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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence
'A sprawling tale of love, family, duty, war, and displacement'
Khaled Hosseini Correspondents by Tim Murphy is a powerful story
about the legacy of immigration, the present-day world of
refugeehood, the violence that America causes both abroad and at
home, and the power of the individual and the family to bring good
into a world that is often brutal. Spanning the breadth of the
twentieth century and into the post-9/11 wars and their legacy,
Correspondents is a powerful novel that centres on Rita Khoury, an
Irish-Lebanese woman whose life and family history mirrors the
story of modern America. Both sides of Rita's family came to the
United States in the golden years of immigration, and in her home
north of Boston Rita grows into a stubborn, perfectionist, and
relentlessly bright young woman. She studies Arabic at university
and moves to cosmopolitan Beirut to work as a journalist, and is
then posted to Iraq after the American invasion in 2003. In
Baghdad, Rita finds for the first time in her life that her safety
depends on someone else, her talented interpreter Nabil al-Jumaili,
an equally driven young man from a middle-class Baghdad family who
is hiding a secret about his sexuality. As Nabil's identity
threatens to put him in jeopardy and Rita's position becomes more
precarious as the war intensifies, their worlds start to unravel,
forcing them out of the country and into an uncertain future.
This account of the life of Jacques Vaillant de Guelis follows him
from his birth in Cardiff, through school and University and French
Military Service. Newly married he was recalled to France in 1939
and was assigned to a company of British engineers as liaison
officer until reportedly captured. He escaped via Dunkirk, only to
return to France a few days later. He retreated south, escaped over
the Pyrenees only to be caught again and flung into the Miranda del
Ebro Concentration camp. On his release he returned to England
where he was recruited by the fledgling SOE, after an interview
with Churchill. He became a familiar figure in Baker Street as a
recruiting and conducting officer until he was sent to France on a
fact- finding mission in 1941. A stay in Algiers in 1942-3 followed
when he took part in the liberation of Corsica before returning to
London and leading his 2nd mission to France in 1944. In 1945 he
joined SAARF and led his last mission to Germany which culminated
in collision with another vehicle when he was badly injured. He
died later as a result
In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive
fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of
Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the
Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end
the rebellion the following year and devised what they believed a
war-winning strategy, sending General John Burgoyne south to rout
the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort
Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if
it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in
the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a
combination of the Continental Army and Militia forces, commanded
by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of
Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The
American victory stunned the world and changed the course of the
war. Kevin J. Weddle offers the most authoritative history of the
Battle of Saratoga to date, explaining with verve and clarity why
events unfolded the way they did. In the end, British plans were
undone by a combination of distance, geography, logistics, and an
underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability. Taking
Ticonderoga had misled Burgoyne and his army into thinking victory
was assured. Saratoga, which began as a British foraging
expedition, turned into a rout. The outcome forced the British to
rethink their strategy, inflamed public opinion in England against
the war, boosted Patriot morale, and, perhaps most critical of all,
led directly to the Franco-American alliance. Weddle unravels the
web of contingencies and the play of personalities that ultimately
led to what one American general called "the Compleat Victory."
This book is a transcript of diaries, letters and recollections all
written by Thomas Cheshire during the Great War. Thomas Allen
Cheshire was born in Crewe in Cheshire in 1889. He served under the
Royal Warwickshire Regiment and was 25 when he started writing
letters and diaries from the Front line to be sent to his
sweetheart, Kit. Dedicated to her, he wanted to give an insight
into the social conditions of the war, and to portray the soldier's
true character. His first diary commences on the 4th August 1914
when he describes the mobilisation of Great Britain. He continues
his daily diaries throughout August, detailing the training,
preparation and travels until finally setting sail aboard the SS
Caledonia on August 22nd, setting foot on French soil on the 23rd
and joining the Battle of Mons on the 25th August 1914. October's
diary continues with another battle - the Battle of Meteren. The
2nd diary covers the period from the end of October 1914 to January
1915 and in Thomas's letter to Kit he dedicates the two diaries as
a wedding present. Thomas describes life in the trenches in this
diary, his meeting of The King in December, and also the `rest' at
Christmas. In April 1915, Thomas was badly injured in the arm and
sent home from The Front. The 3rd diary is a series of
recollections detailing his recuperation during 1915, although it
wasn't finished and ready to send to Kit until February 1918. Kit
and Thomas got married in January 1916 and welcomed a baby son in
February 1917. His marriage and the birth of his only son are
touched upon in the 4th Diary, although this was never completed.
The last entry is dated 1st March 1918 and Thomas passed away on
the 16th October 1918. The diaries and recollections survived the
war and were kept and treasured by Kit, until she gave them to a
member of Thomas's family for safekeeping. They were then lent to
Malcolm to read and he was so taken by them that he felt they ought
to be transcribed so that a wider audience could appreciate them.
He took upon the task and spent many hours trying to do the diaries
justice. Although he completed the actual transcript, Malcolm sadly
passed away before publication. The book was completed for Malcolm
by his family to honour his wish and in dedication of all his hard
work.
In the summer of 1943, at the height of World War II, battles were
exploding all throughout the Pacific theater. In mid-November of
that year, the United States waged a bloody campaign on Betio
Island in the Tarawa Atoll, the most heavily fortified Japanese
territory in the entire Pacific. They were fighting to wrest
control of the island to stage the next big push toward Japan--and
one journalist was there to chronicle the horror.
Dive into war correspondent Robert Sherrod's battlefield account as
he goes ashore with the assault troops of the U.S. Marines 2nd
Marine Division in Tarawa. Follow the story of the U.S. Army 27th
Infantry Division as nearly 35,000 troops take on less than 5,000
Japanese defenders in one of the most savage engagements of the
war. By the end of the battle, only seventeen Japanese soldiers
were still alive.
This story, a must for any history buff, tells the ins and outs of
life alongside the U.S. Marines in this lesser-known battle of
World War II. The battle itself carried on for three days, but
Sherrod, a dedicated journalist, remained in Tarawa until the very
end, and through his writing, shares every detail.
First published in 1918 Whizzbangs and Woodbines presents a candid
portrait of life behind the lines on the Western Front by Reverend
Durell, then Rector of Rotherhithe, and Chief Commissioner of the
Church Army in France.The Church Army, along with its counterparts
the YMCA, TOC-H and Salvation Army played an important part in the
support and morale of soldiers in war. In addition to providing
spiritual support,the Church Army welcomed more than 200,000 men
each day to their recreation huts and provided visits and gifts to
the wounded, tents and hostels near the front lines, drove
ambulances, mobile canteens and kitchen cars.In addition to
voluntary Church services, for those who wished to attend, a simple
salvation from trench life was offered; music, singing, concerts,
card games,billiards and refreshments, all small measures of joy in
the midst of dangers and hardships and as vital to the continued
war effort as bullets and shells. For a packet of woodbines and a
cup of tea was restorative ammunition enough for the average
British Tommy.
First published in 1918, this book is a record of observations and
evidence compiled by the then US Consul in Queenstown, Eire. A rare
study from first-hand accounts. Contains detailed testimonies of
survivors from over fifty vessels attacked and often sunk by German
submarines during the Great War.A vivid and accurate picture of the
tactics and motives of German submarine warfare is provided in the
first part of the book. The second part concentrate son the attack
and sinking of RMS Lusitania. The sinking of the Lusitania remains
a controversial topic with the loss of 1,198 lives on 7May 1915
Robert Southey was an English poet and contemporary of Nelson. It
was his ambition to write a clear and concise life of Nelson which
could be easily absorbed by any young sailor.'
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.
The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.
Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe - whether war or natural disaster – was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.
War Doctor is his extraordinary story.
Georg Bucher, a German infantryman from 1914 had lost almost all of
his closest friends by 1918. The last friend he lost, Riedel, was
crushed by a tank in one of the last battles of the war. This is
his tale in their memory. A sergeant by 1918, Bucher describes
nearly every part of the Western Front - the Marne, Verdun,Somme,
Ypres, the Vosges and the 1918 Spring Offensive in vivid detail. He
illustrates how his psychological state changed over the course of
the war, how a soldier can in a split second turn from a human
being into a killing machine without pity, killing as second
nature, without thought.The raw endurance required to survive the
trenches is narrated in undiluted fashion, no horrors are spared;
the quagmire of 3rd Ypres, unrelenting lice and rats, the stench of
death and descriptions ofa bhorrent actions such as (so Bucher
alleges) French soldiers, under the influence of absinthe,
mutilating some of his company for revenge on the Senegalese.Fans
of 'All Quiet on the Western Front' or 'Storm of Steel' will be
delighted to discover Bucher's work.
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German
Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he
held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that
Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again.
He had returned bringing "Peace with honour--Peace for our time."
Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David
Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events
of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich
Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax's ill-fated
meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain's secret discussions with
Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler's regime. He
takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin,
we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of
opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as
Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease
Hitler.
Resonating with an insider's feel for the political infighting
Faber uncovers, "Munich, 1938 "transports us to the war rooms and
bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and" "scandals upon
which the world's fate would rest. It is modern history writing at
its best.""
The story of the 39th Divisional Field Ambulances beings in the
year of 1915 at various recruiting offices, and continues in a
thin, uncertain stream of variable humanity, finding its way to the
Sussex Downs, facing the sea, at Cow Gap, Eastbourne, Here the
lines of white tents, the whitewashed stones, the martial sounds
and atmosphere welcomed the embryo soldier to the service of his
country, and to fellowship unique and abiding. These embryo
soldiers were to become the men that would be responsible for the
mobile frontline medical units and had special responsibility for
the care of casualties of the Brigades in their Division. Via Ypres
tells of these young men - mostly mere boys and non-militaristic in
their education - faced with the task of preparing to go to war to
take part in the great struggle. These happy, cheerful and perhaps
a bit casual soon-to-be soldiers remained just so once training was
over but also became the gallant and efficient men who were to be
faced with the danger and misery that war cannot help but bring; in
doing so potentially risk their lives to save those of their
comrades.
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