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The Fairbairn-Sykes Commando dagger has become iconic as the most
widely recognized fighting knife in the world. The origins of the
dagger can be traced to Shanghai in the 1930s where W. E. Fairbairn
and US Marine officers including Sam Yeaton carried out experiments
in developing what they considered the perfect knife for close
combat.
When Fairbairn and Sykes became instructors for the Commandos, they
refined the design which would evolve into the classic
Fairbairn-Sykes dagger. The dagger was first used during early
Commando raids into occupied Europe but saw action in every theatre
of World War II. US Rangers and Marines who had trained with the
Commandos took their Fairbairn-Sykes daggers home which also
influenced the development of American Special Forces daggers. The
Fairbairn-Sykes remained in use with many units after the war, and
has become a symbol of commando and special forces units throughout
the world.
The battle for Guadalcanal that lasted from August 1942 to February
1943 was the first major American counteroffensive against the
Japanese in the Pacific. The battle of Savo Island on the night of
9 August 1942, saw the Japanese inflict a sever defeat on the
Allied force, driving them away from Guadalcanal and leaving the
just-landed marines in a perilously exposed position. This was the
start of a series of night battles that culminated in the First and
Second battles of Guadalcanal, fought on the nights of 13 and 15
November. One further major naval action followed, the battle of
Tassafaronga on 30 November 1942, when the US Navy once again
suffered a severe defeat, but this time it was too late to alter
the course of the battle as the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal in
early February 1943.This title will detail the contrasting fortunes
experienced by both sides over the intense course of naval battles
around the island throughout the second half of 1942 that did so
much to turn the tide in the Pacific.
The German Tiger heavy tank was a monster of a machine that
dominated the battlefields of Europe. One of the most feared
weapons of World War II, the Tiger gained an aura of invincibility
that was only shattered by the introduction of the Sherman Firefly
during the summer of 1944. Specifically designed by the British to
combat the Tiger, the Sherman Firefly was based on the standard
American M4A4 Sherman medium tank, but was fitted with a powerful
17-pounder gun which made it a deadly opponent for the Tiger.
This book describes the design and development of these two fierce
opponents, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and assessing
their tactics, weaponry and training. Innovative gun-sight artwork
puts the reader "inside" the tanks during famous real-life battle
scenarios, including the infamous Panzer ace Michael Wittman
leading four Tigers into battle against eight Fireflies, a clash of
steel that was a victory not only for superior Allied numbers, but
also for Allied tactics and engineering.
In this book Steven J Zaloga offers a fascinating comparison of the
combat performance of the two most important tanks involved in the
crucial fighting of 1944, the Sherman and the Panther. Examining
the design and development of both tanks, Zaloga notes the obvious
superiority that the Panther had over the Sherman and how the
highly engineered German tank was eventually beaten back, not
necessarily by the improvements made to the Sherman, but rather by
the superior numbers of tanks that the Allies were able to put into
the field.
Putting the reader into the heart of this battle between quality
and quantity Zaloga examines the tactical intricacies of the
battles between these two rivals. Using a compelling account of the
ferocious fighting in the Ardennes region to explain the successes
and failures of each tank he also highlights the fact that a tank
can only be as good as its crew, weighing up the impact of low
morale, high cost and mediocre crew training on the Panthers
superiority. Packed with full-colour battlescenes, technical
drawings, photographs, digital gunsight views, extracts from crew
training manuals and real combat reports, this book brings to life
the titanic battles between the Sherman and the Panther.
Operation Husky, the Anglo-American amphibious landings on Sicily
in July 1943 were the proving ground for all subsequent Allied
amphibious operations including Salerno, Anzio, and D-Day in
Normandy. Husky's strategic objective was to knock Italy out of the
war, a mission that ultimately proved successful. But it also
demonstrated the growing ability of Britain and the United States
to conduct extremely complex combined-arms attacks involving not
only amphibious landings, but also airborne assaults. It was in
many ways the precursor of all modern joint operations through the
recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as two different armies and
navies with their own methods of command and control adjusted their
practices to conduct a harmonious operation. This stood in stark
contrast to the increasingly dysfunctional German-Italian alliance
which finally broke down on Sicily.
Not only did the Sicily operation represent a watershed in tactical
development of combined arms tactics, it was also an important test
for future Allied joint operations. Senior British commanders left
the North African theater with a jaundiced and dismissive view of
the combat capabilities of the inexperienced US Army after the
debacle at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in February 1943. Sicily was a
demonstration that the US Army had rapidly learned its lessons and
was now capable of fighting as a co-equal of the British
Army.
The Sicily campaign contained a measure of high drama as Patton
took the reins of the Seventh US Army and bent the rules of the
theater commander in a bold race to take Palermo on the northern
Sicilian coast. Patton was determined to prove the ability of the
US Army after Kasserine in the hands of a skilled tactical
commander. When stiff German resistance halted Montgomery's main
assault to Messina through the mountains, Patton was posed to be
the first to reach the key Sicilian port and end the
campaign.
The Sicily campaign contains a fair amount of controversy as well
including the disastrous problems with early airborne assaults and
the Allied failure to seal the straits of Messina, allowing the
Germans to withdraw many of their best forces.
An examination of the 'small boat' war between the Germans and the
British in the English Channel. During the Second World War, German
E-Boats were so active in the English Channel that the narrow
stretch of water became known as 'E-Boat Alley'. To counter the
threat of these E-Boats, Britain brought its coastal forces to bear
- flotillas of small Motor Torpedo and Gun Boats (MTBs and MGBs)
and Motor Launches (MLs). As the Germans sought to maintain their
supremacy in Channel waters, they continued to develop their E-Boat
designs to accommodate more armor and more firepower. Rather than
matching the newer E-Boats for armament, the British developed
several types to fulfill the varied roles for which the
Kriegsmarine were attempting to use the E-Boat. Illustrated with
high-quality photographs and battlescene artworks, this book
details this developing conflict, examining the evolution of the
boats involved, and covering their battles from fights in the
Thames Estuary to the build-up for D-Day.
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