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Killer Caldwell: Australia's Greatest Figher Pilot
By Jeffrey Watson. 2005
Clive 'Killer' Caldwell was a natural and brilliant pilot, a superb shot, and a born leader. He saw action against…
the Germans, Italians and Japanese, and remains Australia's greatest ever fighter pilot.Born and brought up in Sydney, it was obvious from an early age that nothing would stand in Caldwell's way. He bluffed his way into the RAAF, then made sure that he was posted to exactly where he thought he should be.His ability was unquestioned by all those around him, and he devised the vital 'shadow shooting' technique which contributed so much to Allied success in the air in the north African campaign, and in northern Australia. But he was never afraid of voicing his opinions to all those above and below him, be it about the training of pilots, or the equipping of Spitfires for use against the Japanese - and for trying to run the show his way...Caldwell ended his military career in the Morotai Mutiny in 1945, where he and a number of other Australian pilots tried to resign their commisions in protest at not being allowed by General MacArthur - and the RAAF - to take part in the main action. And then he was embroiled in the Barry inquiry into booze smuggling by him and other pilots...Killer Caldwell is a colourful portrait of a colourful Australian.At times, even his admirers seemed unsure of what to do with General Douglas MacArthur. Imperious, headstrong, and vain, MacArthur…
matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific--the first in the history of warfare--secured America’s triumph in World War II and changed the course of history. In The Most Dangerous Man in America, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour. As Perry shows, Franklin Roosevelt and a handful of MacArthur’s subordinates made this feat possible, taming MacArthur, making him useful, and finally making him victorious. A gripping, authoritative biography of the Pacific Theater’s most celebrated and misunderstood commander, The Most Dangerous Man in America reveals the secrets of Douglas MacArthur’s success--and the incredible efforts of the men who made it possible.The Shining Sea: David Porter and the Epic Voyage of the U.S.S. Essex during the War of 1812
By George C. Daughan. 2013
Shortly after the outbreak of the War of 1812, Captain David Porter set out at the helm of the USS…
Essex, intent on rounding Cape Horn and hunting British whaling and merchant ships in the Pacific Ocean. Porter’s odyssey took him to exotic isles and brought glory to the fledgling American navy, and in The Shining Sea, celebrated historian George C. Daughan tells the full story of this historic voyage for the first time. Porter’s cruise is now regarded as the greatest maritime adventure of the period, but his monomaniacal quest to capture a British man-of-war ultimately cost him his ship and the lives of over two-thirds of his crew--a disgraceful end to a daring journey. A thrilling narrative of risk and ruin on the high seas, The Shining Sea brings to life one of the war’s greatest tragedies, capturing Porter’s immense hubris and his cataclysmic failure.Horizons of Heroes: The Next Twenty Years
By Cameron Price. 2017
After returning from the Vietnam War, Cameron finds the United States has changed in ways he could not have imagined.…
He struggles to find his path through challenges in relationships, school, and employment. As an African American in the early 1970s, Cameron learns he must persevere a great deal more than the average person in order to achieve his goals and dreams. As one of the former highest ranking spies in the military, Cameron dares to share his view on how women know if it is “real love.” Horizons of Heroes: The Next Twenty Years is an amazing non-fiction book and an excellent read.Horizons of Heroes 2: The Next Twenty Years
By Cameron Price. 2017
After returning from the Vietnam War, Cameron finds the United States has changed in ways he could not have imagined.…
He struggles to find his path through challenges in relationships, school, and employment. As an African American in the early 1970s, Cameron learns he must persevere a great deal more than the average person in order to achieve his goals and dreams. As one of the former highest ranking spies in the military, Cameron dares to share his view on how women know if it is “real love.” Horizons of Heroes: The Next Twenty Years is an amazing non-fiction book and an excellent read.Born to Battle: Grant and Forrest--Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga
By Jack Hurst. 2012
Born to Battleexamines the Civil War’s complex and decisive western theater through the exploits of its greatest figures, Ulysses S.…
Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest. These two opposing giants squared off in some of the most epic campaigns of the war, starting at Shiloh and continuing through Perryville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanoogabattles in which the Union would slowly but surely divide the western Confederacy, setting the stage for the final showdowns of the bloody, protracted conflict. Grant is widely regarded as the man most responsible for winning the war for the Union, Forrest as the Confederacy’s most fearsome defender in the West. Both men had risen through their respective hierarchies thanks to their cunning and military brilliance, and despite their checkered pasts. Grant and Forrest were both lower”-born officers who struggled to overcome particular, dubious reputations (Forrest’s as a semi-literate rustic and Grant’s as a doltish drunkard). In time, however each became renowned for his intelligence, resourcefulness, and grit. Indeed, as Hurst shows, their familiarity with hardship gave both men a back-against-the-wall mindset that would ultimately determine their successboth on the battlefield, and off it. Beginning with the Union victory at Tennessee’s Fort Donelson in February 1862 (when Grant handed the Union the largest force ever captured on American soil, refurbishing his reputation and earning himself the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant”), Hurst follows both men through the campaigns of the next twenty months, showing how this critical periodand these two unequaled leaderswould change the course of the war. Again and again, Grant’s hardscrabble tactics saved Federal forces from the disastrous decisions of his fellow commanders, who seemed unable to think outside of the West Point playbook. Just as often, Forrest’s hot temper and wily, frontier know-how would surprise his Federal adversaries and allow him to claim astonishing victories on behalf of the Confederacy. But as Grant pressed south and east over the course of these twenty months, routing Confederate forces at such critical strongholds as Corinth, Vicksburg (Gibraltar of the Mississippi”), and Chattanooga, the systemic differences between the North and South began to tell. The more inclusive, meritocratic Union allowed Grant to enter into the military’s halls of decision, whereas the proudly aristocratic Confederate high command barred Forrest from contributing his input. As Hurst vividly demonstrates, that disparity affected, and possibly dictated, the war’s outcome. Thoroughly disgusted with his disdainful superiors and their failure to save his home state of Tennessee from the clutches of the Union, Forrest eventually requested a transfer to a backwater theater of the war. Grant, by contrast, won command of the entire Union army following his troops’ stunning performance at Chattanooga, and would go on to lead the North to victory over the forces of another exceptional Southern general: Robert E. Lee. An utterly American tale about class, merit, and their role in one of the most formative wars in the nation’s history,Born to Battleoffers an impassioned account of two visionary Civil War leaders and the clashing cultures they foughtin some cases, quite ironicallyto protect. Hurst shows how Grant and Forrest brought to the battlefield the fabled virtues of the American working-class: hard work, ingenuity, and intense determination. Each man’s background contributed to his triumphs on the battlefield, but the open-mindedness of his fellow commanders proved just as important. When the North embraced Grant, it won a stalwart defender. When the South rejected Forrest, by contrast, it sealed its fate.Judy: The Unforgettable Story of the Dog Who Went to War and Became a True Hero
By Damien Lewis. 2014
British bestselling author Damien Lewis is an award-winning journalist who has spent twenty years reporting from war, disaster, and conflict…
zones. Now Lewis brings his first-rate narrative skills to bear on the inspiriting tale of Judy--an English pointer who perhaps was the only canine prisoner of war. After being bombed and shipwrecked repeatedly while serving for several wild and war-torn years as a mascot of the World War II Royal Navy Yangtze river gunboats the Gnat and the Grasshopper, Judy ended up in Japanese prisoner of war camps in North Sumatra. Along with locals as slave labor, the American, Australian, and British POWs were forced to build a 1,200-mile single-track railroad through the most horrifying jungles and treacherous mountain passes. Like the one immortalized in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, this was the other death-railroad building project where POWs slaved under subhuman conditions. In the midst of this living hell was a beautiful and regal-looking liver and white English pointer named Judy. Whether she was scavenging food to help feed the starving inmates of a hellish Japanese POW camp, or by her presence alone bringing inspiration and hope to men, she was cherished and adored by the Allied servicemen who fought to survive alongside her. Judy's uncanny ability to sense danger, matched with her quick thinking and impossible daring saved countless lives. More than a close companion she shared in both the men's tragedies and joys. It was in recognition of the extraordinary friendship and protection she offered amidst the unforgiving and savage environment of a Japanese prison camp in Indonesia that she gained her formal status as a POW. From the author of The Dog Who Could Fly and the co-author of Sergeant Rex and It's All About Treo comes one of the most heartwarming and inspiring tales you will ever read.Hitler's Warrior: The Life and Wars of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper
By Danny S. Parker. 2014
Our Year of War: Two Brothers, Vietnam, and a Nation Divided
By Daniel P. Bolger. 2017
Two brothers--Chuck and Tom Hagel--who went to war in Vietnam, fought in the same unit, and saved each other's life.…
They disagreed about the war, but they fought it together.1968. America was divided. Flag-draped caskets came home by the thousands. Riots ravaged our cities. Assassins shot our political leaders. Black fought white, young fought old, fathers fought sons. And it was the year that two brothers from Nebraska went to war.In Vietnam, Chuck and Tom Hagel served side by side in the same rifle platoon. Together they fought in the Mekong Delta, battled snipers in Saigon, chased the enemy through the jungle, and each saved the other's life under fire. But when their one-year tour was over, these two brothers came home side-by-side but no longer in step--one supporting the war, the other hating it.Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his brother Tom epitomized the best, and withstood the worst, of the most tumultuous, shocking, and consequential year in the last half-century. Following the brothers' paths from the prairie heartland through a war on the far side of the world and back to a divided America, Our Year of War tells the story of two brothers at war--a gritty, poignant, and resonant story of a family and a nation divided yet still united.A Christmas Far from Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival during the Korean War
By Stanley Weintraub. 2014
An anecdote-rich narrative of the 1950 holiday season during the Korean War, when, just after Thanksgiving, tens of thousands of…
US troops were surrounded in the Chosin reservoir area by hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops and began a terrible and difficult retreat, which finally ended on Christmas Day.1978. El año que marchamos a la guerra
By Guillermo Parvex. 2018
El mismo autor del exitoso Un veterano de tres guerras entrega este relato que cobra actualidad a 40 a …
os de una guerra que no fue Mientras estudiaba Periodismo en la Universidad de Chile Guillermo Parvex fue llamado por el Ej rcito para recibir instrucci n militar espec fica y ser parte de las milicias chilenas que se dirigir an a la frontera con Argentina Era 1978 Parvex ten a 24 a os y la guerra con el pa s vecino era inminente Este libro reconstruye la historia personal del autor durante los meses que estuvo en la frontera y el contexto hist rico de esos dif ciles a os un relato in dito en primera persona que nos habla de aquellos a os convulsos en que se ocultaba la movilizaci n de tropas hasta las regiones lim trofes que nos separan del pa s vecino Rese a Un libro que reconstruye por primera vez la instrucci n militar que recibieron en secreto miles de j venes chilenosCrucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee -- The War They Fought, the Peace They Forged
By William C. Davis. 2014
A dual biography and a fresh approach to the always compelling subject of these two iconic leaders--how they fashioned a…
distinctly American war, and a lasting peace, that fundamentally changed our nationBehind Nazi Lines
By Denise George, Andrew Hodges. 2015
In 1944 hundreds of Allied soldiers were trapped in POW camps in occupied France The odds of their…
survival were long The odds of escaping even longer But one-man had the courage to fight the odds An elite British S A S operative on an assassination mission gone wrong A Jewish New Yorker injured in a Nazi ambush An eighteen-year-old Gary Cooper lookalike from Mobile Alabama These men and hundreds of other soldiers found themselves in the prisoner-of-war camps off the Atlantic coast of occupied France fighting brutal conditions and unsympathetic captors But miraculously local villagers were able to smuggle out a message from the camp one that reached the Allies and sparked a remarkable quest by an unlikely--and truly inspiring--hero Andy Hodges had been excluded from military service due to a lingering shoulder injury from his college-football days Devastated but determined Andy refused to sit at home while his fellow Americans risked their lives so he joined the Red Cross volunteering for the toughest assignments on the most dangerous battlefields In the fall of 1944 Andy was tapped for what sounded like a suicide mission a desperate attempt to aid the Allied POWs in occupied France--alone and unarmed matching his wits against the Nazi war machine Despite the likelihood of failure Andy did far more than deliver much-needed supplies By the end of the year he had negotiated the release of an unprecedented 149 prisoners--leaving no one behind This is the true story of one man s selflessness ingenuity and victory in the face of impossible adversityThe British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901
By Sharon Murphy. 2016
The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 considers the history of the libraries that the East India Company and Regular…
Army respectively established for soldiers during the nineteenth century. Drawing upon a wide range of material, including archival sources, official reports, and soldiers' memoirs and letters, this book explores the motivations of those who were responsible for the setting up and/or operation of the libraries, and examines what they reveal about attitudes to military readers in particular and, more broadly, to working-class readers - and leisure - at this period. Murphy's study also considers the contents of the libraries, identifying what kinds of works were provided for soldiers and where and how they read them. In so doing, The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 affords another way of thinking about some of the key debates that mark book history today, and illuminates areas of interest to the general reader as well as to literary critics and military and cultural historians.Nashville Predators: The Making of Smashville (Sports)
By Pete Weber, Justin B. Bradford. 2015
Nashville may be the country music capital, but local hockey fans know it as Smashville. The Predators adopted their name…
from the bones of a saber-toothed tiger found beneath a local building. Craig Leipold first purchased the expansion rights in 1997, and the team quickly built a loyal following. It won twenty-eight games in the inaugural season. Twelve seasons later, the team finished second in the Central Division and appeared in its first-ever conference semifinals. One year later, it finally dispatched its long-standing rival Detroit Red Wings 4-1 in the opening round of the playoffs. Author Justin Bradford details the fascinating history through unique player anecdotes and perspectives from those involved in the team's rise to prominence.The Junior Officers Reading Club
By Patrick Hennessey. 2009
For the first time in a generation British soldiers are once again fighting at close quarters, coming under sustained and…
vicious firepower in some of the most violent fighting the modern army has endured. Yet the same soldiers also serve on international peacekeeping missions, or counter insurgency. Sometimes they do all three in the same country. The Junior Officers' Reading Club is the story of how one of these soldiers was made, through the breeding ground of Sandhurst, out into the nightmare of Iraq and Afghanistan's Helmand Province, pinned down by the Taliban, living only from moment to moment.An updated and expanded photographic history of the famed military aircraft and the men who flew them …
Aviation historian Norman Franks updates his classic book The Lancaster with new information and photos The Avro Lancaster was a four-engine heavy bomber that played a crucial role in World War II and this illustrated volume records the history of thirty-five of them supported by stories from aircrew members The most famous of the bombers is Queenie W5868 the only one of these Lancasters that survives now in the Bomber Command Hall at the Royal Air Force Museum in London Ton-Up Lancs delves into some of the controversies surrounding Queenie and other Lancasters and also includes detailed listings of each raid these thirty-five Lancasters flew during from 1942 through 1945 together with the names of the pilot and crew that took them on sorties all over Hitler s Third Reich and Northern Italy on support missions before and after D-Day in June 1944 and attacks on V1 rocket launch sites situated in Northern France The book also offers a view from one of the Lancaster s former skippers on what it was like to fly a bomber tour of operations in Bomber CommandPersonal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Volume 2
By Ulysses S. Grant.
The suspenseful true story of a love that defied Nazi oppression, and a harrowing journey to freedom. In 1945, Ditha…
Bruncel was living with her parents in the small town of Lossen, in Upper Silesia. Close Jewish friends had vanished, swastikas hung from every building, and neighbors were disappearing in the middle of the night. At the same time more than fifteen hundred British and Commonwealth airmen were being marched out of Stalag Luft VII, a POW camp in the same region. Twenty-three of these prisoners managed to escape from the marching column—and by chance hobbled into Lossen. One among them, Warrant Officer Gordon Slowey, was the man Ditha was destined to meet and fall in love with. Into Enemy Arms tells the extraordinary story of Ditha and the escaped POWs she helped save. Together, they embarked on a dangerous and daring flight out of Germany. As they faced exhaustion, hunger, extreme cold, and the constant risk of discovery, Ditha and Gordon’s love for one another intensified, and so did their determination to survive and escape.Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee
By Robert E. Lee.
General Robert E. Lee was the most heroic figure of the Civil War, but to many, he is a solitary…
figure. This book fleshes out the man and reveals the workings of a great military mind and a warm, understanding, and generous human being. It shows all the facets of the general during the war; at the conclusion, when he was an outspoken proponent of a reasonable peace which would allow the South to rejoin the Union; and after the war, when he served as president of Washington College, and became a driving force for the creation of a viable educational system. This anthology shows all these facets of the general, through his correspondence and through the revealing insight supplied by his son. No other collection of source materials gives such a whole and rewarding picture of one of the South's greatest sons and heroes.