mystery and myth and reveals much about the realities of service in the Foreign Legion. The author is not given to exaggeration - there is no need for it. A gripping read.

    Tracking the enemy, lying in wait for the target to appear -- then they shoot to kill. Armed with an unerring eye, infinite patience and a mastery of camouflage, combat snipers stalk the enemy with only one goal... In World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Beirut, American snipers honed the art of delivering a single deadly shot from nowhere -- and devastating enemy morale. They met the enemy on his own turf, picking off officers, unwary soldiers, and even other snipers from extraordinary distances of up to 1 ½ miles. Now, these uncommon men tell their stories: of the emotions felt when a man's face came into their crosshairs and they pulled the trigger, of the nerve-wracking hours and days of waiting, motionless, for the enemy, of the primal savagery of a sniper duel. Often trained haphazardly in wartime, and forgotten in times of peace, combat snipers were officially recognized after the Vietnam War, when the Marine Corps became the first military branch to start a full-time sniper school. One Shot-One Kill is their powerful record of desperate trials and proud victories. A MAIN SELECTION OF THE MILITARY BOOK CLUB