EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book 2SAS

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gavin Mortimer
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2023-10-12
  • ISBN : 1472856724
  • Pages : 274 pages

Download or read book 2SAS written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on recently declassified files and interviews with veterans, this is a fascinating history of Bill Stirling and 2SAS – pioneering founders of modern special forces. David Stirling is the name synonymous with the wartime SAS, but the real brains behind the operation was in fact Bill Stirling, David's eldest brother. Bill was described in the SAS War Diary as a 'man from the shadows'; it was an apt description for, unlike his attention seeking brother, Bill shunned the spotlight. Now for the first time the truth – and the triumph – of 2SAS is revealed. Having originally joined the SOE in March 1940, Bill Stirling sailed for Cairo in 1941 and there had the idea for a small special forces unit to be led by his mercurial brother. But despite some success, David allowed the legendary 1SAS to drift under his leadership. Following his capture, Bill re-directed 2SAS, under his personal command, to the strategy he had originally envisaged: parachuting behind enemy lines to gather intelligence. Fully illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photographs, this compelling history details how 2SAS fought with ingenuity and aggression, from Italy and then into France before heading through Holland into Germany. The unit was capable of attacking by parachute, jeep or landing craft, establishing a template for future special forces' operations. Their feats have been overshadowed by the many books that have focused on David and 1SAS. 2SAS corrects this oversight, revealing that the real innovator was Bill Stirling – the true pioneer of Who Dares Wins.

Book Rogue Heroes

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ben Macintyre
  • Publisher : Crown
  • Release : 2016-10-04
  • ISBN : 1101904178
  • Pages : 344 pages

Download or read book Rogue Heroes written by Ben Macintyre and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue—now a limited series on Epix! “Reads like a mashup of The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, with a sprinkling of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “Rogue Heroes is a ripping good read.”—Washington Post (10 Best Books of the Year) Britain’s Special Air Service—or SAS—was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young aristocrat whose aimlessness belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a World War II battlefield map and saw a protracted struggle, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Defying his superiors’ conventional wisdom, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. Bringing his keen eye for detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to the SAS archives to shine a light on a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy.

Book David Stirling

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gavin Mortimer
  • Publisher : Constable
  • Release : 2022-05-26
  • ISBN : 1472134567
  • Pages : 485 pages

Download or read book David Stirling written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Constable. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristocrat, gambler, innovator and special forces legend, the life of David Stirling should need no retelling. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But was he really a military genius or in fact a shameless self-publicist who manipulated people, and the truth, for this own ends? In this gripping and controversial biography Gavin Mortimer analyses Stirling's complex character: the childhood speech impediment that shaped his formative years, the pressure from his overbearing mother, his fraught relationship with his brother, Bill, and the jealousy and inferiority he felt in the presence of his SAS second-in-command, the cold-blooded killer Paddy Mayne. Stirling lived until old age, receiving a knighthood and plaudits from military forces around the world before his death in 1990. Yet as Mortimer dazzlingly shows, while Stirling was instrumental in selling the SAS to Churchill and senior officers, it was Mayne who really carried the regiment in the early days. Stirling was at best an incompetent soldier and at worst a foolhardy one, who jeopardised his men's live with careless talk and hare-brained missions. Drawing on interviews with SAS veterans who fought with Stirling and men who worked with him on his post-war projects, and examining recently declassified governments files about Stirling's involvement in Aden, Libya and GB75, Mortimer's riveting biography is incisive, bold, honest and written with his customary narrative panache. Impeccably researched and with the courage to challenge the mythical SAS 'brand', Mortimer brings to bear his unparalleled expertise as WW2's premier special forces historian to dig beneath the legend and reveal the real David Stirling, a man who dared and deceived.

Book The SAS in World War II

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gavin Mortimer
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2015-06-20
  • ISBN : 1472808770
  • Pages : 315 pages

Download or read book The SAS in World War II written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-20 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping history of the SAS in World War II, supported by a collection of rare images from the SAS Regimental Association. The SAS are among the best-trained and most effective Special Forces units in existence. This book is the incredible story of their origins, told in their own words. During the summer of 1941, a young Scots Guard officer called David Stirling persuaded MEHQ to give its backing to a small band of 60 men christened 'L Detachment'. With a wealth of stunning photographs, many from the SAS Regimental Association, the book captures the danger and excitement of the initial SAS raids against Axis airfields during the Desert War, the battles in Italy and those following the D-Day landings, as well as the dramatic final push into Germany itself and the discovery of such Nazi horrors as Belsen. An exhaustive account of an elite organization's formative years, The SAS in World War II is the fruit of Gavin Mortimer's expertise and his unprecedented access to the archives of the SAS Regimental Association. Incorporating interviews with the surviving veterans, it is the definitive account of the regiment's glorious achievements in the years from 1941 to 1945.

Book The Small Scale Raiding Force

Download or read book The Small Scale Raiding Force written by Brian Lett and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF) was formed in February 1942 by Gus March Phillips with Major General Gubbins SOE European chief's approval. March-Phillips and his Maid of Honor Force had just had complete success with their operation (POSTMASTER) off West Africa.??Equipped with a specially adapted motor torpedo boat, the SSRF immediately started planning for operations. Op FROUDESLEY, with the aim of destroying the battleship Tirpitz ran into technical problems and was delayed but, in August and September, three daring cross Channel missions were successfully carried out without loss. The author describes these and the disastrous fourth operation (ACQUATINT) when all 10 SSRF men, including March-Phillips were killed or captured.??Despite this hammerblow, SSRF now commanded by Geoffrey Appleyard made two raids on Sark a week later. Again their story is fully told in this fascinating book along with those of three further 1942 raids.??Inter-service rivalry ('the war within') led to the break-up of the SSRF in early 1943. The Author describes the many colourful characters who made up this special force including Anders Lassen VC, Graham Hayes and Andre Desgranges, the Free Frenchman whom the Gestapo 'turned'.??This superbly researched book lifts the veil on a little known but highly effective special force unit and the gallant individuals who served in it.??As seen in Dorset Magazine.?Book of the Month - Britain at War Magazine, April 2014

Book The SAS in Occupied France

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gavin Mortimer
  • Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
  • Release : 2023-04-06
  • ISBN : 152676959X
  • Pages : 256 pages

Download or read book The SAS in Occupied France written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-04-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the world of military history there is no brand as potent as that of the SAS. They burst into global prominence in 1980 with their spectacular storming of the Iranian Embassy, and there have been hundreds of books, films, documentaries and even reality TV shows about them. But what there hasn't been is a guide to the scenes of some of their most famous Second World War operations. That is why Gavin Mortimer’s vivid two-volume account of their daring missions in German-occupied France in 1944 is such compelling reading. SAS actions in France delayed German reinforcements reaching the battlefront in Normandy, later sewing confusion among the Germans as they withdrew. The SAS trained the French Maquis and helped to turn them from an indisciplined rabble into an effective fighting force. Their exploits inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, and they left a trail of destruction and disorder in their wake. In this second volume focusing on 2 SAS he describes in graphic detail operations Loyton, Wallace and Hardy, and Rupert, all of which were carried out in eastern France. Using previously unpublished interviews with SAS veterans and members of the Maquis as well as rare photographs, Gavin Mortimer blends the past and present, so that readers can walk in the footsteps of SAS heroes and see where they lived, fought and died.

Book Re Organorhenium Compounds

    Book Details:
  • Author : Manfred Winter
  • Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
  • Release : 2013-11-11
  • ISBN : 3662088444
  • Pages : 627 pages

Download or read book Re Organorhenium Compounds written by Manfred Winter and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 627 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume is the first of a series of volumes dealing with organorhenium com pounds. lt covers the Literature completely up to the end of 1987. An empirical formula index and a Ligand formula index provide ready access to the compounds covered. ln accordance with the previous arrangement adopted for organemetallic compounds (cf. volumes covering organocobalt, organonickel, or organotitanium compounds), this volume starts with the mononuclear organorhenium compounds. lt contains compounds in which the organic Ligand is bonded to the Re atom by one C atom CL Ligand) and up to four CO groups. Other mononuclear compounds will be covered in the next volume of this series. 2 1 A formula like (C0) Re( D)s L belongs to a type of mononuclear rhenium compounds 2 containing three monodentate ligands eo two-electron donor) such as P(CH )s and one Ligand 3 bonded by one C atom CL) such as C H (trans-pentadienyl) or C(O)R with R = CH . 5 7 3 Much of the data, particularly in tables, is given in abbreviated form without dimensions; for explanation see p. X. Additional remarks, if necessary, are given in the headings of tl'le tables. Frankfurt am Main Adolf Slawisch November 1988 X Remarks on Abbreviation& and Dimensions Many compounds in this volume are presented in tables in which numerous abbreviations are used, the dimensions are omitted for the sake of conciseness. This necessitates the following clarification.

Book The Regiment

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael Asher
  • Publisher : Penguin UK
  • Release : 2008-05-29
  • ISBN : 0141889438
  • Pages : 810 pages

Download or read book The Regiment written by Michael Asher and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-05-29 with total page 810 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Real Bravo Two Zero comes the definitive history of the world's most elite fighting force - the SAS 'Breathtaking bravery, astonishing feats of endurance, raids and battles described with terrific immediacy and pace. Compelling and definitive . . . will surely not be bettered' Sunday Telegraph On 4 May 1980, seven terrorists holding twenty-one people captive in the Iranian Embassy in London's Prince's Gate, executed their first hostage. They threatened to kill another hostage every thirty minutes until their demands were met. Minutes later, armed men in black overalls and balaclavas shimmied down the roof on ropes and burst in through windows and doors. In seconds all but one of the terrorists had been shot dead, the other captured. For most people, this was their first acquaintance with a unit that was soon to become the ideal of modern military excellence - the Special Air Service regiment. Few realized that the SAS had been in existence for almost forty years, playing a discreet, if not secret, role almost everywhere Britain had fought since World War II, and had been the prototype of all modern special forces units throughout the world. In The Regiment, Michael Asher - a former soldier in 23 SAS Regiment - examines the evolution of the special forces idea and investigates the real story behind the greatest military legend of the late twentieth century. 'Detailed, scathingly honest. Asher has brought the critical eye of the knowledgeable insider to his in-depth study of SAS operations and personalities' Herald Praise for Michael Asher: 'This is the most complete picture of the Sudanese campaigns that has yet been published . . . a vigorous and engrossing narrative' Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph 'A staggering achievement. Asher has delivered a scintillating tale of a period of history that deserves to be remembered' Guardian

Book Demystifying the IPsec Puzzle

Download or read book Demystifying the IPsec Puzzle written by Sheila Frankel and published by Artech House. This book was released on 2001 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative, new book offers you a global, integrated approach to providing Internet Security at the network layer. You get a detailed presentation of the revolutionary IPsec technology used today to create Virtual Private Networks and, in the near future, to protect the infrastructure of the Internet itself. The book addresses IPsec?s major aspects and components to help you evaluate and compare features of different implementations. It gives you a detailed understanding of this cutting-edge technology from the inside, which enables you to more effectively troubleshoot problems with specific products. Based on standards documents, discussion list archives, and practitioners? lore, this one-of-a-kind resource collects all the current knowledge of IPsec and describes it in a literate, clear manner.

Book SAS Combat Vehicles 1942   91

Download or read book SAS Combat Vehicles 1942 91 written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise illustrated history of the Special Air Service's lightweight, heavily armed vehicles and their combat use. The SAS, the world's most famous special operations unit, made its name in the desert of North Africa, shooting up Axis airfields from specially modified Willys jeeps. Following the start of the El Alamein offensive in October 1942, the SAS used jeeps effectively in reconnoitring and ambushing the retreating Afrika Korps. After the conclusion of the North African campaign, the Willys underwent several small but significant changes, including the introduction of the .303 Browning machine gun. Between June and October 1944, the SAS brigade operated deep inside Occupied France, harassing Germans reinforcements heading to Normandy, calling up air strikes on installations, and carrying out reconnaissance missions - all made possible with jeeps dropped by the RAF. Jeeps were also used in the push into Germany in the spring of 1945. Transported across the Rhine in 'Buffalo' amphibious landing craft, they formed part of the vanguard of the Allied advance, and their agility, speed and firepower proved crucial in crushing fanatical pockets of Nazi resistance. 22SAS in 1952, the regiment adopted the Series 1 Land Rover - introduced in 1948 - as the successor to the Willys jeep. A decade later the Regiment updated to the Series IIA 90 Land Rover, which saw service in the Oman and Aden, where its distinctive colour led to the 'Pink Panther' nickname. In the 1970s, the SAS begin using Range Rovers for covert operations while the Land Rover 110 HCPU became the SAS's new Desert Patrol Vehicle (DPV) in the 1991 Gulf War. This book describes the successful deployment of these combat vehicles in SAS operations from the Second World War to the present day and gives a rare insight into one of the most prestigious and secret forces of modern times.

Book Torture and the Twilight of Empire

Download or read book Torture and the Twilight of Empire written by Marnia Lazreg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Torture and the Twilight of Empire looks at the intimate relationship between torture and colonial domination through a close examination of the French army's coercive tactics during the Algerian war from 1954 to 1962. By tracing the psychological, cultural, and political meanings of torture at the end of the French empire, Marnia Lazreg also sheds new light on the United States and its recourse to torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is nothing less than an anatomy of torture--its methods, justifications, functions, and consequences. Drawing extensively from archives, confessions by former torturers, interviews with former soldiers, and war diaries, as well as writings by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and others, Lazreg argues that occupying nations justify their systematic use of torture as a regrettable but necessary means of saving Western civilization from those who challenge their rule. She shows how torture was central to guerre révolutionnaire, a French theory of modern warfare that called for total war against the subject population and which informed a pacification strategy founded on brutal psychological techniques borrowed from totalitarian movements. Lazreg seeks to understand torture's impact on the Algerian population--especially women--and also on the French troops who became their torturers. She explores the roles Christianity and Islam played in rationalizing these acts, and the ways in which torture became not only routine but even acceptable. Written by a preeminent historical sociologist, Torture and the Twilight of Empire holds particularly disturbing lessons for us today as we carry out the War on Terror.

Book Stirling s Men

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gavin Mortimer
  • Publisher : Canelo
  • Release : 2025-02-06
  • ISBN : 1835980600
  • Pages : 545 pages

Download or read book Stirling s Men written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Canelo. This book was released on 2025-02-06 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the greatest Special Forces unit the world has ever seen, told by the men who fought together. In 1941, maverick officer David Stirling – adventurer, gambler, rake – created the Special Air Service. The soldiers came from all walks of life: miners, desert explorers, Guardsmen, bored clerks in the pay corps. All felt frustrated by the conventional army and were determined to make their mark on the war. Together they created a tradition that would survive the capture of their leader, the death of so many of their comrades and even the disbanding of the SAS after the end of the war. With the co-operation of the regimental association, Gavin Mortimer interviewed nearly sixty veterans, including many of the desert ‘Originals’, many of whom had never before revealed their role. They spoke openly, with honesty and humour, about life in the SAS; the gruelling training that broke all but the toughest; the thrill of raiding desert airfields; the danger of parachuting into occupied France; and the fear of being caught by the Germans, knowing that Hitler had ordered the ‘liquidation’ of captured SAS soldiers. This is the SAS at war, in their own words.

Book S A S  in Tuscany  1943   1945

Download or read book S A S in Tuscany 1943 1945 written by Brian Lett and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While always dangerous and daring, SAS operations are by no means invariably successful and when they go wrong, they do so very badly. The first of the three operations covered in this book, SPEEDWELL 2, saw six men drop blind into Northern Tuscany on 8 September 1943, by chance the day of the Italian Armistice. But with no radios or air/ground support their courageous three week operation ended in disaster; four were captured and executed and only one got out. The second and third operations, GALIA (winter 44/45) and BLIMEY (April 1945), provided contrasting results. GALIA, 34 men led by Captain Walker-brown, tied up many thousands of enemy troops for nearly two months under extreme winter conditions an extraordinary achievement, thanks in measure to cooperation with an SOE mission led by Major Gordon Lett, the authors father. BLIMEY sadly achieved little and the reasons for the success and failure of these two operations are carefully analyzed.This book adds valuable new information on SAS operations in WWII.

Book The Spaces of the Modern City

Download or read book The Spaces of the Modern City written by Gyan Prakash and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By United Nations estimates, 60 percent of the world's population will be urban by 2030. With the increasing speed of urbanization, especially in the developing world, scholars are now rethinking standard concepts and histories of modern cities. The Spaces of the Modern City historicizes the contemporary discussion of urbanism, highlighting the local and global breadth of the city landscape. This interdisciplinary collection examines how the city develops in the interactions of space and imagination. The essays focus on issues such as street design in Vienna, the motion picture industry in Los Angeles, architecture in Marseilles and Algiers, and the kaleidoscopic paradox of post-apartheid Johannesburg. They explore the nature of spatial politics, examining the disparate worlds of eighteenth-century Baghdad, nineteenth-century Morelia, Cold War-era West Berlin, and postwar Los Angeles. They also show the meaning of everyday spaces to urban life, illuminating issues such as crime in metropolitan London, youth culture in Dakar, "memory projects" in Tokyo, and Bombay cinema. Informed by a range of theoretical writings, this collection offers a fresh and truly global perspective on the nature of the modern city. The contributors are Sheila Crane, Belinda Davis, Mamadou Diouf, Philip J. Ethington, David Frisby, Christina M. Jiménez, Dina Rizk Khoury, Ranjani Mazumdar, Frank Mort, Martin Murray, Jordan Sand, and Sarah Schrank.

Book Summary and Analysis of Rogue Heroes  The History of the SAS  Britain s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War

Download or read book Summary and Analysis of Rogue Heroes The History of the SAS Britain s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War written by Worth Books and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Rogue Heroes tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Ben Macintyre’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of Rogue Heroes includes: Historical context Chapter-by-chapter overviews Profiles of the main characters Detailed timeline of events Important quotes and analysis Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Rogue Heroes:The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben Macintyre: Ben Macintyre’s Rogue Heroes is a gripping account of the inception of the British SAS, or Special Air Service, during World War II, which became the forerunner to modern military special forces. In mid-1941, the Axis attack on Europe and North Africa knocked Great Britain onto the ropes. Facing the brilliant German general Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox,” British forces in North Africa were fighting a losing campaign. An iconoclastic young officer named David Stirling conceived an entirely new form of warfare, based on daring attacks by small groups of highly trained soldiers on large strategic targets, striking deep from behind enemy lines. This revolutionary unit became the SAS and changed the nature of warfare itself. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.

Book xREF  System x Reference

Download or read book xREF System x Reference written by David Watts and published by IBM Redbooks. This book was released on 2015-05-18 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lenovo System x® and BladeCenter® servers and Lenovo Flex SystemTM compute nodes help to deliver a dynamic infrastructure that provides leadership quality and service that you can trust. This document (simply known as xREF) is a quick reference guide to the specifications of the currently available models of each System x and BladeCenter server. Each page can be used in a stand-alone format and provides a dense and comprehensive summary of the features of that particular server model. Links to the related Product Guide are also provided for more information. An easy-to-remember link you can use to share this guide: http://lenovopress.com/xref Also available is xREF for Products Withdrawn Prior to 2012, a document that contains xREF sheets of System x, BladeCenter, and xSeries servers, and IntelliStation workstations that were withdrawn from marketing prior to 2012. Changes in the May 18 update: Added the Flex System Carrier-Grade Chassis See the Summary of changes in the document for a complete change history.

Book Airborne Landing to Air Assault

Download or read book Airborne Landing to Air Assault written by Nikolaos Theotokis and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-07-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many books have been written about military parachuting, in particular about famous parachute operations like Crete and Arnhem in the Second World War and notable parachute units like the British Parachute Regiment and the US 101st Airborne Division, but no previous book has covered the entire history of the use of the parachute in warfare. That is why Nikolaos Theotokis’s study is so valuable. He traces in vivid detail the development of parachuting over the last hundred years and describes how it became a standard tactic in twentieth-century conflicts. As well as depicting a series of historic parachute operations all over the world, he recognizes the role of airmen in the story, for they were the first to use the parachute in warfare when they jumped from crippled aeroplanes in combat conditions Adapting the parachute for military purposes occurred with extraordinary speed during the First World War and, by the time of the Second World War, it had become an established technique for special operations and offensive actions on a large scale. The range of parachute drops and parachute-led attacks was remarkable, and all the most dramatic examples from the world wars and lesser conflicts are recounted in this graphic and detailed study. The role played by parachute troops as elite infantry is also a vital part of the narrative, as is the way in which techniques of air assault have evolved since the 1970s.