Gutsy & funny
- Daily Telegraph". Catherine Fox is not your typical martial artist. Her initiation into the sacred rites of
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In this official account of Manchester Uniteds 2011-12 season the players bring you inside the dressing room to hear about every moment of their Premier League campaign. With in-depth contributions from the key members of the squad & the backroom staff this book is the definitive account of Uniteds season. ...

The mysterious world of elite combat units blown wide open... Find out how elite teams prepare for Close Quarter Battle. Discover how they launch assaults against pirate boats. Learn the secrets to directing air attack against a key intelligence target. Read how units manage to enter hostile territory undetected & carry out long-ranges reconnaissance mission deep behind enemy lines. In his new book former SAS hero Chris Ryan delves into the secretive world of elite warfare revealing the nuts & bolts of some of the toughest sharpest & most legendary fighting units in existence around the world today. Drawing on his experience as a soldier in the Regiment for a decade as well as his recent unique access to some of the worlds hardest & most sophisticated special police units for his TV show Elite World Cops Chris Ryan explores the secrets of the trade. From the HALO insertion technique to mounting ambushes & escape-&-evasion tips Chris Ryans Fight to Win is the ultimate guide to elite forces training & operations. ...

The Battle of Britain memoir of Hurricane pilot Barry Sutton DFC. At twenty-three years of age Barry Sutton had experienced more than the average person experiences in a lifetime. This book based on a diary he kept during the Battle of Britain covers September 1939 to September 1940 during which time based at North Weald one of Fighter Commands most important fighter stations he shot down three German fighters & was shot down twice himself. It is also the story of his family his wife whom he married in the midst of the epic air battle & who helped him survive the horrific injuries he sustained after bailing out of his burning Hurricane fighter plane. ...

In the summer of 1940 the future of Britain & the free world depended on the morale & skill of the young men of Fighter Comm&. This is their story. The Battle of Britain is one of the most crucial battles ever fought & the victory of Fighter Command over the Luftwaffe has always been celebrated as a classic feat of arms. But as Patrick Bishop shows in this superb history it was also a triumph of the spirit in which the attitudes of the pilots themselves played a crucial part. Reaching beyond the myths to convey the fear & exhilaration of life on this most perilous of frontlines Patrick Bishop offers an intimate & compelling account that is a soaring tribute to the exceptional young men of Fighter Comm&. ...

His profound respect for the RAF aircrews of the Second World Warhas led aviation historian Pat Cunningham DFM to record the experiences of ten of those who volunteered to hazard their lives when bombing operations were Britain's only effective method of striking back. The young men who engaged in flying duties came from disparate backgrounds but having qualified in their specialist categories were skilfully merged as interdependent crew members. The fact that 8 305 of the 55 573 men killed in RAF Bomber Command died in accidents alone highlights the perils they faced. Others included technical malfunctions notwithstanding that each had implicit faith in their supporting ground personnel. Then again the pressure to get them operational meant that many completed the required 30 bombing sorties with less than 500 hours' experience. Even so they were required to navigate over hostile blacked-out terrain in uncertain weather & with few radio aids in machines packed with highly volatile substances. ' We were buoyed up ' as one reflects wryly 'with the supreme confidence of ignorance.' Any ignorance however did not blind them to the odds against them so there was always fear to contend with. 'I cannot conceive ' says another 'that anyone who flew on ops did not feel afraid at some time.' Bomber Command experiences over Central Europe feature largely but operations over Italy the Indian Ocean & Burma have their place This tribute by the author offered as the Aircrew Association fades away is backed by the perspective given by 20 000 hours of operational & non-operational flying gained in 40 years of Service & Civil aviation. ...

Following the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 at which the Americans refused to back Britains plan to invade the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean to be followed by an invasion of the Greek mainland a weakened British attempt was made with disastrous results. The Americans wished to concentrate all their forces in capturing Sicily & then invading southern Italy. In this first comprehensive account of aerial operations over the Eastern Mediterranean/ Aegean the first chapter covers the disastrous Hurricane attack on Crete (Operation Thesis) an attempt to divert Axis attention from Sicily; subsequent chapters deal with British landings on the islands of Kos & Leros when Spitfires vainly attempted to hold the Luftwaffe at bay. Meanwhile Beaufighters flying from North Africa & Cyprus roamed over the Aegean attacking shipping & aerial transports with success but at a heavy cost until the Germans withdrew from the Aegean & the Greek mainl&. In addition specially modified Spitfires are detailed to combat pressurised high-altitude Ju 87 spy planes used by the Luftwaffe based on Crete & the Fleet Air Arm with its Seafires Wildcats & Hellcats over the Aegean. Also the book

Includes:: many first-hand accounts from both British & German aircrew extracted from official reports & memoirs.

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There has been bookshelf after bookshelf of books compiled written & published about British aircraft the Royal Air Force & the activities of its pilots during World War Two. Tales of derring do bravery & gallantry quite rightly litter the bookshelves & libraries but little has appeared in print about the what could be called the unsung heroes those that designed built & maintained the fighting equipment used to eventually defeat the enemy. This is all the more incredible when one realises that there exists a huge archive of images that have survived which clearly show the skills & scale of what went on. These images of war
- many of which are seen here for almost the first time in seventy years
- form a remarkable tribute to the designers engineers & workers who did so much. Following the end of the Great War the Royal Air Force was drastically reduced in both manpower & equipment. The application of a Ten Year Rule in which the British Government foresaw no war being fought during the next ten years resulted in minimal defence expenditure throughout the 1920s. Financial resitrictions went on until the early 1930s when it at last became apparent that Germany was developing expansionist & aggressive tendencies that could no longer be ignored. The British Government & Air Ministry at last began to develop plans of their own to expand & develop the Royal Air Force. A number of plans were approved by the Cabinet but each one was often replaced by a revised one before the original could be completed. Between 1933 & 1939 the Royal Air Force was given higher priority in terms of rearmament plans than the other services. The policy was driven by the pursuit of parity with Germany more than by defence & strike needs for there was no fixed ratio of bombers to fighter aircraft to guide procurement. There could be no expansion without manufacturing capacity & luckily these manufacturers were not only capable of producing but they also recorded much of their activities & remarkably a huge archive of images have survived which clearly show the skills & scale of what went on. These images of war
- many of which are seen here for almost the first time in seventy years
- form a remarkable tribute to the designers engineers & workers who did so much.



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In April 1916 a group of early aviators gathered in the fields beneath the crags & ramparts of Stirling Castle to form what was to become one of the Royal Air Forces most distinguished fighter squadrons. Few squadrons can match the history of 43 Squadron which has included being the first to undertake ground attack operations during the First World War shooting down the first enemy aircraft over England in the Second World War & achieving the remarkable double of shooting down 6 enemy aircraft in one day in both World Wars. Its distinctive emblem of the Fighting Cock embodies the spirit & resilience of a fighter squadron that has been in the vanguard of RAF operations for almost a century. Perhaps the Fighting Cocks finest period occurred during the Battle of Britain when its Hurricanes destroyed 60 enemy aircraft with a further thirteen probables" & twenty-five more damaged. With the advent of the jet age 43 Squadron became the first unit to fly the Hunter seeing operational duties in Aden before re-equipping with the Phantom until the end of the Cold War. This new edition of the Fighting Cocks history brings the story up to date & covers its 20 years of service with the Tornado F3 including the Gulf War NATO operations over Bosnia & the Iraq War. * This new edition of the Fighting Cocks history brings the story up to date * Few squadrons can match the history of 43 Squadron* Fighting Cock embodies the spirit & resilience of a fighter squadron that has been in the vanguard of RAF operations for almost a century" ...

It's 1983 & Daisy Lane is battling to keep her son Jamie under some kind of control. His older brother Eddie is about to come out of prison after a stretch for manslaughter & his release couldn't come soon enough. In Eddie's absence Jamie has matured from a tearaway teenager to a hardened criminal with a psychotic edge to his character. He's responsible for the death of Roy's bit-on-the-side along with a string of other violent episodes. Only Eddie can keep his young brother from acting out his darkest desires. As Eddie emerges from prison he finds that the world has moved on. The criminal underworld is tougher with fewer allegiances than ever before. Eddie decides to reject Roy's offer of help & instead go it alone setting up his own gang
- who plan the most audacious heist Britain has seen in decades. Will Eddie manage to pull it off? Or will his brother be his undoing?
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