One of the most remarkable stories in the history of Special Forces' operations - Daily Express In the bleak moments after defeat on mainland Europe in winter 1939, Winston Churchill knew that Britain had to strike back hard. So Britain's wartime leader called for the lightning development of a completely new kind of warfare, recruiting a band of eccentric free-thinking warriors to become the first 'deniable' secret operatives to strike behind enemy lines, offering these volunteers nothing but the potential for glory and all-but-certain death. Churchill's Secret Warriors tells the story of the daring victories for this small force of 'freelance pirates', undertaking devastatingly effective missions against the Nazis, often dressed in enemy uniforms and with enemy kit, breaking all previously held rules of warfare. Master storyteller Damien Lewis brings the adventures of the secret unit to life, weaving together the stories of the soldiers' brotherhood in this compelling narrative, from the unit's earliest missions to the death of their leader just weeks before the end of the war.

From Army Rangers to Green Berets to the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden, this book explains what makes Special Forces "special," covering the rich and varied history of elite formations in American military history and describing their recruitment, intense training, and equipment in depth. Most civilians have only a vague idea of what the U.S. Special Forces are all about-who they are, how they differ from our "normal" military forces, what they've accomplished throughout our history, and how they operate today. Fighting Elites: A History of U.S. Special Forces examines the rich and varied history of U.S. Special Forces, identifies their contributions to specific conflicts from colonial times forward, and highlights their present operational excellence. In this first-ever reference guide to U.S. Special Forces, military historian John C. Fredriksen provides a carefully balanced presentation, describing all units in their own detailed section that discusses their origins, recruitment, training, tactics, and equipment, and defining military engagements, if known. The text also contains 20 biographical entries of noted personalities associated with special purpose activities. Initial chapters provide an overview of all American special purpose units A bibliography points to additional reading and sources of information 50 illustrations of famous leaders, uniforms, and troops in the field A highly detailed chronology of all known special forces activities

In July 1940, a desperately weakened Britain licks her wounds after the humiliating retreat from Dunkirk. How can the fight be taken to the enemy? New Prime Minister Winston Churchill orders the creation of the Special Operations Executive, to 'set Europe ablaze' through subversion and sabotage. But this most secret of agencies must be kept secure. Guardians of Churchill's Secret Army tells the mostly unknown human stories of the men who were brought into SOE, straight from Intelligence Corps training, to do just that. They were junior in rank, but far from ordinary people. They were Australian, Anglo-French, Canadian, Scandinavian, East European and British. They had been schoolteachers, journalists, artists, ship brokers, racehorse trainers and international businessmen. Each spoke several languages. These men stood alongside courageous agents in training: encouraged them, assessed their character, and tried to teach them the caution and suspicion that might just keep them alive, deep in enemy territory. But they did much more. Many became agents themselves and displayed great bravery. All played a crucial role in the global effort to undermine the enemy. We find them not only in the Baker Street Headquarters of SOE, but also in night parachute drops, in paramilitary training in the remotest depths of Scotland and in undercover agent training in isolated English country houses. We follow them to occupied France, to Malaya and Thailand under threat of Japanese invasion, to Italy and Germany as they play their part in the collapse of the Axis regimes. As we do so, we find a world of heroism and commitment so different from our own experience that it is scarcely believable.

The commands, units and leaders of the General SS are finally compiled into a single detailed reference book for both the historian and SS memorabilia collector. This complete volume begins with an explanation of the twelve administrative and command main offices involving the SS to include the development, components and functions of each, as well as their respective office chiefs. The following section explores the most powerful posts in the SS, the Higher SS and Police Leaders, along with the subordinate SS and Police Leaders found in occupied territories - both the commands and the individual holder of these posts are examined in depth. The SS Main Districts are covered next including all their various subordinate components, title changes, development, commanders and chiefs of staff. The more than forty SS Districts follow, detailed in a similar format. Examining the more than one-hundred and twenty-five SS Foot Regiments in the General SS, the names and ranks of the hundreds of commaners, as well as details of unit location changes, popular and honor titles as well as other data for each are within a separate chapter. Finally, the elite SS Riding Districts and Regiments are covered similarly. Career biographies are included for more than two hundred senior SS commanders, many of whom served portions of their career in the Waffen-SS, Polizei, SD and other facets of Himmler's commands. The biographical data for individuals alone adds vast detail to this fascinating topic. Along with more than 120 rare photos of SS senior ranking officers and seven maps, a detailed index allows referencing of individual commands or personalities. Mark Yerger is also the author of Riding East, The SS Cavalry Brigade in Poland and Russia 1939-1942; Images of the Waffen-SS, Chronicle of Germany's Elite Troops; and a biography of SS-Strumbannfuhrer Ernst August Krag (all three titles are available from Schiffer Publishing Ltd.).

To understand wars and armed conflicts, we need to understand the inner logic of military institutions and warrior culture. In Making Warriors in a Global Era, Tone Danielsen employs ethnographic methods to analyze and discuss current debates among both military personnel and academics about the rise of the special operations forces and their effects on how armed conflicts are handled and wars are fought. Based on a decade of research and Danielsen's unprecedented access inside a Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando, Danielsen describes the culture, experiences, and skill sets of a special operations unit and explores the historical and political implications these types of units have on modern warfare and society as a whole.

Part two of the defining work on Hitler's elite fanatical boy soldiers continues with the survivors of the bloody fighting in France regrouping to make a final stand in the Ardennes and Hungary before Germany was overcome by the Allies. A detailed and gripping account of the most famous, and infamous, division to fight in World War II for any side.

With the aid of superb line artworks, Unarmed Combat demonstrates to the reader how special forces soldiers are taught to excel in hand-to-hand fighting: how they maximise bodyweight, and the use of various strikes, throws, locks and constrictions to defeat opponents. It explains how different martial arts have been combined by military units to create hand-to-hand combat systems for defence against multiple assailants, for fighting on the ground, for dealing with edged and impact weapons, what works against attackers with firearms and - more importantly - what doesn't. With tips and techniques from unarmed combat experts, the book is divided into two main sections. The first covers the mental preparation needed to be ready to defend yourself. The second covers the physical techniques needed to defend yourself, and if necessary, strike back to temporarily incapacitate your attacker and escape. With more than 300 easy-to-follow artworks and handy pull-out lists of key information, Unarmed Combat is the definitive guide for anyone wanting to be ready for anything - it could save your life.

This is a true account of secret operations carried out by the British Army's most clandestine unit- the Force Research Unit. Through the author's own experiences, the story of an essential instrument in the fight against terrorism, that of covert intelligence gathering, is told.

In Hero Living Rudy Reyes, the latest recruit in Channel 4's smash-hit SAS Who Dares Wins introduces his philosophy to life - part Homer, part Bruce Lee and part Spider-Man. He outlines various stages towards revealing your inner hero: recognising the hero's call, following the hero's path and returning from life's battlefield with the hero's hard-earned wisdom. Taking readers step-by-step through his tried and tested program, Rudy draws from his own heroic story of how he triumphed over harrowing childhood experiences of poverty and abandonment. Rather than giving up hope, he heeded the hero's call to live up to his full potential - first as a martial-arts champion, then as an elite warrior in the mountains of Afghanistan and on the sands of Iraq and finally in his post-Marines life as a personal trainer, actor, motivational speaker and now TV star.

A well-balanced and detailed look at the East German Ministry for State Security, the secret police force more commonly known as the Stasi. "This is an excellent book, full of careful, balanced judgements and a wealth of concisely-communicated knowledge. It is also well written. Indeed, it is the best book yet published on the MfS."-German History The Stasi stood for Stalinist oppression and all-encompassing surveillance. The "shield and sword of the party," it secured the rule of the Communist Party for more than forty years, and by the 1980s it had become the largest secret-police apparatus in the world, per capita. Jens Gieseke tells the story of the Stasi, a feared secret-police force and a highly professional intelligence service. He inquires into the mechanisms of dictatorship and the day-to-day effects of surveillance and suspicion. Masterful and thorough at once, he takes the reader through this dark chapter of German postwar history, supplying key information on perpetrators, informers, and victims. In an assessment of post-communist memory politics, he critically discusses the consequences of opening the files and the outcomes of the Stasi debate in reunified Germany. A major guide for research on communist secret-police forces, this book is considered the standard reference work on the Stasi.

Karel Kuttelwascher may have had a German surname, but he was a Czech who became the scourge of the Luftwaffe bombers operating from France and the Low Countries in 1942. Flying with the RAF's legendary No. 1 Squadron, his destruction of fifteen aircraft in only three months earned him the DFC twice in a mere forty-two days, and made him the RAF's top night intruder ace. After his daring escape from German-occupied Czechoslovakia, he flew in the ferocious Battle of France and participated in the final weeks of the Battle of Britain as one of Churchill's 'Few'. During the early circus operations, he clocked up his first three kills before playing a part in the famous Channel Dash. However, it was in the lauded but lonely night intruder role that his individualistic skills came to the fore. Flying a long-range Hawker Hurricane IIC armed with 20-mm cannon, the man the wartime media dubbed the 'Czech Night Hawk' unleashed a reign of terror that included shooting down three Heinkel bombers in just four minutes.

Admiral William H. McRaven is a part of American military history, having been involved in some of the most famous missions in recent memory, including the capture of Saddam Hussein, the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, and the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.Sea Stories begins in 1960 at the American Officers' Club in France, where Allied officers and their wives gathered to have drinks and tell stories about their adventures during World War II -- the place where a young Bill McRaven learned the value of a good story. Sea Stories is an unforgettable look back on one man's incredible life, from childhood days sneaking into high-security military sites to a day job of hunting terrorists and rescuing hostages.Action-packed, inspiring, and full of thrilling stories from life in the special operations world, Sea Stories is a remarkable memoir from one of America's most accomplished leaders.

This fascinating look at the life of a modern-day professional soldier gives the reader an inside view of the deadly global war on terror. Herd argues that conflicting political objectives have muddied the way forward for the on-the-ground commanders and thus threaten the prospect of any real victory in Afghanistan. He uses everyday stories to make his points: ""One of the local leaders pointed to his wrist and said to my interpreter, 'the Americans have all the watches but we have all the time.' That made a lasting impression on me."" Colonel Herd was one of the highest ranking officers on the ground with a command of some 4,000 elite soldiers from all branches of the U.S. military and five other coalition nations. It was a mission he had trained for all of his life. A sixth-generation soldier, Herd became a master parachutist, a combat scuba diver, a Green Beret and an Army Ranger. He conducted combat missions against the Taliban by using the Special Forces mandate of working by, with and through the local population.

The Scottish highlands played a pivotal role in the secret development of special service training during the Second World War. The remote and rough terrain came into its own as a training and testing ground for new types of fighting. "Commando Country" looks at the variety of special training establishments set up (mostly highland shooting lodges), and at how use was made of the landscape and coastline and of specialist civilian skills such as stalking and mountaineering. It stresses how these new methods of warfare, tested in Scotland, spread internationally into the present day elite status of 'special forces' world-wide.The story involves many famous names from a variety of backgrounds such as actors David Niven and Alec Guinness, mountaineer John Hunt, and polar explorer Martin Lindsay, as well as famous military figures such as David Stirling, founder of the SAS and Special Operations Executive agent Violet Szabo. Conveying the atmosphere of remote highland locations, the book makes strong use of photographs and personal testimony collected from those involved, bringing a unique Scottish perspective to a popular subject.

It's 1942 and the Nazis are racing to build an atomic bomb. They have the physicists, but they don't have enough 'heavy water' - essential for their nuclear designs. For two years, the Nazis have occupied Norway, and with it the Vemork hydroelectric plant, the world's sole supplier of heavy water. Under threat of death, its engineers push production into overtime. For the Allies, Vemork must be destroyed. But how could they reach the plant, high in a mountainous valley? The answer became the most dramatic commando raid of the war: the British SOE brought together a brilliant scientist and eleven refugee Norwegian commandos, who, with little more than parachutes, skis and tommy guns, would destroy Hitler's nuclear ambitions. Based on exhaustive research and never-before-seen diaries and letters, The Winter Fortress is a compulsively readable narrative about a group of young men who survived the cold of a Norwegian winter and evaded the clutches of the Gestapo, to save the world from destruction.

Photo history of the long-gun versions of Germany's Panzer IV during WWII.

Iran is a country at war - in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, always told audiences that the revolution was not about Iran, but the whole region. To establish an arc of Shia influence across the Middle East, the Islamic Republic created the Quds Force, the extraterritorial branch of its Revolutionary Guards. Hundreds of thousands of Shia youths were recruited, trained, armed, and organized in militia groups across the region. The book tells the story of how the Quds Force and its Shia militias fought on the three fronts to advance the Islamic Republic's militant interpretation of Shia Islam and create a contiguous land corridor linking Iran through Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, and the Israeli northern fronts. The Iran-led operations are creating enormous political and security challenges for the Sunni Arabs and all regional powers, creating further instabilities in an already turbulent Middle East, with specters of direct military conflicts looming, pitting Iran against the Arab states and Israel.

Presented here are the biographies of the 130 men of the Fallschirmjager-Hitler's elite paratroopers, who won the Knight's Cross and its higher grades. These men fought on nearly every front during the Second World War, from their first action in Denmark in April 1940, to their last major battle at Monte Cassino. A total of twenty-four Knight's Crosses were awarded to Fallschirmjager troops during the battles of Monte Cassino and in the airborne invasion of Crete with the remainder awarded during the fighting in France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia, and at least one in North Africa. These tough, elite soldiers parachuted behind enemy lines and were one of the most successful units during the Second World War. The book gives details of their promotions and other medals and decorations and is well illustrated with over 200 photographs.

'Teutonic Titans: Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and the Kaiser's Military Elite' covers the era 1847-1955-heavily illustrated with over 500 images of German Emperor Wilhelm II's First World War marshals and generals, emphasizing their lives, careers, battles, and campaigns. The book covers both Western and Eastern Fronts, as well as the Balkans, Baltics, Middle, and Far East. It is also heavily detailed with maps, cartoons, graphics, and photographs, plus descriptions of strategies, tactics, weapons, statistics on all losses, and results. Period cartoons add to the vast array of photographic sources worldwide: United States National Archives and Library of Congress, Washington and College Park, Maryland; Imperial War Museum London: Bundesarchiv, Bonn, and also His Majesty's own albums at Doorn House, Holland, many of them previously unpublished. German Crown Prince Wilhelm and Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht, all German Chiefs of General Staff and War Ministers are detailed as well, plus all top Allied leaders and commanders: Woodrow Wilson, John J. Pershing; David Lloyd George, King George V, Sir Douglas Haig, and Sir John French among them; Tsar Nicholas II, Grand Duke Michael, and more; Frenchmen Henri Petain, Joffre, Foch, and Weygand; as well as those of Serbia, Italy, Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria.

For readers of American Sniper, the stirring account of a life of service by the "father of the US Navy SEALs" One month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when President John F. Kennedy pressed Congress about America's "urgent national needs," he named expanding US special operations forces along with putting a man on the moon. Captain William Hamilton was the officer tasked with creating the finest unconventional warriors ever seen. Merging his own experience commanding Navy Underwater Demolition Teams with expertise from Army Special Forces and the CIA, and working with his subordinate, Roy Boehm, he cast the mold for sea-, air-, and land-dispatched night fighters capable of successfully completing any mission anywhere in the world. Initially, they were used as a counter to the potential devastation of nuclear war, and later for counterterrorism and hostage rescue. His vision led to the formation of the celebrated SEAL Team 6. In this stirring, action-filled book, Hamilton tells his story for the first time. Night Fighter is a trove of true adventure from the history of the late twentieth century, which Hamilton lived, from fighter pilot in the Korean War to operative for the CIA in Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, and from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Reagan White House's Star Wars. Like American Sniper, here is the record of a life devoted to patriotic service. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

From the legendary special operations sniper and New York Times bestselling author of The Reaper comes a rare and powerful book on the art of being a sniper. Way of the Reaper is a step- by-step accounting of how a sniper works, through the lens of Irving's most significant missions - none of which have been told before. Each mission is an in-depth look at a new element of eliminating the enemy, from intel to luck, recon to weaponry. Told in a thrilling narrative, this is also a heart-pounding true story of some of The Reaper's boldest missions including the longest shot of his career on a human target of over half a mile. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Nick Irving earned his nickname in blood, destroying the enemy with his sniper rifle and in deadly firefights behind a .50 caliber machine gun. He engaged a Taliban suicide bomber during a vicious firefight, used nearly silent sub-sonic ammo, and was the target of snipers himself. Way of the Reaper attempts to place the reader in the heat of battle, experiencing the same dangers, horrors and acts of courage Irving faced as an elite member of the 3rd Ranger Battalion. Readers will experience the dangers that all snipers must face, while learning what it takes to come an elite man hunter. Like the Reaper himself, this explosive book blazes new territory and takes no prisoners.