|
|
Books > History > History of specific subjects > Military history
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.
The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.
Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe - whether war or natural disaster – was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.
War Doctor is his extraordinary story.
In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive
fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of
Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the
Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end
the rebellion the following year and devised what they believed a
war-winning strategy, sending General John Burgoyne south to rout
the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort
Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if
it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in
the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a
combination of the Continental Army and Militia forces, commanded
by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of
Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The
American victory stunned the world and changed the course of the
war. Kevin J. Weddle offers the most authoritative history of the
Battle of Saratoga to date, explaining with verve and clarity why
events unfolded the way they did. In the end, British plans were
undone by a combination of distance, geography, logistics, and an
underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability. Taking
Ticonderoga had misled Burgoyne and his army into thinking victory
was assured. Saratoga, which began as a British foraging
expedition, turned into a rout. The outcome forced the British to
rethink their strategy, inflamed public opinion in England against
the war, boosted Patriot morale, and, perhaps most critical of all,
led directly to the Franco-American alliance. Weddle unravels the
web of contingencies and the play of personalities that ultimately
led to what one American general called "the Compleat Victory."
With more than 1,200 photos, the second volume of this series gets
into the heart of the USAF uniforms and equipment used during the
Vietnam War. Focusing on hundreds of Air Force named items, the
book offers precise insight and references covering a selection of
70+ units. Flight suits, helmets, utility shirts, jungle jackets,
plaques, and souvenir lighters are featured together to illustrate
the history of these flying and ground units. From the air bases to
the mighty B-52s, from the secret missions to the POWs, many
aspects of USAF involvement in Southeast Asia are covered in this
second volume.
Georg Bucher, a German infantryman from 1914 had lost almost all of
his closest friends by 1918. The last friend he lost, Riedel, was
crushed by a tank in one of the last battles of the war. This is
his tale in their memory. A sergeant by 1918, Bucher describes
nearly every part of the Western Front - the Marne, Verdun,Somme,
Ypres, the Vosges and the 1918 Spring Offensive in vivid detail. He
illustrates how his psychological state changed over the course of
the war, how a soldier can in a split second turn from a human
being into a killing machine without pity, killing as second
nature, without thought.The raw endurance required to survive the
trenches is narrated in undiluted fashion, no horrors are spared;
the quagmire of 3rd Ypres, unrelenting lice and rats, the stench of
death and descriptions ofa bhorrent actions such as (so Bucher
alleges) French soldiers, under the influence of absinthe,
mutilating some of his company for revenge on the Senegalese.Fans
of 'All Quiet on the Western Front' or 'Storm of Steel' will be
delighted to discover Bucher's work.
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German
Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he
held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that
Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again.
He had returned bringing "Peace with honour--Peace for our time."
Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David
Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events
of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich
Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax's ill-fated
meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain's secret discussions with
Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler's regime. He
takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin,
we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of
opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as
Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease
Hitler.
Resonating with an insider's feel for the political infighting
Faber uncovers, "Munich, 1938 "transports us to the war rooms and
bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and" "scandals upon
which the world's fate would rest. It is modern history writing at
its best.""
The story of the 39th Divisional Field Ambulances beings in the
year of 1915 at various recruiting offices, and continues in a
thin, uncertain stream of variable humanity, finding its way to the
Sussex Downs, facing the sea, at Cow Gap, Eastbourne, Here the
lines of white tents, the whitewashed stones, the martial sounds
and atmosphere welcomed the embryo soldier to the service of his
country, and to fellowship unique and abiding. These embryo
soldiers were to become the men that would be responsible for the
mobile frontline medical units and had special responsibility for
the care of casualties of the Brigades in their Division. Via Ypres
tells of these young men - mostly mere boys and non-militaristic in
their education - faced with the task of preparing to go to war to
take part in the great struggle. These happy, cheerful and perhaps
a bit casual soon-to-be soldiers remained just so once training was
over but also became the gallant and efficient men who were to be
faced with the danger and misery that war cannot help but bring; in
doing so potentially risk their lives to save those of their
comrades.
The 458th Bomb Group (H) entered combat with the 8th Air Force
early in 1944. Based at Horsham St. Faith in England, the combat
crews participated in the decisive Campaigns - 'Big Week', 'Big B',
D-Day and the assault on Germany's oil industry - waged by the
USAAF up to VE-Day. The group also tested the operational use of
'Azon' radio-controlled bombs. The 458th flew a total of 240
missions, during which over 13,000 tons of ordnance was dropped,
and was achieved at the cost of sixty-five crews MIA or involved in
operational accidents. This is their complete history.
Inspired by the discovery of her father's long-forgotten photos,
diaries and letters from home, the author set about creating this
book as a tribute to the bravery and sacrifices made by the armed
forces in the often over-looked Indian sub-continent area of
conflict, 5,000 miles away from home. Now, after six years of work
and research, this book has culminated in a tremendous insight into
the appalling hardships and working conditions as well as the
ingenuity of the often forgotten RAF ground crew who kept the
warbirds in the air. Deprived by the RAF of his Pilot's Licence due
to colour blindness, Peter was based firstly in central India,
maintaining old planes that were already obsolete, and then in
Burma where the ground crew were also flying as cargo handlers and
stretcher bearers, having to land and take off in the most
hazardous of conditions on short bush strips hacked out of the
Japanese-infested jungles.
Many earthen fortifications defended the city of Savannah and its
numerous water approaches after the Civil War broke out. One of
these defenses, Fort McAllister, protected the entrance to the
Ogeechee River and the strategic railroad and highway bridges
upstream. From November 1862 to March 1863 the U.S. Navy bombarded
the fort seven different times without success. The fort finally
fell to General Sherman in December 1864; ironically, the final
threat the fort faced was not from an enemy trying to get up the
river, but from one trying to get down the river to the sea. In the
1920s auto magnate Henry Ford renovated the fort and focused new
attention on its history.
`I was on a train, and a German soldier began shouting at me and poking me in the ribs with his machine gun. I just thought that was it, the game was up . . .' Downed airman Bob Frost faced danger at every turn as he was smuggled out of France and over the Pyrenees. Prisoner of war Len Harley went on the run in Italy, surviving months in hiding and then a hazardous climb over the Abruzzo mountains with German troops hot on his heels. These are just some of the stories told in heart-stopping detail as Monty Halls takes us along the freedom trails out of occupied Europe, from the immense French escape lines to lesser-known routes in Italy and Slovenia. Escaping Hitler features spies and traitors, extraordinary heroism from those who ran the escape routes and offered shelter to escapees, and great feats of endurance. The SAS in Operation Galia fought for forty days behind enemy lines in Italy and then, exhausted and pursued by the enemy, exfiltrated across the Apennine mountains. And in Slovenia Australian POW Ralph Churches and British Les Laws orchestrated the largest successful Allied escape of the entire war. Mixing new research, interviews with survivors and his own experience of walking the trails, Monty brings the past to life in this dramatic and gripping slice of military history.
This is a rare chance to re-discover a contemporary account of a
military conflict which took place a Century ago. The Agony of
Belgium, written in 1914 by Frank Fox, a war correspondent,
recounts events that the modern European mind would probably wish
to forget. The bravery and resilience of the relatively new and
untested Belgian Army, following the rejection of the German
Ultimatum by the King, deserves a wider audience. Throughout this
account the courageous and noble qualities of King Albert in the
dark days come to the fore. Whether at the Front as an active
Commander-in-Chief; with his people during Zeppelin raids and
artillery bombardments at Antwerp; declining refuge in France after
the retreat from Ostend; or rallying his troops for rearguard
actions his conduct was of the finest. His account of the
"frightfulness" of the events in Louvain against the civilian
population- including women and children- and the sacking of
cultural treasures was not at first believed by Officials in
Antwerp. However his reporting of Zeppelin raid shelped to arouse
public opinion in the United States.Fox provides vivid descriptions
of a terrible, and little known, conflict.
|
|