On retirement from an unusual military career Howard Leedham settled in the USA with his American wife and successfully flew executive jets until...He was recruited in 2003 by the US State Department's Airwing (which operates an international fleet of aircraft engaged in counter-terrorism and anti-narcotics operations). Despite being British, the author had the unusual skills they required. Howard's specific brief was to activate a fleet of anti-terrorist helicopters given to the Pakistan armed forces but which had been embargoed and never properly used. This was easier said than done. Howard had to win over opposition from inside the State Department and in particular from their Islamabad Embassy, and also dispel the suspicions of the Pakistani Armed Forces. The helicopters were released and brought up to the high standard of mechanical and operational maintenance required - no mean achievement in itself. Despite finding doors closed to senior Pakistani officers and being constantly told that the appropriate general was much too busy to see him, Howard made his mark by offering to stand outside the general's toilet door and tell him about his plans! This tactic worked, he had his meeting (not in the toilet) and he was given command of twenty-five Pathan soldiers to train in Special Forces tactics and helicopter skills. Next he had to win his soldiers' confidence. Howard did this with great success and he was given a further 25 Pathans. They became an amazingly loyal team and the book describes in detail several very successful discreet operations; and the occasional failure or withdrawn patrol - often because of leaked information. Howard had to do all this while under great personal threat. How could he tell who was a friend and who was a foe - even among his own troops? His ultimate success in anti-terrorist operations can be measured by two factors: o The US State Department, with Congressional and Embassy approval, allocated more helicopters. o His farewell party in a desert tent for just his Pathans and his helicopter crews had over 1,500 soldiers guarding the perimeter. All this came at a personal price - on completing his mission Howard's marriage broke up and he was nearly killed by a bomb on a subsequent visit to Islamabad.

'I am one of few Jewish survivors of World War Two, but one of many Jewish people to fight the Nazi regime. My story illustrates what happened to thousands of Jews and non-Jews alike. I have recorded the small details that made up our lives, the sheer luck that saved some of us and the atrocities that led to the deaths of so many, as a tribute to all those who suffered and died...' _______________ Selma van de Perre was seventeen when World War Two began. Until then, being Jewish in the Netherlands had been of no consequence. But by 1941 this simple fact had become a matter of life or death. Several times, Selma avoided being rounded up by the Nazis. Then, in an act of defiance, she joined the Resistance movement, using the pseudonym Margareta van der Kuit. For two years 'Marga' risked it all. Using a fake ID, and passing as Aryan she travelled around the country delivering newsletters, sharing information, keeping up morale - doing, as she later explained, what 'had to be done'. In July 1944 her luck ran out. She was transported to Ravensbruck, the women's concentration camp, as a political prisoner. Unlike her parents and sister - who, she would later discover, died in other camps - she survived by using her alias, pretending to be someone else. It was only after the war ended that she was allowed to reclaim her identity and dared to say once again: My name is Selma. Now, at ninety-nine, Selma remains a force of nature. Full of hope and courage, this is her story in her own words.

Winchester lever-action repeating rifles are an integral part of the folklore of the American West. Introduced after the American Civil War, the first Winchester, the M1866, would go on to see military service as far afield as Bulgaria, but it was in the hands of civilians that it would become known as 'The gun that won the west'. Offering a lethal combination of portability, ruggedness and ammunition interchangeability with pistol sidearms, the Winchesters and their innovative and elegant breech-loading system represented a revolutionary design. They were used by a staggering variety of military and civilian groups - gold-miners, trappers, hunters, farmers, lawmen, professional gunmen and Native Americans. It equipped a whole generation of settlers and as such left an imprint on American culture that continues to resonate today. This book explores the Winchesters' unique place in history, revealing the technical secrets of their success with a full array of colour artwork, period illustrations and close-up photographs.

When the Japanese invade in 1942, the Australian men and women stationed at the New Guinea port of Rabaul flee into the jungle. Written off by their government as ‘hostages to fortune’, the little-known garrison on Australia’s tropic frontier has been left with no modern equipment, no lifeline to the outside, and no means of escape. Most are captured and killed in the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru, which remains Australia’s worst sea disaster. But the surviving soldiers and nurses carry on, to fight the Japanese on other fronts, or to witness the collapse of the Japanese Empire from the inside. Having borne the brunt of defeat, their letters and diaries also record the turning point of the war and the march to victory. Rich in detail drawn from first person accounts, Should We Fall To Ruin illuminates this untold period in military history. It is a compelling tale of bravery and resilience in the face of a seemingly unstoppable enemy.

An Irish Times book of the year 2022 A powerful, probing book about PTSD. As a journalist Keane has covered conflict and brutality across the world for more than thirty years, from Rwanda, Sudan, South Africa, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and many more. Driven by an irresistible compulsion to be where the night is darkest, he made a name for reporting with humanity and empathy from places where death and serious injury were not abstractions, and tragedy often just a moment's bad luck away. But all this time he struggled not to be overwhelmed by another story, his acute 'complex post-traumatic stress disorder', a condition arising from exposure to multiple instances of trauma experienced over a long period. This condition has caused him to suffer a number of mental breakdowns and hospitalisations. Despite this, and countless promises to do otherwise, he has gone back to the wars again and again. Why? In this powerful and intensely personal book, Keane interrogates what it is that draws him to the wars, what keeps him there and offers a reckoning of the damage done. PTSD affects people from all walks of life. Trauma can be found in many places, not just war. Keane's book speaks to the struggle of all who are trying to recover from injury, addiction and mental breakdown. It is a survivor's story drawn from lived experience, told with honesty, courage and an open heart.

Operation Mincemeat retells the story of the classic World War Two intelligence plan to pass misleading strategic information to Hitler and his Generals that was immortalized in the 1956 Hollywood film The Man Who Never Was. Drawing on a wealth of recently available documentation, Denis Smyth shows how British deceptioneers solved a multitude of medical, technical, and logistical problems to implement their deceptive design. The aim of their covert plan was to persuade the German High Command that the Allies were going to attack Greece, rather than Sicily in the summer of 1943. To achieve this, they equipped a dead body with a new military identity as a Royal Marine Major, a new private personality as the fiance of an attractive young woman named 'Pam', and a government briefcase containing deceptive documents. They then planted the corpse in south-western Spanish coastal waters via a stealthy submarine operation, and carefully monitored (through their codebreakers and spies) how the Nazi intelligence services and their warlords proceeded to 'swallow Mincemeat whole'. The result was a stunning success. The German mis-deployment of their forces to meet the notional Anglo-American threat to Greece materially contributed to the Allied victory in Sicily - which, in its turn, drove Mussolini from power in Italy and inflicted irreparable damage on the German war effort.

The explosive sequel to the bestselling PATHFINDER. For the first time ever an elite British operator tells the gruelling story of his selection into the Pathfinders - Britain's secret soldiers. Pathfinder selection is a brutal physical and psychological trial lasting many weeks. It rivals that of the SAS and takes place over the same spine-crushing terrain, in the rain-and-snow-lashed wastes of the Welsh mountains. For two decades no one has been able to relate the extraordinary trials of British elite forces selection - until now. Captain David Blakeley goes on from completing selection to serve with the Pathfinders in Afghanistan post 9/11, where he had a gun held to his head by Al Qaeda fighters. From there he deploys to Iraq, on a series of dramatic behind-enemy-lines missions - wherein he and his tiny elite patrol are outnumbered, outgunned and trapped. MAVERICK ONE is unique and extraordinary, chronicling the making of a warrior. It culminates in Blakeley fighting back to full recovery from horrific injuries suffered whilst on operations in Iraq, to go on to face SAS selection.

President Trump's last secretary of defense shares harrowing stories of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, gives an insider look at the tumultuous final days of the Trump administration, and issues a stark warning about the readiness of the military under President Biden.If you know one thing about Chris Miller, it's that he was President Donald Trump's final Secretary of Defense, elevated to that position in the days after the 2020 election. If you know a second thing about Chris Miller, it's that he oversaw the U.S. Armed Forces during one of the most controversial and tumultuous periods the military has experienced in decades, culminating in the shocking events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Yet Chris Miller is no political partisan. On the contrary, Miller has spent his adult life in the crosshairs of America's most dangerous enemies--from Middle Eastern deserts to the bowels of U.S. intelligence agencies--and emerged as one of the leading national security minds of his generation.Needless to say, Chris Miller has stories to tell. In Soldier Secretary, he reveals for the first time everything he saw--in a book that is candid, thought-provoking, and like that of no Secretary of Defense before him. This book is not just the inside story of what happened during the Trump administration--it's the inside story of what happened to America, its military, and its institutions during the two decades after September 11, 2001.Part badass, part iconoclast, Miller is an irreverent, heterodox, and always-fascinating thinker whose personal journey through war and the White House has led him to some shocking conclusions about the state of American power in 2021. With a perspective that will surprise and interest both Republicans and Democrats, Miller argues for a radical rethinking of U.S. national security strategy unlike anything since the creation of the joint armed forces in the 1980s. He offers a roadmap for how the United States can win in the era of unrestricted warfare by shedding the bloated defense bureaucracy, bringing American forces home from endless conflicts, renewing our national unity, and beating China at its own game. Miller is a true American warrior whose incredible journey from Iowa to Afghanistan to Iraq to the White House endeared him to the troops, prepared him for the unprecedented crisis of January 6, and left him deeply concerned about the future of our military and the future of our nation.

Deep in the Congo's Garamba National Park in the dead of night, Joseph Kony - the notorious warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court - made a shocking admission. Loosened by home-made wine, exposing a vulnerability he could never show the world, Kony looked George Omona in the eye, 'You need to know that if I had a choice I would not be doing this ... I wish I could be a man of books, like you.' Three years earlier George was expelled from one of Uganda's best schools, just weeks before he was due to graduate with exemplary grades, destroying his dreams of becoming a teacher. In desperation, his uncle found him a role in Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). George's education and fluent command of English allowed him to rapidly rise through the ranks, eventually becoming one of Kony's bodyguards, before he finally made his escape. George's story - based on many hours of interviews with acknowledged LRA expert Ledio Cakaj - provides a vivid, personal and fascinating insight into the inner workings of the LRA, and the mind of Kony, its self-appointed prophet.

Venter s choice of military events is eclectic. He has four chapters on Afghanistan, three on Somalia, several on how Lisbon fought its desperate rearguard colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea as well as several on the Rhodesian War. These include a tribute to his old friend Ron Reid-Daly, founder-commander of the Selous Scouts, a vivid profile of the RLI Incredibles in a cross-border strike on enemy positions in Mozambique as well as a chapter by Colonel Brian Robinson, longest serving commander of the Rhodesian SAS. Venter also draws heavily on his experiences as a military correspondent for Britain s Jane s Information Group in the Middle East: he accompanied the IDF when it went into Beirut in 1982.Neall Ellis who flew helicopter gunships against the rebels in Sierra Leone and is currently flying support missions in Russian Mi-8s in Afghanistan, Al Venter going into combat with a bunch of South African Parabats in a strike against enemy positions in Angola (where he was subsequently wounded), Mike Hoare s aborted invasion of the Seychelles a quarter of a century ago, an American mercenary in Iraq as well as a United States Navy rescue mission in Somalia are among more than 30 chapters that appear in this new book. The book is illustrated with more than 100 photographs and follows the publication of his earlier military titles "War Dog" (2006) and "Barrel of a Gun" (2010), both published by Casemate in the US and Britain."

Graham Allen, a U.S. Army veteran and a rising star in the conservative movement, makes the case that the United States should look to the country as it was on September 12th, 2001 for lessons about our future. On the day after the World Trade Center was attacked, Americans came together regardless of color, religion, or sexual orientation. We were united. On that day, nearly every store in the country sold out of American flags. After the events of the last eighteen months, from the Covid-19 pandemic to the constant attempts to divide us by race, Graham Allen believes that we should all look back on the events of 9/12 and remember what unites us. He believes that we do not all have to be the same, that it's okay not to agree on everything, but that we share a common history and a set of values. Just as the year 1776 serves as a reminder of our beginning, 9/12 will serve as a reminder of our present and future.

***SOON TO BE A MAJOR HOLLYWOOD FILM*** 'This is aerial drama at its best. Fast, powerful, and moving.' Erik Larson Devotion tells the gripping story of the US Navy's most famous aviator duo - Tom Hudner, a white New Englander, and Jesse Brown, a black sharecropper's son from Mississippi. Against all odds, Jesse beat back racism to become the Navy's first black aviator. Against all expectations, Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighter planes for his country. While much of America remained divided by segregation, the two became wingmen in Fighter Squadron 32 and went on to fight side-by-side in the Korean War. Adam Makos follows Tom and Jesse's dramatic journey to the war's climatic battle at the Chosin Reservoir, where they fought to save an entire division of trapped Marines. It was here that one of them was faced with an unthinkable choice - and discovered how far they would go to save a friend.

The remarkable story of seven African-American soldiers denied the Medal of Honor for more than 50 years due to their race, and their extraordinary acts of bravery. In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades. But recent historical investigations have brought to light some of the extraordinary acts of valor performed by black soldiers during the war. Men like Vernon Baker, who single-handedly eliminated three enemy machine guns, an observation post, and a German dugout. Or Sergeant Reuben Rivers, who spearheaded his tank unit's advance against fierce German resistance for three days despite being grievously wounded. Meanwhile Lieutenant Charles Thomas led his platoon to capture a strategically vital village on the Siegfried Line in 1944 despite losing half his men and suffering a number of wounds himself. Ultimately, in 1993 a US Army commission determined that seven men, including Baker, Rivers and Thomas, had been denied the Army's highest award simply due to racial discrimination. In 1997, more than 50 years after the war, President Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to these seven heroes, sadly all but one of them posthumously. These are their stories.

"The Inside Story of America's Ultimate Warriors" When Osama bin Laden was assassinated, the entire world was fascinated by the men who had completed the seemingly impossible mission that had dogged the U.S. government for over a decade. SEAL Team 6 became synonymous with heroism, duty, and justice. Only a handful of the elite men who make up the SEALs, the US Navy's best and bravest, survive the legendary and grueling selection process that leads to becoming a member of Team 6, a group so classified it technically does not even exist. There are no better warriors on Earth.
Don Mann knows what it takes to be a brother in this ultra-selective fraternity. As a member of Seal Team Six for over eight years and a SEAL for over seventeen years, he worked in countless covert operations, operating from land, sea, and air, and facing shootings, decapitations, and stabbings. He was captured by the enemy and lived to tell the tale, and he participated in highly classified missions all over the globe, including Somalia, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As a coordinator for several civilian SEAL training programs, and as a former Training Officer of SEAL Team Six, he was directly responsible for shaping the bodies and minds of SEALs who carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
But to become a SEAL, Mann had to overcome his own troubled childhood and push his body to its breaking point--and beyond. INSIDE SEAL TEAM 6 is a high octane narrative of physical and mental toughness, giving unprecedented insight to the inner workings of the training and secret missions of the world's most respected and feared combat unit.

Interweaving personal stories with historical photographs and background, this lively account documents the history of the more than 40,000 women who served in relief and military duty during World War I. Through personal interviews and excerpts from diaries, letters, and memoirs, Lettie Gavin relates poignant stories of women's wartime experiences and provides a unique perspective on their progress in military service. American Women in World War I captures the spirit of these determined patriots and their times for every reader and will be of special interest to military, women's, and social historians.

Cultural Writing. This New York Times bestseller details the author's life story (portrayed by Tom Cruise in the Oliver Stone film)--from a patriotic soldier in Vietnam, to his severe battlefield injury, to his role as the country's most outspoken anti-Vietnam War advocate, spreading his message from his wheelchair. Ron Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from his chest down in combat in 1968 and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Kovic's powerful and moving new introduction sets this classic antiwar story in a contemporary context.

An inspiring and heart-warming short story of devotion and bravery. A thoroughbred horse, Warrior, is passed through various owners before he is shipped to the thick of the action on the Western Front to serve as his current master's mount for all four years of the First World War. Warrior and General 'Galloping Jack Seeley' were involved from the first engagements through to one of the last, the Battle of Moreuil Wood. Together they fought in terrifying battles and witnessed the death of many horses and masters who served alongside them, terrible deaths, but through it all Warrior seemed to pass like a spirit. This is the tale of his heroic wartime exploits and eventual return to the green fields of England. An evocative and powerful story of a real and great war horse. Warrior's story was the basis for the fictional Joey in Michael Morpurgo's War Horse.

A haunting ode to those who paid the ultimate price-through the prism of the Maoist insurgency, Ashutosh Bhardwaj meditates on larger questions of violence and betrayal, love and obsession, and what it means to live with and write about death. From 2011 to 2015, Ashutosh lived in the Red Corridor in India wherein the Ultra-Left Naxalites, taking inspiration from the Russian revolution and Mao's tactics, work to overthrow the Indian government by the barrel of the gun. He made several trips thereafter reporting on the insurgents, on police and governmental atrocities, and on the lives caught in the crossfire. Ashutosh chronicles his experiences and bears witness to the lives and deaths of the unforgettable men and women he meets from both sides of the struggle, bringing home the human cost of conflict with astonishing power. Narrated in multiple voices, the book is a creative biography of the region, Dandakaranya, that combines the rigour of journalism, the intimacy of a diary, the musings of a travelogue, and the craft of a novel. The Death Script is one of the most significant works of non-fiction to be published in recent times, bringing often overlooked perspectives and events to light with empathy. Praised by India's topmost scholars and critics, the book has already won various awards.

Twenty true stories of covert military operations, from raids into Laos by elite unit MAC-V-SOG to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War to the US Navy SEAL 6 operation Neptune's Spear in Abbottabad which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Lewis shines a light on the 'shadow war' units that conduct clandestine operations and tells in full and fascinating detail the most daring missions of the last fifty years, from the the Sayeret Mat'Kal/Mossad 'Wrath of God' mission to assassinate those behind the Munich Olympic massacre of Olympic athletes to the Delta Force mission in Somalia using Black Hawk helicopters which went so tragically wrong.

In the winter of 1875, a young British officer set out across central Asia on a strictly unofficial mission to investigate the latest secret Russian moves in the Great Game. His goal was the mysterious caravan city of Khiva, his aim to discover whether this remote and dangerous oasis was about to be used as a springboard for an invasion of India. He rode for over a thousand miles across steppe and desert, struggling through blizzards and snowdrifts, to reach forbidden Khiva. Ordered home by an alarmed government, Burnaby immediately sat down and wrote this best-selling account of his adventures, which has become a Great Game classic.

In this vivid account of the U.S. Army's legendary 10th Mountain Division's heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan, Captain Sean Parnell shares an action-packed and highly emotional true story of triumph, tragedy, and the extraordinary bonds forged in battle. At twenty-four years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon-a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws-and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush. Barely surviving the attack, Parnell's men now realized that they faced the most professional and seasoned force of light infantry the U.S. Army had encountered since the end of World War II. What followed was sixteen months of close combat, over the course of which the platoon became Parnell's family. But the cost of battle was high for these men: over 80 percent were wounded in action, putting their casualty rate among the highest since Gettysburg, and not all of them made it home. A searing and unforgettable story of friendship in battle, "Outlaw Platoon" brings to life the intensity and raw emotion of those sixteen months, showing how the fight reshaped the lives of Parnell and his men and how the love and faith they found in one another ultimately kept them alive.

'A reminder that every childhood is different, and some are jaw-droppingly, mind-bendingly, heart-wrenchingly different.' - Morris Gleitzman, Australian Children's Laureate Deng Adut was six years old when war came to his village in South Sudan. Taken from his mother, he was conscripted into the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. He was taught to use an AK-47 and sent into battle. Shot in the back, plagued by illness and the relentless brutality of war, Deng's future was bleak. A child soldier must kill or be killed. But, after five years, he was rescued by his brother John and, miraculously, they became the third Sudanese family resettled in Australia. Songs of a War Boy is the inspirational memoir of a young man who has overcome unthinkable adversity to become a lawyer, refugee advocate and NSW Australian of the Year. It is also an important reminder of the power of compassion. Content warning: Parts of this book contain confronting material that might cause distress to some readers. For ages 12+

A second collection of incredible and heart-warming canine stories from around the world, from the bestselling author of The Dog That Saved My Life.

Animals have accompanied man into battle since war first waged. Since those times, many stories have been told of the bears, camels, cats, dolphins, monkeys, mules, rats and other creatures that have served with the Armed Forces during both world wars and beyond. The four stories in this book represent the devotion and unquestioning loyalty of the canine companion in the darkest days of war.

From the stub-tailed Bull Terrier that became a hero of the First World War, and the most decorated dog in history, after his bravery in the trenches of Flanders, to the remarkable loyalty of an Iraqi stray dog who attached himself to British troops in North Port and then patrolled their camp every night, protecting them from being attacked by the vicious packs of dogs living in the desert, each is an incredible tale of wartime bravery as well as an example of inspiring commitment and courage.

Five incredible true stories of canine bravery in wartime. For as long as dogs have lived alongside man, they have saved their lives in wartime with their bravery, loyalty and companionship. From the WWII dog that was adopted by the Royal Navy as a mascot, torpedoed, shot at and registered as a prisoner of war, to the more recent heroics of explosives dog, Bonnie, in Afghanistan and Iraq where she saved hundreds of military and civilian lives, this is a collection of the most incredible and heartwarming accounts from around the world. Capturing the fear, uncertainly, determination and undying devotion of these amazing dogs and the young soldiers, sailors and airmen they befriended, these are truly inspirational tales of loyalty and companionship beyond all boundaries.

A Daily Telegraph History Book of the Year 'An astonishing story... brilliantly told' Antony Beevor 'Gripping... Will appeal to anyone who relishes Ben Macintyre's tales of wartime espionage and cryptic codes.' Sunday Telegraph Summertime, 1935. On a lake near Berlin, a young man is out sailing when he glimpses a woman reclining in the prow of a passing boat. Their eyes meet - and one of history's greatest conspiracies is born. Harro Schulze-Boysen had already shed blood in the fight against Nazism by the time he and Libertas Haas-Heye began their whirlwind romance. She joined the cause, and soon the two lovers were leading a network of antifascists that stretched across Berlin's bohemian underworld. Harro himself infiltrated German intelligence and began funnelling Nazi battle plans to the Allies, including the details of Hitler's surprise attack on the Soviet Union. But nothing could prepare Harro and Libertas for the betrayals they would suffer in this war of secrets - a struggle in which friend could be indistinguishable from foe. Drawing on unpublished diaries, letters and Gestapo files, Norman Ohler spins an unforgettable tale of love, heroism and sacrifice.