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The acclaimed combat historian and author of The Unknowns details the history of the Marbleheaders and their critical role in…
the Revolutionary War. On the stormy night of August 29, 1776, the Continental Army faced annihilation after losing the Battle of Brooklyn. The British had trapped George Washington&’s army against the East River, and the fate of the Revolution rested upon the soldier-mariners from Marblehead, Massachusetts. One of the country&’s first diverse units, they pulled off an &“American Dunkirk&” and saved the army by navigating the treacherous river to Manhattan. At the right time in the right place, the Marbleheaders, a group of white, black, Hispanic, and Native American soldiers, repeatedly altered the course of events, and their story shines new light on our understanding of the American Revolution. As historian Patrick K. O&’Donnell recounts, beginning nearly a decade before the war started, Marbleheaders such as Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orne spearheaded the break with Britain and helped shape the United States through governing, building alliances, seizing British ships, forging critical supply lines, and establishing the origins of the US Navy. The Marblehead Regiment, led by John Glover, became truly indispensable. Marbleheaders battled at Lexington and on Bunker Hill and formed the elite Guard that protected George Washington, foreshadowing today&’s Secret Service. Then the special operations–like regiment, against all odds, conveyed 2,400 of Washington&’s men across the ice-filled Delaware River on Christmas night of 1776, delivering the surprise attack on Trenton that changed the course of history . . . The Marbleheaders&’ story, never fully told before now, makes The Indispensables a vital addition to the literature of the American Revolution.Praise for The Indispensables&“Perfectly paced and powerfully wrought, this is the story of common men who gave everything for an ideal—America. The product of meticulous research, The Indispensables is the perfect reminder of who we are, when we need it most.&” —Adam Makos, author of the New York Times bestseller A Higher Call&“O&’Donnell&’s gift for storytelling brings the once famous regiment back to life, as he takes readers from the highest war councils to the grime and grit of battle.&” —Dr. James Lacey, author of The Washington War&“Comprehensive . . . Revolutionary War buffs will delight in the copious details and vivid battle scenes.&” —Publishers Weekly&“A vivid account of an impressive Revolutionary War unit and a can&’t-miss choice for fans of O&’Donnell&’s previous books.&” —Kirkus ReviewThe Barque of Saviors: Eagle's Passage from the Nazi Navy to the U.S. Coast Guard
By Russell Drumm. 2001
The &“remarkable story&” of a tall ship&’s history in WWII and beyond—and the sailors who have inhabited it, both German…
and American (Booklist). Hamburg, 1936: A splendid three-masted sailing ship is christened Horst Wessel in the presence of Adolf Hitler and thousands of cheering Nazis. It would become a training vessel for naval officers during World War II—but after Germany&’s defeat, the US Coast Guard found its young crew terrified and half starved. The Coast Guardsmen brought the Germans, so recently their mortal enemies, back to life; the Germans, in return, taught them the ways of the beautiful square-rigged ship, rechristened Eagle. In time, Eagle would become the Coast Guard&’s elite school ship—the barque of saviors. Uncannily linking Eagle&’s malign past and its American present is a coast guardsman named Karl Dillmann, who believes the spirit of a young German sailor drowned in a U-boat explosion inhabits his soul. The voices of Dillmann and other crew members are heard throughout the book, as are the voices of young sailors on the Horst Wessel. Russell Drumm has obtained never-before-published logbooks from its war years, affording fascinating new insights into both the ship&’s everyday life and its moments of high drama. This unique piece of maritime history captures the feeling of life at sea, and shows how the courage and sacrifice of the &“greatest generation&” are alive and well today in the dedicated members of the US Coast Guard. &“Tall ships cast spells, and Drumm catches the witchery of the Eagle&’s overpowering presence.&” —Kirkus Reviews &“The reader becomes familiar with the cadets of various eras . . . The book also offers a rare look at postwar military cooperation and at the integration of female cadets beginning in the 1970s.&” —Publishers WeeklyDemolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative
By Valeriy Zamulin. 2018
&“Comprehensive scholarship and convincing reasoning, enhanced by an excellent translation, place this work on a level with the best of…
David Glantz&” (Dennis Showalter, award-winning author of Patton and Rommel). This groundbreaking book examines the battle of Kursk between the Red Army and Wehrmacht, with a particular emphasis on its beginning on July 12, as the author works to clarify the relative size of the contending forces, the actual area of this battle, and the costs suffered by both sides. Valeriy Zamulin&’s study of the crucible of combat during the titanic clash at Kursk—the fighting at Prokhorovka—is now available in English. A former staff member of the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum, Zamulin has dedicated years of his life to the study of the battle of Kursk, and especially the fighting on its southern flank involving the famous attack of the II SS Panzer Corps into the teeth of deeply echeloned Red Army defenses. A product of five years of intense research into the once-secret Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, this book lays out in enormous detail the plans and tactics of both sides, culminating in the famous and controversial clash at Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943. Zamulin skillfully weaves reminiscences of Red Army and Wehrmacht soldiers and officers into the narrative of the fighting, using in part files belonging to the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum. Zamulin has the advantage of living in Prokhorovka, so he has walked the ground of the battlefield many times and has an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Examining the battle primarily from the Soviet side, Zamulin reveals the real costs and real achievements of the Red Army at Kursk, and especially Prokhorovka. He examines mistaken deployments and faulty decisions that hampered the Voronezh Front&’s efforts to contain the Fourth Panzer Army&’s assault, and the valiant, self-sacrificial fighting of the Red Army&’s soldiers and junior officers as they sought to slow the German advance and crush the II SS Panzer Corps with a heavy counterattack at Prokhorovka. Illustrated with numerous maps and photographs (including present-day views of the battlefield), and supplemented with extensive tables of data, Zamulin&’s book is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature on the battle of Kursk, and further demolishes many of the myths and legends that grew up around it.Churchill's Navigator
By Air Commodore John Mitchell, Sean Feast. 2010
An RAF pilot who flew around the world with Winston Churchill during World War II tells his story. An…
RAF Volunteer Reserve officer, John Mitchell was mobilized on the outbreak of war—and just missed going to join a Battle Squadron in France where he would have undoubtedly been killed. Instead, he was posted to No. 58 Squadron flying Whitleys, surviving a tour of operations in 1940–41 that included ditching in the North Sea. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he was sent to the US, becoming involved in the development of the first navigation training simulators with the famous Link Trainer factory. There, he was awarded the US Legion of Merit, signed by Harry S. Truman. Then, returning to the UK in 1942, he was personally selected to join the crew of Winston Churchill&’s private aircraft, one of the early prototype Avro Yorks called Ascalon. For two years he navigated Churchill to conferences around the world—from North Africa to Italy, the Middle East to Moscow, including the famous Teheran and Yalta conferences. He also flew &“General Lyon&” (aka His Majesty George VI) on several occasions. After the war, he enjoyed an eventful career as an air attaché, including an intelligence posting to Moscow, and was senior navigation officer for the long range exercises over the Pole in the converted Lincoln, Aries III. His is an exceptional story, told with wit and verve to military aviation historian Sean Feast, who adds authoritative and informed insights.Silent Village: Life and Death in Occupied France
By Robert Pike. 2022
'Based on eye-witness accounts, Robert Pike’s moving book vividly depicts the lives of the villagers who were caught up in…
the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane and brings their experiences to our attention for the first time.' - Hanna Diamond, author of Fleeing HitlerOn 10 June 1944, four days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, the picturesque village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the rural heart of France was destroyed by an armoured SS Panzer division. Six hundred and forty-three men, women and children were murdered in the nation’s worst wartime atrocity. Today, Oradour is remembered as a ‘martyred village’ and its ruins preserved, but the stories of its inhabitants lie buried under the rubble of the intervening decades. Silent Village gathers the powerful testimonies of survivors in the first account of Oradour as it was both before the tragedy and in its aftermath. Why this peaceful community was chosen for extermination has remained a mystery. Putting aside contemporary hearsay, Nazi rhetoric and revisionist theories, Robert Pike returns to the archival evidence to narrate the tragedy as it truly happened – and give voice to the anguish of those left behind.The first complete narrative of the pursuit & capture of SS Nazi officer and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, by a…
New York Times–bestselling author.When the Allies stormed Berlin in the last days of the Third Reich, Adolf Eichmann shed his SS uniform and vanished. Following his escape from two American POW camps, his retreat into the mountains and out of Europe, and his path to an anonymous life in Buenos Aires, his pursuers are a bulldog West German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his beautiful daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle (and whose rare surveillance photographs are published here for the first time).The capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina to stand trial is the stunning conclusion to this thrilling historical account, told with the kind of pulse-pounding detail that rivals anything you’d find in great spy fiction.Includes Mossad’s Rare Surveillance PhotographsPraise for Hunting Eichmann“A fantastic true spy story.” —Associated Press“[Bascomb’s] work is well researched, including interviews with former Israeli operatives and El Al staff who participated in the capture, as well as Argentine fascists. This is a gripping read.” —Publishers Weekly“An outstanding account of a sustained and worthy manhunt.” —BooklistThe Memorial Feast for Kökötöy Khan: A Kirghiz Epic Poem in the Manas Tradition
By Saghïmbay Orozbaq Uulu. 2022
This great Central Asian epic, passed down through generations and now brought to life in a new translation, carries the…
reader into a world of nomads, warriors and horselords'I am a steel-fanged lion, a dragon ready to pounce, a mighty poplar with golden branches rising up to the sky'The bard Saghïmbay Orozbaq uulu composed his oral telling of the great Central Asian Manas epic in the early twentieth century, although it draws on far older sources. This vivid episode from his narrative tells the bravura story of an uncertain new khan, Boqmurun, who holds a great feast to commemorate his predecessor, Kökötöy. From east and west, warriors and their turbulent retinues come to compete in horse races, jousting and wrestling, and soon insults are hurled and scores settled violently. Yet none can beat the supreme hero, the mighty, truculent Manas. By turns earthy, stirring, bombastic and funny, Saghïmbay's work stands as a monument to the oral culture of a nomadic people.Daniel Prior's landmark translation includes a 'How to Read the Epic' section, commentary, maps and illustrations.Composed in oral performance by Saghïmbay Orozbaq uulu Translated by Daniel PriorMcCrae's Battalion: The Story of the 16th Royal Scots
By Jack Alexander. 2003
McCrae's Own was the 'Heart of Midlothian Battalion' mentioned all too briefly in Martin Middlebrook's classic book The First Day…
on the Somme. Raised in Edinburgh shortly after the start of the Great War, it was perhaps the finest unit in Lord Kitchener's volunteer army - a brotherhood of sportsmen, bound together by their extraordinary colonel and their loyalty to a quaintly named Association Football club, the famous Gorgie 'Hearts'. McCrae's were blooded in the Battle of the Somme, losing three-quarters of their strength on the first day alone. The Colonel himself was invalided home. In time the battalion recovered. It came of age at Arras, endured the muddy horror of Passchendaele, and held the line unbroken in the face of furious German attacks on the Lys in 1918. For almost a century their story remained untold. It was all but lost forever. Now, after 12 years of exacting historical detective work, Jack Alexander has reclaimed the 16th Royal Scots for posterity. In this stirring book he draws upon interviews with veterans and a unique archive of letters, diaries and photographs, assembled from the families of more than 1,000 of Sir George McCrae's men.The Little Book of Self-Care for Mums-To-Be
By Beccy Hands, Alexis Stickland. 2020
The perfect pick-me-up for any expectant mumWhether this is your first or fifth baby, The Little Book of Self-Care for…
Mums-to-Be is your essential handbook for managing the joyful chaos of pregnancy.Drawing on decades of experience, doula Beccy Hands and midwife Alexis Stickland share insider tips on keeping yourself comfortable, happy and calm however your pregnancy and birth may unfold. From the best sleeping positions and simple recipes for morning sickness to relaxing essential oils and easy home remedies for aches and pains, this book will help you feel supported, empowered and understood.Beautifully illustrated in full-colour, this reassuring guide covers everything you need to know, trimester by trimester, so you can enjoy the wonderful journey to motherhood.The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire
By Ryan Gingeras. 2022
'A tour de force of accessible scholarship' The Guardian'Impressive ... It is a complicated story that still reverberates, and Gingeras…
narrates it with lucid authority' New StatesmanThe Ottoman Empire had been one of the major facts in European history since the Middle Ages. Stretching from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, the Empire was both a great political entity and a religious one, with the Sultan ruling over the Holy Sites and, as Caliph, the successor to Mohammed.Yet the Empire's fateful decision to support Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 doomed it to disaster, breaking it up into a series of European colonies and what emerged as an independent Saudi Arabia.Ryan Gingeras's superb new book explains how these epochal events came about and shows how much we still live in the shadow of decisions taken so long ago. Would all of the Empire fall to marauding Allied armies, or could something be saved? In such an ethnically and religiously entangled region, what would be the price paid to create a cohesive and independent new state? The story of the creation of modern Turkey is an extraordinary, bitter epic, brilliantly told here.The Making Of The British Army
By Allan Mallinson. 2009
Edgehill, 1642: Surveying the disastrous scene in the aftermath of the first battle of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell…
realized that war could no longer be waged in the old, feudal way: there had to be system and discipline, and therefore - eventually - a standing professional army.From the 'New Model Army' of Cromwell's distant vision, former soldier Allan Mallinson shows us the people and events that have shaped the British army we know today. How Marlborough's momentous victory at Blenheim is linked to Wellington's at Waterloo; how the desperate fight at Rorke's Drift in 1879 underpinned the heroism of the airborne forces at Arnhem in 1944; and why Montgomery's momentous victory at El Alamein mattered long after the Second World War was over . . . From the British Army's origins at the battle of Edgehill to the recent conflict in Afghanistan, The Making of the British Army is history at its most relevant - and most dramatic.Making A Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq
By James Ashcroft. 2006
In September 2003, James 'Ash' Ashcroft, a former British Infantry Captain, arrived in Iraq as a 'gun for hire'. It…
was the beginning of an 18-month journey into blood and chaos.In this action-packed page-turner, Ashcroft reveals the dangers of his adrenalin-fuelled life as a security contractor in Baghdad, where private soldiers outnumber non-US Coalition forces in a war that is slowly being privatised. From blow-by-blow accounts of days under mortar bombardment to revelations about life operating deep within the Iraqi community, Ashcroft shares the real, unsanitised story of the war in Iraq - and its aftermath - direct from the front line.Life on the Golden Horn
By Mary Wortley Montagu. 2007
Travelling through the wartorn Balkans with her husband on what proved to be a wholly useless diplomatic mission to Constantinople,…
Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) left a vivid, informative, clever account of her adventures in the mysterious, sophisticated culture of Ottoman palaces, bathing places and courts which - even as her husband's career was falling apart - she could not have enjoyed more.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.In Search of the Dark Ages
By Michael Wood. 2005
Updated with the latest archaeological research new chapters on the most influential yet widely unrecognised people of the British isles,…
In Search of the Dark Ages illuminates the fascinating and mysterious centuries between the Romans and the Norman Conquest of 1066. In this new edition, Michael Wood vividly conjures some of the most important people in British history such as Hadrian, a Libyan refugee from the Arab conquests and arguably the most important person of African origin in British history, to Queen Boadicea, the leader of a terrible war of resistance against the Romans.Here too, warts and all, are the Saxon, Viking and Norman kings who laid the political foundations of England: Offa of Mercia, Alfred the Great, Athelstan, and William the Conqueror, whose victory at Hastings in 1066 marked the end of Anglo-Saxon England. Reflecting the latest historical, textual and archaeological research, this revised and updated edition of Michael Wood's classic book overturns preconceptions of the Dark Ages as a shadowy and brutal era, showing them to be a richly exciting and formative period in the history of Britain.Kitchener's Last Volunteer: The Life of Henry Allingham, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Great War
By Dennis Goodwin, Henry Allingham. 2008
Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have volunteered for active duty in the First World War and…
is one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the subsequent coming of the modern age.Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front line under fire.In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many honours bestowed upon him.This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life - one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.The King's Own Scottish Borderers: A Concise History
By Trevor Royle. 2008
The King's Own Scottish Borderers is one of only two Scottish regiments never to have been amalgamated until it joined…
forces with The Royal Scots to form the 1st battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006. It is also unusual in that it lost its Scottish status between 1782 and 1887 when it served as the 25th (Sussex) Regiment of Foot.Formed in Edinburgh in 1689, its first operational role was to defend the city during the period of turmoil following the accession of William and Mary of Orange. That same year the regiment fought at the Battle of Killiecrankie, where they withstood a ferocious charge by the Highlanders supporting James II. Since then, the regiment has fought in most of the major campaigns fought by the British Army.In 1887, the regiment became The King's Own Scottish Borderers. It served with distinction during the two World Wars and achieved nationwide fame in 1915 when Sergeant Piper Daniel Laidlaw won the Victoria Cross during the Battle of Loos. Despite coming under heavy fire he played his pipes in full view of the enemy, encouraging the Borderers with the sound of 'Blue Bonnets o'er the Border' and 'The Standard on the Braes o' Mar'.This concise account of the King's Own Scottish Borderers puts its story into the context of British military history and makes use of personal testimony to reveal the life of the regiment.The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives
By Christopher Harding. 2020
A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020'Mightily impressive ... a marvellous read' Sunday TimesFrom the acclaimed author of Japan…
Story, this is the history of Japan, distilled into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. The vivid and entertaining portraits in Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place. For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.Immediate Response: Original Edition
By Mark Hammond. 2009
2006 in Helmand saw British forces engaged in the most ferocious fighting since the Korean War. For much of the…
time they were hanging on by their fingertips, holed up in remote platoon houses, outnumbered, facing relentless assault and nearly overwhelmed. Only the Chinooks kept them in the game. But that meant their crews putting down in hot LZs, exposing their aircraft to withering attack from an enemy for whom downing one of the big helos would be the ultimate prize.They had been lucky. So far. Then they launched their biggest operation yet: a complicated, high-risk airborne assault that launched a fleet of heavily armed helicopters into the Afghan Heart of Darkness. And then a report came over the net that one of the Chinooks was down . . .In Immediate Response, Major Mark Hammond, a Royal Marine flying with the RAF, tells the gripping inside story of the Chinook squadrons' war for the first time. It's a visceral, unputdownable combination of hi-tech and old-fashioned grit; an action-packed story shot through with a mix of aviation fuel and cordite ...Immediate Action
By Andy McNab. 2015
Immediate Action is a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary life, from the day Andy McNab was found in a carrier…
bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War.As a delinquent youth he kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS Regiment he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years - on five continents.Recounting with grim humour and in riveting, often horrifying, detail his activities in the world's most highly trained and efficient Special Forces unit, McNab sweeps us into a world of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue.There are casualties: the best men are so often the first to be killed, because they are in front.By turns chilling, astonishing, violent, funny and moving, this blistering first-hand account of life at the forward edge of battle confirms Andy McNab's standing in the front rank of writers on modern war.Joint Force Harrier
By Adrian Orchard, James Barrington. 2009
Days after arriving in Kandahar, the Harriers of 800 Naval Air Squadron were in the thick of fierce fighting. Armed…
with rockets and bombs, the pilots were flying crucial danger-close attack missions in defence of troops engaged in the most intense battles seen by British forces since the Korean War. While facing the constant threat of surface-to-air missiles, the British Top Guns knew that any mistake would have fatal consequences for the soldiers who depended on their skill and determination. Written by the Commanding Officer of the first Royal Navy squadron to deploy to Afghanistan, Joint Force Harrier is a compelling insight into the exciting world of modern air warfare.