Special operations, though most commonly associated with the period from the Second World War to the present, have played a key role throughout the history of conflict from the Trojan War to the great arms struggles of the 20th century. This volume introduces the reader to the broad sweep of the history of special operations, and also includes several excerpts from the classic literature on the subject. Contents: Origins: Robert Graves, 'The Wooden Horse', 'The Sack of Troy'; Raiding in the Age of Sail: G.M. Thomson, 'The Damage Done by this Corsair', 'The Wind Commands Me Away'; Ian Grimble, 'The Imp,^Rrieuse'; The Early American Tradition: Kenneth Roberts, 'The Raid on St. Francis'; Fred Cook, 'Struggle for the South'; R.E. Dupuy and W.H. Baumer, 'Wars With the Barbary Pirates'; 19th Century Colonial Warfare; Leo Tolstoy, The Raid; Wyatt Blassingame, 'How the Legion Began', 'The Legion Fights in Algeria'; The Civil War: Archer Hines, 'Military Means, Political Ends'; Bruce Catton, 'Total War and an Election'; World War I: Lowell Thomas, 'Trapped by a G-Ship..'; T.E. Lawrence, 'The Raid Upon the Bridges'; World War II in Western Europe and North Africa: Cajus Bekker, 'The Coup de Main at Eben Emael', 'The Blood-Bath of Crete'; Paul Carell, 'A British Commando Attempt to Capture Rommel', 'The British Raid on Tobruk', 'Brandenburgers in Action Behind the Front'; John Lodwick, Raiders from the Sea, Chapters 16-18; The Pacific War: Walter Lord, 'A Very Private War';Ronald Spector, 'The Road to Myitkyina'; Milton E. Miles, 'Chinese Pirates and the SACO Dragon'; Algeria, Round II: Jean Lart,^Rguy, 'The Leap of Leucadia'; The Ultimate Rescue: Chaim Herzog, 'Entebbe'; Bibliography; Index.

" Smedley Butler's life and career epitomize the contradictory nature of American military policy through the first part of this century. Butler won renown as a Marine battlefield hero, campaigning in most of America's foreign military expeditions from 1898 to the late 1920s. He became the leading national advocate for paramilitary police reform. Upon his retirement, however, he renounced war and imperialism and devoted his energy and prestige to various dissident and leftist political causes.

This three-volume set is unquestionably the best reference on German SS military uniforms ever produced. This spectacular work is a heavily documented record of all major clothing articles of the Waffen-SS. Hundreds of unpublished bw photos were used in production. Original and extremely rare SS uniforms of various types are carefully photographed and presented here.

U.S. Army Rangers & Special Forces of World War II tells the story of the U.S. Army's elite Rangers and special forces largely through pictures. Never before has such an expansive view of World War II been offered in one volume. Furthermore, an extensive search of public and private archives unearthed an astonishing number of rare and never before seen images, some in color. Most notable are the nearly twenty exemplary photographs of Lieutenant Colonel William O. Darby's Ranger Force in Italy, taken by Robert Capa, who is considered by many to be the greatest combat photographer of all time. Complementing the period photographs are numerous color plates detailing the rare and often unique items of insignia, weaponry, and equipment that marked the soldiers whose heavy task it was to lead the way.

Special Forces soldiers are not only ultimate warriors, they also have fitness and endurance levels equivalent, even beyond, world-class athletes. Whether conducting 30km route marches with 50kg of pack, or surviving the `iron man' standards of amphibious warfare training, the military elite have much to teach us about ultimate fitness. Elite Forces Extreme Fitness is a complete guide for those wanting to use military expertise to take their fitness to the maximum. It provides authoritative advice on how to develop ultra-high levels of stamina, endurance and strength, and then apply those levels to some of the world's greatest fitness challenges. The book begins with informative chapters on preparation and military training regimes, then explores running, aquatic events, weight training and cross-training in detail. In these chapters, the text delivers essential advice from professional military PT instructors, as well as exploring some of the world's greatest extreme fitness challenges and how to face them. Finally, the book uses the latest research to explain methods of improving physical performance through psychological techniques, plus looks at the critical issue of injuries - how to avoid them and how to recover from them. With more than 150 easy-to-follow artworks, training tips and workouts used by the U.S. Navy SEALs and British Royal Marines, amongst other formations, Extreme Fitness is the definitive guide for the person who wants to be their best.

Covers the use and design of the Panzer IV armored fighting vehicle.

Wanted: Volunteers for Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal. A body bag. Or both. When Charlie Beckwith issued this call to arms in Vietnam in 1965, he revolutionized American armed combat. This is the story of what would eventually come to be known as Delta Force, as only its maverick creator could tell it - from the bloody baptism of Vietnam to the top-secret training grounds of North Carolina to political battles in the upper levels of the Pentagon itself. This is the heart-pounding, first-person, insider's view of the missions that made Delta Force legendary. Through it all, the reader will become much better acquainted with America's deadliest weapon.

A moving tribute to the sacrifice and bravery of the fliers of RAF Bomber Command. ****************************** The Crew, based on interviews with Ken Cook, the crew's sole surviving member, recounts the wartime exploits of the members of an Avro Lancaster crew between 1942 and the war's end. Gloucestershire-born bomb aimer Ken Cook, hard-bitten Australian pilot Jim Comans, Navigator Don Bowes, Upper Gunner George Widdis, Tail Gunner 'Jock' Bolland, Flight Engineer Ken Randle and Radio Operator Roy Woollford were seven ordinary young men living in extraordinary times, risking their lives in freedom's cause in the dark skies above Hitler's Reich. From their earliest beginnings - in places as far apart as a Cotswold village and the suburbs of Sydney - through the adventure of training in North America and the dread and danger of the forty-five bombing raids they flew with 97 Squadron, David Price describes the crew's wartime experiences with human sympathy allied to a secure technical understanding of one of the RAF's most iconic aircraft. The drama and anxiety of individual missions - to Kassel, Munich and Augsburg as well as Berlin - is evoked with thrilling immediacy; while the military events and strategic decisions that drove the RAF's area bombing campaign against Nazi Germany are interwoven deftly with the narrative of the crew's operational careers. ****************************** Reviews: 'A sensitive account of the bomber's life ... Price has given the bomber offensive a human face. This book [...] has a heart and soul' The Times. 'A fascinating and fast-paced account of the exploits of an Avro Lancaster bomber crew from 97 Squadron RAF' The Herald. 'A remarkable insight into the bravery, determination and skill of British Bomber Command crews during WWII' Waterstones.

"One could not choose a worse place for fighting the Japanese," said Winston Churchill of North Burma, deeming it "the most forbidding fighting country imaginable." But it was here that the fledgling Office of Strategic Services conducted its most successful combat operations of World War II. Troy Sacquety takes readers into Burma's steaming jungles in the first book to fully cover the exploits and contributions of the OSS's Detachment 101 against the Japanese Imperial Army.

Functioning independently of both the U.S. Army and OSS headquarters--and with no operational or organizational model to follow--Detachment 101 was given enormous latitude in terms of developing its mission and methods. It grew from an inexperienced and poorly supported group of 21 agents training on the job in a lethal environment to a powerful force encompassing 10,000 guerrillas (spread across as many as 8 battalions), 60 long-range agents, and 400 short-range agents. By April 1945, it remained the only American ground force in North Burma while simultaneously conducting daring amphibious operations that contributed to the liberation of Rangoon.

With unrivaled access to OSS archives, Sacquety vividly recounts the 101's story with a depth of detail that makes the disease-plagued and monsoon-drenched Burmese theater come unnervingly alive. He describes the organizational evolution of Detachment 101 and shows how the unit's flexibility allowed it to evolve to meet the changing battlefield environment. He depicts the Detachment's two sharply contrasting field commanders: headstrong Colonel Carl Eifler, who pushed the unit beyond its capabilities, and the more measured Colonel William Peers, who molded it into a model special operations force. He also highlights the heroic Kachin tribesmen, fierce fighters defending their tribal homeland and instrumental in acclimating the Americans to terrain, weather, and cultures in ways that were vital to the success of the Detachment's operations.

While veterans' memoirs have discussed OSS activities in Burma, this is the first book to describe in detail how it achieved its success--portraying an operational unit that can be seen as a prototype for today's Special Forces. Featuring dozens of illustrations, The OSS in Burma rescues from oblivion the daring exploits of a key intelligence and military unit in Japan's defeat in World War II and tells a gripping story that will satisfy scholars and buffs alike.

Form New York Times bestselling author Don Mann and Ralph Pezzulo, Navy SEAL expert advice on surviving in the jungle, in the mountains, in the desert, or at sea. As the elite of the military elite, U.S. Navy SEALs know that they can be deployed anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. Whether in a temperate, tropical, arctic, or subarctic region, they might find themselves alone in a remote area with little or no personal gear. In The U.S. Navy SEAL Survival Handbook, decorated Navy SEAL Team Six member and New York Times bestselling author Don Mann provides a definitive survival resource. From basic camp craft and navigation to fear management and strategies for coping with any type of disaster, it is an essential resource. It covers: Water Shelter and fire Food and hunting Weather Navigation Survival medicine Survival kits And much more Complete with 150 color photographs, this comprehensive guide includes life-saving information for SEALs, for other special operations forces, or for anyone who might fight themselves in a life-threatening situation.

The January 1942 Dienstalterliste lists the hundreds of officers in the SS from full Colonel to General. Detailing their post at that time during the war, this wartime publication, available now for the first time in a facsimile edition, also gives significant decorations they were awarded. Their ranks and most recent promotion dates are listed as well as State, Police and NSDAP posts. Illustrated with more than forty rare photos, this rare publication provides detailed information for historians and militaria collectors. Fully indexed.

Shown are the weaponry, uniforms and other equipment of the German paratroops as used on all fronts throughout World War II.

Each recipient is presented in a capsule biography including dates of birth, awarding of the various Knights Cross grades, and other particulars to rank and career. Each is also shown in a World War II era photograph.

In this original and revealing work, Jeremiah B. McCall challenges the generally accepted view of the Roman cavalry and explores the fundamental connections between war and society in republican Rome, c.300-100 BC. McCall describes the citizen cavalry's equipment, tactics, and motivation in battle, and argues for its effectiveness in the field. This success is proof that it cannot finally have been disbanded for purely military reasons; he shows that victories in the law-courts, and lavish displays of wealth, came to supersede cavalry service as a way of building the reputations of the Roman elite. The clear structure and fresh approach of the book, combining insights from both Roman military and social history, will be useful to readers at all levels of study.

This new book is a historical account of the 14th Waffen-SS Galicia Division (also known as the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army). In 1943/1944 a determined group of young men and women in Galicia volunteered to serve in a combat division destined for eastern front combat. Their goal: to engage and destroy the Soviet hordes menacing their homeland and to counter Nazi Germany's subjugation of their country. Although initially Galicia's Volunteers would serve in a German sponsored military formation, in actuality the volunteers of the Galicia division wanted to engage all hostile ideologies-both from the east and west-in order to secure a free independent Ukraine. The division's history is presented along with a human aspect of what the soldiers endured during the brutal battles on the eastern front.

Praise for Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author Damien Lewis' SAS mission series: 'One of the great untold stories of WWII' - Bear Grylls on SAS Ghost Patrol 'The untold story' - Daily Mail on SAS Nazi Hunters 'A tale of bravery against desperate odds' - Sunday Times on Churchill's Secret Warriors 'True adventures laced with staggering bravery and sacrifice' - Sun on Hunting the Nazi Bomb The Ultra-Secret Unit That Posed As Nazi Stormtroopers The Most Daring Mission Ever Undertaken SAS Ghost Patrol is the explosive true story of the day in 1942 when the SAS donned Nazi uniforms to perpetrate the most audacious and daring mission of the war. Beyond top secret, deniable in the extreme (and of course enjoying Churchill's enthusiastic blessing),this is one of the most remarkable stories of wartime lawlessness, eccentricity and raw courage in the face of impossible odds - a thoroughly British undertaking. What unfolded - the longest mission ever undertaken by Allied special forces - was an epic of daring, courage, tragedy and survival that remains unrivalled to this day, and which rightly became a foundation stone of Special Forces legend. Written with Lewis's signature authenticity and dramatic verve, SAS Ghost Patrol is peopled by a cast of the utterly maverick and the extraordinary. In its quirky eccentricities and outrageous rule-breaking,this is a story that only the British could have authored, and with such panache and aplomb. It may read like the stuff of impossible myth or folklore, but every single word is true.

Alan Careys new book, his fifth on USN and USMC bomber units of the Second World War, is the story of U.S. Navy Fleet Air Wing Seven (FAW-7) and the men who flew the Navy version of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber out of Dunkeswell and Upottery, England during World War II. Navy PB4Y-1 Liberator squadrons were unlike their counterparts in the U.S. Armys 8th Air Force, who battled their way through thick flak and swarms of German fighters while flying to and from targets in continental Europe. The job of U.S. Navy PB4Y-1 Liberator aircrews was to keep German U-boats from successfully operating in the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel by going out day after day, often in miserable weather conditions, on unrelenting search and destroy missions. During the war, FAW-7 Liberators were responsible for the sinking of five U-boats and damaging many more.

The Waffen-SS was one of the most formidable German military formations of the Second World War - feared for its tenacity and ruthlessness in battle, notorious for the atrocities it committed. As a distinct fighting force derived from the Nazi Party's SS organization, it stood apart from the other units of the German army. Its origins, structure and operational role during the war are often misunderstood and the controversy still surrounding its conduct make it difficult today to get an accurate picture of its actions and its impact on the fighting. Anthony Tucker-Jones, in this concise and fluently written account, provides an absorbing and clear sighted introduction to it. He traces its development under Himmler from modest beginnings in the early 1930s as Hitler's personal protection squad of elite soldiers to a force which eventually amounted to thirty-eight divisions. Towards the end of the war many Waffen-SS units were formed from foreign volunteers and proved to be of poor quality, but its premier panzer divisions thoroughly deserved their reputation as tough fighters. Through accounts of the Waffen-SS's major battles on the Eastern Front, in Normandy and finally in defence of Germany, a detailed picture emerges of the contribution it made to the German war effort, especially when Hitler's armies were in retreat. The parts played by the most famous Waffen-SS formations - Das Reich, Totenkopf, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler among them - and their commanders - men like Dietrich and Hausser - can be seen in the wider context of the war and Germany's defeat.

This work details the state of British counterinsurgency knowledge by 1945, and shows how wartime special forces and unconventional warfare affected many postwar counterinsurgencies. The vital role of the Special Air Service (SAS) is revealed here for the first time.

nside these pages you will meet over 960 infamous men - the officers of Nazi Germany's Totenkopf (Death's Head). You will encounter the 256 SS officers who worked at Dachau - the SS concentration camp that doubled as a training school for death. You will encounter twelve SS officers who served in Treblinka and the other very secret camps of Operation Reinhard - Heinrich Himmler's extermination plan for the Jews of Poland. And, you will confront the 161 SS officers who ran the largest killing center of all time - Auschwitz. These officers of the Death's Head, many of whom later served in the Waffen-SS, were not the bureaucrats who meticulously planned Adolf Hitler's Final Solution from behind a desk in Berlin, or those who quietly scheduled the trains that carried the victims to the camps. Quite the contrary; these men stood on the front-line of the Nazi war to exterminate the Jews - they poured the gas pellets, they conducted the gruesome medical experiments, they supervised the crematoria, they smelled the stench of death, they heard the screams, they ordered the guards to shoot. They were The Camp Men - and they were at the heart of darkness. The photographic section of the book, with well over one hundred photographs - a large portion previously unpublished - is the largest collection of photographs of SS camp personnel ever to appear in one work. The images come from the extensive files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Berlin Document Center, Yad Vashem and many other institutional collections. There are additionally photographs from private sources, including almost twenty rare pictures from the Gross-Rosen camp kommandant's personal photograph album.

Damien Lewis's bestseller tells the action-packed, riveting story of the band of mavericks and visionaries who made the SAS.

Using hitherto untold stories and new archival sources, Damien Lewis follows one close-knit band of warriors from the SAS foundation through to the Italian landings - chronicling the extraordinary part they played as the tide of the Second World War truly turned in the Allied's favour.

This is a narrative of wall-to-wall do-or-die action and daring, chronicling the exploits of some of the most highly-decorated soldiers of the twentieth-century.

"Of all the books on Native American service in the U.S. armed forces, this is the best.... Readers will find the story of the Comanche Code Talkers compelling, humorous, thought-provoking, and inspiring." -- Tom Holm, author of Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War

Among the allied troops that came ashore in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, were thirteen Comanches in the 4th Infantry Division, 4th Signal Company. Under German fire they laid communications lines and began sending messages in a form never before heard in Europe-- coded Comanche. For the rest of World War II, the Comanche Code Talkers played a vital role in transmitting orders and messages in a code that was never broken by the Germans.

This book tells the full story of the Comanche Code Talkers for the first time. Drawing on interviews with all surviving members of the unit, their original training officer, and fellow soldiers, as well as military records and news accounts, William C. Meadows follows the group from their recruitment and training to their active duty in World War II and on through their postwar lives up to the present. He also provides the first comparison of Native American code talking programs, comparing the Comanche Code Talkers with their better-known Navajo counterparts in the Pacific and with other Native Americans who used their languages, coded or not, for secret communication. Meadows sets this history in a larger discussion of the development of Native American code talking in World Wars I and II, identifying two distinct forms of Native American code talking, examining the attitudes of the American military toward Native American codetalkers, and assessing the complex cultural factors that led Comanche and other Native Americans to serve their country in this way.