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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence
Howard Hughes, the movie mogul, aviation pioneer and political
hound dog, has always fascinated the public with his mixture of
secrecy, dashing lifestyle and reclusiveness. Companies responsible
for major technological leaps often become household names. An
exception is Howard Hughes s pioneering helicopter company, Hughes
Helicopters, a name that has fallen into oblivion. Yet most
schoolboys in the world have heard of the company s prize-winning
product: the Apache helicopter. Hughes popularized the light
helicopter trainer, mass-produced the first turbine powered light
observation helicopter, led the way in hot cycle rotor craft
propulsion research and, finally, developed the world s most
advanced attack helicopter that was purchased and saw service with
the UK. Here s how some of the world s most innovative helicopters
were developed. Covering the period from the Second World War until
the mid-1980s, you will learn why Hughes military aircraft
contracts came under close scrutiny by the US government. The story
is rich with tales of technological breakthrough and test-flying
bravado made possible by a small crew of engineers and daring
pilots. Written by a technical expert and insider to the industry,
Howard s Whirlybirds: Howard Hughes Amazing Pioneering Helicopter
Exploits is a fascinating and alternative view on the phenomenal
pioneer with unpublished photographs and material that will
fascinate the aviation and military historian as well as the casual
reader and cinema buff."
A history of the legendary French Foreign Legion by the bestselling
author of Who Dares Wins. Tony Geraghty analyses the legend and
re-examines the battle honours of the Foreign Legion, and his
revelations illuminate the darker side of its historic relationship
to the motherland. Called into being in 1831 as a device to absorb
the footloose veterans of Napoleon's old armies, the French Foreign
Legion subsequently won astonishing victories in the farflung
battlefields of Spain, the Crimea, Algeria and Morrocco, Italy,
Mexico, Syria, Indo-China, Madagascar, and West and Central Africa.
March or Die also traces the Legion's diminished fortunes in recent
years. It has fought in the Gulf War, Rwanda and Kosovo among other
conflicts, but has found itself in 'a world of political
correctness which left the Legion marooned on an island of
admirable but anachronistic values'. Forced to accept women in its
ranks and no longer unique now that conscription has been
abolished, it is searching for its place in the modern world.
Making a timely contribution to the legal literature, this
important book discusses an under-analysed issue of great
importance to international peace and security. It provides a
comprehensive overview and analysis of the prevention of nuclear
terrorism specifically through an international (arms control) law
lens. Jonathan Herbach sets out a basis for better understanding
how the international legal framework for nuclear security is
structured and why it is structured that way, and offers a critical
analysis of the component instruments that make up the framework.
He highlights the strengths and analyzes possible gaps and
weaknesses of these instruments and the legal framework as a whole,
as well as explaining the framework's key characteristics,
approaches and rationale. As nuclear security is by no means a
static topic, with changing circumstances a defining feature of the
area, the book also offers ideas for the path forward and
conceptualizes ways to further strengthen the nuclear security
legal framework. Offering a fresh perspective on the prevention of
nuclear terrorism, this book will benefit academics and students of
public international law, counter-terrorism and conflict and
security law. It will also be a useful resource for governmental
legal advisors, think-tanks and diplomats to inform their work on
means and mechanisms to help strengthen the global nuclear security
regime and to provide guidance for decision-making.
A St Helena Who's Who details the island of St Helena and its
administration, including military, naval and civil offices as well
as the overall population in the 1820s and expenses. A must have
for Napoleon historians, this comprehensive book chronicles the
residents of Longwood, the 'Who's Who' of St Helena and what
flag-ships were stationed there. As well as listing the regiments
based on the island such as the 53rd Foot Regiment (2nd Battalion)
and artillery and engineers, Napoleon's visitors to the island are
recorded as well as the chronology of his death, the construction
of his tomb and reports on the post-mortem examination. Also, Sir
Hudson Lowe and the East India Company involvement in the island
are exhaustively covered as are stories of military figures,
marriages and the abolition of slavery.
In 1963, a frustrated President Kennedy turned to the Pentagon for help in carrying out subversive operations against North Vietnam- a job the CIA had not managed to handle effectively. Thus was born the Pentagon's Special Operations Group(SOG). Under the cover name"Studies and Observation Group," SOG would, over the next eight years, dispatch numerous spies to North Vietnam, create a triple-cross deception program, wage psychological warfare by manipulating North Vietnamese POW's and kidnapped citizens, and stage deadly assaults on enemy soldiers traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Written by the country's leading expert on SOG, here is the story of that covert war-one that would have both spectacular and disastrous results.
With a Foreword by Lord Hague of Richmond The Intelligence Corps is
one of the smallest and most secretive elements of the British
Army. It has existed in various guises since the early twentieth
century, but it was only formally constituted in July 1940. In this
book, Michael Ashcroft tells the astonishing stories of some of its
most courageous and ingenious figures, who have operated all over
the world from the First World War to the present day. Whether
carrying out surveillance work on the street, monitoring and
analysing communications, working on overseas stakeouts, receiving
classified information from a well-placed contact or interrogating
the enemy in the heat of war, a hugely diverse range of people have
served in the Corps, often supplementing their individual
professional skills with original thinking and leadership in the
name of the Crown. This book pays tribute to them and shows why, in
the words of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, 'No war can be conducted
successfully without early and good intelligence.'
The story of Napoleon and Betsy Balcombe is an unusual and
fascinating tale. A fallen Emperor who once controlled most of
Europe makes friends with an impudent, pretty and spirited young
English girl, just about the celebrate her thirteenth birthday.
Betsy produced a book full of interest, but notwithstanding that
the book wanders backwards and forward chronologically, the general
tenor of the relationship between this young girl and Napoleon is
beyond question, and it was of an unusual and extremely friendly
nature. Napoleon's fall from an unprecedented position of power to
humiliating confinement must have been an impossible burden to have
lived with, and yet, despite this - or possibly because of it -
Napoleon befriended this child and held genuine affection for her.
Despite the naivety, the warmth of the friendship between the
ex-emperor and little 'Mees' Balcombe shines through, and her text
is well-worth providing in this new edition. Napoleon was at the
Briars for eight weeks, but the family were very close to the
community at Longwood, some two miles further up hill and inland,
and visited weekly, sometimes more often.It was here, as Betsy
matured and grew more responsible, that the friendship developed,
to the extent that she assisted Napoleon with his attempts at
English. She was daring as well as impudent and with an
irrepressible sense of humour she unlocked the inner child in
Napoleon that led to the famous friendship. He found her boldness
amusing and occasionally alarming. It must have been a welcome
diversion from his darker thoughts.
Fading Eagle - Politics and Decline of Britain's Post-War Air Force
looks at the rise and fall of British air power from a more
critical than usual angle, in particular the impact of political
ineptitude. The Royal Air Force, following a troubled start as a
result of resentful contention by the other services, rose to
prominence during the Second World War countering imminent invasion
and striking at Hitler's army and industrial complex before the
Normandy landings. Air power also proved a vital factor in support
of both land and sea operations. Post-war, the RAF continued its
newfound prominence among the armed forces, again as the principal
defender of the United Kingdom from likely Soviet air attack and as
the principal means of delivering the nuclear deterrent, countering
the submarine threat and providing rapid comprehensive air support
across the globe. Despite this, the change in political aspirations
and priorities led to decisions and policies which resulted in
unintended and unnecessary weakening of the RAF and other services.
When the Cold War ended in 1991, many western nations, Britain not
least among them, were determined that modern warfare as understood
was at an end, air power quickly became sidelined despite being
relied upon extensively since. In an era of high demand on the
armed forces in tandem with less and incompetently managed funding,
there have been calls for the RAF to be disbanded, as had been so
during the early years of its existence.
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First Wave
(Paperback)
Kenneth James Stuart Ballantyne
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R357
Discovery Miles 3 570
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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'Absolutely extraordinary ... Findlay reveals a vast, hidden
European story that few nations have ever been brave enough to
confront' Keith Lowe' 'Beautifully written, poignant and acutely
perceptive' Sinclair McKay 'Moving and powerful' Julia Samuel
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In My Grandfather's Shadow is an unflinching, thought-provoking
fusion of memoir and history, and an exploration of the hidden
scars left across generations by the conflict and horrors of the
Second World War. In a quest to discover the truth about her German
grandfather, first a proud Wehrmacht General serving on the Eastern
front, then a broken POW on trial for Nazi war crimes, Angela
Findlay travels across Europe and Russia to uncover the untold
story of millions of Germans long buried not only in guilt and
shame but also trauma. Carefully breaking the silence surrounding
so many of World War Two's perpetrators, she challenges widespread
binary narratives and offers a way forward that allows the
intergenerational wounds to heal and us all to grasp the urgent
lessons of the darkest episode in modern history. Brave, profoundly
insightful and moving, In My Grandfather's Shadow is a courageous
look at a taboo subject and raises important questions about how
and why we should remember the past.
For two decades after the civil war the Franco regime applied
systematic historical propaganda and imposed relentless repression
of history professionals. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the
balance shifted from all-pervading propaganda to structural but
flexible censorship. Gradually and reluctantly, the regime had to
give back the initiative for explaining the recent past to where it
belonged: to the professional historians, but not without oversee
and livelihood threat. In its efforts to keep control, the regime
could count on historians who were willing to censor their more
adventurous colleagues. But the outcome of this process was biased
and uncertain. The main issue was always whether an author could be
considered a friend of the regime. Personal interventions by Franco
himself regularly played a decisive role. Historians fully loyal to
the regime and its aims were published without difficulty; others
took a reformist path, albeit without endangering the dominant
interpretation that favoured the tropes of inevitability and
positive consequences of Francos rebellion. Reformist historians
avoided criticism of the personal integrity of the dictator and the
army, and did not address the issue of systematically planned
terror in Francos National Zone during the Civil War. Historians
who dared to embrace these topics were condemned to write from
abroad. Historical works dealing with the Spanish Civil War
(19361939) have been regularly studied in-depth. Dutch historian
Jan van Muilekom provides a wider perspective by viewing the Franco
historiography from the time of the preceding Second Republic
(1931-1936). His analysis recognizes the crucial 1939-1952 period
where Franco consolidated his seizure of power. The research is
based on a wealth of published censored books, unpublished
manuscripts, censorship archives and historical propaganda
material. The book is an important complement to earlier studies
that mainly dealt with the regimes dealing with the press, the film
industry and literature. Over a span of four decades, Franco never
lost his grip on how recent Spanish history should be read.
Exploring the historiography of the regime provides multiple
insights into the links between authoritarianism and censorship.
Unshackled Spirit was a unique 'Spitfire' fighter aircraft
purchased by allied prisoners of war whilst imprisoned in Germany;
the book explains how this remarkable achievement was possible
using previously restricted and secret material. In addition,
accounts are compiled from a collection of original YMCA personal
wartime logs as issued to RAF prisoners of war in 1944. 'Unshackled
Spirit' draws out the story of each aviator, how they became a
prisoner of war and life in the various camps across occupied
Europe. Extensive and amazingly detailed pieces of artwork are
taken from the logs and illustrated in the book. The balance of
fact and inspired drawings makes for an impressive collection from
a number of incarcerated aviators. The hardship of POW's and the
extraordinary means adopted to escape are touched upon, but more
importantly the aspect of how agencies helped by supplying all
manner of equipment to the thousands of men behind barbed wire. The
role of MI9 is revealed and how it participated in those agencies
exploring the efforts taken to smuggle escape material into the
prisoner of war camps without breeching the Geneva Convention and
finally the extraordinary measures taken to secure intelligence
during the process of prisoner repatriation.
The Rwandan Genocide began on 6 April 1994, when a plane carrying
President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali. This
sparked one hundred days of brutal massacres throughout the
country, and as the violence and fear escalated, the UN was called
on to take action. The Triumph of Evil details the events that took
place both in Rwanda and inside the UN that allowed over 850,000
people to lose their lives in one of the most horrifying genocides
of the twentieth century. The book is based on the eye-witness
account of Charles Petrie, a UN official called in to assist in the
region, and it documents what he believes were the failings of the
UN when it came to protecting its own staff. In particular,
Petrierelates the sinister events that led to the murders of a
number of Rwandan nationals who were working for the UN, and were
due to be evacuated. Focusing on individual stories and
experiences, he highlights how quickly terror can reign when
disenfranchised groups are incited to violence under an oppressive
system, and how even our most respected institutions can fail when
political motivations muddy the waters.
Over 16 million copies sold worldwide 'One of the most remarkable
books I have ever read' Susan Jeffers One of the outstanding
classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is
Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and
other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to
hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in
our own lives.
This book examines the digital explosion that has ripped across the
battlefield, weaponising our attention and making everyone a
participant in wars without end. 'Smart' devices, apps, archives
and algorithms remove the bystander from war, collapsing the
distinctions between audience and actor, soldier and civilian,
media and weapon. This has ruptured our capacity to make sense of
war. Now we are all either victims or perpetrators. In 'Radical
War', Ford and Hoskins reveal how contemporary war is legitimised,
planned, fought, experienced, remembered and forgotten in a
continuous and connected way, through digitally saturated fields of
perception. Plotting the emerging relationship between data,
attention and the power to control war, the authors chart the
complex digital and human interdependencies that sustain political
violence today. Through a unique, interdisciplinary lens, they map
our disjointed experiences of conflict and illuminate this
dystopian new ecology of war.
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