World War II was the first conflict in which air power was a deciding and indispensable factor. "May Day! May Day! Close Encounters (An Instructor Pilot Remembers)" reveals the personal stories of the aircrews who flew and maintained the planes and who upheld a continuous supply of trained personnel for the war effort. Full of rich, historical detail, author and former World War II pilot Jack Scott shares his experiences and those of others, giving an insightful view into the American home front and the war overseas.

"While assigned to Walker Air Base, we were subjected to all of the restrictions of rationing. Shoes, food, clothes and just about everything was rationed. One thing, however never ceased to amaze us. We were allowed only a minimum amount of gasoline for our personal autos, yet we were encouraged to practice touch and go landings as often as we personally desired and were often reminded that at the end of every mission we should make a few extra landings and take offs. The paradox of this was that on one 'go around" we would burn a minimum of 80 gallons of aviation fuel. Rationing did not apply here."

World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 1914 to 1918. Contemporaneously known as the Great War or "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. This series of Eight volumes provides year by year analysis of the war that resulted in the death of more than 17 million deaths worldwide.

Prior to World War I, Britain was at the center of global relations, utilizing tactics of diplomacy as it broke through the old alliances of European states. Historians have regularly interpreted these efforts as a reaction to the aggressive foreign policy of the German Empire. However, as Between Empire and Continent demonstrates, British foreign policy was in fact driven by a nexus of intra-British, continental and imperial motivations. Recreating the often heated public sphere of London at the turn of the twentieth century, this groundbreaking study carefully tracks the alliances, conflicts, and political maneuvering from which British foreign and security policy were born.

On 19 February 1942 the Japanese air force bombed Darwin. Whilst this fact is well known, very few people know exactly what happened. Timothy Hall was the first writer to be given acess to all the official reports of the time and as a result he has been able to reveal exactly what happened on that dreadful day - a day which Sir Paul Hasluck (17th Governor-General of Australia) later described as 'a day of national shame'. The sequence of events in Darwin that day certainly did not reflect the military honour that the War Cabinet wanted people to believe. On the contrary, for what really happened was a combination of chaos, panic and, in many cases, cowardice on an unprecented scale.

The Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force," was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. In June of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed. However, the publications of the report that resulted from these leaks were incomplete and suffered from many quality issues.

On the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, has released the complete report. The 48 boxes in this series contain a complete copy of the 7,000 page report along with numerous copies of different volumes of the report, all declassified. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time.

What is unique about this, compared to other versions, is that:

* The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases

* The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969

* All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included

This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition.

This facsimiile edition includes:

* Part V. B. 3. a. Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Eisenhower Administration. Volume I: 1953

* Part V. B. 3. b. Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Eisenhower Administration. Volume II: 1954 - Geneva

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER "As exciting as any spy novel" (Daily News, New York), The Princess Spy follows the hidden history of an ordinary American girl who became one of the OSS's most daring World War II spies before marrying into European nobility. Perfect for fans of A Woman of No Importance and Code Girls. When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live "a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious" (Time). As the United States enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes. Aline's life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of Strategic Services--forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats, and titled Europeans. Against this glamorous backdrop of galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in deep-cover espionage. Even after marrying the Count of Romanones, one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her covert activities, being given special assignments when abroad that would benefit from her impeccable pedigree and social connections. "[A] meticulously researched, beautifully crafted work of nonfiction that reads like a James Bond thriller" (Bookreporter), The Princess Spy brings to vivid life the dazzling adventures of a spirited American woman who risked everything to serve her country.

The past is brought to life in this historical epic about a South African family whose lives collided with the biggest event in history: The First World War. The central theme is the largely forgotten east Africa campaign, but by definition a world war has a wide reach. Five members of one family with deep roots in all four corners of the country, served in three different theatres of war. Their lives on active service are all interwoven and inseparable from the home front. Global events are juxtaposed with everyday life on a farm in the eastern Orange Free State. Appropriately, the author constructs linkages that span generations, uncovering individual experiences of an earlier conflict which had engulfed South Africa barely a decade before the eruption of the 1914-18 war. As the sons of early pioneers, this generation witnessed history in the making before writing their own. Riding into action on horseback or in a flying machine, their paths led from the south west African desert, through disease-infested jungles in east Africa to some of the great battles on the western front. Only one of the five came home unscathed although he crash-landed his aircraft behind enemy lines and only made it back through his audacity and brute strength. Another, an intellectual priest, was left for dead at Delville Wood, and his brother was wounded on Messines Ridge. The remaining two suffered from debilitating tropical illnesses. Hazard and hardship lingered on in the form of Spanish in influenza, mining strikes and the Great Depression. The war cast a long shadow. Between them, these consciously literate men left substantial documentary legacies. Using extracts of their letters from the front, the story is to a large extent told in the words of those who were there. Context is provided by referencing existing literature, unpublished memoirs and archival material. It could be called a military history or a social history, but it is a truly South African story which contains much new material for historians, while for the general reader it offers an accessible insight into an unparalleled period of history.

At Le Cateau on 26 August 1914, the commanders of the Second Corps of the British Expeditionary Force elected to fight the German First Army and, although outnumbered three to one, delivered such a smashing blow to the German invaders that the whole of the BEF was able to continue the Retreat to Compiegne without being seriously threatened. Although the British suffered 1,200 of their men and officers killed, and were forced to leave their dead and many of their wounded on the battlefield, as well as thirty-six of their field guns, they inflicted losses on von Kluck's army of nearly 9,000. Yet the architect of this feat of arms, Second Corps commander Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, was sacked soon afterward, while First Corps commander Sir Douglas Haig, who had performed far less impressively, took command of the whole BEF. Antony Bird describes the battle, its aftermath and he examines the men, the weapons and the tactics that made this feat of arms possible.

Machine Gunners in the desert
The development of the rapidly firing machine gun had been gathering pace throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century. By the time of the Great War it had reached a point of deadly and devastating efficiency. Now, specially trained units of men within all armies were trained to bring this lethal weapon to bear on the enemy. This book concerns a group of such men-within the British Army-as it and they fought the Army of the Ottoman Turkish empire in the Middle East Campaign. This was a more mobile war than the gunners of the Western Front experienced, that had its own challenges including disease, blistering heat, flies and difficult terrain. This is an intimate story of a small tightly knit unit operating in an interesting sideshow of the greater conflict.