Showing titles in Military

August 2021. The Taliban invaded Kabul. The British Government was Missing in Action. The evacuation was disastrous, shambolic and deadly. Pen Farthing refused to abandon his charity’s staff or rescue animals. Operation Ark was born. He was branded a villain who valued “pets over people”, blamed for deserting Afghans, accused of risking British soldiers—nothing could be further from the truth.

In the best-selling tradition of Truman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald offers a new classic in American history and biography - a masterly account of how one man's extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality.

Written by the Officer Commanding and former Red 1 Team Leader, Wing Commander David Montenegro, and full of never-before-shared tales from pilots past and present, this thrilling history is both a faithful record and a fascinating account of not only what it takes, but what it means, to be a Red Arrow.

Through the firsthand experiences of pilots and ground crew, the author of Javelin Boys chronicles the history of the RAF’s first jet-engine aircraft. As Britain’s first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor has had a remarkably varied and lengthy life. But while many books have focused on its development and service history, the time has come to hear the personal experiences of its air and ground crews.

The gripping saga of the plane that carried Britain through the Second World War. In June 1940, the German Army had brought the rest of Europe to its knees. 'Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life...

Tornado Boys is the latest in the ever-popular Boys series and differs from earlier titles. With the introduction of female pilots to the RAF in 1994, the Tornado was the first aircraft to be flown by both men and women. This is acknowledged in the book with a chapter written by one female pilot. Another aspect that makes this book different from the rest of the series is that it covers an aircraft which is still in active service, especially as a key player in current Middle East operations.

Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism.

On the 14th of August 1941, a Polish monk named Maximilian Maria Kolbe was murdered in Auschwitz. Kolbe's life had been remarkable. Fiercely intelligent and driven, he founded a movement of Catholicism and spent several years in Nagasaki, ministering to the 'hidden Christians' who had emerged after centuries of oppression. A Polish nationalist as well as a monk, he gave sanctuary to fleeing refugees and his death was no less remarkable: he volunteered to die, saving the life of a fellow prisoner. It was an act that profoundly transformed the lives of two Japanese men.

'An adrenalin-fuelled, gritty story of heroism on the frontline in Afghanistan.' - Andy McNab The rounds were single shot from the same two enemy positions, trying to pick me off. They were kicking up the dirt around me. Then all hell broke loose as the gunship's Gatling vomited ammo right over...

A riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly The iconic anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history—how one...

Bill Tompkins was embedded in the world of secrecy as a teenager, when the navy took his personal ship models out of a Hollywood department store because they showed the classified locations of the radars and gun emplacements. He was present at the “Battle of LA”, when 1,430 rounds were fired at UFOs, and one of the Nordic craft selected him to be their rep in the evolving aerospace race. This book is a partial autobiography about his life to about 1970 including some of his early work for TRW.

Guerrilla Warfare by the revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, written in 1960, has become a how-to manual for thousands of guerrilla fighters in various countries around the world. Guevara intended it to be a guidebook on guerrilla warfare, as inspiration for the revolutionary movement. Fascinating to admirers and adversaries alike, he captured the minds of millions with his leadership and his belief in guerrilla warfare as the only effective agent to achieve political change.

According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.

Former US Navy Top Gun Kevin Sullivan, captain of the ill-fated Perth-bound QF72, breaks his silence to give a gripping account of how a rogue computer went 'psycho', causing the Airbus A330 he was piloting to pitch down, nose first, towards the Indian Ocean—twice. Unlike other well-publicised near air disasters, the plane carrying 315 passengers and crew was out of control, a g-force of –8 propelling anyone and anything untethered through the cabin roof. It took the extraordinary skill and presence of mind of the veteran Top Gun to wrestle back control of the plane.

They were the men and women of the Royal Navy's Special Operations units. Carrying out lightning raids on hostile coasts, they became a navy within a navy - each handpicked for their individual skills, and all of them courageous. Against the mighty backdrop of World War II they performed their small but deadly operations - living often beyond hope, sometimes beyond mercy. This is the dramatic story of a handful of such people. The Volunteers.

Tony Banks and his comrades of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment were highly trained, but nothing could prepare them for the intensity and ferocity of fighting to liberate the Falkland Islands. Plunged into a war of night attacks and vicious close-quarters combat, Banks and his fellow soldiers' fierce bravery and determination saw them through the bloodiest conflict British troops had faced in decades. Seventeen men died at Goose Green, a hard-fought battle the paras came close to losing.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The most important book ever written about the Catholic Church and its conduct during World War II.”—Daniel Silva “Kertzer brings all of his usual detective and narrative skills to [The Pope at War] . . . the most comprehensive account of the Vatican’s...

This is one of the most significant military books of the twentieth century. By an outstanding soldier of independent mind, it pushed forward the evolution of land warfare and was directly responsible for German armoured supremacy in the early years of the Second World War. Published in 1937...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. ‘War, what is it good for?’ THE VIETNAM WAR: HISTORY IN AN HOUR gives a gripping account of the most important Cold War-era conflict, fought between the United States and the Viet Cong, the Vietnam People’s Army and their Communist...

Sir Barnes Wallis CBE became a household name after the hit 1954 film The Dam Busters in which Michael Redgrave portrayed a shy, slightly abstracted genius at odds with bureaucracy. Yet this was a simplified picture of a complicated, mercurial man. Wallis' contribution to British aircrafts and weapons is legendary; from the R100 intercontinental airship and innovative aircrafts like the Wellesley and Wellington, to bombs that destroyed hitherto invulnerable targets, and variable-geometry aerodynes.