Search results for ""Pen Sword Books Ltd""

Which racing motorcycles or sidecar outfits have made the strongest contributions to the Isle of Man TT over the last century? If you had to choose twenty-five individual machines for a fantasy museum, which ones would they be? Matthew Richardson has made his choices, and describes each one in vivid detail in this perceptive and highly illustrated book. He takes into account extraordinary achievements like lap records, race victories, technical innovations and other milestones in TT and motorcycle history. His selection highlights the engineering excellence and feats of riding skill that have marked so many years of racing on the Mountain Course. As well as examining the most significant machines, he includes profiles of the exceptional men who built and rode them. Modern bikes from BMW, Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha are featured alongside the machines that dominated the early years of the TT such as Matchless, Norton and Velocette. The riders who took them to victory include many of the best-known names from every era of the sport-from Stanley Woods, Bob McIntyre and Mike Hailwood to Carl Fogarty, Joey Dunlop, Dave Molyneux and John McGuinness.

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The ancient evidence suggests that international commerce supplied Roman government with up to a third of the revenues that sustained their empire. In ancient times large fleets of Roman merchant ships set sail from Egypt on voyages across the Indian Ocean. They sailed from Roman ports on the Red Sea to distant kingdoms on the east coast of Africa and the seaboard off southern Arabia. Many continued their voyages across the ocean to trade with the rich kingdoms of ancient India. Freighters from the Roman Empire left with bullion and returned with cargo holds filled with valuable trade goods, including exotic African products, Arabian incense and eastern spices. This book examines Roman commerce with Indian kingdoms from the Indus region to the Tamil lands. It investigates contacts between the Roman Empire and powerful African kingdoms, including the Nilotic regime that ruled Meroe and the rising Axumite Realm. Further chapters explore Roman dealings with the Arab kingdoms of south Arabia, including the Saba-Himyarites and the Hadramaut Regime, which sent caravans along the incense trail to the ancient rock-carved city of Petra. The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean is the first book to bring these subjects together in a single comprehensive study that reveals Romes impact on the ancient world and explains how international trade funded the Legions that maintained imperial rule. It offers a new international perspective on the Roman Empire and its legacy for modern society.

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The concluding part of John D Grainger''s history of the Seleukids traces the tumultuous last century of their empire. In this period it was riven by dynastic disputes, secessions and rebellions, the religiously-inspired insurrection of the Jewish Maccabees, civil war and external invasion from Egypt in the West and the Parthians in the East. By the 80s BC, the empire was disintegrating, internally fractured and squeezed by the converging expansionist powers of Rome and Parthia. This is a fittingly, dramatic and colourful conclusion to John Grainger''s masterful account of this once-mighty empire.

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WRECK RECOVERY IN BRITAIN THEN AND NOW By Peter J. Moran The last 50 years have seen an incredible interest in the excavation of crashed aircraft. Schoolboys of the war period eagerly sought and swapped souvenirs, purloined from crashes under the eyes of the police or RAF guards but, after the surface wreckage was cleared away by Maintenance Units, no one realised that even greater treasures remained underground.   Whereas on the Continent the Missing Research and Enquiry Unit left no stone unturned to try to trace the thousands of airmen who still remained missing, strangely enough no similar operation was carried out by the RAF on crash sites in the United Kingdom. Many of these still contained the mortal remains of pilots whose names had been added to the Memorial to the Missing unveiled at Runnymede in 1953. Perhaps, because the war in the air that followed the Battle of Britain had shifted its focus to Europe, it appeared to fade from people’s memory that a hard-fought battle had taken place over the United Kingdom in 1940.   It is difficult to understand today how it took so long for the realisation to sink in that aircraft wreckage still remained buried. When it did, there followed what can only be described as an unholy scramble to find crash sites and dig them up, heavy plant being employed to make it easier and quicker. At the height of this unfettered exploration period during the 1970s, there were over 30 `aviation archaeology’ groups, or loose affiliations of like-minded individuals at work, particularly in the counties of Essex, Kent and Sussex over which the main battle had been fought. Unrecovered human remains were now being found which understandably raised criticism from some quarters but was defended by the argument that missing airmen should have been recovered by the authorities in former years. Inevitably order had to be restored and the Ministry of Defence stepped in with a `code of conduct’ for digging up crashed aircraft, a measure that was reinforced by an Act of Parliament in 1986. Thereafter a process was introduced whereby the Ministry issued licences before a wreck site could be excavated, and every licence application, whether granted or refused, is listed for the first time in this book. In the end, after all the accessible locations had been exhausted, the exploration of wartime crash sites in Britain largely came to a close. Size: 12” × 8½" - 232 Pages – Over 600 Colour and Black and White Illustrations ISBN: 9 781870 067 942 — Price: £29.95

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First published in 1938 "I Knew Hitler" is the missing link in the literary trail which traces the fortunes of Adolf Hitler from Linz to Berlin. There are surprisingly few personal accounts of life with Hitler from inside the inner circle during the years before he seized power and besides Goebbels' diaries Ludecke is by far the most important of them. Dedicated by its author to the memory of Ernst Roehm, the publication of this brand new edition means that Ludecke's explosive memoir is back in print for the first time in 75 years. Kurt Ludecke was a former confident of Hitler's who had the misfortune to find himself on the wrong side of the political gulf which led to the 1934 blood purge better known outside of Germany as "The Night Of The Long Knives. As the power struggle between the SS and the SA threatened to engulf him, Hitler finally took decisive action and was personally involved in the vicious in fighting which saw the arrest and execution of many senior SA figures including Roehm himself. Ludecke was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time and was actually incarcerated twice on Hitler's orders before finally escaping to Switzerland. For many years this fascinating and highly readable account of life with Hitler's inner circle was dismissed by the academic world as a heavily biased and therefore unreliable as a main primary resource. However a number of recent scholarly assessments have confirmed what most historians suspected all along; Ludecke is in fact an excellent and highly reliable original source. The rehabilitation of Ludecke is a timely development as he provides the only detailed account surrounding the actions of Adolf Hitler into the world of Adolf Hitler as he took the first steps from Landsberg prison to achieve power through the horse trading following the ill starred election of 1933. Ludecke also throws a powerful new light on the events of the Night Of the Long Knives and gives the clearest indication that we have today that there was indeed a genuine SA plot to overthrow Hitler and set the party on a more rigorous route towards a truly National socialist state. Ludecke is indispensible reading for anyone with an interest in the political history of the Third Reich.

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War Trials tells the gripping and in-depth true story of a British soldier’s role in the drowning of an Iraqi teenager in May 2003, the devastating investigation and resulting court martial. This narrative non-fiction tracks the soldier’s life from tight-knit broken family home in Merseyside through deadly urban conflict in the Middle East, to a different battle fought against PTSD while he awaited a military tribunal back in the UK. The military court case in 2006 marked the first of its kind relating to the Iraq war and a case that opened the flood gates of multiple investigations and inquiries into the conduct of soldiers overseas. Based upon rigorous new research, this book’s untold personal story explores the horrors of battle and the chaos of a post-war city and a young soldier’s struggle against depression, suicide attempts and deep sense of being let down by the army he sought to serve. This soldier would eventually endure numerous investigations and face the threat of the International Criminal Court for war crimes but these are the shocking events that started it all. It is the compelling story of a contentious military campaign with little preparation for the disastrous fall out; the soldiers pushed to the limit who maintained a wall of a silence after doing the unthinkable; and a floating body of dead child who came to symbolise a generation lost to war.

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Come with us on a beer-fuelled journey crisscrossing the globe, taking in every continentand more than 40 different countries, as we discover the huge range of different brewsavailable today around the world, explore their backstories, take a deep dive into thehistory of beer, going back 13,000 years to the dawn of civilisation, and come right up to the21st century to discover beer styles invented only a few years ago.No matter if you are a beginner in beer, just starting to discover the amazing variety ofbeverages made from grain and yeast that can be found from pole to pole, or anexperienced beer drinker who knows their porter from their pilsner and their bock fromtheir bitter, there will be stories within these pages that will educate, amaze, amuse andinspire you. Around the World in 80 Beers travels from the pine forest of Finland to thejungles of Brazil, and the moors of Scotland to the rocky coasts of New Zealand. It covers allthe great brewing cities of the world Munich, Pilsen

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Barbara Villiers was a woman so beautiful, so magnetic and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain. Her beauty is legendary: she became the muse of artists such as Peter Lely, the inspiration of writers such as John Dryden and the lover of John Churchill, the future great military leader whom we also know as the 1st Duke of Marlborough. Her greatest amorous conquest was King Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with whom she had a tempestuous and passionate relationship for the better part of a decade. But this loveliest of Stuart-era ladies had a dark side. She hurt and humiliated her husband, Roger Palmer, for decades with her unashamedly adulterous lifestyle, she plotted the ruin of her enemies, constantly gambled away vast sums of money, is remembered for the destruction of the Tudor-era Nonsuch Palace, and was known to unleash terrible rages when crossed. Crassly lampooned by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, and subject

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The overriding image of the First World War is the bloody stalemate of the Western Front, but although much of the action did occur on land, the overall shape of the war even the inevitability of British participation arose out of its maritime character. It was essentially a struggle about access to worldwide resources, most clearly seen in the desperate German attempts to deal with the American industrial threat, which ultimately levered the United States into the war, and thus a consequence of British sea control. This radical new book concentrates on the way in which each side tried to use or deny the sea to the other, and in so doing it describes rapid wartime changes not only in ship and weapon technology but also in the way naval warfare was envisaged and fought. Combat produced many surprises: some, like the impact of the mine and torpedo, are familiar, but this book also brings to light many previously unexplored subjects, like creative new tactical practices and improved command and control. The contrast between expectation and reality had enormous consequences not only for the course of the war but also for the way navies developed afterwards. This book melds strategic, technical, and tactical aspects to reveal the First World War from a fresh perspective, but also demonstrates how its perceived lessons dominated the way navies prepared for the Second.

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When Sophia Dorothea of Celle married her first cousin, the future King George I, she was an unhappy bride. Filled with dreams of romance and privilege, she hated the groom she called pig snout and wept at news of her engagement. In the austere court of Hanover, the vibrant young princess found herself ignored and unwanted. Bewildered by dusty protocol and regarded as a necessary evil by her husband, Sophia Dorothea grew lonely as he gallivanted with his mistress under her nose. When Sophia Dorothea plunged headlong into a passionate and dangerous affair with Count Phillip Christoph von K nigsmarck, the stage was set for disaster. This dashing soldier was as celebrated for his looks as his bravery, and when he and Sophia Dorothea fell in love, they were dicing with death. Watched by a scheming and manipulative countess who had ambitions of her own, it was only a matter of time before scandal gripped the House of Hanover and tore the marriage of the heir to the British throne and his unhappy wife apart. Divorced and disgraced, Sophia Dorothea was locked away in a gilded cage for 30 years, whilst her lover faced an even darker fate. The story of Sophia:Mother of Kings haunted George I to his dying day.

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The purpose of this book is to take what we think we know about the Roman Conquest of Britain from historical sources, and compare it with the archaeological evidence, which is often contradictory. Archaeologists and historians all too often work in complete isolation from each other and this book hopes to show the dangers of neglecting either form of evidence. In the process it challenges much received wisdom about the history of Roman Britain. Birgitta Hoffmann tackles the subject by taking a number of major events or episodes (such as Caesar's incursions, Claudius' invasion, Boudicca's revolt), presenting the accepted narrative as derived from historical sources, and then presenting the archaeological evidence for the same. The result of this innovative approach is a book full of surprising and controversial conclusions that will appeal to the general reader as well as those studying or teaching courses on ancient history or archaeology.

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A wall in the distant north cuts the world in two. Ruthless seaborne warriors raid the coasts from their war galleys, yearning to regain lost glories. A young nobleman and his kin are slaughtered under a banner of truce within a mighty castle. A warrior king becomes a legend when he smites his foe with one swing of his axe during a nation-forging battle. Yet this isn't Westeros - it's Scotland. Game of Thrones is history re-imagined as fantasy; _Beyond the Wall_ turns the tables, using George R. R. Martin's extraordinary fictional universe as a way to understand the driving forces and defining moments from Scotland's story. Why were castles so important? Was there a limit to the powers a medieval king could use - or abuse? What was the reality of being under siege? Was there really anything that can compare to the destructive force of dragons? By joining forces, Westeros and Scotland hold the answers. Writer and presenter David C. Weinczok draws on a vast array of characters, events, places, and themes from Scottish history that echo _Game of Thrones_ at every dramatic turn. Visit the castle where the real Red Wedding transpired, encounter the fearsome historical tribes beyond Rome's great wall, learn how a blood-red heart became the most feared sigil in Scotland, and much more. By journey's end, the cogs in the wheels of Martin's world and Scottish history will be laid bare, as well as the stories of those who tried to shape - and sometimes even break - them.

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Pestilence entered The ordinary pursuits of society were paralysed; all previously-formed plans of happiness, business, trade, occupation, and domestic arrangement, were checked as cruelly and abruptly as if every principle of the human mind were in a moment subverted The physicians saw that human aid was vain, and that destruction inevitably awaited all who approached the infected. Terrific mortality! Appalling scourge of the human race! George W.M. Reynolds Throughout history humankind has faced a number of deadly pandemics and such diseases have left their mark in history books, fine art, novels, life writing, and newspapers. This book collects together writings from across the centuries which illuminate people's experiences with plagues and pandemics. From Ancient Greece there is Thucydides on the Athenian Plague; Procopius gives his account of Plague of Justinian; also included is many more extracts of writings on plagues from medieval and early modern writers. Readers can enjoy several works of fiction including an abridged version of Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826), a reproduction in full of Jack London's Scarlet Plague (1912), as well as short pandemic stories from Edgar Allan Poe, George W.M. Reynolds, Daniel Defoe, and William Harrison Ainsworth.

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Among the most appalling cruelties perpetrated throughout the course of the Second WorldWar was undoubtedly that of human medical and military experimentation conducted uponboth living and deceased human beings. The various Nazi human experimentationprogrammes were initially carried out not so much in the pursuit of any particular scientificdiscipline, but largely as a result of the Third Reich's obsession with race and eugenics.However, this criminal sub-discipline of the Nazi fascination, with its warped racialideologies, was excused as little other than collateral damage by many of the Nazi physiciansand their assistants.Germany's Axis ally, the Japanese Empire, notorious for its cruelty and sadism ran its ownindependent programmes of human experimentation such as Unit 731 where human beingswere not only subject to the most appalling abuses but were injected with cocktails of poisonsand/or diseases and in some instances were dissected while fully conscious without anyanaesthesia bei

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In the Summer of 1972, 14-year-old Judith Roberts took off for a bike ride within the vicinity of her Staffordshire home. Her body was discovered after a three-day manhunt, concealed from view in a thick privet having been brutally attacked. The community of Tamworth was rocked by the news of her death and an outcry for justice ensued. Within weeks of her murder, an impressionable and troubled soldier, based in the nearby barracks, 17-year-old Andrew Evans, walked into a police station and confessed to the killing. Relentlessly interviewed for hours on end without representation or an appropriate adult present, Andrew was swiftly charged with Judith's murder. Despite attempting to recount his statement and a legal defence at trial that defied the prosecution's arguments that Andrew Evans was guilty, a judge sentenced him to life behind bars. He was eventually acquitted in 1997 in what was, at the time, Britain's longest miscarriage of justice. While Andrew Evans fought for his free

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When Hitler came to power in 1933 he promised the German people a technocratic state where science, technology and education would grow and flourish. Unfortunately, any attempts to achieve such a goal were dependent on his educational background which was fundamentally flawed and severely distorted. Hitler's schooling was a troubled time where he struggled with many subjects. In particular he found conflicting views between science and religion so difficult to understand it caused him to run his head against the wall. He was also heavily educated in subjects like myths, magic, pseudo-sciences and the occult which would become his versions of alternative science and alternative facts. These alternatives remained with him into adulthood where, as Fuhrer, his mentality and mindset towards science was highlighted when he announced: A new age of magic interpretation of the world is coming, of interpretation in terms of the will and not the intelligence.Hitler's ideology and rise to power

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Hitler's career remains one of the most extraordinary in world history. No one else has gone from sleeping on park benches to become a world leader. After the First World War he became involved in extremist politics first on the far left and then the far right. It is often assumed that Hitler's ambitions were never realistic and his failure was inevitable. This book challenges that view and suggests a number of missed opportunities or misjudgements that might have led to a different result. Michael FitzGerald shows how Hitler's personal defects contributed considerably to Germany's defeat. In addition to the military mistakes he made a series of political, economic and foreign policy blunders were major factors in his failure to achieve his goals.

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The Military History of Late Rome 565-602 provides a fresh analysis of the Roman Empire from the reign of Phocas (602-10) until the death of Heraclius (610-41). This was an era of unprecedented upheavals which is usually considered to have resulted in the end of antiquity. The usurpations of Phocas and Heraclius led to the collapse of the Roman defences; The Persians conquered Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt; The Avars and Slavs ravaged the Balkans; The Lombards held the upper hand in Italy; the Visigoths conquered Spain; But then happened one of the most remarkable reversals of fortune in the history of mankind. Heraclius began his holy war against the fire-worshippers. He launched a very effective counterattack against the Persians as a result of which the Romans not only defeated the Persians but actually even extended their domains at their expense, and not only this, because by 633 Heraclius was already restoring the Roman fortunes in the Balkans. This volume revises many of the previously held views of how this took place and what actually happened. The Roman armies seemed invincible and then happened yet another great reversal of fortune - the Muslims began their jihad to conquer the world. The author provides a fresh analysis of all of these upheavals; explains in detail why these reversals of fortune happened; what enabled the Romans to defeat the Persians; and why the Romans lost when they fought against the Muslims and, conversely, why the Muslims were so successful. This was an era of epic campaigns and battles all of which are explained in unprecedented detail. The epic campaigns needed equally talented commanders who include, for example, Heraclius, Chosroes II Parwez, Shahrbaraz, Shahin, Abu Bakr, Umar, Abu Ubaydah, and Khalid b. al-Walid, the Sword of Allah. This is revisionist history writing at its best.

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_Taylor Swift for Adults_ is a tantalising opening salvo in Swiftology - the study of the work of Taylor Swift. While Swift's private life has been covered to death, her talent as a lyricist has rarely been analysed. Until now. Swifties are well aware that she's a lyricist par excellence but this book makes that case to the unbelievers. Swift's gift as a songwriter is not merely sentimentality and circumstance - and this book takes a deep look at her 10 albums to isolate what makes her a beloved lyricist for millions. Any serious study of a lyricist or poet needs to establish what are the tropes, the patterns, and the style of that artist, and this book does precisely that. With careful attention to poetic detail, the scansion, flow, and form of her writing, this brings out those details that pass by in a flash on the radio, bringing them fully into focus. Many have made the argument that Swift is a gifted lyricist - in online forums and YouTube comments - but this is the first time

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For many wargamers, WW2 is synonymous with large fleets of tanks and other AFVs battling each other across the European countryside or amidst the rubble of cities. Here Andy Singleton lends the benefit of his experience as a professional modeller and painter to help you get your own armoured force ready for battle. Andy starts by discussing the tools and materials required and explaining some basic techniques, such as dry-brushing and stippling. He then moves on to detailed step-by-step instructions for the main paint schemes of each of the major combatants, British, American, German and Soviet Union. Each step is illustrated by a colour photo, paint number and the type and size of brush used, and there are variants for use with or without an airbrush. Adding national emblems and other markings, either freehand or by using transfers, is also covered. In addition to the basic paint scheme there is guidance for adding weathering effects and wear and tear, such as dust, chipped paint or e

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Tracing your Yorkshire ancestors using the internet has never been easier, with literally millions of records available to explore. But with so much material available, it can be difficult to know how to get started and what records to use. Rachel Bellerby's brand new guide is a follow-up to the best-selling Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors and is packed with up-to-date information on finding your Yorkshire forebears online. From the basics of birth, marriage and death, through migration and education, and looking at the tough times such as poverty and ill health, Rachel Bellerby guides us through the thousands of websites available, with tips and advice from family history professionals around Yorkshire. The themed chapters make it easy to decide what information you would like to find out and the best websites to use. With step-by-step guidance on smart searching and time saving tips, this guide has everything you need to enjoy the journey of tracing your Yorkshire ancestors on t

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The Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment was a Canadian armoured regiment attached to the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade which landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in support of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and then fought through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany until VE-Day. As an independent armoured regiment, it was assigned to support various infantry formations. As such, it fought the first major tank battle on European soil when it went up against the panzers and panzergrenadiers of the 12.SS-Panzerdivision (Hitlerjugend) on 7 June 1944. Its tanks entered Caen on 9 July and then took part in the advance to and the clearing of the town of Falaise. From there, the regiment pursued the retreating German forces towards the Seine River at Rouen. In a subsequent book, the author will explore the regiment''s battles through Antwerp, the Scheldt, the Rhine River and the Hochwald Gap.

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This book is about how the dreams of exploring other worlds became a reality with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. The problems encountered in the development of the spacecraft, including the disastrous fire aboard Apollo 1 which resulted in the deaths of the three American astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chafee are covered. When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969, many people thought that this was the first time man had visited its nearest neighbour. Although this was the first manned landing, there had been forty-one missions prior to this by both the Americans and the Russians. This book is about all those missions and the sixty-five missions that followed. Also included, although in much lesser detail, is the part the Russians played in the formative years of the space race' and the problems they encountered, culminating in the successful Apollo/Soyuz program which proved that the two super-powers could work together. The l

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1326 was one of the most dramatic years in English history. The queen of England, Isabella of France, invaded the country with an army of mercenaries to destroy her husband''s powerful and detested lover, Hugh Despenser the Younger, and brought down her husband King Edward II in the process. It was also a year, however, when the majority of English people carried on living their normal, ordinary lives: Eleyne Glaswreghte ran her own successful glass-making business in London, Jack Cressing the master carpenter repaired the beams in a tower of Kenilworth Castle, Alis Coleman sold her best ale at a penny and a half for a gallon in Byfleet, and Will Muleward made the king ''laugh greatly'' when he spent time with him at a wedding in Marlborough. England sweltered in one of the hottest, driest summers of the Middle Ages, a whale washed ashore at Walton-on-the-Naze, and the unfortunate John Toly died when he relieved himself out of the window of his London house at midnight, and lost his ba

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This is an adventure story aboutRoyal Marine Commandos going to war during the Falklands War of 1982. Myth and legend. War is an odd thing. It brings out thevery best in a person and probably the converse, too. It is also the story of Argentinian Marines whoalso went to war. The very same war and eventually the very same battle. Memories are still verymuch alive. But it is curious that people witness the exact same events but remember somethingquite different. This book allows for these differences, accepting them as truths.The dark stormystage is set and the players are not even aware they are going to war. One by one, they tell theirstory of this great Homerian adventure. But it is not a story of heroics and daring-do. It is a story ofquite normal people who, through the accident of birth dates, meet in the absurd position of fightingeach other for their very lives. Some are injured, some die. Some are deeply affected by the war. If there is acase for the Universal Soldier', it is tr

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Throughout history women, from the lowliest of the working classes to the highest echelons of society have been accused of crimes ranging from witchcraft and vampirism to treason and mass murder. Such accusations stuck particularly when it came to women who held power the names that we most associate with maligned women today include those that we will all have heard of. The infamy of women such as Lucrezia Borgia and Elizabeth Bathory have come down to us throughout the centuries and even in the modern world, many women are needlessly and falsely vilified. But just how true were these accusations? _The Most Maligned Women in History_takes a look at the lives of a number of women whose crimes have been seen as some of the most heinous, just how true the rumours were and whether their reputations are deserved.

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Illegitimate son to Edward IV and the uncle of Henry VIII, Arthur Plantagenet's life is an intriguing story. Raised in his father's court, he then became a trusted member of Henry VII's household and after his death, was a prominent figure at the court of Henry VIII. Henry VIII treated his uncle well in the early years of his reign, making him vice-admiral and then Lord Deputy of Calais in 1533. Arthur did the best he could in his new position in Calais over seven years, including trying to maintain a relationship with Thomas Cromwell against a background of religious change, but there were numerous complaints about him and his paranoid nephew's suspicions over his loyalty grew - culminating in Lisle's arrest and imprisonment for two years with no legal reason. Arthur was released from the Tower in 1542, yet tragically died after receiving a diamond ring from his nephew. He was so excited that his heart - that gentlest living heart' - failed soon after. We owe much of what we know about Henry VIII's uncle to the seizure and preservation of the Lisle Letters, an impressive collection of correspondence obtained at his arrest that has miraculously survived. Not only do they give details of Arthur's life, but they are an amazing insight into the religious, political, culture and social background of the 16th century. Placed as he was, Arthur Plantagenet's story gives a whole new, fresh perspective on a turbulent yet vibrant period of history.

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Englandspiel Nordpol, or Operation North Pole, was a successful Second World War counterintelligence operation conducted by Germany''s military intelligence (the Abwehr) between 1942 and 1944.On the night of 6-7 November 1941 two SOE agents, Huub Lauwers and Thys Taconis were parachuted into the Netherlands and dropped over Stegerveld, near Ommen. Lauwers was captured on 6 March 1942, whilst Taconis was captured 3 days later on 9 March. Lauwers was persuaded to send messages back to London by the Germans, in which he intentionally left out two security checks. This should have automatically sounded ''alarm bells'' with those who received the messages, but for some inexplicable reason, it did not. Whether this was just a genuine mistake or something more sinister has never been fully ascertained. After all, security checks were in place to ensure that messages received from agents in the field were genuine and were part of the SOE''s own transmission protocol. As no one in London real

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Gold is not what we think. It is usually discussed in the context of wealth and art but this book has a broader subject, so fundamental that it has been largely unremarked. Informed by a mass of recent discoveries and a South American indigenous perspective, it offers a new way of understanding the history of civilization. Gold has been coinage, treasure and adornment. But it has been much more, as the hidden driver of wars and revolutions, the rise and fall of empires and the transformation of societies. As the sun travelled east to west across the sky, gold, incorruptible and corrupting, flowed west to east, hand to hand across the world.That flow has brought empires to grow and collapse and driven plunder, conquest and colonization. It brought about wars and revolutions, empowered new forms of arts and science and created the capitalist consumer economy that dominates us now. All the gold people ever shaped still exists, shining as new; it can be mislaid but never decays. Right

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Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace is the story of a young Canadian who in a short time, and for a brief time, mastered Britain's most legendary war machine, the Spitfire. It is also the story of a young English woman who was for a short time his wife, and for a long time his widow, and of their son who for much of his life knew little about his father and is still learning about him. Their stories, based on their letters, diaries, and photos, unfold in richly detailed context as the setting moves from Montreal in Nelson's youth, England in the last years of peace, the first (and largely forgotten) months of the air war against Nazi Germany, Canada during the war, and finally to post-war England. William Henry Nelson was a first-generation Canadian Jew whose family name was originally Katznelson. Like many young Canadians in the 1930s, he wanted to fly. Nelson began work in Montreal's aircraft industry, but in 1936, at the age of nineteen, he left a humdrum life on the ground to go to En

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_The Lost Years_ tells the story of Roger Rothwell, captured by the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941 during the fall of Hong Kong, along with 900 of his fellow soldiers. He was one of only 150 who walked through the camp gates to freedom in 1945. The book describes his four long years of captivity in Shamsuipo and Argyle Street prison camps in beautifully written and sometimes harrowing detail. Experiences are told from notes made in a secretly kept diary of Roger's incarceration, the discovery of which would have meant his inevitable death at the hands of his captors. Roger recounts his enlisting in the British Army as a newly qualified teacher at the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, his time training for combat, his long and arduous journey to Hong Kong via Africa, his capture and eventual release, and finally, the journey home. _The Lost Years_ is a book which will fascinate those interested in World War Two, the bombing of London during the Blitz, and the experiences of Priso

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Paul Reed's latest battlefield walking guide covers the site of the largest amphibious invasion of all time, the first step in the Allied liberation of France and the rest of northwest Europe. The places associated with the landings on the Normandy coast on 6 June 1944 are among the most memorable that a battlefield visitor can explore. They give a fascinating insight into the scale and complexity of the Allied undertaking and the extent of the German defences - and into the critical episodes in the fighting that determined whether the Allies would gain a foothold or be thrown back into the sea. All the most important sites are featured, from Pegasus Bridge, Merville Battery, Ouistrehem and Longues Battery to Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah Beaches, Pointe du Hoc and Sainte-Mere-Eglise. There are twelve walks, and each one is prefaced by a historical section describing in vivid detail what happened in each location and what remains to be seen. Information on the many battlefield monuments and the military cemeteries is included, and there are over 120 illustrations. Walking D-Day introduces the visitor not only to the places where the Allies landed and first clashed with the Germans defenders but to the Normandy landscape over which the critical battles that decided the course of the war were fought.

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'Angus Konstam's gripping account tells the story of this crucial but under-studied naval battle, and explains why the hopes of the German Kriegsmarine went down with their last great ship; only 37 of the German battlecruiser's 1700 crew were saved.' - The Nautical Magazine'Angus Konstam's book is an excellent read and strongly recommended...thoughtful and totally engrossing...If you are interested in the Royal Navy in the Second World War, the Arctic convoy campaign or capital ship actions, The Battle of North Cape is well worth its cover price.' - Naval ReviewOn 25 December 1943 the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst slipped out Altenfjord in Norway to attack Artic convoy JW55B which was carrying vital war supplies to the Soviet Union. But British naval intelligence knew of the Scharnhorst's mission before she sailed and the vulnerable convoy was protected by a large Royal Naval force including the battleship Duke of York. In effect the Scharnhorst was sailing into a trap. One of the most compelling naval dramas of the Second World War had begun.ANGUS KONSTAM is a highly respected and widely published military historian. The body of his work encompasses everything from ancient Greece to the Second World War. However, his main field is maritime and naval history. He has published books on Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate, The History of Pirates, PT Boats: US Naval Torpedo Boats, The History of Shipwrecks, Hunt the Bismarck and the 7th U-Boat Flotilla. His most recent books include Salerno 1943: The Allied Invasion of Italy and Piracy.

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At 21:00 on 9 May 1940 Codeword Danzig was issued alerting Adolf Hitler's airborne troops that they were about to spearhead an attack on Belgium and the Netherlands. The following day his blitzkrieg rolled forward striking the British Expeditionary Force and the French armies in Belgium and in northern France at Sedan. The desperate attempts of the allied armies to stem the Nazi tide proved futile and, once their reserves had been exhausted and the remaining forces cut off, Paris lay open. By early June, it was all over - trapped British, Belgian and French troops were forced to evacuate Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne and the defeated French army agreed to an armistice leaving the country divided in two. This dramatic story is shown in a sequence of over 150 historic photographs that Anthony Tucker-Jones he has selected for this memorable book. The images he has chosen cover every aspect of this extraordinary campaign, but his main focus is on the vital role played by the armoured fighting vehicles of both sides. The book is a graphic record of the destruction wrought by the Wehrmacht's lightning offensive through the Low Countries and France.

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This unique book, now republished, was the first of its kind to be published on British aircraft of the Second World War. Aviation enthusiasts and aero-modellers can see British aircraft as they really were, through magnificently reproduced colour photographs. Each of the forty-nine types of aircraft is accompanied by a brief 'biography' together with tables of the most important marks and their specifications, engine, span, length, height, weight, crew number, maximum speed, service ceiling, normal range and armament. There is also a section on British aircraft in action, which includes accounts of outstanding exploits by the pilots of different types. John Frayn Turner, the well-known aviation author, has chosen the pictures and provided the text.

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Sunset, 8 June 1982, East Falkland. Eight specially trained Royal Marines infiltrate Goat Ridge, a long rocky hilltop between Mount Harriet and Two Sisters which are occupied by a battalion of 600 Argentine infantry. The next day, from their hiding place just metres away from the enemy, they note and sketch the Argentine positions, then withdraw as stealthily as they had come. Their daring patrol provides essential intelligence that guided the British assault which overwhelmed the Argentine defences two days later.This was just one example of the missions undertaken by the Royal Marines Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre during the Falklands War, all of which are described in graphic detail in Rod Boswell's eyewitness account. Using his own recollections and those of his comrades, he describes their operations in the Falklands the observation posts set up in the no man's land between San Carlos and Port Stanley, their role in the raid at Top Malo House, and the reconnaissance patrols t

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John Lambert was a renowned naval draughtsman, whose plans were highly valued for their accuracy and detail by modelmakers and enthusiasts. By the time of his death in 2016 he had produced over 850 sheets of drawings, many of which have never been published. These were acquired by Seaforth and this title is the fourth of a planned series of albums on selected themes, reproducing complete sheets at a large page size, with expert commentary and captioning. Trawlers and drifters served in both world wars in their thousands; and, in their tens of thousands, so did their fishermen crews. Indeed, these humble craft were the most numerous vessel type used by the Royal Navy in both wars, and were the answer to the strategic or tactical conundrums posed by new technology of mines and submarines. In his accompanying text, Steve Dunn examines the ships themselves, their design, construction, arming, operations and development; and he also relates how the trawlermen and skippers, from the age-old fishing ports of Grimsby, Hull, Lowestoft ad Great Yarmouth, Aberdeen and Fleetwood, came to be part of the Royal Navy, and describes the roles they played, the conditions they served under and the bravery they showed. The book takes some 30 large sheets of drawings which John Lambert completed of these vessels and divides into two sections. The first part tells how the fishing fleet came to be an integral part of the Royal Navy's pre-1914 plans and details some of the activities and actions of trawlers and drifters at war in 1914-18\. And the second investigates the armed fishing fleet in the struggle of 1939-45. These wonderfully detailed drawings, which are backed by a selection of photographs and a detailed complementary text, offer a superb technical archive for enthusiasts and ship modellers, but the book also tells a fascinating story of the extraordinary contribution the vessels and their crews made to the defeat of Germany in two world wars.

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The book covers the story of Britains search for its identity before and after the arrival of Christianity, leading up to the invention of the seeds of the Brutus myth in the 600s AD. It charts the development of his myth into a fully blown adventure story under the pen of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 1100s. It then explores Brutuss story through the Middle Ages, as the centrepiece of Britains national consciousness and an important tool in royal and national propaganda and foreign policy (i.e. his myth was used as an excuse for invading Wales and Scotland). The book then charts the way his myth dropped out of mainstream politics and history after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and lived on in a new afterlife in literature. Though no longer part of the way Britain sees itself now (though maybe this book will change that!), the Brutus myth has been used in many alternative theories about Britains origins and is still believed in by a small but hard core of Christians who see him as the divine instrument by which the ancestors of the Americans reached Britain in the first place

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109s! Two, head-on views diving from my left, blinking with light. Curling blue tracers strand about me as I turn towards them. A third got my sight on him for an instant before he went under my nose. My helmets too big for me. Turn pressure pulls it over my eyes. Can't see. Stupid. Push it up and straighten out: that's better. Two more 109s, from the right this time. Turn in towards them. Can't turn sharply enough. Damn the helmet! Another 109 below me. Drop on to his tail. I'll get him all right. My aircraft shudders and shudders and shudders and shudders as I pour bullets and shells into it. It bursts with black smoke and topples over sideways.' Malta Spitfire Pilot is the journal of Flight Lieutenant Denis Barnham. Having joined the RAF at the outbreak of war, Denis grew from an inexperienced young pilot into a battle-hardened Spitfire ace - most of which occurred in the 200 gruelling operational hours that followed his arrival on the embattled island of Malta, in a period of just ten weeks in the spring and summer of 1942. Malta was of great strategic importance to the Allies and was pivotal to their success in North Africa as it provided the perfect launching pad for aircraft to attack Axis supply ships in the Mediterranean. As a direct result, the island, in turn, suffered intensive aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica. This memoir was written by the author as he and his fellow pilots battled against terrible odds and under constant attack. It is one man's dramatic and moving account of the air battle to save Malta.

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The women of the Third Reich were a vital part in a complex and vilified system. What was their role within its administration, the concentration camps, and the Luftwaffe and militia units and how did it evolve in the way it did? We hear from women who issued typewritten dictates from above through to those who operated telephones, radar systems, fought fires as the cities burned around them, drove concentration camp inmates to their deaths like cattle, fired Anti-Aircraft guns at Allied aircraft and entered the militias when faced with the impending destruction of what should have been a one thousand-year Reich. Every testimony is unique, each person a victim of circumstance entwined within the thorns of an ideological obligation. In an interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's private secretary, she remembers: There was so much hatred within it's hard to understand how the state functioned I am convinced all this infighting and competition from the males in Hitler's circle was highly detrimental to its downfall'. Women of the Third Reich provides an intriguing, humorous, brutal, shocking and unrelenting narrative journey into the half lights of the hell of human consciousness - sometimes at its worst.

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During the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Heinz Guderian's Second Panzer Group played a leading role, cutting through the defences on the border, then taking part in the massive encirclement battles near Minsk, Smolensk, and Kiev. The extraordinary speed of the advance reflects the experience of the Wehrmacht as a whole during the first phase of the war on the Eastern Front. That is why David Higgins’s graphic narrative, which describes how Guderian’s forces achieved enormous success before they were forced to halt, is such compelling reading. It is a fascinating story, vividly told. Drawing on a wide range of official German and Soviet records, he reconstructs the entire course of Second Panzer Group's advance, covering each stage in unprecedented detail. His narrative offers a German perspective and an inside view of what the opposing commanders knew during each operation and shows how important logistics became as the German supply lines stretched deep into the Soviet Union. It also explains how Soviet resistance and reinforcements, declining strength and the onset of the Russian winter combined to bring Guderian to a stop at Tula where he was relieved of his command. The high hopes with which the German army had launched the campaign were dashed only a few months later before Moscow. This in-depth study the of operations of Second Panzer Group gives the reader a telling insight into what went wrong.

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It was Tuesday, 15 July 1919 and for the residents of Clifden on Ireland's west coast this was not to be a normal day. Just before 08.40 hours, descending out of the gloom, came a large, twin-engine aeroplane lining up for final approach. One or two on-lookers recognised the danger straight away for this was an area of soft bog, but their attempts to alert the pilot were in vain. The aircraft began to sink and, with a squelch, came to a sudden stop, the tail rearing up in the air. Dazed and with fuel filling the cockpit the two-man crew scrambled out, grabbing what they could. After a flight lasting 16 hours and 28 minutes, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown had won the race to be the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic. It was a rough ending for a race that began in April 1913 when Lord Rothermere, aviation philanthropist and owner of the Daily Mail, offered a prize of 10,000, roughly equivalent to $1,000,000 in today's money, to the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight from any point in the United States of America, Canada or Newfoundland to any point in Great Britain or Ireland in 72 continuous hours'. Illustrated by many unique photographs this book tells the story of the race, delayed for almost six years by the First World War. Many aircraft would be entered but few would even get off the ground. The teams faced great difficulties in preparing for the challenge of crossing one of the most hostile stretches of ocean on Earth. The authors not only reveal tales of failures and technical difficulties, but of the intense frustration of waiting for the perfect weather-window. And even when finally airborne, Alcock and Brown's flight almost ended in disaster on several occasions as weather conditions almost conspired to cast them down into the grey, cold waters of the Atlantic and almost certain death.

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The arduous development of a dedicated naval air arm for Germany's resurgent military was fraught with the kind of fierce inter-service rivalry that was rife throughout the turbulent history of the Third Reich. However, almost despite the odds, a small dedicated maritime strike force was assembled, germinating during the Spanish Civil War before being committed to action from the first days of the invasion of Poland. Concurrently, the operational Luftwaffe developed its own maritime units that would eventually subsume all of the Kriegsmarine-controlled formations as the war years progressed. This new book by the well-known author of German naval operations in WWII offers, for the first time, an in-depth study of all the Luftwaffe maritime operations. This is the first of two volumes and takes the story up to 1942. The story of Luftwaffe maritime operations has frequently been written about in fragmentary terms, delineating between the planned naval air arm operating under Kriegsmarine direction and the operational Luftwaffe'. Each branch of service and even aircraft type has usually been studied in isolation. This book, however, broadens the lens to study the development of German naval aircraft as a whole, not as separate independent services but rather as a concerted attempt to engage the enemy at sea in every theatre of operations, from Norway and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and the Eastern fronts, and, of course, over the Atlantic. Through ship-board aircraft, torpedo bomber attacks, minelaying and reconnaissance missions, Luftwaffe maritime aircraft played a vital role in Germany's naval war and the author analyses all the operations and the successes in the early years of the War. This first volume ends in 1942 when, despite great success, petty rivalry and naked arrogance combined to foreshadow the eventual defeat of the Luftwaffe's war at sea. Heavily illustrated throughout, this detailed and exciting operational history will be of huge appeal to both naval and aviation historians and enthusiasts.

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After the Normandy break-out, the Allies' headlong dash east came to a halt in the autumn with the ill-fated MARKET GARDEN operation and over-extended supply lines short of the Rhineland. After repulsing the Nazis' daring Ardennes offensive, Montgomery's and Bradley's Army Groups cleared the Reichwald and Rhineland and closed on the Rhine. With both sides aware of the strategic significance of this physical barrier the stakes could not have been higher. Eisenhower's plan involved a vast airborne assault by General Ridgway's XV11 Airborne Corps (codename VARSITY) and the simultaneously coordinated river crossing by Monty's 21 Army Group codename PLUNDER with Dempsey's British Second Army and General William H. Simpson's US Ninth Army. This superbly illustrated and researched book describes the March 1945 assault crossing involving naval amphibious craft, the air and artillery bombardment and diversionary attack by the British 1st Commando brigade at Wesel. In concert with VARSITY and PLUNDER, Patton's US Third Army Group crossed further south. As a result of this triumph of strategic planning and tactical execution, the fate of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich' was finally sealed.

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Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt (1875-1953) was one of the foremost German commanders of the Second World War. After service on both the Western and Eastern Fronts during 1914-1918 he rose steadily through the ranks before retiring in 1938. Recalled to plan the attack on Poland, he played a leading part in this and the invasion of France in 1940. Thereafter he commanded Army Group South in the assault on Russia before being sacked at the end of 1941. Recalled again, he was made Commander-in-Chief West and as such faced the 1944 Allied invasion of France, but was removed that July. He resumed his post in September 1944 and had overall responsibility for the December 1944 Ardennes counter-offensive. Captured by the Americans, he was handed over to the British, who wanted to try him for war crimes. Only his ill health prevented this from coming about.

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SUFFRAGETTES OF KENT delivers a thought provoking insight into the many stories and journeys of hope, determination, courage and sacrifice of those involved in the women’s suffrage movement in Kent. Discover an untold story of Ethel Baldock, a young working class Kent maid, involved in the suffrage movement. See photographs of Ethel and learn of her arrest and imprisonment for her part in the 1912 window-smashing militant action. The tours of Kent by the Women’s Freedom League in 1908 and 1913 and the Women’s Social Political Union in 1913 are retraced. Their messages and the reaction of the Kent inhabitants are explored. A detailed account is given of the significant part Kent played in the 1913 mass pilgrimage to London by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Revealing the part Maidstone Prison played in forcible feeding of suffragette prisoners, the book includes accounts by those who experienced such treatment and a medical report by Maidstone Prison’s leading medical officer, Dr. Charles Edward Hoar. Discover who was imprisoned in Kent’s Maidstone and Canterbury prisons, including a leading women’s suffrage pioneer. Detailing connections between national women’s suffrage pioneers and the county of Kent, this book includes accounts from 1866 through to 1928 of significant meetings, visits, speeches, tours, demonstrations and militant action. Incorporated are stories of pioneers such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Millicent Fawcett, Charlotte Despard, Christabel Pankhurst, Emily Wilding Davison, Mrs Emmeline Pethick Lawrence and Annie Kenney. Discover who challenged their Kent audience to do more for ‘the Cause’ and which pioneer was stoned and injured by an audience in Maidstone. Find out who hid overnight and became the first to disturb a political meeting in the county and who was much celebrated on her visit to Kent seaside towns. Read details of how Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, and Home Secretary, Mr Gladstone were targeted in Kent by suffragettes. Learn how some Kent residents boycotted the 1911 census and of the Kent manor house subjected to a militant arson attack whilst servants slept inside.

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Designed as a fast bomber that could out-run the fighters of the era, the twin-engine Junkers Ju 88 became one of the most versatile aircraft of the Second World War. Such was the success of the design that its production lines operated constantly from 1936 to 1945, with more than 16,000 examples being built in dozens of variants - more than any other twin-engine German aircraft of the period. From an early stage it was intended that it would be used as a conventional light bomber and as a dive-bomber. As such, it served in the invasion of Poland, the Norway campaign, the Blitzkrieg and the invasion of France and the Battle of Britain. This latest volume in Frontline's Air War Archive examines the Ju 88s use in the latter years of the Second World War. The type's use as a torpedo bomber or reconnaissance aircraft, as well as its deployment in Russia, over the Bay of Biscay and in the Mediterranean theatre are all explored. Even its use in the Mistel flying-bomb is covered. In this selection of unrivalled images collected over many years, the operations of this famous aircraft in its twilight years are portrayed and brought to life.

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German Army on the Eastern Front - The Advance is a highly illustrated record of the extraordinary feat of arms that saw the Nazi armies drive deep into the vast terrain of the Soviet Union, to the gates of Stalingrad and Moscow. It traces the campaign from these hopeful beginnings until, on the brink of victory, the defenders and the winter contrived to slow and then halt the advance. It vividly conveys the appalling conditions endured by the invaders. By early 1943 the German advance finally petered out, leaving some 1.5 million dead from the battle of Stalingrad alone. The long and costly retreat was about to begin.

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