Chosen as a Main Selection of the Military Book Club.

    If the German U-boats had prevailed, the maritime artery across the Atlantic would have been severed. Mass hunger would have consumed Britain, and the Allied armies would have been prevented from joining in the invasion of Europe. There would have been no D-Day. Through fascinating contemporary diaries and letters, from the leaders and from the sailors on all sides, Jonathan Dimbleby creates a thrilling narrative that uniquely places the campaign in the context of the entire Second World War. Challenging conventional wisdom on the use of intelligence and on Churchill's bombing campaign, The Battle of the Atlantic tells the epic story of the decisions that led to victory, and the horror and humanity of life on those perilous seas.

    To Churchill, she was ‘the Beast’, a menace to Britain’s supply lines and a threat to the convoys sustaining Stalin’s armies. Tirpitz was said to be unsinkable, impregnable –no other target attracted so much attention.In total 36 major Allied operations were launched against her, including desperately risky missions by human torpedoes and midget submarines and near-suicidal bombing raids. Yet Tirpitz stayed afloat. It was not until November 1944 that she was finally destroyed by RAF Lancaster Bombers flown by 617 Squadron – the Dambusters – in a gruelling mission that tested the very limits of human endurance.The man who led the raid – Willie Tait – was one of the most remarkable figures of the war, flying missions almost continuously right from the start. Until now his deeds have been virtually unknown. With exclusive co-operation from Tait’s family, Patrick Bishop reveals the extraordinary achievement of a man who shunned the spotlight but whose name will be renowned for generations to come.

    Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the waves could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence."The campaign against Hitler's warships would continue into the dying days of the World War II and involve everything from massive battleships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.

     Almost all accounts of D Day are told from the Allied perspective, with the emphasis on how German resistance was overcome on June 6th 1944. But what was it like to be a German soldier in the bunkers and gun emplacements of the Normandy coast, facing the onslaught of the mightiest seaborne invasion in history? What motivated the German defenders, what were their thought processes - and how did they fight from one strong point to another, among the dunes and fields, on that first cataclysmic day? What were their experiences on facing the tanks, the flamethrowers and the devastating air superiority of the Allies? This book sheds fascinating light on these questions, bringing together statements made by German survivors after the war, when time had allowed them to reflect on their state of mind, their actions and their choices of June 6th. We see a perspective of D Day which deserves to be added to the historical record, in which ordinary German troops struggled to make sense of the onslaught that was facing them, and emerged stunned at the weaponry and sheer determination of the Allied soldiers. We see, too, how the Germans fought in the great coastal bunkers, perceived as impregnable fortresses, but in reality often becoming tombs for their crews. Above all, we now have the unheard human voices of the individual German soldiers - the men who are so often portrayed as a faceless mass. Book 2 in this unique series is also now available in e-book form.

    In the aftermath of the Second Word War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. As Kommandant of Auschwitz, Höss not only oversaw the murder of more than one million men, women, and children; he was the man who perfected Hitler’s program of mass extermination. Höss is on the run across a continent in ruins, the one man whose testimony can ensure justice at Nuremberg. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss’s capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day. Moving from the Middle Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, it tells the story of two German men- one Jewish, one Catholic- whose lives diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way.

    More than 1,100 of them would be dead by journey’s end... The son of a Kentucky sharecropper and an enlistee in the Navy’s medical corps, Myers arrived in Manilla shortly before the bombings of Pearl Harbor and the other six targets of the Imperial Japanese military. While he and his fellow corpsmen tended to the bloody tide of soldiers pouring into their once peaceful Naval hospital, the Japanese overwhelmed the Pacific islands, capturing 78,000 POWs by April 1942. Myers was one of the first captured.After a brutal three-year encampment, Myers and his fellow POWs were forced onto an enemy hell ship bound for Japan. Suffocation, malnutrition, disease, dehydration, infestation, madness, and simple despair claimed the lives of nearly three quarters of those who boarded "the beast".Myers survived.A compelling account of a rarely recorded event in military history, this is more than Estel Myers’ true story—this is an homage to the unfailing courage of men at war, an inspiring chronicle of self-sacrifice and endurance, and a tribute to the power of faith, the strength of the soul, and the triumph of the human spirit. "An inspiring look at one of World War II's darkest hours." —James Bradley, Author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys "A searing chronicle." —Kirkus Reviews"The Belly of the Beast (is)...a searing tribute...(to) America in its bleakest hour." —Senator John McCain, author New York Times bestseller Faith of My Fathers

    This book portrays the gradual awakening in the mind of a young Hitler Youth æeducatedÆ soldier of a Panzer Division, bogged down in the bitterest fighting on the Eastern Front, to the truth of the criminal character of what he is involved in.Having in mind that about 9 out of 10 German soldiers who died in WWII were killed in Russia, the book throws light on the largely unreported heroic sacrifices of Soviet soldiers and civilians often against seemingly hopeless odds, without which Europe might well have fallen to fascism. It deals less with grand strategies, tactics and military technicalities than with the human involvement of ordinary people, from both sides, who were caught up in that enormity of a tragedy, that epic struggle in Russia.It throws light on the chasm which existed between officers and men in the sharply class-divided Wehrmacht with most of the top rank officers having been drawn from the old imperial aristocracy.

    He brilliantly conveys what it was like to be facing death, day after day, night after night, with never a bed to sleep in nor a hot meal to go home to. This is warfare in the raw ' brutal, yet humorous, immensely tragic, but sadly, all true.

    He wrote the classic on which George C. Scott based his film portrayal.

     This highly acclaimed firsthand account of convoy escort operations in the North Atlantic from 1939 to 1945 is based on Rayner's astonishing war record. About the author: Denys Arthur Rayner was a Royal Navy officer who fought throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. After intensive war service at sea, Rayner became a writer, a farmer, and a successful designer and builder of small sailing craft.

    Bill Bellamy was a young officer in the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars from 1943 to 1955. He served in 7th Armored Division in the North West Europe campaign, landing in Normandy on D+3, fought throughout the Battle for Normandy and into the Low Countries as a troop leader in Cromwell tanks, and was latterly a member of the initial occupying force in Berlin in May 1945. Against the rules, Bill kept diaries and notes of his experiences. His account is fresh and open, and his descriptions of battle are vivid. He witnessed many of his contemporaries killed in action, and this life-altering experience clearly informs his narrative. The accounts of tank fighting in the leafy Normandy bocage in the height of summer, or in the iron hard fields of Holland in winter are graphic and compelling.

    Hailed as "unsinkable, " the "Kursk" was on maneuvers when mysterious explosions rocked the sub, causing it to sink to the bottom of the sea with its 118-man crew. This in-depth look at the disaster reveals previously unreleased information from family members of the deceased as well as from government officials.

    It describes the evolution, use and eclipse of the battleship.’ Lloyds’ List ‘With crisp scholarship, Peter Padfield traces the development of the battleship from sailing ships much like Nelson’s which had been fitted with auxiliary steam engines and had iron armour hung on their sides, to the ultimate: the Japanese battleship, Yamato, a giant of more than 70,000 tons firing 18 inch shells more than 20 miles.’ Books and Bookmen ‘A fascinating documentary account of particular interest to the armchair strategist.’ Booklist ‘A worthy addition to anyone’s library that wishes to learn more of the rise and fall of the battleship.’ Good Book Guide The battleship reigned supreme at sea from the 1860s to the 1940s, the ultimate symbol of naval power and national pride, queen on the naval chessboard. This book describes its evolution from the wooden man-of-war plated with iron armour to the great steel leviathan of the Second World War, and its ultimate displacement as arbiter of naval power by the aircraft carrier. At the same time the author explains how strategy and battle tactics changed in response to the mounting of ever larger guns with greater range and penetrative power, and the development of threatening new weapon systems, particularly torpedoes, torpedo boats, mines and submarines; and he explores the chilling reality of action with vivid descriptions of major naval battles including the Yalu in the first Sino-Japanese War, Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War, Jutland in the First World War and many lesser known engagements. The pioneer naval architects and engineers and the commanders who fought these great ships in action, Togo, Jellicoe, Beatty, Scheer, Hipper, Cunningham, Lee, Oldendorf find their way naturally into this absorbing, often horrifying history of what was once the arbiter of naval power.

    The classified Japanese program required developing a squadron of top secret submarines—the Sen-toku or I-400 class—which were the largest and among the most deadly subs of World War II. Incredibly, the subs were designed as underwater aircraft carriers, each equipped with three Aichi M6A1 attack planes painted to look like US aircraft. Called Seiran, the planes were concealed in a huge, watertight deck hangar and meant to appear suddenly over American cities as their Japanese name suggests: like a “storm from a clear sky.”This operation remained unknowns to the Allies despite U.S. intelligence having broken the Japanese naval codes. Even more amazing is how close the Japanese came to pulling off their mission. In spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, including Allied air raids, mine-laden waters, fuel shortages, and a catastrophic depth-charge attack, the Sen-toku squadron was determined to complete their mission no matter what. But when the captain of an American combat sub inadvertently crossed paths with the squadron’s flagship, what promised to be a routine sub patrol soon threatened to rekindle World War II with untold consequences for Japan’s surrender ceremony only five days away.