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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Military history
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'A parable written for the age of
technological disruption . . . brilliantly told' Sunday Times The
international bestselling author returns with an exploration of one
of the grandest obsessions of the twentieth century 'The Bomber
Mafia is a case study in how dreams go awry. When some shiny new
idea drops from the heavens, it does not land softly in our laps.
It lands hard, on the ground, and shatters.' In the years before
the Second World War, in a sleepy air force base in central
Alabama, a small group of renegade pilots put forth a radical idea.
What if we made bombing so accurate that wars could be fought
entirely from the air? What if we could make the brutal clashes
between armies on the ground a thing of the past? This book tells
the story of what happened when that dream was put to the test. The
Bomber Mafia follows the stories of a reclusive Dutch genius and
his homemade computer, Winston Churchill's forbidding best friend,
a team of pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard, a brilliant pilot who
sang vaudeville tunes to his crew, and the bomber commander, Curtis
Emerson LeMay, who would order the bloodiest attack of the Second
World War. In this tale of innovation and obsession, Gladwell asks:
what happens when technology and best intentions collide in the
heat of war? And what is the price of progress?
A Times History Book of the Year 2022 From the #1 bestselling
historian Max Hastings 'the heart-stopping story of the missile
crisis' Daily Telegraph The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most
perilous event in history, when mankind faced a looming nuclear
collision between the United States and Soviet Union. During those
weeks, the world gazed into the abyss of potential annihilation.
Max Hastings's graphic new history tells the story from the
viewpoints of national leaders, Russian officers, Cuban peasants,
American pilots and British disarmers. Max Hastings deploys his
accustomed blend of eye-witness interviews, archive documents and
diaries, White House tape recordings, top-down analysis, first to
paint word-portraits of the Cold War experiences of Fidel Castro's
Cuba, Nikita Khrushchev's Russia and Kennedy's America; then to
describe the nail-biting Thirteen Days in which Armageddon
beckoned. Hastings began researching this book believing that he
was exploring a past event from twentieth century history. He is as
shocked as are millions of us around the world, to discover that
the rape of Ukraine gives this narrative a hitherto unimaginable
twenty-first century immediacy. We may be witnessing the onset of a
new Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers. To contend with
today's threat, which Hastings fears will prove enduring, it is
critical to understand how, sixty years ago, the world survived its
last glimpse into the abyss. Only by fearing the worst, he argues,
can our leaders hope to secure the survival of the planet.
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western
Front, one thing was clear: mankind's military technology had
wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. The war's new weaponry,
from tanks to shrapnel, enabled slaughter on an industrial scale,
and given the nature of trench warfare, thousands of soldiers
sustained facial injuries. Medical advances meant that more
survived their wounds than ever before, yet disfigured soldiers did
not receive the hero's welcome they deserved. In The Facemaker,
award-winning historian Lindsey Fitzharris tells the astonishing
story of the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who
dedicated himself to restoring the faces - and the identities - of
a brutalized generation. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New
Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic
surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front.
Returning to Britain, he established one of the world's first
hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction in Sidcup,
south-east England. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of
doctors, nurses and artists whose task was to recreate what had
been torn apart. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a
hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely
intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of
the wounded but also their spirits. Meticulously researched and
grippingly told, The Facemaker places Gillies's ingenious surgical
innovations alongside the poignant stories of soldiers whose lives
were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how
medicine and art can merge, and of what courage and imagination can
accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.
It has been 100 years since the first airfield was established in
the country town of Yeovil. Since 1915, aircraft have been
designed, manufactured and tested at Westland, including the
Lysander, used to transport British agents to Europe during the
Second World War. In 1948 the company focused solely on helicopters
and its aircraft have been sent all over the world since then, used
in lifesaving with Air Ambulance and Search and Rescue and deployed
in warfare such as Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. To celebrate the
centenary of the UK's only major helicopter manufacturer, David
Gibbings has collated an anthology of writings that retell
Westland's history and its special relationship with Yeovil, which
has rarely been quiet since the first aircraft took off from the
airfield that now lies at its heart.
The USSR was the only nation to employ women in battle.It has been
written that, in what the Soviet historians called the Great
Patriotic War, between 800,000 and a million women from all over
the USSR took up arms, out of a total 10 million soldiers, sailors
and aviators involved. What's more, 200,000 of them were decorated.
The employment of such a quantity of women combatants by the Soviet
Union was due, also in this case, to several factors: the equality
between men and women sanctioned by communism; the multitude of
paramilitary activities offered free to students and workers
between the two world wars and in practice up until the fall of the
Berlin Wall; an ardent patriotism diffused by omnipresent and
incessant propaganda; the frightening losses incurred by the Soviet
Armed Forces with the German invasion. The women combatants paid a
high price in blood for the victory: many were wounded, remained
invalid, were killed, taken prisoner and tortured by the Germans or
disappeared and never returned home. However always very little is
said about them. Still less has been written on the subject of this
book, the women-snipers, an aspect that was totally exclusive to
the Red Army in the last war. There amounted to be a little less
than two thousand highly skilled markswomen that sowed panic among
the German ranks and that killed (according to some estimates)
20,000 enemy soldiers. In the West very little has been published
on these Red Army sniper women.
**Selected as a Book of the Year by the Spectator and the Daily
Telegraph** 'Fascinating ... carefully researched and beautifully
written' DAVID DIMBLEBY 'Utterly riveting' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'Robert-Sackville West writes tenderly about death and remembrance'
GERARD DEGROOT, THE TIMES ______________________ By the end of the
First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million
British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed dead, lost
forever under the battlefields of northern France and Flanders. In
The Searchers, Robert Sackville-West brings together the
extraordinary, moving accounts of those who dedicated their lives
to the search for the missing. These stories reveal the remarkable
lengths to which people will go to give meaning to their loss:
Rudyard Kipling's quest for his son's grave; E.M. Forster's
conversations with traumatised soldiers in hospital in Alexandria;
desperate attempts to communicate with the spirits of the dead; the
campaign to establish the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior; and the
exhumation and reburial in military cemeteries of hundreds of
thousands of bodies. It was a search that would span a century:
from the department set up to investigate the fate of missing
comrades in the war's aftermath, to the present day, when DNA
profiling continues to aid efforts to recover, identify and honour
these men. As the rest of the country found ways to repair and move
on, countless families were consumed by this mission, undertaking
arduous, often hopeless, journeys to discover what happened to
their husbands, brothers and sons. Giving prominence to the deep,
personal battles of those left behind, The Searchers brings the
legacy of war vividly to life in a testament to the bravery,
compassion and resilience of the human spirit. 'Remarkable' JOHN
CAREY, SUNDAY TIMES 'This is an outstanding book' LITERARY REVIEW
'Deeply moving' DAILY MAIL
A little girl is smuggled out of a Jewish ghetto. Two courageous
women. And an inspirational story of survival. In 1941 at the
height of World War II, in a Polish ghetto, a baby girl named
Rachel is born. Her parents, Jacob and Zippa, are willing to do
anything to keep her alive. They nickname her Lalechka. Just before
Lalechka's first birthday, the Nazis begin to systematically murder
everyone in the ghetto. Her father understands that staying in the
ghetto will mean certain death for his child. In both desperation
and hope, Lalechka's parents decide to save their daughter, no
matter the cost. Zippa smuggles her outside the boundaries of the
ghetto where her Polish friends, Irena and Sophia, are waiting. She
entrusts their beloved Lalechka to them and returns to the ghetto
to remain with her husband and parents - unaware of the fate that
awaits her. Irena and Sophia take on the burden of caring for
Lalechka during the war, pretending she is part of their family
despite the grave danger of being discovered and executed.
Holocaust Child is based on the unique journal written by Zippa
during the annihilation of the ghetto, as well as on interviews
with key figures in the story, rare documents, and authentic
letters. It is a story of hope in the face of terror.
This narrative history tells the story of the German occupation of
Normandy (1940-44), and the Allied liberation. Following the fall
of France in 1940, Normandy formed part of the Reich's western
border and its history for the next four years. On the coast, vast
defenses were built up, and large numbers of German troops were
stationed throughout the region, all in the midst of the local
population. Much of the story is told in the words of French,
German, and Allied participants, including last letters of executed
hostages and resisters, accounts of everyday life and eyewitness
reports of aerial, naval, and ground combat operations during the
Liberation. When the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, all
were witness to the greatest amphibious landing in history. This,
then, is the story of the 51-month-nightmare that was Normandy's
war, told while it is still possible to record the personal stories
of survivors, which very soon will not be the case.
**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER** The book that inspired Steven
Spielberg's acclaimed TV series, produced by Tom Hanks and starring
Damian Lewis. In Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose pays tribute
to the men of Easy Company, a crack rifle company in the US Army.
From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the dangerous
parachute landings on D-Day and their triumphant capture of
Hitler's 'Eagle's Nest' in Berchtesgaden. Ambrose tells the story
of this remarkable company. Repeatedly send on the toughest
missions, these brave men fought, went hungry, froze and died in
the service of their country. A tale of heroic adventures and
soul-shattering confrontations, Band of Brothers brings back to
life, as only Stephen E. Ambrose can, the profound ties of
brotherhood forged in the barracks and on the battlefields.
'History boldly told and elegantly written . . . Gripping' Wall
Street Journal 'Ambrose proves once again he is a masterful
historian . . . spellbinding' People
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.
Most people are familiar with the use of horses and their
often-heroic actions in the First World War, but what about camels,
monkeys and the mighty elephant? In this wonderfully illustrated
title, learn about how animals were trained and used, the role pets
had to play in the war, and the plight of animals on the farm, down
the mine and in the street. Although animals were used heavily on
the front line and in major battles such as the Somme, they also
had a role to play at home and, indeed, in almost every aspect of
wartime life. From their first use to how animals were treated when
the war ended, and including the involvement of the RSPCA and
Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, this volume contains stories that
will shock, delight and move you.
One of the most famous accounts of living under the Nazi regime of
World War II comes from the diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish
girl, Anne Frank. Today, The Diary of a Young Girl has sold over 25
million copies world-wide; this is the definitive edition released
to mark the 70th anniversary of the day the diary begins. '12 June
1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have
never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a
great source of comfort and support' The Diary of a Young Girl is
one of the most celebrated and enduring books of the last century.
Tens of millions have read it since it was first published in 1947
and it remains a deeply admired testament to the indestructible
nature of the human spirit. This definitive edition restores thirty
per cent if the original manuscript, which was deleted from the
original edition. It reveals Anne as a teenage girl who fretted
about and tried to cope with her own emerging sexuality and who
also veered between being a carefree child and an aware adult. Anne
Frank and her family fled the horrors of Nazi occupation by hiding
in the back of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years with another
family and a German dentist. Aged thirteen when she went into the
secret annexe, Anne kept a diary. She movingly revealed how the
eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with
hunger, the daily threat of discovery and death and being cut off
from the outside world, as well as petty misunderstandings and the
unbearable strain of living like prisoners. The Diary of a Young
Girl is a timeless true story to be rediscovered by each new
generation. For young readers and adults it continues to bring to
life Anne's extraordinary courage and struggle throughout her
ordeal. This is the definitive edition of the diary of Anne Frank.
Anne Frank was born on the 12 June 1929. She died while imprisoned
at Bergen-Belsen, three months short of her sixteenth birthday.
This seventieth anniversary, definitive edition of The Diary of a
Young Girl is poignant, heartbreaking and a book that everyone
should read.
A fascinating, forgotten story of the six brilliant women who
launched modern computing. As the Cold War began, America's race
for tech supremacy was taking off. Experts rushed to complete the
top-secret computing research started during World War II, among
them six gifted mathematicians: a patriotic Quaker, a Jewish
bookworm, a Yugoslav genius, a native Gaelic speaker, a sophomore
from the Bronx, and a farmer's daughter from Missouri. Their
mission? Programming the world's first and only
supercomputer-before any code or programming languages existed.
These pioneers triumphed against sexist attitudes and huge
technical challenges to invent computer programming, yet their
monumental contribution has never been recognised-until now. Over a
decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC
Programmers and recorded their stories. Here, with a light touch
and a serious mind, she exposes the deliberate erasure of their
achievements and restores the women to their rightful place as
revolutionaries, bringing to life their camaraderie, their
determination, and their rapidly changing world. As big tech
struggles with gender inequality and momentum builds in restoring
women to history, the time has come for this engrossing story to be
uncovered and celebrated.
'A riveting, unvarnished and wholly unforgettable portrait of
America's most storied commandos at war.' - Joby Warrick, author of
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize
for General Nonfiction A stirringly evocative, thought-provoking,
and often jaw-dropping account of SEAL Team Operator Robert
O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career. O'Neill describes his
idyllic childhood in Butte, Montana; his impulsive decision to join
the SEALs; the arduous evaluation and training process; and the
even tougher gauntlet he had to run to join the SEALs' most elite
unit. The Operatordescribes the nonstop action of O'Neill's
deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, evoking the black humor of
years-long combat, and reveals firsthand details of the most
discussed anti-terrorist operation in military history.
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