Search results for ""pen sword books""

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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Operation Chastise, the audacious RAF bombing raid that struck at the heart of industrial Germany on the 17th May 1943, brought catastrophic damage to the three dams that served the Ruhr Valley. Water and electricity supplies were disrupted in a key area of the manufacture of Germany's war munitions, and the consequences were disastrous. The German war effort was set back substantially, the Allies celebrated, and Dr. Barnes Wallis became a national hero as the designer of the famed 'bouncing bomb' that inflicted such damage. Considered from an Allied perspective, the Dambuster Raid was a triumphant success, not only of British engineering but also of pilot endeavour. View it from the German perspective however, and an entirely new story emerges. That is precisely what we have here. In this image-heavy publication, Helmuth Euler explores all facets of the operation in fascinating detail, offering a host of illuminating insights into this much-studied event of twentieth century history.

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The campaigns fought against Napoleon in the Iberian peninsula, in France, Germany, Italy and Russia and across the rest of Europe have been described and analysed in exhaustive detail, yet the history of the fighting in the Mediterranean has rarely been studied as a separate theatre of the conflict. Gareth Glover sets this right with a compelling account of the struggle on land and at sea for control of a region that was critical for the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars. The story of this twenty-year conflict is illustrated with numerous quotes from a large number of primary sources, many of which are published here for the first time.

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A military biography of Mithridates VI 'the Great' of Pontus, Rome's most persistent enemy. The Mithridiatic wars stretched over half a century and two continents, and have a fascinating cast of pirates, rebels, turncoats and poisoners (though an unfortunate lack of heroes with untarnished motives). There are pitched battles, epic sieges, double-crosses and world-class political conniving, assassinations and general treachery. Through it all, the story is built about the dominant character of Mithridates, connoisseur of poisons, arch-schemer and strategist; resilient in defeat, savage and vindictive in victory. Almost by definition, this book will break new ground, in that nothing has been written on Mithridates for the general public for almost half a century, though scholarly journals have been adding a steady trickle of new evidence, which is drawn upon here. Few enough leaders went to war with Rome and lived long to tell the tale, but in the first half of the first century BC, Mithridates did so three times. At the high point of his career his armies swept the Romans out of Asia Minor and Greece, reversing a century of Roman expansion in the region.Even once fortune had turned against him he would not submit. Upto the day he died, a fugitive drive to suicide by the treachery of his own son, he was still planning an overland invasion of Roman itself.

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The Royal Marines are renowned for their military skill and also for having one of the finest military bands in the world. These highly trained and talented musicians are equally at home parading at Buckingham Palace, playing at the Royal Albert Hall, or on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in a foreign port. Why then when the Argentines invaded the Falklands in April 1982 did these superb musicians get involved in what became a serious and deadly military campaign? The answer is that, in addition to their musical expertise, the RM Band Service members are trained for military service and fully qualified in a multitude of military and medical skills, providing support to their comrades, the fighting commandos. The Band That Went to War is a graphic first-hand account of the Falklands War as it has never been told before. It describes the roles played by Royal Marine musicians in the conflict; unloading the wounded from helicopters, moving tons of stores and ammunition, burying their dead at sea and guarding and repatriating Argentine prisoners of war. These and other unseen tasks were achieved while still ready to provide morale boosting music to their commando brethren and other frontline troops. These men are not just musicians; they are Royal Marines.

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Moving from a train set out of a box to making your own model railway can seem a daunting proposition. Whether you go your own way, wish to follow a prototype tightly or have an inherited stock that you want to make the best of. This book covers the act of deciding on a design that will keep the interest alive. Executing it in a manner that is within your skills set, and finishing it to a quality you are satisfied by within a time and financial limit. Here learning from those who have had both successes and the occasional false start will assist you in execution of your project and maintaining its interest. The book aims to explain jargon and includes such subjects as project design and planning, alternative baseboard construction methods, track laying, basic electrics accompanied by a rich and varied imagery. The Market Deeping Model railway club rose to public notice in May 2019 following the sad overnight vandalism of their annual railway show. The breaking news story became a worldwide cause c l bre bringing a whirlwind of kind support from modellers and the general public. The rebuilding of the club's damaged layouts and new projects for replacements gave the rare opportunity of experienced modellers to photograph and document the build process and revisit the basics. The results are incorporated into this book making a positive and cathartic activity from a distinctly negative situation.

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When King George V ascended to the throne in 1910, world trade was increasing and at home the country's private enterprise railways were booming with larger trains and more freight being carried than ever before. Over the next fifty years the country had experienced not one, but two world wars. Railways had been forcefully reorganised, not once but twice, eventually becoming state owned. With the Government now in control of the railway's finances, reformation was on the horizon in the medicine of Dr. Beeching. This volume sets out to chart the passage of the railways during these turbulent times. Contrary to popular belief, life on the railways during these times was not all doom and gloom but times of innovation, competition, new buildings, new lines and the spread of electrification. This was the era of faster, larger, non-stop expresses, streamlined trains: we even showcased our best trains abroad, not once but twice!More and more people were taking holidays by trains and holid

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In answer to Lord Kitchener's appeal, in late August and September 1914 many men joined Alexandra's Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment, better known as The Green Howards. Recruits came from around the Middlesbrough area and the ironstone mines on the North Yorkshire moors, while otherscame from the East Durham coalfield and the Durham City area. The 8th and 9th Battalions left the Regimental Depot in Richmond in late September and moved to Frensham on the Hampshire/Surrey border, where they trained hard until bad weather forced a move to barracks in Aldershot. They arrived on the Somme front at the end of June 1916, but were not involved in the fighting until 5 July, when the 9th Battalion captured Horseshoe trench and Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell won the VC when he destroyed a German machine gun position. On 10 July both battalions took part in the capture of Contalmaison, a village that had been a first day objective. A second VC was awarded posthumously to Private Will

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The Battle of Kursk in July 1943 is known for being the largest tank battle in history. A Russian victory, it marked the decisive end of the German offensive capability on the Eastern Front and set the scene for the Soviet successes that followed. While many have focused on the tank engagements, especially the Battle of Prokhorovka, there was an intense air battle going on overhead that was bigger than the Battle of Britain. As part of the German offensive, the Luftwaffe's VIII Air Corps deployed around 1,100 aircraft in the south alone, while the opposing Soviet Second and Seventeenth air armies initially deployed over 1,600 aircraft. There was a similar effort surrounding the German attack in the north. The battle in the south began with a Soviet air strike on German airfields and a fight for control of the air that continued throughout the day across the front. On the first day of the battle, 5 July 1943, the Germans flew at least 2,387 sorties in the south while the two Soviet air armies flew 1,688 sorties. That first day of battle resulted in 19 to 27 German planes and 189 Soviet aircraft shot down. This was an aerial engagement like no other ever seen before. Involved on the German side were the 52nd and 3rd Fighter Wings. The 52nd Fighter Wing was the most accomplished fighter wing in history and many of its top aces were involved in the combats over the Kursk battlefield. These included Walter Krupinski (197 claimed kills in the war), Gunther Rall, the third highest scoring ace in history (275 claimed kills), and the highest scoring ace in history, Erich Hartmann (352 claimed kills). Opposing them were what were to become three of the top five Soviet aces: Kirill Yevstigneyev (53 claimed kills), Nikolai Gulayev (55 claimed kills) and the top scoring Allied ace of the war, Ivan Kozhedub (62 claimed kills). This was indeed the battle of the aces. But there was also the massive ground attack effort by both sides, including the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka fitted with 37mm anti-tank guns flown by the man who would become most decorated soldier of the Third Reich, Hans-Ulrich Rudel. The aerial battle involved hundreds of Soviet Sturmoviks, or IL-2s, Stalin's armoured ground attack plane. The battle featured the famous attack by Luftwaffe Hs-129s and Fw-190s on Soviet armour on 8 July 1943. Aces at Kursk is not just a war story, but a revealing investigation that analyses the entire air battle that turned the tide of the war on the Eastern Front.

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June 1940. In just weeks, General Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division – dubbed the ‘Ghost Division’ — had driven headlong through Allied forces in Belgium and France to reach the English Channel. Pushing south along the Channel coast past Le Harve, Rommel’s spectacular victory at Saint-Valéry-en-Caux was crowned by the capture of Cherbourg. Following the Franco-German Armistice and a victory parade in Bordeaux, cameras rolled as Rommel re-enacted crossing the Somme for the Nazi propaganda documentary Sieg im Westen (Victory in the West).

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Lasting sixteen weeks during the momentous year of 1940, the Battle of Britain ended with the Luftwaffe having failed to achieve the decisive victory that Hitler had demanded. Whilst the technical details of the aircraft and weapons involved are, of course, crucial to our understanding of the events that summer, the Battle was fought by human beings - and it is that human experience and contribution, to this author, is the most important thing to acknowledge, record and share. Nearly 3,000 Fighter Command aircrew fought in the Battle of Britain, immortalised by Churchill as The Few'. Of these, 544 lost their lives that blood-stained summer, and 700 more would die before the Second World War ended - a victory very likely impossible had The Few not held out in 1940. The names of some of these young men, aces such as Douglas Bader, Sailor' Malan and Eric Lock, were well-known to the free world at the time - and certainly the legless Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader remains, even today, the best-known British fighter pilot of the war. However, the vast majority of The Few remained anonymous, owing partially to Air Ministry policy and equally a desire to play down their august achievements. Since the Second World War, the memoirs of a number of the Few have been published, privately and commercially, and books have been written about others. The record is a rich legacy, overall - and yet, if we investigate the Battle of Britain further, we find many forgotten heroes, no less-deserving of recognition. This book, therefore, seeks to explore the lives and contribution made by certain of these men, to give currency back to their brave deeds. In truth, the list of deserving subjects is virtually endless; those included in this book are individuals whose stories have crossed the author's path at some stage during his long career - and which he feels are truly Forgotten Heroes'. Clearly, then the list is not definitive, and could never be, but these men at least now have their stories told.

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_The Second World War Illustrated: The Final Year_ follows the author's visual tour of the war by means of painstakingly researched and digitally restored pictures from the period of the key battlefields and events of the period from September 1944 until the end of the war. The book begins with Montgomery's Market Garden failure, devoting 60 pages to the planning, key individuals and forces involved in the operation and its outcome on both sides. Attention then turns to the Warsaw Uprising, where the Polish underground resistance attempted to liberate Warsaw from German occupation at the cost of thousands of resistance and civilian casualties. We then explore the importance of Walcheren and the port of Antwerp, culminating in the Battle of Scheldt. A chapter is devoted to the fighting along the Siegfried Line at Aachen, the Battle for Hürtgen Forest and the liberation of Alsace, before switching to the Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's final major offensive campaign of the war. From he

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Cavaliers and Roundheads are figures who appear in hundreds of English ghost stories. In this innovative account, Charles Esdaile argues that such tales are in reality folk memories of an episode of English history that was second only to the Black Death in terms of individual and collective suffering alike, and, further, that they reveal important truths about the way in which the conflict was represented: it is no surprise, then, to find that spectral Cavaliers are often romantic figures and revenant Roundheads grim ones full of menace. Yet, the book is no mere catalogue. On the contrary, rather than being discussed in a vacuum, the tales of haunting are rather set within a detailed regional history of the conflicts of 1642-1651 of a sort that has never yet been attempted, but is, for all that, badly needed.

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During the Middle Empire period (AD 180-284) the Roman army had to face the terrible Third Century Crisis', wherein a combination of socio-economic problems and new external threats threatened the Empire with complete collapse. Several provinces became temporarily independent from the central government of Rome, while others were frequently raided by foreign invaders. The Roman army had to fight with all its resources in order to reconquer a good portion of the Empire and preserve its unity. The Romans were forced to modernize and reform their forces to face the new challenges posed by a multitude of warlike enemies, such as the Persians in the Middle East or the Germanic Peoples in Central Europe. The previous military system based on the power of the legions' heavy infantry was completely revised, with the introduction of new organizational patterns. Cavalry became much more important than before, together with light troops specialized in skirmishing. The personal equipment of the Ro

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A set of simple, fast-playing rules for wargaming the conflicts that re-shaped Europe in the period 1815-78\. This important, yet often-neglected period includes the Crimean War, the Italian Risorgimento, the wars of Bismarck's Prussia against Denmark, Austro-Hungary and France and the Russo-Turkish war. Tactically it saw armies struggle to adapt Napoleonic doctrines to incorporate important technological advances such as breech-loading rifles, steel breech-loading cannon and the first machine guns. The book includes brief analysis of the essential strategic and tactical military developments of the period, a set of elegantly simple rules which are fast-playing and easy to learn, yet deliver realistic outcomes. A selection of generic scenarios, covering diverse situations such as flank attacks, pitched battles and meeting engagements, is supported by army lists for 28 different armies. There are also 12 historical scenarios, ranging from the Battle of the Alma in the Crimean War to Sedan in 1870, the decisive battle of the Franco-Prussian War, each with historical background, deployment map, orders of battle and any special rules for that engagement. Useful appendices include a guide to further reading, an overview and price guide to the many scales and ranges of figures available, and a selection of useful addresses for the gamer.

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This new book tells the story of the Ocean class of standard cargo ships, their design, building and careers, and the author places them firmly in the context of the battle of the Atlantic which was raging at the time of the first launchings. They entered the vanguard of the Allied shipping effort at a time when the German U-boat threat was at its most dangerous, and British shipping resources were stretched to the limit. They were deployed in the North Atlantic, on the long supply routes around Africa to the Middle East, in the Russian convoys, in operations in support of the invasions of North Africa and Italy and the land campaigns which followed, in the D-Day landings and later amphibious operations on the south coast of France. Finally, some of the class joined an invasion force making its way towards Malaya when Japan surrendered in August 1945\. The Oceans paid a heavy price for these accomplishments, one third of the class being lost to torpedoes, bombs or mines in places as far apart as the Florida coast, the Norwegian Sea, the Bay of Algiers and the Gulf of Oman. While these achievements alone would merit an important place in histories of the war at sea, the impact of the Oceans stretched far beyond the direct contribution of the ships themselves. The yards where they were built also served as models for a series of new American shipyards, designed to mass produce cargo vessels with such speed and in such volume as to completely reverse the mathematics of attrition, which had run so badly against the Allies into 1942\. Even more important, the Oceans' blueprints were used as the basis for the American Liberty ship, the 2,700-strong fleet which finally tilted the balance of the war at sea decisively in the Allies' favour and went on to underpin the post-war renewal of the world merchant fleet. This comprehensive new history, based on extensive archival research and lavishly illustrated with contemporary photographs, restores the Oceans to their rightful place in history. The ships' design antecedents are explained, and their ordering, financing and construction analysed in full. Wartime operations are covered in depth, by theatre and with full details of war losses and other casualties. The book concludes with an assessment of their subsequent peacetime careers and a comparison to other war-built designs. This is a model history of a highly significant class of ship.

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This is the story of one of the most important classical cities, Syracuse, and its struggles (both internal and external) for freedom and survival. Situated at the heart of the mediterranean, Syracuse was caught in the middle as Carthage, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Athens and then Rome battled to gain control of Sicily. The threat of expansionist enemies on all sides made for a tumultuous situation within the city, resulting in repeated coups that threw up a series of remarkable tyrants, such as Gelon, Timoleon and Dionysius. In this second volume, Jeff Champion follows the course of the city' s wars from the death of Dionysius II down to the final epic siege of the city in 213-211 BC. This ended with the final capture of the city by the Romans, despite the heroic and resourceful resistance of the Syracusans and the ingenious inventions of Archimedes. It is a story full of dramatic battles and epic sieges, heroism and skullduggery.

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In-depth investigation of the problems of British tank design in the interwar years and during the war.

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Operation Market Garden -the Allied airborne invasion of German-occupied Holland in September 1944 -is one of the most famous and controversial Allied failures of the Second World War. Many books have been written on the subject seeking to explain the defeat. Historians have generally focused on the mistakes made by senior commanders as they organized the operation. The choice of landing zones has been criticized, as has the structure of the airlift plan. But little attention has been paid to the influence that combat doctrine and training had upon the relative performance of the forces involved. And it is this aspect that Aaron Bates emphasizes in this perceptive, closely argued and absorbing re-evaluation of the battle. As he describes each phase of the fighting he shows how German training, which gave their units a high degree of independence of action, better equipped them to cope with the confusion created by the surprise Allied attack. In contrast, the British forces were hampered by their rigid and centralized approach which made it more difficult for them to adapt to the chaotic situation. Aaron Bates's thought-provoking study sheds fresh light on the course of the fighting around Arnhem and should lead to a deeper understanding of one of the most remarkable episodes in the final stage of the Second World War in western Europe.

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During the Second World War, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were occupied on three separate occasions twice by the Soviet Union and once by Nazi Germany. The signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939 allowed the Soviets to dominate the Baltic states without fear of German reprisals, causing many in the German-Baltic populations to flee to Poland. Soviet rule of the Baltics was brutal with the purging of political elites and deportation of many tens of thousands in a bid to turn them into vassal states. Consequently, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, many Balts saw it as a liberation from Soviet cruelties. The reality was, however, that it turned out to be the beginning of something much worse. During their occupation of Poland prior to Barbarossa the Nazis had decimated the Polish political elites, and the Jews there had been herded into ghettos in preparation for deportation to the east where they would serve as slave labour in the Nazi economy after the

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First narrative history and reference work on the development and employment of British Armoured Divisions in WW2. Covers the war in the main Western theatres. Also covers the characters and contribution of these elite divisions' commanders.

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'A definitive history of Napoleon's last victorious war' - First Empire Lively accounts of major and minor combat actions from Italy to Holland, Germany to Poland Analyzes the intersection of political goals and military operations

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The Brighton Atlantic locomotives were some of the most handsome machines ever constructed at Brighton Works. They were signed by the D. Earl Marsh, Locomotive Superintendent of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, and produced as two classes, the H1, introduced in 1905-1906, and the H2, introduced in 1911-1912. The Brighton Atlantic type has had a following among enthusiasts and model engineers for over a century, with many fine examples of models of these machines being constructed in all scales, both as live steam and electric powered. Great interest is still there today, with many models of these fine locomotives on show at model engineering exhibitions and on smaller scale Brighton or Southern layouts. The Bluebell Railway in East Sussex is currently constructing a full-size replica of the last H2 Atlantic (Beachy Head) in a workshop at Sheffield Park, using some parts from the original locomotive and a rescued Great Northern Atlantic boiler. The project to construct a replica machine has aroused a great deal of public interest in this design of locomotive.At this time there are no books available on the market for anyone who would like to construct a model on, or take an interest in, the replica project on the Bluebell Railway.

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Contains hundreds of photos of the Mosquito production line and design concepts. Appendices include first hand pilot accounts, details of the unique variants put into production, and information relating to the Mosquito's deployment in a civilian context with BOAC.

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In the 1980s British Railways sought a cheap replacement for the ailing Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) trainsets which saw the introduction of the Class 14x trainsets that became known as Pacers. These proved to be cheap to operate hence popular with the operators but less popular with the travelling public who found the rigid 4-wheel chassis provided a basic and uncomfortable ride. Fred Kerr, a life-long rail enthusiast and well-known railway photographer, became familiar with these trainsets when the Class 141 trainsets passed near to his parent's house in Corby whilst being trialled between Derby and Bedford and, later, when the Class 142 trainsets appeared in his home town of Southport as part of the driver training programme for Wigan crews prior to working local services to Manchester. He has continued taking photographs of the Pacer trainsets, which he sees as part of the evolving traction changes, hence has a collection of images from the various stages of the Pacer history that forms the basis of this album. The images cover a wide variety of locations and, surprisingly, reveal little known facets of their life; the rarity of Class 141 trainsets initially provided with Workington Blue livery, the unusual operation of Newcastle-based trainsets on the Windermere branch and the wide variety of trainsets that have operated in his home county of Lancashire. The Pacer trainsets were introduced in the mid-1980s and will be withdrawn by 2020, due to their failure to meet the requirements of the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Interoperable Rail System) Regulation 2008. Fred Kerr's book chronicles their contribution, during their years of service, to the operation of railway services, many of which would otherwise have been closed without the availability of the �cheap and cheerful� Pacer trainsets. As they enter their final years of service, this album celebrates the many services that have been operated, the builders who supplied them and the operators who have used them on their services throughout the years.

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The electro-diesel locomotives and multiple units used by the Southern Region of British Railways, were unique to this region. The locomotives of class 73 were used extensively throughout the region, in particular on Gatwick Express services, as well as on departmental and track recording trains. Their versatility in being able to work off 3rd rail electricity as well as diesel engined power gave them unrivalled areas of work. The class 74s, which only had a short life, were seen particularly on boat trains and parcels services on the South Western main line. The classes 201-3 were 6-car units of narrow bodied construction, so as to be able to work Hastings line services with its restricted clearances. The other classes 204-207 were 3-car units employed on stopping services throughout the region, but especially in Hampshire and the lines to Uckfield and originally East Grinstead. They were also seen on services in East Sussex and Kent. This volume shows all the classes at work, in a variety of colour schemes and locations, and has been compiled by David Cable, well known author of a range of books regarding Modern Traction, published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd.

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This is a book about the transition from steam to diesel and electric traction on British Railways, covering a period from 1960-1970. The author Jim Blake, took a huge number of pictures during this period, covering all aspects of the railway and its operations, both in the London area, where he lived and also around the country. This book looks at the railway scene in decline, trying to come to terms with the post Beeching, post steam era, before a change of political will, that has seen much rail investment in recent times. The volume, not only looks at locomotives and trains, but also the overall railway scene of that decade of great change the 1960s.

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