He only stops travelling when he reaches Kent and there his life is dramatically altered, when he is adopted by a loving old lady and her roguish son Tom.

    Bluebirds, a novel based on true stories, climaxes in 1940, the world's most dangerous year. A meticulously researched Battle of Britain novel based on the true stories of an East Anglian war hero and the first American volunteer to fire guns against the Nazis, a man who became his friend and brother-in-arms. The Battle of Britain defined the future for Britain, Europe and America. Bluebirds tells the story of four ordinary young men who are thrown together as Hitler plunges the European continent into its darkest hours. Andrew Francis and Gerry Donaldson were born on different sides of the Atlantic just before The Great War. Together with the mildly psychotic Bryan Hale, they fly Spitfires through the summer of 1940. Invasion is imminent and England faces almost certain defeat after Hitler’s unstoppable armies slice through France to the Channel coast. Fighter Command risks total destruction as they rise to meet the Fuhrer’s Luftwaffe hordes in what would become The Battle of Britain. Flying with The Few - Review in FlyPast Magazine October 2017 The first part of a proposed trilogy, Bluebirds stands alone as a gripping fictionalised account of The Battle of Britain, documenting how the lives of its four central characters become intertwined. This has clearly been a labour of love for author Melvyn Fickling, who writes with great clarity about the fast-moving events of that pivotal summer, and who imbues his descriptions of flight with boundless enthusiasm. Structured in time-linear format, Melvyn adheres closely to history, creating an increasingly tense atmosphere that becomes all too tragic when the cost of war is realised. The story follows the path of four pilots, starting with the formative years of three of them, and working its way forward, documenting the fears of war in Europe, and how the threat influences the decisions of all. Andrew Francis joins the pre-war RAF - idealistic and well-mannered, he is somewhat shocked at the fiery antics of fellow pilot Bryan Hale, with whom he nevertheless becomes friends. When war erupts, they are joined at Kenley by American pilot Gerry Donaldson, a volunteer facing pressure from British authorities to document his experiences - a propaganda bid to involve the US more closely in the conflict. Eventually Vincent Drew comes under their wing. Troubled by years of childhood abuse and hiding a serious health condition, with Vincent comes tragedy. In an excellent narrative, the author captures the mood of the times - the fear of invasion, the differing attitudes to the enemy, and the carry-on-regardless spirit that kept Britain in the war. FlyPast Magazine - At the heart of aviation heritage.

    Following the threads of Jean-Pierre and Vjeko Curic's stories, he revisits a country still marked with blood, in search of those who survived and the legacy of those who did not. This is David Belton's personal quest for the limits of bravery and forgiveness.Published on the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide

    Colonel George Armstrong Custer hires her eighteen-year-old son Allen Winslow as an aide for his 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Cheyenne. Traveling west against his will, Allen finds himself in the company of Addie Grace Lord, sixteen, sister of one of Custer’s regimental surgeons. The two fall in love, and it is with foreboding that Addie Grace watches Allen and her brother George ride out with Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. Weeks later in Montana, hundreds of miles to the west, the Seventh brings its quarry to bay beside the river called the Little Bighorn.Beautifully written and filled with unforgettable characters, Little Bighorn brings to life the American West and its heartbreaking history, brilliantly portraying the flawed and tormented Custer.

    When her abusive father traded her hand in marriage for a few head of livestock, she fled their farm and took on the identity of traveling salesman Franklin Thompson eventually settling in Flint, Michigan. There, as Thompson, she joined Company F of the Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry and distinguished herself as a true Civil War hero.In between the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Yorktown, the Battle of Williamsburg, and the Battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, Thompson nursed the sick and wounded, carried the mail across dangerous terrain, and became one of the Secret Service’s first spies. Using various disguises including that of a former slave and an Irish peddler woman, Thompson infiltrated enemy lines and stole vital information from the Rebels until a severe case of malaria took its toll. Knowing that the medical attention she needed would reveal her carefully kept secret, she unwillingly deserted the Union Army in 1863. But Sarah Emma Edmonds wasn’t finished. She had a soldier’s pension to fight for and an honorable discharge to claim. Almost a decade after the war was over, she came forward and asked the astonished men she served with for their help in clearing the name of Franklin Thompson.

    Young as they are, both must become the men of their families when their fathers are called to battle. When the war comes to their hometown of Carlisle and nearby Gettysburg, will they survive? An historically authentic, fast-paced, multicultural family saga, Soldier's Heart takes place over a fifteen-year period, culminating on April 9, 1865: Junior Thompson's twelfth birthday, and also the day General Lee will surrender, formally ending the Civil War. Though the victory of the war may be at hand, this unforgettable story reveals how the private battles of the heart rage on. Soldier's Heart is inspired by the untold true story of the Thompsons, a black family, and the Hendersons, a white family, who lived as neighbors in Carlisle, PA. The author is their direct descendant.

    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.

    Beginning in the early 1800s and spanning half a century, here is the story of two brothers, separated at birth, and the people who loved them. Set on the plantations of Mississippi and the Carolina Civil War battlegrounds, Tapesty is a dramatic tale filled with intrigue and brimming with vivid characters.

    

     A shadow hangs over John Thomas Fury in this his first voyage as a midshipman aboard the 32-gun frigate Amazon. Fury is already seen as a pariah by his fellow sailors. Ten years earlier his father, a brig commander in the Service, became mentally unbalanced and violent and his ships crew mutinied and went over to the French. Now, as Amazon heads southwards on her voyage to India, Fury is involved in a dreadful shipboard accident and he finds himself working doubly hard to prove that he isn't cursed just like his father. Redemption arrives when Amazon reaches Bombay, only to discover that ships of the East India Company have disappeared, including the Company's warships - somewhere in the Indian Ocean a very powerful privateer is at work and the Governor despatches Amazon to find and destroy her. Soon afterwards Amazon is in a fight for her life against a much stronger foe, resulting in many of her officers killed. Fury finds himself, in his first ever combat, in charge of the gun deck. In such crucibles of fire are the officers in His Majesty's Service forged. Showing exceptional courage and coolness, the shadows of the past are forever banished and Fury's naval career begins in glory as he becomes a leader of men.

    Historian Grace Cole steps back and reviews the long history of barbarian invaders who pushed into Europe from the steppes of Asia, beginning 3,000 years ago with the nomadic Scythians, and then traces the tribes from Scandinavia, who migrated south to plague the empire until it finally crumbled. She examines the successes and failures of the principal barbarian tribes over the six centuries of their dominance and explores the surprising role of the Church as the era progressed. She covers the rise of France and the Holy Roman Empire and shows how the last great wave of barbarians - the Vikings -colonized a new world in Greenland and North America. Finally, she explains feudalism, the strange structure that held society together into the early Renaissance, outlining how it foreshadowed and laid the foundations for the civilization that became Europe. This rich heritage - the flowering of learning, the bold exploration and colonization of the globe, new political and economic structures, the idea of personal freedom - all were, in large part, the fruit of barbarism. And finally, the belief that barbarians and medieval Europe belonged to a dark age is conclusively put to rest.

       “An affectionate biography of an almost legendary Air Force hero.” — Kirkus Reviews.

    Jorgenson spent 7 years in the Army; three as an infantryman and four as a journalist. After surviving a number of missions as a LRRP with Hotel Company (Airborne), Jorgenson transferred to Alpha (aka Apache) Troop, where he walked point for its reaction force, the Blues. Jorgenson brings his considerable experience as a soldier and journalist to bear in this absorbing account.

    The war at sea was a critical contest, as sea-lanes provided the logistical arteries for British and subsequent Allied armies fighting on the three continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Land forces ultimately won World War II, but the battles at sea fundamentally altered the balance of military power on the ground.