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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Military life & institutions
The true story of the 8th Air Force s legendary 303rd bomb group
Although the United States declared war against Germany in December 1941, a successful assault on Nazi-occupied Europe could not happen until Germany s industrial and military might were crippled. The first target was the Luftwaffe the most powerful and battle-hardened air force in the world. The United States Army Air Forces joined with Great Britain s already-engaged Royal Air Force to launch a strategic air campaign that ultimately brought the Luftwaffe to its knees. One of the standout units of this campaign was the legendary 303rd Bomb Group Hell s Angels.
This is the 303rd s story, as told by the men who made it what it was. Taking their name from their B-17 of the same name, they became one of the most distinguished and important air combat units in history. The dramatic and terrible air battles they fought against Germany ultimately changed the course of the war.
The book describes the armed forces of Peter the Great in its
entirety, and covers in depth old Russian troops and irregulars, as
well as Peter's new standing army (guards, infantry, dragoons,
elite units and artillery) and his brand-new force(the navy, with
sailing ships and galleys, and marines). Besides the staffing,
organization and development of troops, the book gives detailed
account of uniforms, weapons and other materiel (both conventional
and unusual). Training is described using drill manuals and
tactical instructions of the period, and fighting methods actually
performed on the battlefield are described - based on first-hand
accounts and period observations from Russian, Swedish and
impartial sources. Pitched battles that often predominate in
descriptions of early-18th century warfare are given their due in
the book; however, linear tactics on the field were not the only -
nor even the main - type of actions during the Great Northern War,
so the author goes into details of the sieges, small war actions
and riverine, lake and naval combats. The author brings up
materials that were unavailable to English-speaking readers and
scholars so far, and the book not only contains the author's own
research, but is also based on the most recent works of other
Russian scholars who specialize in various aspects of the Petrine
military history; this makes the book a comprehensive and
up-to-date overview of Peter the Great's military force during the
Great Northern War (1700-1721). The book is supplemented with
numerous contemporary prints and paintings, photos of artefacts and
recreated uniform kits, as well as specially-commissioned artwork
that has been created by an artist who is knowledgeable in details
from that period.
This groundbreaking biography of Loreta Janeta Velasquez delves
into the life of one of America's early celebrities. She claimed to
have posed as a man to fight for the Confederacy, but this book
reveals a startling reality that's even more implausible than the
myths she created.
In the decades since the Vietnam War, veteran memoirs have
influenced Americans' understanding of the conflict. Yet few
historians or literary scholars have scrutinized how the genre has
shaped the nation's collective memory of the war and its aftermath.
Instead, veterans' accounts are mined for colorful quotes and then
dropped from public discourse; are accepted as factual sources with
little attention to how memory, no matter how authentic, can
diverge from events; or are not contextualized in terms of the
race, gender, or class of the narrators. Veteran Narratives and the
Collective Memory of the Vietnam War is a landmark study of the
cultural heritage of the war in Vietnam as presented through the
experience of its American participants. Crossing disciplinary
borders in ways rarely attempted by historians, John A. Wood
unearths truths embedded in the memoirists' treatments of combat,
the Vietnamese people, race relations in the United States
military, male-female relationships in the war zone, and veterans'
postwar troubles. He also examines the publishing industry's
influence on collective memory, discussing, for example, the
tendency of publishers and reviewers to privilege memoirs critical
of the war. Veteran Narratives is a significant and original
addition to the literature on Vietnam veterans and the conflict as
a whole.
The Dutch Republic was one of the great European powers during the
17th and 18th centuries. Generally, the Dutch Republic was
considered to have lost that status after the Peace of Utrecht
(1713); however, when the Republic entered the War of Austrian
Succession in 1740, it was able to field an army for over 80,000
men, which expanded to over 110,000 men during the war, and was
still a European power to be reckoned with. The losses it suffered
in that conflict led to a period of decline, which in the end would
result in the end of the Republic in 1795. But despite the years of
neutrality, shortages, budget cuts and reorganizations, the army
was still quite a formidable force. The purpose of this book is to
focus on the uniforms and organisation of that army, from the Peace
of Utrecht until the reforms of 1772. Volume I dealt with the
history of the Dutch Republic after the War of the Spanish
Succession, up to the first campaigns of the War of the Austrian
Succession, with information on the uniforms, organisation and
tactics of the infantry. Volume II describes steady decline of the
Dutch Republic; political turmoil and corruption form the
background for the information on the uniforms and tactics of the
cavalry, dragoons, artillery, and specialist troops.
For most of us, clicking "like" on social media has become fairly
routine. For a Marine, clicking "like" from the battlefield lets
his social network know he's alive. This is the first time in the
history of modern warfare that US troops have direct, instantaneous
connection to civilian life back home. Lisa Ellen Silvestri's
Friended at the Front documents the revolutionary evolving military
guidelines for social media engagement, Silvestri explores specific
practices amongst active duty Marines such as posting photos and
producing memes. Her interviews, observations, and research reveal
how social network sites present both an opportunity to connect
with civilians back home, as well as an obligation to do so-one
that can become controversial for troops in a war zone. Much like
the war on terror itself, the boundaries, expectations, and dangers
associated with social media are amorphous and under constant
negotiation. Friended at the Front explains how our communication
landscape changes what it is like to go to war for individual
service members, their loved ones, and for the American public at
large change in the way we communicate across fronts. Social media,
Silvestri contends, changes what it's like to be at war. Based on
in-person interviews and online with the US Marines, Friended at
the Front explores the new media habits, attitudes, and behaviors
of troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some of the
complications that emerge in their wake. The book pays particular
attention to the way US troops use Facebook and YouTube to narrate
their experiences to civilian network members, to each other, and,
not least of all, to themselves. After she reviews evolving
military guidelines for social media engagement, Silvestri explores
specific practices amongst active duty Marines such as posting
photos and producing memes. Her interviews, observations, and
research reveal how social network sites present both an
opportunity to connect with civilians back home, as well as an
obligation to do so-one that can become controversial for troops in
a war zone. Much like the war on terror itself, the boundaries,
expectations, and dangers associated with social media are
amorphous and under constant negotiation. Friended at the Front
explains how our communication landscape changes what it is like to
go to war for individual service members, their loved ones, and for
the American public at large.
The Civil War brought many forms of upheaval to America, not only
in waking hours but also in the dark of night. Sleeplessness
plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided
through the minds of Americans in both the North and South.
Sometimes their nightly visions brought the horrors of the conflict
vividly to life. But for others, nighttime was an escape from the
hard realities of life and death in wartime. In this innovative new
study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil
War-era Americans and what their dreams reveal about their
experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with
their fears, desires, and struggles while they slept, and how their
dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and
loneliness that engulfed them. White takes readers into the
deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War,
connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to
the broader history of the conflict, confirming what poets have
known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only
revealed in the world of darkness.
The idea of late medieval arms and armour often conjures up images
of lumbering warriors, clad in heavy plate armour, hacking away at
with each other with enormous weapons - depictions perpetuated in
both bad literature and bad movies. In this introductory guide,
replete with fabulous photography and marvellous anecdotes,
internationally-renowned edged weapons expert Robert Woosnam-Savage
describes the brutal reality of personal protection and attack in
the so-called 'age of chivalry'. From Bannockburn to Bosworth,
Poitiers to Pavia, this book is an indispensable introduction to an
iconic era.
The British Eighth Army, which played a decisive role in defeating
the Axis in North Africa, was one of the most celebrated Allied
armies of the Second World War, and this photographic history is
the ideal introduction to it. The carefully chosen photographs show
the men, weapons and equipment of the army during campaigns in
Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The battles the army fought in the
Western Desert in 1941 and 1942 are the stuff of legend, as is the
second Battle of El Alamein when, under Montgomery, it defeated the
German and Italian forces commanded by Rommel. The book gives a
vivid insight into the fighting and the desert conditions, and it
shows what a varied, multinational force the army was, for it
brought together men from Britain, the British Empire and
Commonwealth as well as Free French, Greeks and Poles.
While headline writers in the ETO were naturally focused on events
in Normandy and the Bulge in the north, equally ferocious combats
were taking place in southern France and Germany during 1944-45,
which are now finally getting their due. The US 14th Armored
Division-a late arrival to the theatre-was thrust into intense
combat almost the minute it arrived in Europe, as the Germans
remained determined to defend their southern flank. Like other US
formations, the 14th AD, after advancing through France, was
hammered to a standstill at the Westwall in the autumn of 1944.
Nevertheless, it had gained experience, and when the Germans sought
to turn the tide, with Operation Northwind, they found a hardened
formation against them. This book explores in detail what happened
in the month of January 1945 in the snow-covered Vosges Mountains,
when the Wehrmacht's attempt to destroy the Sixth Army Group
failed. As a result of the rapid advance of Seventh Army and the
14th, German POW camps like the ones at Hammelburg and Moosburg
were liberated of over 100,000 prisoners, an achievement which gave
the division the nom de guerre The Liberators. About the Author
Timothy O'Keeffe, a Professor Emeritus from Southern Connecticut
State College, whose brother-in-law serving with The Liberators
lost his leg, has devoted years of effort to unveiling the crucial,
yet heretofore unwritten, role that they played in the ultimate
Allied victory.
In October 1813, the soldiers of one of Napoleon's staunchest
Allies, Saxony, defected en masse in the midst of battle at
Leipzig. Almost immediately III German Army Corps was formed with
these same soldiers as its nucleus and augmented with returning
former prisoners of war, volunteers and militia. Commanded by the
Duke of Saxe-Weimar the Corps was sent to the Southern Netherlands
to take part in the final defeat of Napoleon amidst of a constant
changing command of control structure, in which the Swedish Crown
Prince Bernadotte played a major and dubious role. Although for the
greater part inexperienced and badly armed, fighting against the
much superior French I Corps which even contained Imperial Guard
units, III Corps struggled to prove that it could be trusted,
paying a major role to protect the Netherlands against the French
as these regions tried to regain their own identity after decades
of French rule.
The United States Marine Corps was one of the phenomena of the
Second World War. Greatly expanded from its pre-war order of battle
of scattered defence battalions, overseas garrisons and ship
detachments, it became a multi-division force bearing the brunt of
the hardest fighting across the whole vast expanse of the Pacific
theatre of operations. In August 1942 Marines were among the first
to strike back at the Japanese in the jungles of Guadalcanal;
Marine Raider battalions were formed to carry the fight to the
enemy; and from the Central Solomon's landings of mid-1943 it was
the Marines who spearheaded the 'island - hopping' amphibious
campaign which brought them to Okinawa, on Japan's doorstep, by
VJ-Day. This epic story has been well documented in most respects -
except one: the uniforms, insignia and personal equipment of the
Marines who fought their way across the Pacific. Authoritative,
illustrated reference works of this important aspect of World War
II's physical history have been notoriously lacking. In this book,
long-time collector and researcher Jim Moran fills the gap, with a
systematic, detailed guide illustrated with more than 300
photographs, including some 200 close-ups of surviving items in
private collections on both sides of the Atlantic. The author
covers service and field uniforms at the outbreak of war; the
development of the Marine's dungaree's'; the introduction and
development of the camouflage uniforms which became the Marine's
trademark in the popular imagination; the 782 gear' webbing
equipment; the various packs and other load-carrying items; the
uniforms, insignia and equipment special to the elite Marine
Raiders and Paramarines; the uniforms and accoutrements of the US
Marine Corps Women's Reserve; and a range of issue and personal
small kit items which collectors may encounter. His research is
supported by some 100 wartime photographs showing the identified
item in use. Assisted and encouraged by the US Marine Corps
Historical Center at Quantico, Virginia, Jim Moran has produced an
essential reference for the collector, modeller, illustrator and
uniform historian.
An inventive study of relations between the National Guard and
the Regular Army during World War II, Guard Wars follows the
Pennsylvania National Guard's 28th Infantry Division from its
peacetime status through training and into combat in Western
Europe. The broader story, spanning the years 1939 1945, sheds
light on the National Guard, the U.S. Army, and American identities
and priorities during the war years. Michael E. Weaver carefully
tracks the division s difficult transformation into a combat-ready
unit and highlights General Omar Bradley's extraordinary capacity
for leadership which turned the Pennsylvanians from the least
capable to one of the more capable units, a claim dearly tested in
the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. This absorbing and informative
analysis chronicles the nation's response to the extreme demands of
a world war, and the flexibility its leaders and soldiers displayed
in the chaos of combat."
On April 2, 1917, the United States officially entered a war that
had been raging for nearly three years in Europe. Even though
America's involvement in the "Great War" lasted little more than a
year and a half, the changes it wrought were profound. More than
seventy thousand Arkansans served as soldiers during the war.
Wartime propaganda led to suspicions directed against Germans,
Jehovah's Witnesses, and African Americans in Arkansas, but war
production proved a boon to the state in the form of greater demand
for cotton, minerals, and timber. World War I connected Arkansas to
the world in ways that changed the state and its people forever, as
shown in the essays collected here.
Walk the Wall, gaze northwards across hostile territory, man the
turrets and milecastles...What was life like for the Roman troops
stationed on Hadrian's Wall? Follow the life of one man, a Tungrian
soldier, through recruitment, training, garrison duty and war.
Focussing on a single point in time and one fort on the Wall, we
explore every aspect of military life on this bleak and remote
frontier. Where was he born? What did he spend his money on? How
did he fight? What did he eat? Did he have lice or fleas?
Archaeology and the accounts of ancient writers come together to
paint a vivid picture of a soldier on the Wall soon after its
completion in AD 130. Historical reconstruction and experimentation
fill in the gaps that are left. Step back into the past, step into
the marching boots of Tungrian soldiers as they patrol Rome's
greatest frontier.
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