'Being a JTAC is the closest a soldier on the ground in the midst of battle can get to feeling like one of the gods - unleashing pure hellfire, death and destruction' - Duncan Falconer Meet Sergeant 'Bommer' Grahame, one of the deadliest soldiers on the battlefield. He's an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller- pronounced 'jay-tack') - a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A10 tank-busters, F15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own side. Due to his specialist role, Sergeant Grahame usually operates in the thick of the action, where it's at its most fearsome and deadly. Conjuring the seemingly impossible from apparently hopeless situations, soldiers in battle rely on the skill and bravery of their JTAC to enable them to win through in the heat of the danger zone. Fire Strike 7/9 tells the story of Bommer Grahame and his five-man Fire Support Team on their tour of Afghanistan. Patrolling deep into enemy territory, they were hunted and targeted by the Taliban, shot at, blown-up, mortared and hit by rockets on numerous occasions. Under these conditions Sergeant Grahame notched up 203 confirmed enemy kills, making him the difference between life and death both for his own troops and the Taliban.
In February 1945, British and American bombers rained down thousands of tons of incendiaries on the city of Dresden, creating one of the greatest firestorms in history. Their bombs killed an estimated 25, 000 people, and wiped one of the most beautiful cities in Europe from the map. The controversy that erupted shortly afterwards, and which continues to this day, has long overshadowed the other events of the bomber war, and blighted the memory of the young men who gave their lives to fight in the skies over Germany. This book neither condemns the bombing of Dresden, nor excuses it, but simply puts it in its proper context as a devastating set of raids in a much larger campaign. To the crews who flew over Germany night after night there were other much more pressing worries: the V2 rockets that threatened their loved ones at home, the brand new German jet fighters that could strike them at speeds of over 600mph, the deadly flak over the cities of the Ruhr Valley. The bomber war had entered its final unforgiving months, and no quarter was given on either side. Kevin Wilson has interviewed over a hundred people for this book, some of whom flew on the Dresden raids, and many more who experienced other aspects of bombing, both in the air and on the ground. JOURNEYS END chronicles the brutal endgame of a conflict that caused devastation and tragedy on both sides.
Details: June 1940: As Britain's soldiers limped home from Dunkirk, a maverick Army officer was already devising a bold plan to hit back at the enemy. His idea was to revolutionise military thinking and change the face of warfare for ever. Relying as much on stealth and guile as on courage and stamina, the Commandos brought to the battlefield the skills of the guerrilla. Trained by an unconventional band of experts, and led by a big-game hunter, a film star, a Highland chief and an eccentric wielding a bow and arrow, they became the spearhead of the Allied drive for victory. Weaving together official documents, new research and veterans' own accounts, Commando reveals for the first time the exhilarating full story of WWII's most formidable fighting force. Ideal for: A classic military history book, perfect for fans of this genre. This hardback book has 414 pages and measures: 24 x 16 x 3.5cm.
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit, aimed at convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150, 000-strong invasion force. The deception involved every branch of Allied wartime intelligence - the Bletchley Park code-breakers, MI5, MI6, SOE, Scientific Intelligence, the FBI and the French Resistance. But at its heart was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents controlled by the secret Twenty Committee, so named because twenty in Roman numerals forms a double cross. The key D-Day spies were just five in number, and one of the oddest military units ever assembled: a bisexual Peruvian playgirl, a tiny Polish fighter pilot, a Serbian seducer, a wildly imaginative Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming, and a hysterical Frenchwoman whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire deception. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is here revealed for the first time. Under the direction of an eccentric but brilliant intelligence officer in tartan trousers, working from a smoky lair in St James's, these spies would weave a web of deception so intricate that it ensnared Hitler's army and helped to carry thousands of troops across the Channel in safety. These double agents were, variously, brave, treacherous, fickle, greedy and inspired. They were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece of deceit saved countless lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story.
During the Great War, many boys went straight from the classroom to the most dangerous job in the world - that of junior officer on the Western Front. Although desperately aware of how many of their predecessors had fallen before them, nearly all stepped forward, unflinchingly, to do their duty. The average life expectancy of a subaltern in the trenches was a mere six weeks. In this remarkable book, John Lewis-Stempel focuses on the forgotten men who truly won Britain victory in the First World War - the subalterns, lieutenants and captains of the Army, the leaders in the trenches, the first over the top the last to retreat. Basing his narrative on a huge range of first-person accounts, including the poignant letters and diaries sent home or to their old schools, the author reveals what motivated these boy-men to act in such an extraordinary, heroic way. He describes their brief, brilliant lives in and out of the trenches, the tireless ways they cared for their men, and how they tried to behave with honour in a world where their values and codes were quite literally being shot to pieces.
The true story of one man's determination to master the world's deadliest helicopter and of a split-second decision that changed the face of modern warfare. Ed Macy bent every rule in the book to get to where he wanted to be: on Ops in the stinking heat of the Afghan summer, with the world's greatest weapons system at his fingertips. It's 2006 and he is part of an elite group of pilots assigned to the controversial Apache AH Mk1 gunship programme. So far, though, the monstrously expensive Apache has done little to disprove its detractors. For the first month 'in action' Ed sees little more from his cockpit than the back end of a Chinook. But everything changes in the skies over Now Zad. Under fire and out of options, Ed has one chance to save his own skin and those of the men on the ground. Though the Apache bristles with awesome weaponry, its fearsome Hellfire missile has never been fired in combat. Then, in the blistering heat of the firefight, the trigger is pulled. It's a split-second decision that forever changes the course of the Afghan war, as overnight the gunship is transformed from being an expensive liability to the British Army's greatest asset. From that moment on, Ed and his squadron mates will face the steepest learning curve of their lives - fighting an endless series of high-octane missions against a cunning and constantly evolving enemy. Ed himself will have to risk everything to fly, fight and survive in the most hostile place on earth.
On 22 June 1940 France surrendered to Germany and the invasion of Britain seemed a very real possibility. The Home Guard was formed to defend our villages and towns. Members came from reserved occupations, those who had failed their medicals, the elderly and the young, with miners and farmers training alongside former majors. Their weapons and ammunition were negligible at first, but slowly these amateur soldiers began to produce professional results. In this unique book of reminiscences about life on the home front, we see these men as they practise with pitchforks and fall into ditches after a pint or two of ale on the job. But we also see them learning how to fire grenades after a day studying engineering and undertaking night watches after exhausting factory shifts - knowing they could be the last stop between the enemy and their families and homes.
The war declared by the Boers on 11th October 1899 gave the British, as Kipling said 'no end of a lesson'. It proved to be the longest, the costliest, the bloodiest and the most humiliating campaign that Britain fought between 1815 and 1914. Thomas Pakenham has written the first full-scale history of the war since 1910. His narrative is based on first hand and largely unpublished sources ranging from the private papers of the leading protagonists to the recollections of survivors from both sides. Out of this historical gold mine, the author has constructed a narrative as vivid and fast-moving as a novel.
HMS Conqueror is Britain's most famous submarine. It is the only sub since World War Two to have sunk an enemy ship. Conqueror's sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano made inevitable an all-out war over the future of the Falkland Islands, and sparked off one of the most controversial episodes of twentieth century politics. The controversy was fuelled by a war-diary kept by an officer on board HMS Conqueror, and as a young TV producer in the 1980s Stuart Prebble scooped the world by locating the diary's author and getting his story on the record. But in the course of uncovering his Falklands story, Stuart Prebble also learned a military secret which could have come straight out of a Cold War thriller. It involved the Top Secret activities of the Conqueror in the months before and after the Falklands War. Prebble has waited for thirty years to tell his story. It is a story of incredible courage and derring-do, of men who put their lives on the line and were never allowed to tell what they had done. This story, buried under layers of official secrecy for three decades, is one of Britain's great military success stories and can now finally be told.
The battleship Tirpitz was the pride of Hitler's navy. Churchill nicknamed her the 'Beast'. Testing courage to the limit, Tirpitz was the target of twenty-four military operations between 1940 and 1944. These missions ranged from desperate human torpedo attacks to near-suicidal bombing raids. Yet the Tirpitz stayed afloat. Only the daring of 9 Squadron and the legendary Dambusters finally scuppered her. Patrick Bishop uncovers the extraordinary story of the raid and the airman who led it. The effort to sink Tirpitz resulted in one of the greatest sagas of World War II. This is that story.
The Raj was, for two hundred years, the jewel in the British imperial crown. Although founded on military expansionism and undoubted exploitation, it developed over the centuries into what has been called 'benign autocracy' - the government of many by few, with the active collaboration of most Indians in recognition of a desire for the advancement of their country. Charles Allen's classic oral history of the period that marked the end of British rule was first published a generation ago. Now reissued as the imperial century closes, this brilliantly insightful and bestselling collection of reminiscences illustrates the unique experience of British India: the sadness and luxury for some; the joy and deprivation for others.
The thrilling wartime novel that inspired Wolfgang Petersen's Academy Award-nominated, blockbuster film! Written by an actual survivor of Germany's U-boat fleet, Das Boot is one of the most exciting stories of naval warfare ever published, a tale filled with almost unbearable tension and suspense.
Permission to speak, Sah! In the aftermath of the Second World War, over two million men were conscripted to serve in Britain's armed services. Some were sent abroad and watched their friends die in combat. Others remained in barracks and painted coal white. But despite delivering such varied experiences, National Service helped to shape the outlook of an entire generation of young British males. Historian Dr Colin Shindler has interviewed a wide range of ex-conscripts, from all backgrounds, across all ranks, and spanning the entire fourteen years that peacetime conscription lasted, and captured their memories in this engrossing book. From them, we experience the tension of a postwar Berlin surrounded by Russians, the exotic heat and colour of Tripoli in 1948, the brief but intense flashpoint of the Suez Crisis, and the fear of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. But we also hear about the other end of the scale, the conscripts who didn't make it outside the confines of their barracks, or in one case, beyond his home town. Through these conversations we learn as much about the changing attitudes of servicemen as war became more of a distant memory as we do about the varied nature of their experiences. We see, too, the changing face of British society across these pivotal years, which span everything from the coronation of Elizabeth II, to the birth of rock 'n' roll, to the beginning of the end of the Empire. The stories within these pages are fascinating. And they deserve to be told before they are lost forever.
Almost a century on, interest in The Great War could be expected to have faded and died; after all, the last who fought in it have passed on. Yet indisputably interest is increasing, not falling. Families seek their own connection both with ancestors who fought and all too often died and with those at home who had to live and cope with unimaginable losses. This book, which sets out to fill a gap, is written for the layman, who may have some knowledge about the Great War of 1914-18 but who wants to know more. It is a story, not a history. It is a guide, but not a guidebook. It is a story about people, but not a biography. It is well nigh impossible to visualise 20, 000 men dying in a day on the Somme, but it is possible to look at the individual stories that come together to make up such a tragedy. Covering vital background information, graphic explanations of the conduct of the War and vivid personal testimonies, The Great War Explained offers a highly readable way of gaining a better understanding of this most dramatic period of World history.
At 2am on the morning of the 3rd of June 1940, General Harold Alexander searched along the quayside, holding onto his megaphone and called ?Is anyone there? Is anyone there?? before turning his boat back towards England. Tradition tells us that the dramatic events of the evacuation of Dunkirk, in which 300, 000 BEF servicemen escaped the Nazis, was a victory gained from the jaws of defeat. For the first time, rather than telling the tale of the 300, 000 who escaped, Sean Longden reveals the story of the 40, 000 men sacrificed in the rearguard battles. On the beaches and sand dunes, besides the roads and amidst the ruins lay the corpses of hundreds who had not reached the boats. Elsewhere, hospitals full of the sick and wounded who had been left behind to receive treatment from the enemys doctors. And further afield ? still fighting hard alongside their French allies - was the entire 51st Highland Division, whose war had not finished as the last boats slipped away. Also scattered across the countryside were hundreds of lost and lonely soldiers. These ?evaders? had also missed the boats and were now desperately trying to make their own way home, either by walking across France or rowing across the channel. The majority, however, were now prisoners of war who were forced to walk on the death marches all the way to the camps in Germany and Poland, where they were forgotten until 1945.
Tom Renouf was still a schoolboy in Scotland when World War II began. He was pitched into the bloody battle of Normandy, a raw recruit in the legendary Black Watch, surviving serious wounds, hardships and terror. He ended the war a promoted and decorated young soldier. From Normandy the regiment went on to liberate Holland and fight in the Battle of the Bulge, to invade Germany and struggle through the Reichswald forest in the last great battle of the Western front. It's sweetest moment came just days after Hitler's suicide when they caught a heavily disguised Himmler. Black Watch is both the epic story of the 51st Highland Division and the searing personal account of one man'c courage in war.
Details: On capture, British officers and men were routinely told by the Germans 'For you the war is over'. Nothing could be further from the truth. British Prisoners of War merely exchanged one barbed-wire battleground for another. In the camps the war was eternal. There was the war against the German military, fought with everything from taunting humour to outright sabotage, with a literal spanner put in the works of the factories and salt mines prisoners were forced to slave in. British PoWs also fought a valiant war against the conditions in which they were mired. They battled starvation, disease, Prussian cruelties, boredom, and their own inner demons. And, of course, they escaped. Then escaped again. No less than 29 officers at Holzminden camp in 1918 burrowed their way out via a tunnel (dug with a chisel and trowel) in the Great Escape of the Great War. It was war with heart-breaking consequences; more than 12, 000 PoWs died, many of them murdered, to buried in shallow unmarked graves. Using contemporary records - from prisoners' diaries to letters home to poetry - John Lewis-Stempel reveals the death, life and, above all, the glory of Britain's warriors behind the wire. For it was in the PoW camps, far from the blasted trenches, that the true spirit of the Tommy was exemplified. Ideal for: Those with an interest in the first world war. The last untold story of the First World War: the fortunes and fates of 170, 000 British soldiers captured by the enemy. This hardback book has 342 pages and measures: 24 x 16 x 3.2cm
The second book in the Chris Ryan Extreme series. Former SAS hero John Bald is a man at war with himself and fighting a losing battle with the bottle. But then he is reluctantly thrust back into battle... In the race to develop ever more powerful weapons, technology has become the new frontline in global terrorism. And when one of America's most cutting-edge defence contractors suspects a sleeper cell operating in its midst, the Firm reaches out to its most cold-blooded son. Bald's mission: kill the sleeper before they can smuggle top-secret weaponry into the hands of the West's deadliest enemies. But the mission goes sideways, and Bald is the fall guy. Now he must pursue the sleeper from the ghettos of Florida to the war-torn streets of Tripoli, in a relentless hunt for the technology and the truth. Shadowed every step of the way by a ruthless CIA hitman, Bald soon finds that the lines between friend and enemy are blurred, and he'll have to call on all his warrior instincts to stay alive. The Chris Ryan Extreme books take you even further into the heart of the mission with even more extreme action, more extreme language and more extreme pace. Like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor, you'll feel part of the team.
In Heroes of the Skies, Michael Ashcroft relays the stories our most courageous airmen. From those who flew when aeroplanes were in their flimsy infancy during the First World War, through the bomber crews and fighter pilots of the Second World War, to heroes of more recent conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Falklands and Afghanistan, every man in this book risked his life for his comrades and his country. In telling the stories of the individual bravery of more than eighty such men, Heroes of the Skies also paints a picture of a century of aerial combat and allows us to celebrate the extraordinary feats of our flying heroes.
1916. The Somme. With over a million casualties, it was the most brutal battle of the First World War. It is a clash that even now, over 90 years later, remains seared into the national consciousness, conjuring up images of muddy trenches and young lives tragically wasted. Its first day, July 1st 1916 - on which the British suffered 57, 470 casualties, including 19, 240 dead - is the bloodiest day in the history of the British armed forces to date. On the German side, an officer famously described it as 'the muddy grave of the German field army'. By the end of the battle, the British had learned many lessons in modern warfare while the Germans had suffered irreplaceable losses, ultimately laying the foundations for the Allies' final victory on the Western Front. Drawing on a wealth of material from the vast Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of the Somme presents an intimate, poignant, sometimes even bleakly funny insight into life on the front line: from the day-to-day struggle of extraordinary circumstances to the white heat of battle and the constant threat of injury or death. Featuring contributions from soldiers of both sides and of differing backgrounds, ranks and roles, many of them previously unpublished, this is the definitive oral history of this unique and terrible conflict.
The devastating effects of the First World War were to change forever the face of rural England. Devon in the Great World War is the first substantial work to explore both the military and social aspects of the greatest and bloodiest of World Wars, charting the changes that this conflict brought upon Devon and it's people.
Details: Most people today think of Winston Churchill as simply the wartime British bulldog - a jowly, cigar-chomping old fighter demanding blood, sweat and tears from his nation. But the well-known story of the elder statesman has overshadowed an earlier part of his life that is no less fascinating, and that has never before been fully told. It is a tale of romance, ambition, intrigue and glamour in Edwardian London, when the city was the centre of the world, and when its best and brightest were dazzled by the meteoric rise to power of a young politician with a famous name and a long aristocratic background. Winston Churchill gave his maiden speech in Parliament at the very beginning of King Edward VII's reign in 1901 when he was only 26. By the time the guns of August 1914 swept away the Edwardian idyll, he was First Lord of the Admiralty - the civilian head of the largest navy in the world. In the intervening years, he often cut a dashing figure, romancing several society beauties, tangling with some of the most powerful political figures of his time, championing major social reforms, becoming one of the leading orators of the day, publishing six books, supervising an armed assault on anarchists, and working harder perhaps than anyone else to prepare his nation for war. Ideal for: People with an interested in Winston Churchill and for those looking to learn more about a great man and historical events. This paperback book has 383 pages and measures: 19.7 x 13 x 2.8cm
Details: But what does your furniture point at?' asks the character Joey in the sitcom Friends on hearing an acquaintance has no TV. It's a good question: since its beginnings during WW2, television has assumed a central role in our houses and our lives, just as satellite dishes and aerials have become features of urban skylines. Television (or 'the idiot's lantern', depending on your feelings about it) has created controversy, brought coronations and World Cups into living rooms, allowed us access to 24hr news and media and provided a thousand conversation starters. As shows come and go in popularity, the history of television shows us how our society has changed. Armchair Nation reveals the fascinating, lyrical and sometimes surprising history of telly, from the first demonstration of television by John Logie Baird (in Selfridges) to the fear and excitement that greeted its arrival in households (some viewers worried it might control their thoughts), the controversies of Mary Whitehouse's 'Clean Up TV' campaign and what JG Ballard thought about Big Brother. Via trips down memory lane with Morecambe and Wise, Richard Dimbleby, David Frost, Blue Peter and Coronation Street, you can flick between fascinating nuggets from the strange side of TV: what happened after a chimpanzee called 'Fred J. Muggs' interrupted American footage of the Queen's wedding, and why aliens might be tuning in to The Benny Hill Show. As Alfred Hitchcock said: 'The invention of television can be compared to the introduction of indoor plumbing. Fundamentally it brought no change in the public's habits. It simply eliminated the necessity of leaving the house. Ideal For: This is a great for television enthusiasts.
One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and louche, courageous and unpredictable, the traitor was a patriot inside, and the villain a hero. The problem for Chapman, his many lovers and his spymasters was knowing who he was. Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create the exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent.