RODNEY SCRASE's life in the RAF began in an old airship shed when he took the King's shilling in May 1941. He learnt to fly at a British Flying Training School in America and went on to fly Spitfires with Nos 72 and 1 Squadrons, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944. He was released from service with a record of four enemy aircraft destroyed and three damaged, having taken part in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy, following up with a stint as an instructor in the art of air-to-air gunnery in Egypt. He finished the war flying escort missions with No. 1 Squadron from Manston, Kent. In Spitfire Saga Angus Mansfield presents the unique story of one man's experience of flying the most iconic aircraft of the Second World War, using Rodney's own logbooks and first-hand interviews with him and several other pilots. Complete with thorough historical context and a selection of Rodney's personal photographs, this book is an excellent addition to any history enthusiast's library. A true insider's view of life as an RAF fighter pilot.

Robert Wilton Bungey was unquestionably an RAF hero. From the very beginning of the Second World War he was patrolling Germany's border with the AASF. In the retreat from France he survived frantic day and night bombing missions flying obsolete, outclassed Fairey Battles against overwhelming odds. Many others didn't survive. When Fighter Command desperately needed pilots in the Battle of Britain, he volunteered. He survived again when his Hurricane was shot down near the Isle of Wight. Converting to Spitfires, he commanded such aces as Jean 'Pyker' Offenberg, Paddy Finucane and Bluey Truscott, his leadership from-the-front gaining their trust and respect. While he was CO of 452 (RAAF) Squadron, it topped Fighter Command's monthly tallies three times in a row. Later, commanding RAF Hawkinge, he was linked with air-sea rescue and Combined Operations Command. After more than three years of active war service, he returned to Australia for Sybil, his English bride waiting with a son he had never seen. But this story of triumph against all the odds has an extraordinary ending: at once a terrible tragedy and something of a miracle... Spitfire Leader is illustrated with many photographs never before published.

**Formerly published as The Lost Boys** 'Remarkable. A powerful, engrossing story of a journey into the heart of darkness and final escape from it' Sunday Times In September, 1944, the SS march into a remote Italian castle, arrest a mother and seize her two sons, aged just two and three. If Hitler has his way she will never see them again. For Fey Pirzio-Biroli is the daughter of Ulrich von Hassell, executed days before after the failed assassination of the Fuhrer. Mercilessly cast into the Nazi death machine, Fey must cling to the hope that one day she will escape and rescue her lost children . . . 'Riveting, important, reads like a terrifying thriller' Daily Telegraph 'Heartbreaking. It started with a plot to kill Hitler. It ended in one of the most astonishing and moving stories of the war' Daily Mail 'Extraordinary. A rich, deep, gripping read' Guardian 'As thrilling as any novel. Bailey has an extraordinary talent for bringing history to life' Kate Atkinson

A celebrated warrior who led his people to victory on the battlefield, Red Cloud was also a skilled diplomat who transitioned the Oglala Sioux to reservation life. In Red Cloud: Oglala Legend, John D. McDermott examines Red Cloud's early years, his rise to prominence, and his struggle to protect his people from cultural domination. McDermott goes beyond Red Cloud's War to focus on the Oglala chief's time as a statesman. Chronicling the chief's diplomatic trips to the United States capital, the author examines the changes in Red Cloud's vision of armed resistance and his long-term strategy for maintaining Oglala life and culture. Through negotiation, passive resistance, and selective integration, Red Cloud worked to defend his people's interests in the face of change. As the only American Indian leader to win a war against the United States Army, Red Cloud is a larger-than-life figure in the history of the West. McDermott adds new layers to the story of the chief, illuminating his early youth and worldview through little-used sources. Red Cloud: Oglala Legend is the fourth book in the South Dakota Biography Series, which highlights some of the state's most famous residents.

On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. in Pakistan, a satellite uplink was sent from the town of Abbottabad crackling into the situation room of the White House in Washington, D.C.: 'Geronimo, Echo, KIA'. These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, put paid to Osama bin Laden's three-decade-long career of terror. This is the story of Bin Laden's relentless hunters and how they took down the terrorist mastermind, told by Chuck Pfarrer, a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details of the historic raid and the men who planned and conducted it in an exclusive boots-on-the-ground account of what happened during each minute of the mission - both inside the building and outside. Pfarrer takes readers inside the operation as the SEALs flew over the wall of Bin Laden's shabby compound and then penetrated deeper and deeper into the terrorist's lair, telling us just what it looked, sounded, and smelled like in that sweltering Pakistani suburb. He takes us to the exact spot where the al-Qaeda leader was cowering when the bullet entered his head. SEAL Target Geronimo is an explosive story of unparalleled valour, clockwork military precision, and deadly accuracy carried out by one of the most elite fighting forces in the world - the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six.

THE ULTIMATE WARRIORS
Highly trained and equipped to kill, special-ops forces take on the world's most dangerous and courageous missions. Warrior Elite zeroes in on the most lethal special- ops encounters of all time.
- RAID AT SON TAY
Helicopter gunships drop 100 Green Berets into North Vietnamese jungle on a virtual suicide mission to rescue POWs
- MAERSK ALABAMA
Perfect planning and precise execution come together as Navy SEALs fire the greatest simultaneous sniper shots ever
- BATTLE OF TORA BORA
In the pitch-black labyrinthine caves of Afghanistan, Special Forces dispatch Taliban insurgents in a video game-like scenario of infrared warfare
- KILLING OF BIN LADEN
With the plan up in smoke as a Black Hawk goes down, SEAL Team 6 deftly adjusts on the fly--getting in and eliminating the target in just 7 minutes

This title tells the compelling untold story of a group of stranded US Army nurses and medics fighting to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. When 26 Army nurses and medics - part of the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron - boarded a cargo plane for transport in November 1943, they never anticipated the crash landing in Nazi-occupied Albania that would lead to their months-long struggle for survival. A drama that captured the attention of the American public, the group and its flight crew dodged bullets and battled blinding winter storms as they climbed mountains and fought to survive, aided by courageous villagers who risked death at Nazi hands to help them.

Journalist and broadcaster Robert Kee was an RAF bomber pilot in the Second World War. When his plane was shot down over Nazi-occupied Holland, he was captured and spent three years and three months in a German POW camp. From the beginning he was intent on escape. After several false starts, he finally made it. First published in 1947 as a novel, but now revealed to be an autobiography, A Crowd Is Not Company recounts Kee's experiences as a prisoner of war and describes in compelling detail his desperate journey across Poland - a journey that meant running the gauntlet of Nazism.

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.

Submarine duty in World War Two took the lives of more than twenty per cent of American submariners. As a young ensign, William J. Ruhe kept a journal on eight action-filled patrols in the South Pacific. His colourful memoir has earned a place alongside the best naval fiction, with such classics as Run Silent, Run Deep and The Hunt For Red October.

'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 April 1982 Harry Benson was a 21-year-old Royal Navy commando helicopter pilot, fresh out of training and one of the youngest helicopter pilots to serve in the Falklands War. These pilots, nicknamed 'junglies', flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Much of what happened in the war -- the politics, task force ships, Sea Harriers, landings, Paras and Marines -- is well-known and documented. But almost nothing is known of the young commando helicopter pilots and aircrewmen who made it all happen on land and sea. This is their 'Boys Own' story, told for the very first time.
Harry Benson has interviewed forty of his former colleagues for the book creating a tale of skill, initiative, resourcefulness, humour, luck, and adventure. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter.
Few of these pilots have spoken publicly about:
- The two helicopter crashes and eventual rescue following a failed SAS mission high up on an inhospitable glacier in South Georgia
- The harrowing story of the Exocet strike that sunk the transport ship Atlantic Conveyor
- The daring missile raid on the Argentine high command in Port Stanley
- The constant mortar fire faced while supporting troops and evacuating casualties
- The hair-raising head-on attacks by Argentine jets on British helicopters
- The extraordinarty courage shown during the evacuation of the bombed landing ship "Sir Galahad"
- The secret nighttime low-level missions to insert and resupply SAS and SBS using night vision goggles
If you liked "Apache, Vulcan 607 "and "Chickenhawk," you'll love "Scram "
The word "Scram" was used to warn other junglies to go to ground or risk being shot down by their own side as Argentinean jets blasted through 'bomb alley'.

Spoken from the Front is the story of the Afghan Campaign, told for the first time in the words of the servicemen and women who have been fighting there. With unprecedented access to soldiers of all ranks, as well as pilots, reservists, engineers, medics, Royal Military police, mechanics, cooks and other military personnel, Andy McNab has assembled a portrait of modern conflict like never before. This is the full experience of our troops on the ground and in the air. The horrors, cruelties, drudgery, excitement and banter of these soldiers' lives combine to form a chronological narrative of all the major events in Helmand during the British Army's time there. From their action-packed, dramatic, moving and often humorous testimonies in interviews, diaries, letters and emails written to family, friends and loved ones, emerges a 360-degree picture of guerrilla warfare up close and extremely personal. It is as close to the real thing as you can get.

One Soldier's War is a visceral and unflinching memoir of a young Russian soldier's experience in the Chechen wars that brilliantly captures the fear, drudgery, chaos, and brutality of modern combat. An excerpt of the book was hailed by Tibor Fisher in the Guardian as "right up there with Catch-22 and Michael Herr's Dispatches" and the book won Russia's inaugural Debut Prize, which recognizes authors who write "despite, not because of, their life circumstances." In 1995, Arkady Babchenko was an eighteen-year-old law student in Moscow when he was drafted into the Russian army and sent to Chechnya. It was the beginning of a torturous journey from naive conscript to hardened soldier that took Babchenko from the front lines of the first Chechen War in 1995 to the second in 1999. He fought in major cities and tiny hamlets, from the bombed-out streets of Grozny to anonymous mountain villages. Babchenko takes the raw and mundane realities of war--the constant cold, hunger, exhaustion, filth, and terror--and twists it into compelling, haunting, and eerily elegant prose. Acclaimed by reviewers around the world, this is a devastating first-person account of war by an extraordinary storyteller.

For the very first time, The War That Never Was tells the fascinating story of a secret war fought by British mercenaries in the Yemen in the early 1960s. In a covert operation organised over whisky and sodas in the clubs of Chelsea and Mayfair, a group of former SAS officers - led by the irrepressible Colonel Jim Johnson - arranged for a squadron of British mercenaries to travel to the remote mountain regions of the Yemen, to arm, train and lead Yemeni tribesmen in their fight against a 60,000-strong contingent of Egyptian soldiers. It was one of the most uneven running battles ever waged; the Egyptians fielded a huge, professionally-trained army. The British fought back at the head of a ragtag force of tribal warriors and, ultimately, won. Egypt's President Nasser described the battle in the Yemen as 'my Vietnam'. It's a fascinating, forgotten, and rip-roaringly entertaining pocket of British military history, much in the spirit of Ben MvIntyre's bestselling Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat.

Approximately 2.5 million men and women have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the service of the U.S. War on Terror. Marian Eide and Michael Gibler have collected and compiled personal combat accounts from some of these war veterans. In modern warfare no deployment meets the expectations laid down by stories of Appomattox, Ypres, Iwo Jima, or Tet. Stuck behind a desk or the wheel of a truck, many of today's veterans feel they haven't even been to war though they may have listened to mortars in the night or dodged improvised explosive devices during the day. When a drone is needed to verify a target's death or bullets are sprayed like grass seed, military offensives can lack the immediacy that comes with direct contact. After Combat bridges the gap between sensationalized media and reality by telling war's unvarnished stories. Participating soldiers, sailors, marines, and air force personnel (retired, on leave, or at the beginning of military careers) describe combat in the ways they believe it should be understood. In this collection of interviews, veterans speak anonymously with pride about their own strengths and accomplishments, with gratitude for friendships and adventures, and also with shame, regret, and grief, while braving controversy, misunderstanding, and sanction. In the accounts of these veterans, Eide and Gibler seek to present what Vietnam veteran and writer Tim O'Brien calls a "true war story" - one without obvious purpose or moral imputation and independent of civilian logic, propaganda goals, and even peacetime convention.

The remarkable story of the seven African American soldiers ultimately awarded the World War II Medal of Honor, and the 50-year campaign to deny them their recognition. In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades. But recent historical investigations have brought to light some of the extraordinary acts of valor performed by black soldiers during the war. Men like Vernon Baker, who single-handedly eliminated three enemy machineguns, an observation post, and a German dugout. Or Sergeant Reuben Rivers, who spearhead his tank unit's advance against fierce German resistance for three days despite being grievously wounded. Meanwhile Lieutenant Charles Thomas led his platoon to capture a strategically vital village on the Siegfried Line in 1944 despite losing half his men and suffering a number of wounds himself. Ultimately, in 1993 a US Army commission determined that seven men, including Baker, Rivers and Thomas, had been denied the Army's highest award simply due to racial discrimination. In 1997, more than 50 years after the war, President Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to these seven heroes, sadly all but one of them posthumously. These are their stories.

Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, Stephen Bourne's War to Windrush explores the lives of Britain's immigrant community through the experiences of Black British women during the period spanning from the beginning of World War II to the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. In those short years, Black British women performed integral roles in keeping the country functioning and set the stage for the arrival of other black Britons on the MV Empire Windrush. The book shows first-hand what life was like in Britain for black women through photography and evocative prose. War to Windrush retraces the history of those women who helped to build the great, multicultural Britain we know today. It is a celebration of multiculturalism and immigration, much needed in today's political climate.

Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" -Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan's Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss's daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war's trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise's elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target-the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan's most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty's perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier's deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank-losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle's end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history-and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient's full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)-and one man's essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway's seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty's remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

An urgent, insightful account of the human side of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine by seasoned war reporter Tim Judah Making his way from the Polish border in the west, through the capital city and the heart of the 2014 revolution, to the eastern frontline near the Russian border, Tim Judah brings a rare glimpse of the reality behind the headlines. Along the way he talks to the people living through the conflict - mothers, soldiers, businessmen, poets, politicians - whose memories of a contested past shape their attitudes, allegiances and hopes for the future. Together, their stories paint a vivid picture of what the second largest country in Europe feels like in wartime: a nation trapped between powerful forces, both political and historical. 'Visceral, gripping, heartbreaking' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'Haunting . . . timely . . . Interviewing a wide range of people who have been caught up in the recent conflict, Judah concentrates skilfully and affectingly on the human cost' Alexander Larman, Observer 'Comes close to the master, Ryszard Kapuscinski' Roger Boyes, The Times 'A kaleidoscopic portrait . . . Judah looks at the present - what Ukraine looks and feels like now' Marcus Tanner, Independent

Two years before the action in Lone Survivor, a Green Berets A Team conducted a very different, successful mission in Afghanistan's notorious Pech Valley. Led by Captain Ronald Fry, the Hammerhead Six mission applied the principles of unconventional warfare to "win hearts and minds" and fight against the terrorist insurgency. In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan." Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb: "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated. Hammerhead Six finally reveals how cultural respect, hard work (and the occasional machine-gun burst) were more than a match for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Two months after being posted to France in 1917, Edward Thomas wrote: 'I already know enough to confirm my old opinion that the papers tell no truth at all about what war is and what soldiers are - '. This anthology provides an impression of what it meant to be a soldier on the Western front in the First World War and, above all, what it meant to be a Welsh soldier. Although this collection of writings, prose and poetry, includes such famous names as Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, David Jones and Saunders Lewis, the pieces have been chosen not purely by literary criteria, but to reflect as wide a range as possible of experience within Welsh military units. These personal reminiscences record not just horrific and dramatic events, soldiers under artillery bombardment or coping with mud, or the confusion of attacks or retreats, but also routine activities - the everyday working parties to repair trenches, the tunnelling, the waiting, the food, the blisters and the cold - and the comradeship in the Welsh regiments. Some additional background military information is provided in the appendices.