He was 20 years old, unblooded, fresh from a public-school background and Officer Cadet training. He was going to war. Two days later, his tank sunk, he and his crew landed from a rubber dinghy with just the clothes they stood in. After that, the struggles through the Normandy bocage in a replacement tank (of the non-swimming variety), engaging the enemy in a constant round of close encounters, led to a swift mastering of the art of tank warfare and remarkable survival in the midst of carnage and destruction. His story of that journey through hell to victory makes for compulsive reading.

    How were these decisions made? What were the options facing these leaders as they saw them? What intelligence, right and wrong, did they have? What was the impact of personality, what that of larger forces? In a brilliant work with haunting contemporary relevance, Ian Kershaw tells the connected stories of these ten fateful decisions from the shifting perspectives of the protagonists, and in so doing rescues them from the sense of inevitability that now envelops them and restores to them a feeling of vivid drama and contingency-the feeling that things could have turned out very differently indeed. Each chapter follows the process of arriving at one decision, from the viewpoint of the leader who made it: Decision 1: May 1940. The British War Cabinet, driven by Churchill, agrees to fight on after the German blitzkrieg defeat of France, despite loud calls for negotiated settlement. Decision 2: Hitler decides to attack the Soviet Union. Decision 3: Japan decides to seize the "Golden Opportunity" and turn south, going after the colonial empires of the countries that have fallen to Hitler. Decision 4: Mussolini decides to join the war on Hitler's side to grab a share of the spoils. Decision 5: Roosevelt decides to lend a helping hand to England. Decision 6: Stalin decides he knows best and ignores all the clear signals that Germany is going to invade. Decision 7: Roosevelt decides to wage undeclared war. Decision 8: Japan decides to go to war against the United States. Decision 9: Hitler decides to declare war on the USA. Decision 10: Hitler decides to kill the Jews. Decision relates to subsequent decision, though never simply or necessarily as expected. The clash of personalities, the various weaknesses of the different political systems, the challenge of intelligence, the misdiagnosis of risk and possibility: all play their part. And after nineteen months, though much remained to be decided, the world's fate had been profoundly altered by these ten choices.

         Johnny Johnson is 92 years old and one of very few men who can recall first-hand the most daring and ingenious air raid of all time. He can also vividly remember his childhood spent working on a farm with his controlling father, the series of events that led him to the RAF and the rigorous training that followed. But it was his decision to join 617 Squadron, and the consequences, that have truly stayed etched in his mind.    On May 16, 1943, Johnny, alongside 132 specially selected comrades, took off from Scampton airbase in Lincolnshire. For six weeks they had been trained to fulfil one mission that was near impossible: to destroy three dams deep within Germany's Ruhr Valley. It was a daring task but, against the odds, Johnny and his crew survived. Sadly, 53 comrades did not.   For the first time, Johnny relives every moment of that fatal night -- and the devastating aftermath. He recalls with unique wit and insight the difficult training conducted in secrecy, the race against time to release the bombs, and the sheer strength and bravery shown by a small unit faced with great adversity and uncertainty. Embodying a whole squadron, and leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come, Johnny's story is like no other.

    Sand and Steel gives usD-Day, arguably the greatest and most consequential military operation of modern times, beginning with the years of painstaking and costly preparation, through to the pitched battles fought along France's northern coast, from Omaha Beach to the Falaise and the push east to Strasbourg.In addition to covering the build-up to the invasion, including the elaborate and lavish campaigns to deceive Germans as to where and when the invasion would take place, Caddick-Adams gives a full and detailed account of the German preparations: the formidable Atlantikwall and Field Marshal ErwinRommel's plans to make Europe impregnable-plans not completed by June 6. Sand and Steel reveals precisely what lay in wait for the Allies. But the heart of the book is Caddick-Adams' narratives of the five beaches where the terrible drama played out--Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, and theattempt by American, British, and Canadian soldiers to gain a foothold in Europe.The Allied invasion of Europe involved mind-boggling logistics, including orchestrating the largest flotilla of ships ever assembled. Its strategic and psychological demands stretched the Allies to their limits, testing the strengths of the bonds of Anglo-American leadership. Drawing on first-handbattlefield research, personal testimony and interviews, and a commanding grasp of all the archives and literature, Caddick-Adams's gripping book, published on the 75th anniversary of the events, does Operations Overlord and Neptune full justice.

    Prussia military headquarters of Hitler. Altho the bomb failed to maim or kill Hitler, the explosion dramatically announced to the world the existence of a secret, indigenous opposition to the Nazi regime. In this definitive new book, Joachim Fest, an acclaimed biographer of Adolf Hitler, details the events leading up to 7/20, the tense, confused moments before the explosion, & the roundup & executions that followed. Fest recounts the heroic & unsuccessful efforts of senior military officials to persuade the Allies to help them oust the Nazis. He recreates the ill-fated schemes to blow up Hitler's private plane & to kill the Fuhrer at the opening of a museum exhibition. Cataloged here are no fewer than 15 separate assassination attempts during Hitler's reign, attempts that on several occasions came within minutes-or inches-of succeeding, but always failed: in some instances because of bad timing or poor planning; in others, because of the omnipresent scrutiny of the Gestapo or Hitler's own instinct for danger. In the end, however, Fest's singular accomplishment is to portray the human side of the German resistance-the conviction & resolve that gave them the courage to defy almost impossible odds, & the fatal indecisiveness that caused them to fail time & again. Plotting Hitler's Death will stands as one of the definitive accounts of a tortured, misunderstood era.PrefaceThe resistance that never wasThe army succumbs The September plot From Munich to ZossenThe new generationThe army groupsStauffenberg The eleventh hourJuly 20, 1944 Persecution & judgment The wages of failureNotesNote on the TextsChronologyShort BiographiesIndex

    Jones's account of his part in British Scientific Intelligence between 1939 and 1949. It was his responsibility to anticipate German applications of science to warfare, so that their new weapons could be countered before they were used. Much of his work had to do with radio navigation, as in the Battle of the Beams, with radar, as in the Allied Bomber Offensive and in the preparations for D-Day and in the war at sea.He was also in charge of intelligence against the V-1 (flying bomb) and the V-2 (rocket) retaliations weapons and, although the Germans were some distance away from success, against their nuclear weapons.

    "A masterful book—masterful in its portrayal of its protagonists, masterful in its overall understanding of the death-struggle in which they engaged, masterful, above all, in its vivid, suspenseful chronicling of the most momentous eighty days in the history of this century." —Geoffrey Ward "This is a marvelous book. John Lukacs has lucid, unsentimental insight into the mind and character of both Churchill and Hitler." —Conor Cruise O’Brien "A wonderful story wonderfully told." —George F. Will "It is salutary to be reminded in this powerful study how close Hitler came to winning in 1940. . . . An impressive study . . . [written] with elegance and panache." —Peter Stansky, New York Times "A master of narrative history on a par with Barbara Tuchman and Garrett Mattingly." —Kirkus Reviews

     In 1942, following their lightning strikes on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, the Japanese invaded Burma. British forces were rapidly driven out, following a swift and total defeat. The British and Indian forces retaliated with limited offences and with mixed results. The Japanese advance continued, driving victoriously for the domination of Asia. Then came the Japanese attack of Imphal and Kohima, starting one of the most ferocious campaign of the war. Burma Victory portrays the “forgotten war” and the Allied fight to push the Japanese out of Burma. David Rooney – who saw war service in India and West Africa – tells the story of the campaigns of the new Fourteenth Army, under the command of the remarkable General Slim. Rooney captures the ebb and flow of battle and the roles of Wingate, Stilwell and the Chindits. In doing so, he offers a new analysis of the role of airpower and highlights the influence of British, American, Japanese and Chinese thinking at the highest level. Burma Victory is essential reading for anyone interested in General Slim, the Second World War and how defeat can be turned into victory. Recommended reading for fans of Max Hastings, Antony Beevor and Andrew Roberts.

    Told through the lives and battles of eleven of our most remarkable admirals - men such as James II and Robert Blake - Andrew Lambert's book stretches from the Spanish Armada to the Second World War, culminating with the spirit which led Andrew Browne Cunningham famously to declare, when the army feared he would lose too many ships, 'it takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition.'

    His first fighter was the famed Spitfire, hero of the Battle of Britain. By 1943, however, it was obsolescent and did not match up well against the first-line German Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. Yet Loving survived 101 combat missions flying the Spitfire. In the spring of 1944, Loving’s 31st Fighter Group started flying P-51 Mustangs and was transferred to the new Fifteenth Air Force to escort heavy-bomber formations on long-range strategic strikes across southern Europe, including southeastern Germany. In the flak-filled skies over Ploesti, Vienna, Bucharest, Munich, and Stuttgart, where a number of the war’s fiercest air battles took place, Lieutenant Loving flew head-to-head against some of the Luftwaffe’s top fighter aces.By the time George Loving completed his 151st, and final, combat mission on August 21, 1944, he had risen from a lowly second lieutenant and untested wingman to captain, group leader, and Mustang ace. Loving’s gripping account captures the savage action he experienced in all its intensity.

    This was to be 'Station X', the Allies' top-secret centre for deciphering enemy codes.Their task was to break the ingenious Enigma cypher used for German high-level communications. The settings for the Enigma machine changed continually and each day the German operators had 159 million million million different possibilities. Yet against all the odds this gifted group achieved the impossible, coping with even greater difficulties to break Shark, the U-Boat Enigma, and Fish, the cypher system used by Hitler to talk to his generals.'Sation X' is also the story of the people involved from leading codebreakers such as Alan Turing, father of the modern computer, to the female operators who intercepted the messages. Through interviews with surviving members of Bletchley Park, Michael Smith has discovered what life was like there. In this chaotic and isolated environment they found time for drama performances, music recitals, orchestras and love affairs.Not only did these people shorten the war by several years - they were essential to victory in the Atlantic and North Africa and to the masterminding of the D-Day landings - 'Station X' was also the birth place of the world's first programmable computer and the successful Anglo-American intelligence partnership.

    A convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships is ploughing through icy, submarine-infested North Atlantic seas during the most critical days of World War II, when the German submarines had the upper hand and Allied shipping was suffering heavy losses. In charge is Commander George Krause, an untested veteran of the U.S. Navy. Hounded by a wolf pack of German U-boats, he faces 48 hours of desperate peril trapped on the bridge of the ship. Exhausted beyond measure, he must make countless and terrible decisions as he leads his small fighting force against the relentless U-boats.

    As a nation at war, with supply routes under attack from the Axis powers and resources scarce, it was Woolton's job to fulfil his promise to the British people, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in particular, that there would be food on the shelves each week. Persuading the public to not resort to the black market and to manage on the very limited ration was one thing, but Woolton had to fulfil his side of the bargain and maintain supplies in time of crisis.If Britain had gone hungry the outcome of the war could have been very different. This book, for the first time, finds out the real story of how Lord Woolton provided food for Britain and her colonies and discovers that for him there were days when it was literally a choice of 'eggs or anarchy'.

    This is her story as told by her skipper.

    Through clever subterfuge and daring, the Graf Spee takes ship after ship, ultimately forcing the British Navy to send twenty ships in search of the elusive Spee.