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Arnhem - it was the last major battle lost by the British Army,
lost not by the men who fought there but by the overconfidence of
generals, faulty planning and the failure of a relieving force
given too great a task. If the operation of which Arnhem formed a
part had been successful, the outcome of the war and the history of
post-war Europe would have been greatly altered. Yet is it worth
another book? I had fulfilled all my literary ambitions by
researching and writing thirteen full-length books and was ready to
retire from that laborious craft when Peter van Gorsel, head of
Penguin's Dutch office, asked me to write a book on Arnhem for the
fiftieth anniversary in 1994. It was the first time that my
publishers had requested a book; all previous subjects had been my
choice. I eventually agreed for several reasons. I had not
previously researched and written about the British Army in the
Second World War and had not previously done any work in Holland;
so two fresh fields were opened up to me. I also felt that the
fighting in and around Arnhem had still not been described in the
detail that it merited.
This book describes all aspects of the fighting in and around
Arnhem in as much detail as possible and with correct 'balance'. It
highlights the story of the holding of the area around the Arnhem
road bridge by the 2nd Parachute Battalion and by other troops.
In July 1943 a series of heavy bombing raids virtually destroyed
the North German city of Hamburg. In one night alone some 40,000
people were killed largely as a result of the terrible firestorm.
To this day controversy rages as to the morality of these attacks
and their consequences. With his trademark thoroughness Martin
Middlebrook has delved deep into the archives to uncover the facts.
As ever he draws on copious eyewitnesses and participants a total
of 547 British, American and German. The testimonies of the Hamburg
survivors are particularly revealing and harrowing providing a
first hand description of what it was like to be subjected to
prolonged and intense air attack. Paradoxically while Hamburg was
arguably Bomber Commands greatest achievement it remains its - and
Air Marshal Harris - most criticised. Often overlooked was the
USAAFs role and this together with the contribution to the failure
of German air defences of a new device, Window, are fully covered.
Firestorm Hamburg is a masterly description of a major air campaign
and the Authors aim of achieving a better understanding of the
background, conduct and results is fully realised. He does not
shirk from studying the moral dilemma.In July 1943 a series of
heavy bombing raids virtually destroyed the North German city of
Hamburg. In one night alone some 40,000 people were killed largely
as a result of the terrible firestorm. To this day controversy
rages as to the morality of these attacks and their consequences.
With his trademark thoroughness Martin Middlebrook has delved deep
into the archives to uncover the facts. As ever he draws on copious
eyewitnesses and participants a total of 547 British, American and
German.
With the surprise Argentine invasion of the remote Falkland Islands
on 2 April 1982, the United Kingdom found itself at war. Due to the
resolve of a determined Prime Minister and the resourcefulness of
the Armed Forces, a Task Force, codenamed Operation CORPORATE, was
quickly despatched. Remarkably, just over two months later, the
Islands were liberated and the invaders defeated. By any standards
this was an outstanding feat of arms, cooperation made possible by
political resolve, sound planning, strong leadership and the
courage and determination of the British forces.Martin Middlebrook,
the renowned military historian, has skilfully weaved the many
strands of this extraordinary achievement into a fascinating,
thorough and highly readable account. Thanks to his meticulous
research he covers action at sea, on the land and in the air as
well as providing the strategic overview. The author's use of many
first-hand accounts reveals what it was like to be part of this
audacious military endeavour. The experiences of the Falkland
Islanders during the Argentine occupation are also included. Thirty
years on, Middlebrook's The Falklands War is still an authoritative
and thoroughly readable account of this historic enterprise.
The Battle of Berlin was the longest and most sustained bombing
offensive against one target in the Second World War. Bomber
Commands Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur Harris, hoped to wreak
Berlin from end to end and produce a state of devastation in which
German surrender is inevitable. He dispatched nineteen major raids
between August 1943 and March 1944 more than 10,000 aircraft
sorties dropped over 30,000 tons of bombs on Berlin. It was the
RAFs supreme effort to end the war by aerial bombing. But Berlin
was not destroyed and the RAF lost more than 600 aircraft and their
crews. The controversy over whether the Battle of Berlin was a
success or failure has continued ever since. Martin Middlebrook
brings to this subject considerable experience as a military
historian. In preparing his material he collected documents from
both sides (many of the German ones never before used); he has also
interviewed and corresponded with over 400 of the people involved
in the battle and has made trips to Germany to interview the people
of Berlin and Luftwaffe aircrews. He has achieved the difficult
task of bringing together both sides of the Battle of Berlin the
bombing force and the people on the ground to tell a coherent,
single story. The author describes the battle, month by month, as
the bombers waited for the dark nights, with no moon, to resume
their effort to destroy Berlin and end the war. He recounts the ebb
and flow of fortunes, identifying the tactical factors that helped
first the bombers, then the night fighters, to gain the upper hand.
Through the words of the participants, he brings to the reader the
hopes, fears and bravery of the young bomber aircrews in the
desperate air battles that were waged as the Luftwaffe attempted to
protect their capital city. And he includes that element so often
omitted from books about the bombing war the experiences of
ordinary people in the target city, showing how the bombing
destroyed homes, killed families, affected morale and reduced the
German war effort. Martin Middlebrooks meticulous attention to
detail makes The Bomber Battle of Berlin one of his most
accomplished book to date.
Martin Middlebrook is the only British historian to have been
granted open access to the Argentines who planned and fought the
Falklands War. It ranks with Liddell Hart's The Other Side of the
Hill in analyzing and understanding the military thinking and
strategies of Britain's sometime enemy, and is essential reading
for all who wish to understand the workings of military
minds.returncharacterreturncharacterThe author has managed to avoid
becoming involved in the issue of sovereignty and concentrates
entirely upon the military story. He has produced a genuine 'first'
with this balanced and unique work. Among the men he met were the
captain of the ship that took the scrap-metal merchants to South
Georgia; the admiral in charge of planning the Falklands invasion;
the marine commander and other members of the invasion force; two
brigadier-generals, five unit commanders and many other men of the
large army force sent to occupy and defend the islands.; the
officer in charge of the Argentine garrison at Goose Green; and
finally the brigadier-general responsible for the Defence of Port
Stanley and soldiers of all ranks who fought the final battles.
After an immense but useless bombardment, at 7.30 am. On 1 July
1916 the British Army went over the top and attacked the German
trenches. It was the first day of the battle of the Somme, and on
that day the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, two for
every yard of their front. With more than fifty times the daily
losses at El Alamein and fifteen times the British casualties on
D-day, 1 July 1916 was the blackest day in the history of the
British Army. But, more than that, as Lloyd George recognised, it
was a watershed in the history of the First World War. The Army
that attacked on that day was the volunteer Army that had answered
Kitchener's call. It had gone into action confident of a decisive
victory. But by sunset on the first day on the Somme, no one could
any longer think of a war that might be won. Martin Middlebrook's
research has covered not just official and regimental histories and
tours of the battlefields, but interviews with hundreds of
survivors, both British and German. As to the action itself, he
conveys the overall strategic view and the terrifying reality that
it was for front-line soldiers.
Arnhem was meant to end the war in Europe. The Germans were in
retreat from Normandy and seemed to be beaten. Three airborne
divisions were to seize the bridges across the great rivers of
Holland and unleash the Allied armies into Germany. The Battle of
Arnhem was a turning-point in the war, a gamble by Montgomery,
using three airborne divisions to capture a series of bridges
across the wide rivers that separated a powerful mobile army from
the plains of northern Germany. If the bridges had been captured
and held, and the ground forces had been able to relieve the
airborne forces, then there would have been a good chance of ending
the war before Christmas 1944. It all went wrong. The initial
operation was successful, the bridges taken by the Americans were
relieved by ground troops, but these troops could not reach Arnhem
quickly enough. In the meantime, only a small part of the 1st
British Airborne Division had reached the Arnhem Bridge. Most of
the remainder of the airborne force was held up on the outskirts of
the town by German units that turned out to be far stronger than
expected -� a major intelligence failure. After nine days of
fighting, the survivors of the division were withdrawn across the
Rhine and it was not until many months later that ground forces
captured Arnhem. Using the technique he has perfected over
twenty-five years of military study, blending meticulous research
based on original documents with the personal experiences of more
than 500 participants, Martin Middlebrook describes the Battle of
Arnhem from start to finish, from one end of that complicated
battlefield to the other.� The author offers a masterly
summary of what went wrong in the last major defeat in battle
suffered by the British Army.
Bomber Command's campaign started on the very first day of the
Second World War and ended within a few hours of the final victory
in Europe five and a half years later. It was an attempt to win the
war in Europe by strategic bombing on such an enormous scale that
historians have only recently begun to piece together the finer
details of the individual raids. There have been many books about
Bomber Command, but Martin Middlebrook, the aviation historian, and
his research colleague, Chris Everitt, were the first to compile a
complete review of all the raids and the background stories to this
fascinating campaign. They undertook the gargantuan task not only
of documenting every Bomber Command operation but also of obtaining
information from local archives in Germany, Italy and the occupied
countries, on the effects of the raids. Little of this material had
been published previously, and never before had the two sides of
Bomber Command's war been brought together in this way. The Bomber
Command War Diaries has become the standard basic work of reference
on this extraordinary campaign. This edition includes retrospective
observations and a new appendix.
This book describes one twenty-four-hour period in the Allied
Strategic Bomber Offensive in the greatest possible detail. The
author sets the scene by outlining the course of the bombing war
from 1939 to the night of the Nuremberg raid, the characters and
aims of the British bombing leaders and the composition of the
opposing Bomber Command and German night fighter forces. The aim of
the Nuremberg raid was not unlike many hundreds of other RAF
missions but, due to the difficulties and dangers of the enemy
defences and weather plus bad luck, it went horribly wrong. The
result was so notorious that it became a turning point in the
campaign. The target, the symbolic Nazi rally city of Nuremberg,
was only lightly damaged and 96 out of 779 bombers went missing.
Middlebrook recreates the events of the fateful night in
astonishing detail. The result is a meticulous dramatic and often
controversial account. It is also a moving tribute to the bravery
of the RAF bomber crews and their adversaries.
On 17 August 1943, the entire strength of the American heavy bomber
forces in England set out to raid two major industrial complexes
deep in southern Germany, the vast Messerschmitt aircraft factory
and the vital KGF ballbearing plant. For American commanders it was
the culmination of years of planning and hope, the day when their
self-defending formations of the famous Flying Fortress could at
last perform their true role and reach out by daylight to strike at
targets in the deepest corners of industrial Germany. The day ended
in disaster for the Americans. Thanks to the courage of the
aircrews the bombers won through to the targets and caused heavy
damage, but sixty were shot down and the hopes of the American
commanders were shattered. Historically, it was probably the most
important day for the American air forces during the Second World
War.While researching this catastrophic raid the Author interviewed
hundreds of the airmen involved, German defenders, slave workers
and eye witnesses. This took him twice to both the USA and
Germany.The result is a mass of fresh, previously unused material
with which the author finally provides the full story of this
famous day s operations. Not only is the American side described in
far greater depth than before but the previously vague German side
of the story both the Luftwaffe action and the civilian experiences
in Schweinfurt and Regensburg, are now presented clearly and in
detail for the first time. The important question of why the RAF
did not support the American effort and follow up the raid on
Schweinfurt as planned is also fully covered.REVIEWS One of the
Greatest Air Battles fought in World War II. Mr Middlebrook is a
meticulous English researcher whose work on RAF Bomber Command is
legendary. This book was Mr Middlebrooks first attempt presenting
the American perspective of the Air War and he chose one of the
most vicious, 60 B-17's and over 600 men were lost on this mission.
Martin has taken this battle and presented it from both sides by
using the interviews from the participants along with official
documents and photos. The scope and size of this Air Battle and
Middlebrook's attention to detail makes this a compelling read for
those interested in the 8th Air Force. The interviews with the
participants and letting them tell the story vs the author is what
makes this book special and worth buying. Mr Middlebrook has
researched this book to the point he feels he has solved the
decades old mystery of the Wheels Down" event which has haunted the
100th Bomb Group. You will need to read the book to understand the
event and his research. Suffice it to say that his documentation
provides some very compelling proof this event happened to another
group. My view point on the incidents vary's but no matter who you
believe, the wheels down incident will forever be associated with
"the Bloody Hundredth." You will enjoy this book immensely, I did
"Michael P. Faley 100th Bomb Group Historian & Photo Archives
While best known as being the scene of the most terrible carnage in
the WW1 the French department of the Somme has seen many other
battles from Roman times to 1944. William the Conqueror launched
his invasion from there; the French and English fought at Crecy in
1346; Henry V's army marched through on their way to Agincourt in
1415; the Prussians came in 1870. The Great War saw three great
battles and approximately half of the 400,000 who died on the Somme
were British - a terrible harvest, marked by 242 British cemeteries
and over 50,000 lie in unmarked graves. These statistics explain in
part why the area is visited year-on-year by ever increasing
numbers of British and Commonwealth citizens. This evocative book
written by the authors of the iconic First Day on the Somme.is a
thorough guide to the cemeteries, memorials and battlefields of the
area, with the emphasis on the fighting of 1916 and 1918, with
fascinating descriptions and anecdotes.
"Enthralling eye witness histories" John Keegan
On the night of 17-18 August 1943, RAF Bomber Command attacked a
remote research establishment on the German Baltic coast. The site
was Peenemunde, where Hitler's scientists were developing both the
V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket whose destructive powers could
have swung the course of the War. The raid was meticulously planned
and hopes were high. But the night sky was so cloudless that the
British bombers presented an easy target for German night fighters,
and over 40 were lost.
Martin Middlebrook draws on the memories of over 400 people
involved in the dramatic events on that night: RAF and Luftwaffe
aircrew, German personnel at the research site and foreign laborers
who had been forced to work there. The result is a truly compelling
account of this hazardous attempt to disrupt Hitler's V-weapons
program.
The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide:
their story is told in their own words - Guardian 'For some reason
nothing seemed to happen to us at first; we strolled along as
though walking in a park. Then, suddenly, we were in the midst of a
storm of machine-gun bullets and I saw men beginning to twirl round
and fall in all kinds of curious ways' On 1 July 1916, a continous
line of British soldiers climbed out from the trenches of the Somme
into No Man's Land and began to walk towards dug-in German troops
armed with machine-guns. By the end of the day there were more than
60,000 British casualties - a third of them fatal. Martin
Middlebrook's now-classic account of the blackest day in the
history of the British army draws on official sources from the
time, and on the words of hundreds of survivors: normal men, many
of them volunteers, who found themselves thrown into a scene of
unparalleled tragedy and horror.
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