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Books > Fiction > True stories > War / combat / elite forces
In Bonzo's War, Clare Campbell told the fascinating story of what it was like for Britain's pets when the world was at war. This time, she follows the incredible journey of the dogs who conscripted to fight for their country, with some even returning with medals for their bravery. During the most dangerous days of the Second World War, the British government set out to recruit an army of canines - a 'Guard Dog Unit'. This experimental team of brave hounds would later use their incredible sense of smell to sniff out the anti-personnel mines that barred the way to reclaiming Europe. Dog owners countrywide shed tears as they bid farewell to their beloved 'Brian', 'Rex', or 'Molly' and packed them off to the War Dogs Training School to learn the skills they'd need to 'do their bit for Britain' on the very frontiers of the Third Reich. The soldiers waiting out in the field to greet their canine counterparts were under strict instructions: do not get too attached to your new four-legged companion. That bit proved disastrously impossible. Based on original documents, first-hand accounts and interviews, Dogs of Courage tells a story of human determination, heartbreak and uncompromising canine courage that has never been told before.
From the author of The Perfect Storm, a gripping book about Sebastian Junger's almost fatal year with the 2nd battalion of the American Army. For 15 months, Sebastian Junger accompanied a single platoon of thirty men from the celebrated 2nd battalion of the U.S. Army, as they fought their way through a remote valley in Eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he could count, men he knew were killed or wounded, and he himself was almost killed. His relationship with these soldiers grew so close that they considered him part of the platoon, and he enjoyed an access and a candidness that few, if any, journalists ever attain. But this is more than just a book about Afghanistan or the 'War on Terror'; it is a book about the universal truth of all men, in all wars. Junger set out to answer what he thought of as the 'hand grenade question': why would a man throw himself on a hand grenade to save other men he has probably known for only a few months? The answer is elusive but profound, and goes to the heart of what it means not just to be a soldier, but to be human. 'War' is a narrative about combat: the fear of dying, the trauma of killing and the love between platoon-mates who would rather die than let each other down. Gripping, honest, intense, it explores the neurological, psychological and social elements of combat, and the incredible bonds that form between these small groups of men.
'Tony is the real deal.' Andy McNab The full, explosive, boots-on-the-ground story of the Falklands War, from a soldier at the heart of the action, published for the 40th anniversary of the conflict. Tony Hoare always knew he wanted to be in the SAS. Both his grandfather and father had been soldiers, and so Tony signed up for the Cadets at 13, then the Infantry at 17 and enlisted into the Royal Green Jackets before passing arduous SAS selection in 1978. Less than four years later, Tony and his team were sent to a collection of islands just off the coast of Argentina called the Falklands, where tensions were rising and war was on the horizon. No amount of training could prepare Tony for what happened over the course of the next twelve weeks, as the Falkland Islands became a battleground between British and Argentinian forces. As helicopters crashed and ships sank, Tony, at the centre of the action, battled across treacherous terrain and against a fearsome enemy, doing whatever it took to retake the islands. From one of the only soldiers who was on the frontline throughout the entire conflict, this is a thrilling account of what really happened in the Falklands, an explosive story of land, sea and air battles from a trooper who saw it all.
1961. The height of the Cold War. Just hours before work begins on the Berlin Wall, a KGB assassin and his young wife flee for the West before the Iron Curtain comes down and traps them in the East forever. This gripping story of real-life espionage and intrigue began when the Soviets invented a special weapon that killed without leaving a trace and put it in the hands of Bogdan Stashinsky. It is a tale of exploding parcels, fake identities, forbidden love and a man who knew the truth about the USSR's most classified programme. By the time Stashinsky had his day in court, the whole world was watching.
'The thinking man's action hero.' - The Times Magazine 'Inspiring survival stories from Aldo Kane, the man behind Tom Hardy, Bear Grylls and Steve Backshall expeditions.' - Trail Magazine Trained Royal Marines Sniper, world record breaker and extreme TV adventurer, Aldo Kane is known for his ability to navigate and lead through challenging and pressured environments, whether it be abseiling into an erupting volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rowing the Atlantic, getting locked in a bunker for 10 days with zero daylight, leading Steve Backshall into the jungle or being held at gunpoint... In his debut book, Lessons From The Edge, Aldo will inspire readers with his jaw-dropping stories and show them how to survive and thrive through sheer strength of mind and sharp decision-making. It will reveal how this tough military man was able to cope with suddenly feeling worthless, how he overcame doors literally slamming in his face, how he came to realise that you can't wait for things to happen and instead how he rediscovered his identity and harnessed his emotions to his advantage to find determination, purpose, and a renewed sense of belonging. And how, to use his own words, he became the captain of his own ship. Aldo is a firm believer that with the right head game, however hard it feels, you can get through anything life throws at you. Lessons From The Edge will inspire readers to find the spirit to do the things in life they've previously been too scared to tackle, build the courage to know that failure isn't the end, and the knowledge that the impossible can be made possible. Aldo is currently co-presenting The Bridge on Channel 4.
The riveting story of the missing piece of Australia's World War II history, told by bestselling historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the Anzacs, Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide). During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. By August 1944, over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout. This compelling and fascinating book, written by one of Australia's leading battlefield historians, vividly traces the full story of the Breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence and complacency, and of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred - and too quick to cover it up when it was too late. But mostly it is a story about raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost.
In one of the world's most intractable and under-reported rebellions, the Naxalites have been engaged in a decades-long battle with the Indian state. Presented in the media as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants who seek to overthrow a system that has abused them. In 2010, anthropologist Alpa Shah embarked on a seven-night trek with some of these communist guerrillas, walking 250 kilometres through the dense, hilly forests of eastern India. Speaking to leaders and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah seeks to understand how and why some of India's poor have shunned the world's largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society--and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims. Nightmarch is a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India. SHORT-LISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING, 2019 SHORT-LISTED FOR THE NEW INDIA FOUNDATION BOOK PRIZE, 2019 WINNER OF THE 2020 ASSOCIATION FOR POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY BOOK PRIZE A 2018 New Statesman Book of the Year
E. Tayloe Wise served in Vietnam from May 1969 through April 1970. During those 11 months, he wrote an estimated 750-800 letters home. This memoir is based on those letters, which recounted the details of his experiences and also served as an outlet where he could express the terror, tedium and even boredom of his daily life while in Vietnam. It tells the story of the Vietnam War as this foot soldier viewed it from the jungle, as both a rifleman and a combat medic who was forced to learn his medical skills under fire, and who later became a personal waiter in the private mess hall of Major General E.B. Roberts, the Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile). The story begins with a record of Wises military history, his training as an infantryman in Leesville, Louisiana and his arrival in Vietnam on May 2, 1969. Chapter two details his first experience under enemy fire on May 11, when suicide squads penetrated their perimeter with the purpose of inflicting the maximum amount of damage with disregard to even the attackers' own lives. Chapters five and six recount the August 1969 battle of LZ Becky, a landing zone that was constructed just south of the Cambodian border and was destroyed only four weeks later. Chapter seven relates Wises experiences after receiving a job as a waiter in the Commander Generals mess hall. On April 9, 1970, his service ended and he headed home. The book contains diagrams of several battles and the authors personal photographs taken while he was in the jungle and in the rear echelon area of Phuoc Vinh.
Among the fiercest opponents of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II was journalist James "Jimmie" Matsumoto Omura. In his sharp-penned columns, Omura fearlessly called out leaders in the Nikkei community for what he saw as their complicity with the U.S. government's unjust and unconstitutional policies-particularly the federal decision to draft imprisoned Nisei into the military without first restoring their lost citizenship rights. In 1944, Omura was pushed out of his editorship of the Japanese American newspaper Rocky Shimpo, indicted, arrested, jailed, and forced to stand trial for unlawful conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet violations of the military draft. He was among the first Nikkei to seek governmental redress and reparations for wartime violations of civil liberties and human rights. In this memoir, which he began writing towards the end of his life, Omura provides a vivid account of his early years: his boyhood on Bainbridge Island; summers spent working in the salmon canneries of Alaska; riding the rails in search of work during the Great Depression; honing his skills as a journalist in Los Angeles and San Francisco. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Omura had already developed a reputation as one of the Japanese American Citizens League's most adamant critics, and when the JACL leadership acquiesced to the mass incarceration of American-born Japanese, he refused to remain silent, at great personal and professional cost. Shunned by the Nikkei community and excluded from the standard narrative of Japanese American wartime incarceration until later in life, Omura seeks in this memoir to correct the "cockeyed history to which Japanese America has been exposed." Edited and with an introduction by historian Arthur A. Hansen, and with contributions from Asian American activists and writers Frank Chin, Yosh Kuromiya, and Frank Abe, Nisei Naysayer provides an essential, firsthand account of Japanese American wartime resistance.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER Discover the incredible true story of WW2's most extraordinary spy - from the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor. 'His best book yet' The Times ________________ From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria, to preventing nuclear war (or so she believed) by stealing the science of atomic weaponry from Britain to give to Moscow, Ursula Kuczynski Burton conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century. Born to a German Jewish family, as Ursula grew, so did the Nazis' power. A fanatical opponent of the fascism that ravaged her homeland, she was drawn to communism as a young woman, motivated by the promise of a fair and peaceful society. She eventually became a spymaster, saboteur, bomb-maker and secret agent. In Agent Sonya, Britain's most acclaimed historian vividly reveals the fascinating tale of a life that would change the course of history. Classic Ben Macintyre - a gripping ride, based on meticulous research, that reads like a novel - this is the greatest spy story never told. ________________ 'Macintyre has found a real-life heroine worthy of his gifts as John le Carre's nonfiction counterpart' New York Times 'This book is classic Ben Macintyre . . . quirky human details enliven every page' Clare Mulley, Spectator 'She is the strongest character of all in Macintyre's bestselling series of wartime tales . . . I raced through the pages to keep up with the plot' Julian Glover, Evening Standard BEN MACINTYRE'S NEXT BOOK COLDITZ: PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!
This is the true story of a young American missionary woman courage and triump of faith in the jungles of New Guinea and her four years in a notorious Japanese prison camp. Never to see her husband again, she was forced to sign a confession to a crime she did not commit and face the executioner's sword, only to be miraculously spared.
Derived by the author from interviews and oral histories, these eighty-nine original Hasidic tales about the Holocaust provide unprecedented witness, in a traditional idiom, to the victims' inner experience of "unspeakable" suffering. This volume constitutes the first collection of original Hasidic tales to be published in a century.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have served in the Middle East, putting their lives on the line and fighting for not only the future of our nation, but the future of the countries they helped free from tyranny. Regardless of one's political views or otherwise about these wars, Americans overwhelmingly support the men and women serving their country. Many of us, however, are curious about what these soldiers have seen, felt, and done while fighting in the epicenter of fundamental Islamists and terrorists.Letters From The Front Lines is a moving collection of letters, e-mails, and blog entries from those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was put together by Rear Admiral Stuart F. Platt (retired), who served under President Ronald Reagan as the Navy's first Competition Advocate General.
'An incredible story, and so well told' Bear Grylls 'Honesty, integrity and real experience that puts you in the thick of the action.' Billy Billingham There were three patrols that fateful January 1991 morning: Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero and Bravo Three Zero. It was the opening hours of the Gulf War and the SAS were flown deep behind enemy lines to hunt down Saddam's Scud missiles, the use of which threatened a Third World War. The men of Bravo One Zero stepped off the chopper, took one look at the flat desert devoid of any cover and decided no way were they deploying into all of that. But Andy NcNab's famed Bravo Two Zero patrol did deploy, with fatal results - all bar one being captured or killed. And then there was Bravo Three Zero. These men were different. Thought differently. Acted differently. Treating as gospel the SAS's saying 'any fool can be uncomfortable', they deployed with vehicles, and while there was nowhere to hide they could make a dash for the border if desperate. Even as warnings came in that McNab's patrol was on the run, Bravo Three Zero remained undetected - the furthest Coalition forces behind Iraqi lines. Slipping through enemy positions, a string of targets were taken out. But with the desert turning bitter and snow starting to fall, they were forced to fight a running battle against the elements as much as the enemy. Though overshadowed by the fate of Bravo Two Zero, the achievements of this highly-decorated patrol are the stuff of elite forces legend. Now, for the first time, SAS veteran Des Powell reveals their story in gritty, blow-by-blow detail. Written with acclaimed military author Damien Lewis, this is a tale of edge-of-the seat daring deep inside enemy lands. Brutal, savage, unrelenting - prepare to be blown away, in a tale that proves utterly the SAS motto - who dares wins.
Vietnam veteran Don Yost explores the pain and rage of his experience as a correspondent near Mai Laid in 1968, transforming it through writing to a elegaic and powerful memoir, imbued with a significant message for our time.
From master storyteller Andy McNab, this is the opening book in an adventure-filled and action-packed new series telling, for the first time ever, the true stories of Special Forces missions. 'McNab's first major non-autobiographical work of non-fiction ... The operation is told like a novel [...] and it is as refreshingly informal and compellingly immediate as his other books' Daily Express 'Part history lesson, part military manual, part fixed-bayonets thriller. A must for Special Forces fans' The Sun It is the early 2000s and 9/11 is fresh in the world's memory. The Taliban have taken over Afghanistan, and armed militants and explosive devices are terrorising the people. And now a new threat is emerging in the country: suicide bombings, ordered by military commander of the Taliban, Mullah Dadullah. Special Forces are sent in to stop him. The Hunt is the thrilling story of the secret mission to catch Dadullah, one of the most dangerous men alive. Using classified sources and his unique insight into the way the SAS works, Andy McNab gives a page-turning account of what it took the Special Forces to find their target and what they would have to do to take him down. An explosive story of hostage negotiations, undercovers missions and a final, epic assault on Dadullah's compound that could leave only one side alive, The Hunt is a powerful retelling of a real-life Special Forces mission.
As Hitler's dreams of a Thousand Year Reich crumbled in the face of overwhelming assaults from both East and West in the first months of 1945 the heavily out numbered German armed forces were still capable of fighting with a tenacity and professionalism at odds with the desperate circumstances. While Hitler fantasized about deploying divisions and armies that had long since ceased to exist, boys of fifteen, officer cadets, sailors and veterans of the Great War joined the survivors of shattered formations on the front line. Leading historian Tony Le Tissier gives a German perspective to the mayhem and bloodshed of the last months of the Second World War in Europe. Teenaged Flak auxiliaries recount their experiences alongside veteran Panzergrenadiers attempting to break out of Soviet encirclement. Struggles between the military, industry and the Nazi Party for influence over the defenders of Berlin contrast with a key participant's account of Goebbel's abortive attempt to conclude a cease-fire with the Soviets. This is fascinating reading for anybody interested in the ordinary soldier's experience of the culminating battles in central Europe in 1945.
'Essential reading, not just for those interested in the Eastern Front, but for anyone who wants to understand Russia.' Antony Beevor, Sunday Times They died in their millions, shattered by German shells and tanks, freezing behind the wire of prison camps, driven forward in suicidal charges by the secret police. Yet in all the books about the Second World War on the eastern front, there is very little about how the Russian soldier lived, dreamed and died. Catherine Merridale's discovery of archives of letters, diaries and police reports have allowed her to write a major history of a figure too often treated as part of a vast mechanical horde. Here are moving and terrible stories of men and women in appalling conditions, many not far from death. They allow us to understand the strange mixture of courage, patriotism, anger and fear that made it possible for these badly fed, dreadfully governed soldiers to defeat the Nazi army that would otherwise have enslaved the whole of Europe. The experience of the soldiers is set against a masterly narrative of the war in Russia. Merridale also shows how the veterans were treated with chilling ingratitude and brutality by Stalin, and later exploited as icons of the Great Patriotic War before being sidelined once more in Putin's new capitalist Russia.
Based upon interviews with a wide-range of former German Army and SS soldiers, these unique personal episodes vividly depict the extraordinary circumstances of the Third Reich's final days as armies closed in from all sides. Le Tissier's interviews link the brutality of combat with the humanity of the desperate battles.
A moving true story of love on the front lines. It was July 1944 when Madge stepped onto a troopship that was to carry her thousands of miles away from home. Only twenty years old and not long qualified as a nurse, she had signed up to serve in the Burma Campaign. She would be based on the Indian border, near the frontline where a fierce battle was raging between Allied forces and the Japanese. As Madge arrived in Chittagong, she wondered how she would adapt to the ever present danger of invasion and to life in a military hospital. She spent long, exhausting hours nursing the badly-injured young soldiers in her care, but found strength in her friendship with the other nurses. And then, one day, she met Captain Basil Lambert . . . Could their fragile, new found romance survive the terrifying final months of war? Heart-warming and poignant, Some Sunny Day by Madge Lambert is a story of courage, sacrifice and the power of true love.
Escape from Paris is the true story of a small group of U.S. aviators whose four B-17 Flying Fortresses were shot down over German-occupied France on a single, fateful day: July 14, 1943, Bastille Day. They were rescued by brave French civilians and taken to Paris for eventual escape out of France. In the French capital, where German troops walked on every street and Gestapo agents hid around every corner, the flyers met a brave Parisian resistance family living and working in the Hotel des Invalides, a complex of buildings and military memorials, where Nazi officials had set up offices. Hidden in the complex the Americans, along with dozens of other downed Allied pilots and resistance operatives, hatched daring escape plots. The danger of discovery by the Nazis grew every day, as did an unlikely romance when one of the American airmen begins a star-crossed wartime romance with the twenty-two-year old daughter of the family sheltering him-a noir tale of war, courage and desperation in the shadows of the City of Light. Based on official American, French, and German documents, histories, personal memoirs, and the author's interviews with several of the story's key participants, Escape from Paris crosses the traditional lines of World War II history with tense drama of air combat over Europe, the intrigue of occupied Paris, and courageous American and Allied pilots and French resistance fighters pitted against Nazi thugs. All of this set in one of the world's most beautiful and captivating cities.
'A vastly entertaining tale, bursting with astonishing stories and extraordinary characters ... A fascinating read' Sunday Telegraph 'Brilliant ... An amazing story, one I hadn't heard too much about' Dan Snow IT IS THE DEPTHS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR. The Germans like to boast that there is 'no escape' from the infamous fortress that is Colditz. The elite British officers imprisoned there are determined to prove the Nazis wrong and get back into the war. As the war heats up and the stakes are raised, the Gestapo plant a double-agent inside the prison in a bid to uncover the secrets of the British prisoners. Captain Julius Green of the Army Dental Corps and Sergeant John 'Busty' Brown must risk their lives in a bid to save the lives of hundreds of Allied servicemen and protect the secrets of MI9. Drawn from unseen records, The Traitor of Colditz brings to light an extraordinary, never-before-told story from the Second World War, an epic tale of how MI9 took on the Nazis and exposed the traitors in their midst.
Hailed as one of the finest books to emerge from the Vietnam War, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a fascinating insight into the lives of the soldiers caught in the conflict. First published in 1973, this intensely personal novel about one foot soldier's tour of duty in Vietnam established Tim O'Brien's reputation as the outstanding chronicler of the Vietnam experience for a generation of Americans. From basic training to the front line and back again, he takes the reader on an unforgettable journey - walking the minefields of My Lai, fighting the heat and the snipers in an alien land, crawling into the ghostly tunnels - as he explores the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war no one believes in.
THE STORY OF BRITAIN'S LEADING FORENSIC EXPLOSIVES SCIENTIST, WHO FOR NEARLY THREE-DECADES INVESTIGATED SOME OF THE MOST PROMINENT NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL BOMB ATTACKS IN HISTORY. Cliff Todd devoted his life to bringing bomb makers to justice. He and his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence's Forensic Explosives Laboratory are the unsung heroes of terrorist bomb attacks - the men and women in white suits who piece together who planted the bombs, what a device consisted of and how the perpetrators might give themselves away. They played a pivotal role in uncovering the secrets behind some of the world's most horrifying terrorist outrages. Explosive tells the stories of these high-profile cases and details, for the first time, the contribution Todd and his team made in tracking down bombers during a time when Britain was under attack first by the IRA and then by Islamic extremists inspired by al-Qaeda. Explosive takes the reader into the murky world of the amateur bomb maker, and reveals what Todd's department achieved in many now infamous attacks, including the device concealed in a radio cassette player that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the IRA attacks on Warrington in Cheshire, the Bali nightclub bombings of 2002, and the 7/7 onslaught in central London that claimed 56 lives and injured 784 others in 2005. In Explosive, Todd takes us step by step through the investigations, explaining the chemistry, the forensic work and the emotional toll on him and his staff as they sought to recreate and understand what had happened at some of the most shocking tragedies in modern peacetime history. |
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