Download or read book 8th Battalion The Durham Light Infantry 1939 1945 written by Major P.J. Lewis and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2011-12-23 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few regiments in the British army played such a prominent and widespread part in the Second World War as the Durham Light Infantry. This is the full official account of the 8th battalion of the regiment's role in the conflict in which the DLI in general, and the 8th battalion in particular, more than upheld its long and proud traditions : in the words of the foreword to this book by Lt.Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks, who had the 8th DLI under his command both in North Africa and in Europe : ‘'Every man that served in this great battalion can say to himself with pride, “I did more than my share to win the war”’. The 8th DLI were part of the BEF sent to France in 1939. As such they withstood the onslaught of the German Blitzkrieg in May 1940, taking part in the British counter-strike at Arras and the retreat to Dunkirk. They were soon in action again, this time at Gazala in North Africa where they were again attacked by German forces under Rommel. The 8th DLI formed part of the victorious offensive at El Alamein and fought through to the dour slogging match to break the Mareth Line. Subsequently, they took part in the invasion of Sicily; D-Day, and the battles of Gheel and Nijmegen in Holland. This book, as Horrocks says is a ‘First class battalion history’ written by two former battalion officers. It comes complete with appendices listing Rolls of honour and awards, along with some 20 photographs and fourteen maps.
Download or read book 8th Battalion the Durham Light Infantry 1939 1945 written by I. R. English and published by . This book was released on 1949 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Piercing the Fog of War written by Martin Samuels and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1970s, anglophone and German military literature has been fascinated by the Wehrmacht‘s command system, especially the practice of Auftragstaktik. There have been many descriptions of the doctrine, and examinations of its historical origins, as well as unflattering comparisons with the approaches of the British and American armies prior to their adoption of Mission Command in the late 1980s. Almost none of these, however, have sought to understand the different approaches to command in the context of a fundamental characteristic of warfare – friction. This would be like trying to understand flight, without any reference to aerodynamics. Inherently flawed, yet this is the norm in the military literature. This book seeks to address that gap. First, the nature of friction, and the potential command responses to it, are considered. This allows the development of a typology of eight command approaches; each approach then being tested to identify its relative effectiveness and requirements for success. Second, the British and German armies’ doctrines of command during the period are examined, in order to reveal similarities and differences in relation to their perspective on the nature of warfare and the most appropriate responses. The experience of Erwin Rommel, both as a young subaltern fighting the Italians in 1917, and then as a newly-appointed divisional commander against the French in 1940, is used to test the expression of the German doctrine in practice. Third, the interaction of these different command doctrines is explored in case studies of two key armoured battles, Amiens in August 1918 and Arras in May 1940, allowing the strengths and weaknesses of each to be highlighted and the typology to be tested. The result is intended to offer a new and deeper understanding of both the nature of command as a response to friction, and the factors that need to be in place in order to allow a given command approach to achieve success. The book therefore in two ways represents a sequel to the author’s earlier work, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (London: Cass, 1995), in that it both takes the conceptual model of command developed there to a deeper level, and also takes the story from the climax of 1918 up to the end of the first phase of the Second World War.
Download or read book A Bibliography of Regimental Histories of the British Army written by Arthur S. White and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the most valuable books in the armoury of the serious student of British Military history. It is a new and revised edition of Arthur White's much sought-after bibliography of regimental, battalion and other histories of all regiments and Corps that have ever existed in the British Army. This new edition includes an enlarged addendum to that given in the 1988 reprint. It is, quite simply, indispensible.
Download or read book The D L I at War written by David Rissik and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Durham Light Infantry is not only one of the British army's proudest and most distinguised units - it is also one of the best recorded. This book is one among several published by the Naval and Military Press chronicling the DLI's many battle exploits, and it tells the regiment's story during the Second World War. The history comes complete with a foreword by Field-Marshal Montgomery who often found himself commanding the DLI in many fields, from Alamein to Germany via Sicily, Normandy and Holland. Monty writes: ‘It is a magnificent Regiment, steady as a rock in battle and absolutely reliable on all occasions'. This book tells the full and thrilling story of the regiment's many battle honours, which include Arras and Dunkirk in France in 1940; the western desert, Tobruk and Malta; Tunis, Sicily, Italy and Greece; the Arakan and Kohima in Burma; Normandy, the Low Countries and Germany in 1944-45. The book has 20 maps, 32 photographs and an index.
Download or read book Monty s Men written by John Buckley and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian John Buckley offers a radical reappraisal of Great Britain’s fighting forces during World War Two, challenging the common belief that the British Army was no match for the forces of Hitler’s Germany. Following Britain’s military commanders and troops across the battlefields of Europe, from D-Day to VE-Day, from the Normandy beaches to Arnhem and the Rhine, and, ultimately, to the Baltic, Buckley’s provocative history demonstrates that the British Army was more than a match for the vaunted Nazi war machine.div /DIVdivThis fascinating revisionist study of the campaign to liberate Northern Europe in the war’s final years features a large cast of colorful unknowns and grand historical personages alike, including Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery and the prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill. By integrating detailed military history with personal accounts, it evokes the vivid reality of men at war while putting long-held misconceptions finally to rest./DIV
Download or read book Armies of Empire written by Allan Converse and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uniquely reflects upon the experience of two divisions from different armies in WWII.
Download or read book The Era of World War II written by Louise A. Arnold-Friend and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Special Bibliographic Series written by US Army Military History Research Collection and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Special Bibliography written by and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Retreat Rearguard Dunkirk 1940 written by Jerry Murland and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of how a quarter million men were evacuated from the coast of France—and how the British Expeditionary Force fought on. This book, part of the Retreat and Rearguard series, covers the actions of the BEF during the retreat from the Dyle Line to the evacuation points of Dunkirk, Boulogne, Calais, Saint-Valery-en-Caux, and finally the Cherbourg Peninsula. Some of the engagements are relatively well known (Cassell, the Arras counter-attack, and the notorious Le Paradis SS massacre), but the author has unearthed many less known engagements from the long and painful withdrawal. While the main Dunkirk evacuation from the port and beaches was over by early June, elements of the BEF fought on until June 21. In relating those often heroic actions, this book catches the atmosphere of desperate defiance that typified this never-to-be-forgotten period.
Download or read book The Second World War Through Soldiers Eyes written by James Goulty and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-07-31 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'What was it really like to serve in the British Army during the Second World War?Discover a soldier's view of life in the British Army from recruitment and training to the brutal realities of combat. Using first-hand sources, James Goulty reconstructs the experiences of the men and women who made up the 'citizen's army'. Find out about the weapons and equipment they used; the uniforms they wore; how they adjusted to army discipline and faced the challenges of active service overseas.What happened when things went wrong? What were your chances of survival if you were injured in combat or taken prisoner? While they didn't go into combat, thousands of women also served in the British Army with the ATS or as nurses. What were their wartime lives like? And, when the war had finally ended, how did newly demobilised soldiers and servicewomen cope with returning home?The British Army that emerged victorious in 1945 was vastly different from the poorly funded force of 865,000 men who heard Neville Chamberlain declare war in 1939. With an influx of civilian volunteers and conscripts, the army became a citizens force and its character and size were transformed. By D-Day Britain had a well-equipped, disciplined army of over three million men and women and during the war they served in a diverse range of places across the world. This book uncovers some of their stories and gives a fascinating insight into the realities of army life in wartime.
Download or read book The Heat of the Battle written by Peter Hart and published by Leo Cooper Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume in the Leo Cooper Regimental Actions series follows 16 DLI as they slogged their way through Italy during the Second World War. After landing at Salerno in September 1943 they fought their way relentlessly across the ridges and rivers that criss-crossed Italy facing some of the finest troops in the German army.
Download or read book Dunkirk written by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-05-31 with total page 1005 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * * * Special 75th Anniversary Edition * * * Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man tells the story of the rescue in May 1940 of British soldiers fleeing capture and defeat by the Nazis at Dunkirk. Dunkirk was not just about what happened at sea and on the beaches. The evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for the tenacity of the British soldiers who stayed behind to ensure they got away. Men like Sergeant Major Gus Jennings who died smothering a German stick bomb in the church at Esquelbecq in an effort to save his comrades, and Captain Marcus Ervine-Andrews VC who single-handedly held back a German attack on the Dunkirk perimeter thereby allowing the British line to form up behind him. Told to stand and fight to the last man, these brave few battalions fought in whatever manner they could to buy precious time for the evacuation. Outnumbered and outgunned, they launched spectacular and heroic attacks time and again, despite ferocious fighting and the knowledge that for many only capture or death would end their struggle. 'A searing story . . . both meticulous military history and a deeply moving testimony to the extraordinary personal bravery of individual soldiers' Tim Gardam, The Times 'Sebag-Montefiore tells [the story] with gusto, a remarkable attention to detail and an inexhaustible appetite for tracking down the evidence' Richard Ovary, Telegraph Hugh Sebag-Montefiore was a barrister before becoming a journalist and then an author. He wrote the best-selling Enigma: The Battle for the Code. One of his ancestors was evacuated from Dunkirk.
Download or read book Battle for the Bocage Normandy 1944 written by Tim Saunders and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This WWII military study examines the combat experiences of three Allied divisions charged with spearheading the invasion of Normandy. To lead the charge into France after the Normandy landings, General Montgomery brought three veteran desert formations back from the Mediterranean. They were the 50th Infantry and 7th Armored divisions, plus 4th Armored Brigade. Their task beyond the beaches was to push south to Villers Bocage with armor on the evening of D-Day in order to disrupt German counter-attacks on the beachhead. Difficulties on 50th Division’s beaches allowed time for German reinforcements to arrive in Normandy. As a result, 4th Armored Brigade was firmly blocked just south of Point 103 after an advance of less than five miles. A major counter-attack by Panzer Lehr failed, as did a renewed British attempt, this time by the vaunted 7th Armored Division, which was halted at Tilly sur Seulles. From here the fighting became a progressively attritional struggle in the hedgerows of the Bocage country south of Bayeux. More units were drawn into the fighting, which steadily extended west. Finally, an opportunity to outflank the German defenses via the Caumont Gap allowed 7th Armored Division to reach Villers Bocage. There then followed what the battalions of 50th Division describe as their ‘most unpleasant period of the war’, in bitter fighting, at often very close quarters, for the ‘next hedgerow’.
Download or read book General catalogue of printed books written by British museum. Dept. of printed books and published by . This book was released on 1931 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Frankforce and the Defence of Arras 1940 written by Jerry Murland and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2017-10-30 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no other city in France that has the same associations in time of conflict that the British have with Arras. Since the campaigns of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, in the early 18th century, British soldiers have fought in and around Arras, occasionally as an enemy but, more often, as defenders of French and Allied democracy. Battlefield visitors to the area will immediately recognize the names of towns and villages that were as significant to the men of Marlboroughs army as they were to those who fought in the First and Second World Wars.This book serves both as guide to the Second World War battlefields that surround the city and its environs as well as detailing the actions of the British armored attack of 21 May 1940. The book looks at the strategic situation that led up to the famous Arras counterstroke and, using material that has not been published before, examines the British and German actions between 20 and 23 May. The only Victoria Cross action that took place during this time is looked at in detail; as is the fighting that took place in Arras and during the breakout.Despite its shortcomings, the counterstroke achieved the essential element of surprise and caused widespread alarm amongst the German command and hit Rommels 7th Panzer Division at precisely the moment when his armored units were ahead of the infantry and gunners. The British infantry fought well and both the Durham battalions were fortunate that their commanding officers and senior NCOs were men who had already fought in one conflict and possessed the determination to rally their less experienced junior ranks and fight on regardless. Such was the case with the two tank battalions, although sadly they lost both their commanding officers and over half the tanks that went into the engagement. The attack did enable the British to tighten their hold on Arras albeit temporarily and, as is often cited, built doubts in the minds of German High Command as to the speed of their advance and contributed to the subsequent Hitler halt order of 24-27 May.The author has gone to some lengths to track down accounts from those individuals who served in the area during May 1940 and fought the enveloping tide of the German advanceThe book is supported by three car tours, one of which takes the visitor along the tragic path taken by the Tyneside Scottish on 20 May and two walking routes, which concentrate on Arras.137 black and white photographs (integrated) and a number of maps derived from regimental histories; and six tour maps provide the battlefield visitor with illustrations of the battlefields as they were in 1940 and as they are today.
