In Helmand province in July 2006, Major Adam Jowett was given command of Easy Company, a hastily assembled and under-strength unit of Paras and Royal Irish rangers. Their mission was to hold the District Centre of Musa Qala at any cost. Easy Company found themselves in a ramshackle compound, cut off and heavily outnumbered by the Taliban in the town.

In No Way Out, Adam evokes the heat and chaos of battle as the Taliban hit Easy Company with wave after wave of brutal attack. He describes what it was like to have responsibility for the lives of his men as they fought back heroically over twenty-one days and nights of relentless, nerve-shredding combat. Finally, as they came down to their last rounds and death stared Easy Company in the face, the siege took an extraordinary turn . . .

Powerful, highly-charged and moving, No Way Out is Adam’s tribute to the men of Easy Company who paid a heavy price for serving their country.

Austerlitz is W. G. Sebald's haunting novel of post-war Europe. In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity and he grows up ignorant of his past. Later in life, after a career as an architectural historian, Austerlitz - having avoided all clues that might point to his origin - finds the past returning to haunt him and he is forced to explore what happened fifty years before. Austerlitz is W.G. Sebald's melancholic masterpiece. 'Mesmeric, haunting and heartbreakingly tragic. Simply no other writer is writing or thinking on the same level as Sebald' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'Greatness in literature is still possible' John Banville, Irish Times, Books of the Year 'A work of obvious genius' Literary Review 'A fusion of the mystical and the solid ... His art is a form of justice - there can be, I think, no higher aim' Evening Standard 'Spellbindingly accomplished; a work of art' The Times Literary Supplement 'I have never read a book that provides such a powerful account of the devastation wrought by the dispersal of the Jews from Prague and their treatment by the Nazis' Observer 'A great book by a great writer' Boyd Tonkin, Independent W . G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgau, Germany, in 1944 and died in December 2001. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester. In 1996 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester and settled permanently in England in 1970. He was Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Vertigo, Austerlitz, After Nature, On the Natural History of Destruction, Campo Santo, Unrecounted, A Place in the Country. His selected poetry is published in a volume called Across the Land and the Water.

"A must read for all Damien Lewis fans" Compass --------------------------------------------------------- The most explosive true war story of the 21st Century It is the winter of 2001. A terror ship is bound for Britain carrying a horrifying weapon. The British military sends a crack unit of SAS and SBS to assault the vessel before she reaches London. So begins a true story of explosive action as this band of elite warriors pursues the merchants of death from the high seas to the harsh wildlands of Afghanistan. The hunt culminates in the single greatest battle of the Afghan war, the brutal and bloody siege of an ancient mud-walled fortress crammed full of hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Fighting against impossible odds and bitter betrayal, our handful of crack fighters battle to rescue their fellow soldiers trapped by a murderous, fanatical enemy. --------------------------------------------------------- "The most dramatic story of a secret wartime mission you will ever read" News of the World "The author has been given unprecedented access" Zoo "Gripping" Eye Spy

Already winning acclaim as one of the best accounts of combat ever written, Black Hawk Down is a minute-by-minute, heart-stopping account of the 1993 raid on Mogadishu, Somalia. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3 1993, 140 elite US Soldiers abseiled from helicopters into a teeming market neighbourhood in the heart of the city. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour. Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. Two of their high-tech helicopters were shot out of the sky. When the unit was rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and more than seventy badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse - more than five hundred killed and over a thousand injured. Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is destined to become a classic of war reporting. It is already the most accurate, detailed account of modern combat ever written.

In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm – Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon – a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for.

As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior – he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning.

November 1950, the Korean Peninsula: After General MacArthur ignores Mao's warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his ten thousand First Division marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by one hundred thousand Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir. Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge in the Nangnim Mountains. This choke point will need to be held open at all costs. The mission is handed to Captain William Barber and the 236 men of Fox Company, a courageous but undermanned unit of the Seventh Marine Regiment. Barber and his men are ordered to climb seven miles of frozen terrain to a rocky promontory overlooking the pass, where they will endure four days and five nights of nearly continuous Chinese attempts to take Fox Hill. Amid the relentless violence, three-quarters of Fox's marines are killed, wounded, or captured. Just when it looks like the outfit will be overrun, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Davis, a fearless marine officer who is fighting south from the Chosin, volunteers to lead a daring mission that will seek to cut a hole in the Chinese lines and relieve the men of Fox Company. The Last Stand of Fox Company is a fast-paced and gripping account of heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of impossible odds. The authors have conducted dozens of first-hand interviews with the battle's survivors, and they narrate the story with the immediacy of classic accounts of a single battle like Guadalcanal Diary, Pork Chop Hill, and Black Hawk Down.

The youngest living Medal of Honor recipient delivers an unforgettable memoir that will inspire every reader" (Jim Mattis) NATIONAL BESTSELLER 2020 Marine Commandant's Reading List selection On November 21, 2010, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Kyle Carpenter was posted atop a building in violent Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when an enemy grenade skittered toward Kyle and fellow Marine Nick Eufrazio. Without hesitation, Kyle chose a path of selfless heroism that few can imagine. He jumped on the grenade, saving Nick but sacrificing himself. One of the year's most anticipated books, Kyle's remarkable memoir reveals a central truth that will inspire every reader: Life is worth everything we've got. It is the story of how one man became a so-called hero who willingly laid down his life for his brother-in-arms--and equally, it is a story of rebirth, of how Kyle battled back from the gravest challenge to forge a life of joyful purpose. Kyle Carpenter's heart flatlined three times while being evacuated off the battlefield in Afghanistan. Yet his spirit was unbroken. Severely wounded from head to toe, Kyle lost his right eye as well as most of his jaw. It would take dozens of surgeries and almost three years in and out of the hospital to reconstruct his body. From there, he began the process of rebuilding his life. What he has accomplished in the last nine years is extraordinary: he's come back a stronger, better, wiser person. In 2014, Kyle was awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his "singular act of courage" on that rooftop in Afghanistan, an action which had been reviewed exhaustively by the military. Kyle became the youngest living recipient of the award-and only the second living Marine so honored since Vietnam. You Are Worth It is a memoir about the war in Afghanistan and Kyle's heroics, and it is also a manual for living. Organized around the credos that have guided Kyle's life (from "Don't Hide Your Scars" to "Call Your Mom"), the book encourages us to become our best selves in the time we've been given on earth. Above all, it's about finding purpose, regardless of the hurdles that may block our way. Moving and unforgettable, You Are Worth It is an astonishing memoir from one of our most extraordinary young leaders.

'Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES The extraordinary story of the courageous women who spearheaded the Italian Resistance during the Second World War In the late summer of 1943, in the midst of German occupation, the Italian Resistance was born. Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca were four young women who signed up. Living in the mountains surrounding Turin their contribution was invaluable. They carried messages and weapons, provided safe houses and took prisoners. As thousands of Italians rose up, they fought to liberate their country. With its corruption, greed and anti-Semitism, the fall of Fascist Italy was unrelentingly violent, but for the partisan women it was also a time of camaraderie and equality, pride and optimism. Through the stories of these four exceptional women, the resolve, tenacity and, above all, courage of the Italian Resistance is laid bare. A Spectator Book of the Year

'An unpretentious Aussie's experiences in one of the most ramshackle and soul-destroying military organisations on Earth.' COURIER-MAIL A real-life boy's own adventure, MARCHING WITH THE DEVIL is a hell-raising account of five years in the infamous French Foreign Legion. 'In 1894 a French Foreign Legion General said, "Legionnaires, vous etes faits pour mourir, je vous envoie la ou on meurt." Legionnaires, you are made for dying, I will send you where you can die. When I was in my mid-teens and first read those words they were powerful and confronting. I read them as a challenge and an invitation. The words, and the feelings they evoked, remained with me until I was ready. On 20 May 1988, I enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.' Searching for something he wasn't finding in his life in Australia, David Mason joined the French Foreign Legion. This is a frank account of how Mason came first in basic training, trained other Legionnaires, went to Africa, did sniper, commando and medic training and took part in two operations, both in the Republic of Djibouti where a civil war nearly crippled the nation. It tells of his daily life in the Legion, in the training regiment, in Africa and with the Legion's Parachute Regiment. But more than this: it reveals his disillusionment, frustration and disappointment with the much mythologised Legion, and how the Legion today is not what it seems - or could be. Now part of the HACHETTE MILITARY COLLECTION. 'Remarkable' THE AGE

'Brilliantly researched and sympathetically told, 44 DAYS is more than just a fitting tribute to brave but overlooked heroes. It's also a top read.' DAILY TELEGRAPH The epic World War II story of the heroes of Australia's 75 Squadron - and the 44 days when these brave and barely trained pilots fought alone against the Japanese. In March and April 1942, RAAF 75 Squadron bravely defended Port Moresby for 44 days when Australia truly stood alone against the Japanese. This group of raw young recruits scrambled ceaselessly in their Kittyhawk fighters to an extraordinary and heroic battle, the story of which has been left largely untold. The recruits had almost nothing going for them against the Japanese war machine, except for one extraordinary leader named John Jackson, a balding, tubby Queenslander - at 35 possibly the oldest fighter pilot in the world - who said little, led from the front, and who had absolutely no sense of physical fear. Time and time again this brave group were hurled into battle, against all odds and logic, and succeeded in mauling a far superior enemy - whilst also fighting against the air force hierarchy. After relentless attack, the squadron was almost wiped out by the time relief came, having succeeded in their mission - but also paying a terrible price. Michael Veitch, actor, presenter and critically acclaimed author, brings to life the incredible exploits and tragic sacrifices of this courageous squadron of Australian heroes.

After a tragic childhood among the Great War cemeteries of Flanders Fields, a troubled young woman searches for love and meaning in war ravaged Europe. Elaine Madden's quest takes her from occupied Belgium through the chaos of Dunkirk, where she flees, disguised as a British soldier, into the London Blitz, where she finally begins to discover herself. Recruited to T Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a 'fast courier', she is parachuted back to the country of her birth to undertake a top secret political mission and help speed its liberation from Nazi oppression. Elaine Madden never claimed to be a heroine, but her story proves otherwise. Its centrepiece - war service as one of only two female SOE agents parachuted into occupied Belgium - is just one episode in an extraordinary real-life drama of highs and lows, love, loss and betrayal. Relayed to the author in the final years of her life, Elaine's true story of courage and humour in testing times is more intriguing and compelling than fiction.

NOW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. STANLEY MOSS'S DAUGHTER GABRIELLA BULLOCK AND AN AFTERWORD BY PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR Ill Met By Moonlight is the true story of one of the most hazardous missions of the Second World War. W. Stanley Moss is a young British officer who, along with Major Patrick Leigh Fermor, sets out in Nazi-occupied Crete to kidnap General Kreipe, Commander of the Sevastopool Division, and narrowly escaping the German manhunt, bring him off the island - a vital prisoner for British intelligence. As an account of derring-do and wartime adventure, made into a classic film starring Dirk Bogarde, Ill Met By Moonlight is one of the most brilliantly written, exciting and compelling stories to come out of the Second World War.

Nearly forty female agents were sent out by the French section of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The youngest was 19 and the oldest 53. Most were trained in paramilitary warfare, fieldcraft, the use of weapons and explosives, sabotage, silent killing, parachuting, codes and cyphers, wireless transmission and receiving, and general spycraft. These women - as well as others from clandestine Allied organisations - were flown out and parachuted or landed into France on vital and highly dangerous missions: their task, to work with resistance movements both before and after D-Day. Bernard O'Connor uses recently declassified government documents, personnel files, mission reports and memoirs to assess the successes and failures of the 38 women including Odette Sansom, Denise Colin, and Cecile Pichard. Of the twelve who were captured, only two survived; the others were executed, some after being tortured by the sadistic officers of the Gestapo. This is their story.

When he was a student in Paris, Truong Nhu Tang met Ho Chi Minh. Later he fought in the Vietnamese jungle and emerged as one of the major figures in the "fight for liberation" -- and one of the most determined adversaries of the United States. He became the Vietcong's Minister of Justice, but at the end of the war he fled the country in disillusionment and despair. He now lives in exile in Paris, the highest level official to have defected from Vietnam to the West. This is his candid, revealing and unforgettable autobiography.

Sniper One is the gritty, awe-inspiring true story that takes you right into the heart of the Iraq war from Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Sgt. Dan Mills. 'One of the best first-hand accounts of combat that I've ever read' Andy McNab We all saw it at once. Half a dozen voices screamed 'Grenade!' simultaneously. Then everything went into slow motion. The grenade took an age to travel through its 20 metre arc. A dark, small oval-shaped package of misery the size of a peach . . . April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers fly into southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained fire fight British troops had faced for over fifty years. This awe-inspiring account tells of total war in throat-burning winds and fifty-degree heat, blasted by mortars and surrounded by heavily armed militias - you won't be able to put this down. 'If I could give it more stars I would' 5***** reader review 'A truly stunning story. I have read this 4 times and it's still as captivating now as the first time' 5***** Reader rReview

It is the third of September 1939. It is just after half past eleven in the morning. I am fifteen years and sixteen days old. The radiogram at my home, the Woodman Hotel in Clent, has just been switched off, the silence resonates around the room, and a deathly hush has fallen. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, has declared that, despite the best efforts of the politicians of the day to secure 'peace in our time', the inevitable has befallen us; despite pledges to the contrary, Germany has invaded Poland, Hitler has ignored requests to back down and so, therefore, 'Britain is now at war with Germany'. Minutes after the broadcast ends, my Father, Sidney Wheeler, goes quietly up to his room where he methodically loads three bullets into his First World War revolver. This is the true story of a fifteen-year-old girl's experience of the Second World War, based around her parent's hotel in a sleepy Worcestershire village. As war is declared, her father prepares three bullets for the invasion. He will shoot the family and himself when the Germans come. In their village, local Germans are imprisoned (guilty or not). The blackout is immediate and has tragic consequences. There is a court case over an alleged poker game. An abortion nearly results in tragedy. Handsome young airmen fly low over the hotel. Pamela has a premonition of death. The business fails. An air raid very nearly kills them all. She is called up first to factory work and then to the Land Army. She marries by special licence. As the war comes to an end she is living at home with her parents and a small baby, at which point she is just twenty-one years of age. Amusing and entertaining, surprising and often moving, Pamela's account vividly captures one family's life on the home front in Worcestershire.

For three decades one of the most secretive units in the British military has been a mystery force known as X Platoon. Officially there was no X Platoon. The forty men in its elite number were specially selected from across the Armed Forces, at which point they simply ceased to exist. X Platoon had no budget, no weaponry, no vehicles and no kit - apart from what its men could beg, borrow or steal from other military units. For the first time a highly decorated veteran of this specialised force - otherwise known as the Pathfinders - reveals its unique story. Steve Heaney became one of the youngest ever to pass Selection, the gruelling trial of elite forces, and was at the cutting edge of X Platoon operations - serving on anti-narcotics operations in the Central American jungles, on missions hunting war criminals in the Balkans, and being sent to spy on and wage war against the Russians. The first non-officer in the unit's history to be award the Military Cross, Steve Heaney reveals the extraordinary work undertaken by this secret band of brothers.

Trunk Monkeys: The Life of a Contract Soldier in Iraq tells the true story of operators from a private military contractor working in Iraq shortly after the Gulf War. From the perspective of grizzled veteran Lewis Steiner who had left the British Army to join the gold rush in the living hell that was war-torn Iraq, Steiner grew disillusioned about the declining situation in the country as he believed that the joint US and UK invasion had made things far worse. This fascinating and often extremely violent book encompasses the highs and lows of operating throughout the country from Basra in the south up to Mosul in the north. Steiner recounts of friends lost due to negligence and poor planning to the realities of conducting a private war surrounded by civilians who might be the enemy. Ultimately injured in an incident that left two dead, Steiner decides to soldier on due to a misguided sense of duty. Armed with his belt-fed SAW machine gun, Steiner accepted a contract located near Tikrit. The missions rapidly become a death sentence to many of the contract soldiers and dogs of war. In some cases, these missions were pointless, costing men, vehicles and the sanity of brothers in arms. Steiner was in the thick of it from dodging enemy ambushes to taking out a suicide bomber and narrowly escaping death in 'Sniper Alley' collecting cranberry sauce for the US forces on Thanksgiving Day. With the pedal to the metal, his Humvee attracted the unwelcome attention of insurgents who tried to blow him up with RPGs. Forget the fictionalised works of Andy McNab, Tom Clancy and Chris Ryan: this is the real deal. This is a firsthand account of the men who decide to pay the ultimate price, but be warned, this tells the real story that the Government does not want you to know.

Moscow in the late 1970s: one by one, CIA assets are disappearing. The perils of American arrogance, mixed with bureaucratic infighting, had left the country unspeakably vulnerable to ultra-sophisticated Russian electronic surveillance.. The Spy in Moscow Station tells of a time when―much like today―Russian spycraft was proving itself far ahead of the best technology the U.S. had to offer.

This is the true story of unorthodox, underdog intelligence officers who fought an uphill battle against their government to prove that the KGB had pulled off the most devastating and breathtakingly thorough penetration of U.S. national security in history.

Incorporating declassified internal CIA memos and diplomatic cables, this suspenseful narrative reads like a thriller―but real lives were at stake, and every twist is true as the US and USSR attempt to wrongfoot each other in eavesdropping technology and tradecraft. The book also carries a chilling warning for the present: like the State and CIA officers who were certain their "sweeps" could detect any threat in Moscow, we don't know what we don't know.

'Captures the confusion, black humour, raw courage and sheer exhilaration of combat brilliantly' THE TIMES 'Read this account of his stint with the 26-man strong X Platoon in the sweltering jungle, living on grubs, outnumbered 80 to one, battling heavily armed rebels with bamboo sticks and home-made grenades, and you'll be asking the question... Why wasn't he given TWO MCs?' SUNDAY SPORT 2,000 blood-crazed rebels. 26 elite British soldiers. One man's explosive true story. Airlifted into the heart of the Sierra Leone jungle in the midst of the bloody civil war in 2000, 26 elite operators from the secret British elite unit X Platoon were sent into combat against thousands of Sierra Leonean rebels. Notorious for their brutality, the rebels were manned with captured UN armour, machine-guns and grenade-launchers, while the men of X Platoon were kitted with pitiful supplies of ammunition, malfunctioning rifles, and no body armour, grenades or heavy weapons. Intended to last only 48 hours, the mission mutated into a 16-day siege against the rebels, as X Platoon were denied the back-up and air support they had been promised, and were forced to make their stand alone. The half-starved soldiers, surviving on bush tucker, fought with grenades made from old food-tins and defended themselves with barricades made of sharpened bamboo-sticks, tipped in poison given to them by local villagers. Sergeant Steve Heaney won the Military Cross for his initiative in taking command after the platoon lost their commanding officer. OPERATION MAYHEM recounts his amazing untold true story, full of the rough-and-ready humour and steely fortitude with which these elite soldiers carried out operations far into hostile terrain.

In the terrifying summer of 1942 in Belgium, when the Nazis began the brutal roundup of Jewish families, parents searched desperately for safe haven for their children. As Suzanne Vromen reveals in Hidden Children of the Holocaust, these children found sanctuary with other families and schools--but especially in Roman Catholic convents and orphanages.
Vromen has interviewed not only those who were hidden as children, but also the Christian women who rescued them, and the nuns who gave the children shelter, all of whose voices are heard in this powerfully moving book. Indeed, here are numerous first-hand memoirs of life in a wartime convent--the secrecy, the humor, the admiration, the anger, the deprivation, the cruelty, and the kindness--all with the backdrop of the terror of the Nazi occupation. We read the stories of the women of the Resistance who risked their lives in placing Jewish children in the care of the Church, and of the Mothers Superior and nuns who sheltered these children and hid their identity from the authorities. Perhaps most riveting are the stories told by the children themselves--abruptly separated from distraught parents and given new names, the children were brought to the convents with a sense of urgency, sometimes under the cover of darkness. They were plunged into a new life, different from anything they had ever known, and expected to adapt seamlessly. Vromen shows that some adapted so well that they converted to Catholicism, at times to fit in amid the daily prayers and rituals, but often because the Church appealed to them. Vromen also examines their lives after the war, how they faced the devastating loss of parents to the Holocaust, struggled to regain their identities and sought to memorialize those who saved them.
This remarkable book offers an inspiring chronicle of the brave individuals who risked everything to protect innocent young strangers, as well as a riveting account of the "hidden children" who lived to tell their stories.

Commended for the 2009 Best Books for Kids & Teens Canadian World War II pilot Charley Fox, now in his late eighties, has had a thrilling life, especially on the day in July 1944 in France when he spotted a black staff car, the kind usually employed to drive high-ranking Third Reich dignitaries. Already noted for his skill in dive-bombing and strafing the enemy, Fox went in to attack the automobile. As it turned out, the car contained famed German General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, and Charley succeeded in wounding him. Rommel, who at the time was the Germans' supreme military commander in France orchestrating the Nazis' resistance to the D-day invasion, was never the same after that. Author Steve Pitt focuses on this seminal event in Charley Fox's life and in the war, but he also provides fascinating aspects of the period, including profiles of noted ace pilots Buzz Beurling and Billy Bishop, Jr., and Great Escape architect Walter Floody, as well as sidebars about Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Messerschmitts.