Download or read book Battles of a Gunner Officer written by John Philip Jones and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-05-31 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was it like to serve as an artillery officer during the Second World War? How did he view the battlefield and experience combat? And how did his work with the guns combine with that of the other arms - the infantry, the tanks? Peter Pettit's diary, covering his entire wartime career in the Royal Artillery, edited and with an extensive introduction by John Philip Jones, offers a rare insight into the day-to-day existence of a gunner at war, and it is a valuable record of the role played by the Royal Artillery during the conflict. Since Peter Pettit served as a field officer in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy and during the Allied advance across France and Belgium into Germany, his account shows the wide range of challenges that confronted the artillery in different conditions at each stage of the war. Although the landscapes and battlefields changed, the practical problems and acute dangers he faced remained much the same, and he recorded them in the same open and forthright way. His authentic record, combined with John Philip Jones's meticulous description of the planning and progress of each campaign, provide a rounded view the nature of the artillery war and the men who fought it.General Sir Richard Barrons, Commander, Joint Forces Command: 'Professor John Philip Jones breaks new ground as he brings into the light for the first time the private record of one rather special participant. Peter Pettit's personal and contemporaneous notes detail his journey from the first encounters with a determined enemy in Tunisia, through the difficult invasion of Sicily, and finally on to the outstanding events of Normandy in 1944 . . .. . . This story is made much more interesting and accessible for the general reader by the accompanying succinct historical overview of the events. . .. . . For anyone looking for a rare insight into the hard business of field soldiering in the crucible of war, these diaries paint a very colourful, accurate and illuminating picture.'

Download or read book Field of Fire written by Jack Swaab and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2007-05-24 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jack Swaab joined the veteran 51st (Highland) Infantry Division on 3 January 1943. He kept a series of diaries over the following two and a half years, recording the combination of boredom and fear that characterises active service. In mid-March 1943 he saw battle for the first time as Montgomery attacked the Mareth Line. In July that year Swaab took part in the Allied landings on Sicily, writing of the scorching humidity of the Sicilian summer. In May 1944 he records the restless time as his regiment prepared for the invasion of Normandy. In September 1944 Swaab's role changed dramatically, as he moved from commanding a troop to being a forward observation officer. His new position meant that he was working closely with the infantry in the front line. Swaab's first five months as a forward observation officer came to an abrupt end on 13 February, when he was wounded in the leg by shellfire. He was again selected for FOO duty during Operation 'Varsity', the Rhine crossing, in March 1945, and received the Military Cross.

Download or read book Infantry in Battle written by Infantry School (U.S.) and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1934 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book King of Battle written by Boyd L. Dastrup and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Gunners at War a Tactical Study of the Royal Artillery in the Twentieth Century written by Shelford Bidwell and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Bombardier And Pocket Gunner written by Ralph Willett Adye and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book Unless Victory Comes written by Gene Garrison and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-11-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid, boots-on-the-ground memoir of World War II by an infantryman in General Patton’s army, from the Battle of the Bulge to Germany’s defeat On December 19, 1944, Gene Garrison turned nineteen. He spent his birthday in a muddy foxhole, listening to the cries of wounded comrades while exploding artillery shells sent shrapnel raining down on him and the enemy prepared to attack. It was his first day in combat. Unless Victory Comes recounts Garrison's journey as he was transformed from a fresh-faced kid from the farmlands of Ohio into a hardened soldier fighting for survival. From his baptism under fire, to the bitter fighting in the frozen Ardennes forest during Hitler’s last desperate push, to the end of the war on the Czechoslovakian border, Gene Garrison witnessed the war from the ground up. This is the story of one young man, far from home, surrounded by strangers, facing death yet never losing hope that he would live to see his family again.

Download or read book Battles of the Nineteenth Century written by and published by . This book was released on 1900 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Air Officer Commanding written by John T. LaSaine, Jr. and published by University Press of New England. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hugh Dowding may be described as the prime architect of British victory in the battle of Britain, and thus as one of a handful of officers and men most responsible for ensuring that Hitler's planned invasion of England never occurred. Dowding was born in 1882 at the apex of British imperial power and had an early career as a gunner on the fabled North-West Frontier of the British Indian Empire. During the first year of World War I, he served with distinction as a combat pilot in France, but his real test would come in 1936, when he was assigned the critical task of reorganizing the Air Defense of Great Britain as the first air officer commanding-in-chief of the new RAF Fighter Command. In that capacity he stood up to senior staff--and Winston Churchill--by preventing the dismantling of British air defenses during the Battle of France in the spring of 1940, defying pressure from the British Army, Britain's French allies, and His Majesty's Government to send the bulk of the RAF's front-line fighters to the Continent in what Dowding predicted would be a futile effort to stem the German onslaught. While holding back as many of his best fighter aircraft as he could, in June Dowding deployed 11 Group under his hand-picked lieutenant, Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, to repulse the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk, covering the evacuation of some 338,000 British and French troops from the Continent. During the three months of fighting known as the Battle of Britain, the integrated air defense system organized and trained by Dowding fought the vaunted Luftwaffe to a standstill in daylight air-to-air combat. In October, the Germans abandoned their attempt to win a decisive battle for air superiority over England, turning instead to the protracted campaign of attrition by nighttime area bombing known as the Blitz. In building, defending, and overseeing the operations of Fighter Command, Dowding was thus not only one of the master builders of air power, but also the only airman to have been the winning commander in one of history's decisive battles.

Download or read book Guns Against the Reich written by Petr Mikhin and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rare memoir of Eastern Front combat by a frontline artillery officer in the Red Army Details on Stalingrad, Kursk, and other harrowing battles with the Germans Candid opinions about superiors and political officers Captures all the horrors of fighting in this brutal theater of World War II

Download or read book Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front Volume II written by Hans Heinz Rehfeldt and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume of a Nazi soldier’s WWII diary continues the chronicle of his experiences on the Easter Front. A member of the Hitler Youth before the outbreak of World War II, Hans Heinz Rehfeldt volunteered for the Grossdeutschland’s panzer arm in 1940 and fought with them for nearly the entire war. He was decorated with the Iron Cross First and Second Class, the Eastern Front Medal, the Close Combat Clasp, and the Infantry Assault Badge. His diaries offer a historically significant chronicle of German military actions on the Eastern Front as well as a rare look inside the mind of a committed Nazi soldier. This second volume of Rehfeldt’s wartime diary covers his experience as a platoon commander in Romania, East Prussia and Lithuania during 1944. After being transferred by ship from Memel to Königsberg later that year, he took part in the battles for Ostprussen. Fleeing Russian imprisonment, he traveled west, where he fell into American captivity on May 3rd, 1945. In July, he was released and returned home.

Download or read book Field Artillery written by Harry Gore Bishop and published by . This book was released on 2013-01 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Air Battle for Arnhem written by Alan W Cooper and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-11-26 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over sixty years ago a battle took place that, if it had succeeded, could have shortened the Second World war by six months. The operation to take the bridges at Arnhem was given the code name 'Operation Market Garden', Market being the air side of the operation and Garden the subsequent ground operation. The main problem was communications between the ground forces and the re-supply aircraft of the Royal Air Force. Its their efforts and the courage on evident display at Arnhem that the book is based upon. Over a period of seven days troops of the 1st Airborne were taken by the RAF in towed gliders and then in subsequent days showed courage of the highest order to make sure that the ground troops were supplied with ammunition and food to sustain them in their efforts to take the bridges at Arnhem. Their efforts were costly, 309 aircrew and 79 Air Dispatchers were killed and 107 aircraft, which included the men and aircraft who supported the main re-supply armada. One of the re-supply aircraft, flown by F/Lt David Lord DFC, was shot down. Lord was later awarded the Victoria Cross. His courage and dedication are exemplary of the efforts of the men of Transport Command to make sure the men on the ground were re-supplied. The men of the Air Dispatchers, or AD's as they were known, must always be remembered when regarding Arnhem. Their efforts to make sure the supplies were released from the aircraft, and on to the besieged men on the ground, was a vital factor in getting vital supplies to the troops successfully. This is their story, vividly told, and serves a commemorative purpose, memorialising both the events and, most importantly, the men who participated.

Download or read book The Battle of Booby s Bluffs written by Single List (Major, pseud.) and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Burning Tanks and an Empty Desert written by John Philip Jones and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Successes and Sacrifices of the British Army in 1914 This work is a study of military history from the top down and also from the bottom up. It describes a brigade—four thousand men—of the old British Regular Army that fought in the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1914. This army was of the highest quality but was very small. The book describes the strategy and tactics of the fighting, in which the British played a major role. But the work also describes the fighting from the point of view of junior officers and men in the ranks from the bottom up. Johnny: The Legend and Tragedy of General Sir Ian Hamilton Hamilton was a heroic leader of men. He had an extremely successful career until his last and biggest campaign, the assault on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915. This was a disaster because Hamilton, despite all his other qualities, was an inadequate strategist. General Sir Roger Wheeler, chief of the general staff and professional head of the British Army, wrote an enthusiastic foreword to the book. It was also very favourably received by the Royal United Services Institute. Battles of a Gunner Officer: Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy and the Long Road to Germany This book describes some of the most important campaigns fought by the British army during the Second World War. The unique feature of the book is that the campaigns are revealed through the eyes of a successful battery commander in the Royal Artillery (widely considered to be the most successful individual element of the British army). General Sir Richard Barrons, a senior serving officer and head of the Joint Forces Command, wrote the foreword to the book and commented on the unique nature of the work.

Download or read book Battle Tales from Burma written by John Randle and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Written with modesty, clarity and a light touch, Battle Tales of Burma covers the bad days of retreat from Rangoon, the dramatic turning point at Imphal when our troops realised that the Japs could be defeated, and the ensuing advance before ultimate victory. We read of the actions and deeds of both British and Indian soldiers and their regiments and the fanatic fervour of a resourceful and ruthless enemy."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book List of Officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery from the Year 1716 to the Year 1899 written by John Kane and published by . This book was released on 1900 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: