Download or read book Commando to Colditz written by Peter Stanley and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling, riveting read, Commando to Colditz is an unusual — perhaps unique — war story. It is centred around a most unusual war hero: Michael 'Micky' Burn, soldier, poet and novelist, whose journey from fascist follower, to commander of Six Troop, to Commando, to prisoner (and communist lecturer) in the notorious prison of Colditz forms the focal point of this powerful narrative. In 1942 Micky led his commando troop of 28 men on one of the most daring raids of the Second World War, the assault on the French port of St Nazaire. As a result of this 'night of fire and death', fourteen of Micky's men were killed; seven, including Burn, were captured. Micky's bond with his soldiers is at the story's heart. Before the raid, he had asked his parents to write to his men's families if the worst should happen; the result was the creation of a rich and moving archive of letters between these grieving or anxious families, letters that illuminate the lives and deaths of a small but close-knit group of British soldiers and those who loved them.

Download or read book Colditz written by P. R. Reid and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2015-01-15 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nazis thought escape was impossible. Colditz is the true story of the Allied prisoners held there and their (sometimes successful) efforts to escape, written by one of the POWs.

Download or read book Castle of the Eagles written by Mark Felton and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vincigliata Castle, a menacing medieval fortress set in the beautiful Tuscan hills, has become a very special prisoner of war camp on Benito Mussolini’s personal order. Within are some of the most senior officers of the Allied army, guarded by almost two hundred Italian soldiers and a vicious fascist commando who answers directly to “Il Duce” Mussolini himself. Their unbelievable escape, told by Mark Felton in Castle of the Eagles, is a little-known marvel of World War II. By March 1943, the plan is ready: this extraordinary assemblage of middle-aged POWs has crafted civilian clothes, forged identity papers, gathered rations, and even constructed dummies to place in their beds, all in preparation for the moment they step into the tunnel they have been digging for six months. How they got to this point and what happens after is a story that reads like fiction, supported by an eccentric cast of characters, but is nonetheless true to its core.

Download or read book Operation Chariot written by Jean-Charles Stasi and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated history of the World War II British amphibious attack on a dry dock in the German-occupied French town. At the beginning of 1942, the prospect of Germany’s Tirpitz, the heaviest battleship ever built by a European navy, patrolling the Atlantic posed a huge threat to the convoys that were the lifeline for Britain. Bombing raids to destroy the ship failed. A more radical plan was conceived to destroy the dry-dock facility at St Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast. Without the use of the only suitable base for the ship, the threat would be neutralized. The plan was to ram the entrance gates with a ship packed with explosives on a delayed fuse. A motorboat armed with torpedoes would fire at the inner gate causing further damage to submarine pens. The troops and crew would then destroy as many dockyard targets as they could and withdraw in fast motor launches that had followed them in. All this was to be achieved under cover of an air raid. HMS Campbeltown, a U.S. lend-lease destroyer, was chosen for the task. On the night of March 27, the raid commenced. The Campbeltown succeeded in lodging its bows in the outer gates. The fuses detonated the explosives in its hold the following day. The dock gates were destroyed. The cost to the Allies was high, but the Tirpitz was never able to leave Norwegian waters. This volume in the Casemate Illustrated series gives a clear overview of the planning and execution of the raid and its aftermath, accompanied by 125 photographs and images, including color profiles and maps.

Download or read book Turned Towards the Sun written by Michael Burn and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hostages of Colditz written by Giles Romilly and published by New York : Praeger. This book was released on 1973 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For two years during World War II, Giles Romilly and Michael Alexander shared a small room in the tower of Colditz Castle, the notorious German punishment camp. During that time, Colditz housed some six hundred prisoners of assorted nationalities and ranks. Most of them were there because they had been especially persistent or imaginative, though unsuccessful, in their attempts to escape from other places of internment; Colditz, in the heart of Germany, was considered virtually escapeproof. Romilly, a war correspondent, had been captures as a suspected spy when the Germans seized the port of Narvik, Norway, in April, 1940. In August, 1942, Alexander, a British commando in North Africa, had been taken prisoner behind German lines, wearing a German uniform. As a newspaperman, Romilly would probably have been released if it had not been known to the Germans that he was a nephew of Winston Churchill, which made him of great potential value as a hostage. Alexander, on the other hand, would probably have been shot as a spy if he had not told his captors, with some exaggeration, that he was a close relative of Field Marshal Alexander, then commander of the British troops in the Middle East.

Download or read book St Nazaire Raid 1942 written by Stephen Wynn and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The raid on St Nazaire has gone down in history as one of the most daring commando raids of all time. Given the code name of Operation Chariot, it took place in the early hours of Saturday, 28 March 1942, and was a joint undertaking by the Royal Navy and British Commando units. The port at St Nazaire, which sits on the Loire estuary and the Atlantic Ocean, has a dry dock that was capable of accommodating some of Germany’s biggest naval vessels, such as the Bismarck, or the Tirpitz. By putting the port out of action, any repairs or maintenance work that needed to be carried out would instead have to be undertaken back home at the German port of Bremerhaven. To do this, the German vessels would either have to navigate the waters of the English Channel or the North Sea, with both journeys potentially bringing them to the attention of the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy. A raiding force of 612 officers and men were assembled and dispatched from Falmouth to carry out the raid, sailing on board the obsolete British destroyer HMS Campbeltown, along with 18 Motor Launches. The idea was to ram the destroyer in to the outer gates of the dry dock at St Nazaire and put it out of action for as long as possible. The raid was a success, but came at a price: of those who set out, 169 were killed whilst a further 215 were captured. Only 3 Motor Launches and 228 men escaped and made the return journey back to the UK. Many brave men gave it their all during the action at St Nazaire, to such an extent that 89 of those who took part in the raid were awarded decorations for bravery, including 5 who were awarded the Victoria Cross.

Download or read book The Last Escaper written by Peter Tunstall and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A remarkable memoir of a British lad’s salad days flying bombers against the Nazis and then repeatedly escaping their prison camps” (Kirkus Reviews). The product of a lifetime’s reflection, The Last Escaper is Peter Tunstall’s unforgettable memoir of his days in the British Royal Air Force and as one of the most celebrated British POWs of World War II. Tunstall was an infamous tormentor of his German captors. Dubbed the “cooler king” on account of his long spells in solitary, he once dropped a water “bomb” directly in the lap of a high-ranking German officer. He also devised an ingenious method for smuggling coded messages back to London. But above all he was a highly skilled pilot, loyal friend, and trusted colleague. Without false pride or bitterness, Tunstall recounts the hijinks of training to be a pilot, terrifying bombing raids, and elaborate escape attempts at once hilarious and deadly serious—all part of a poignant and human war story superbly told by a natural raconteur. The Last Escaper is a captivating final testament by the “last man standing” from the Greatest Generation. “Right up there with Stalag 17 and The Great Escape.” —New York Post “The historical account of behind-the-scenes drama makes this a valuable addition to the period literature.” —Publishers Weekly “The stark reality of war is ever present in his detailed accounting of life as a prisoner of war. We are taken through the highs and lows of not only each failed attempt but the psychological effects of imprisonment on himself, others in the camps and ultimately how it changed each person involved.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Download or read book Footprints on the Sands of Time written by Oliver Clutton-Brock and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2003-08-19 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of RAF Evaders provides a comprehensive reference of the airmen of Bomber Command who were held in German captivity during WWII. This extensive book is divided into two part. The first, which has eighteen chapters, deals with German POW camps as they were opened, in chronological order and to which the Bomber Command POWs were sent. Each chapter includes anecdotes and stories of the men in the camps—capture, escape, illness, and murder—and illustrates the awfulness of captivity even in German hands. Roughly one in every twenty captured airmen never returned home. The first part also covers subjects such as how the POWs were repatriated during the war; how they returned at war’s end; the RAF traitors; the war crimes; and the vital importance of the Red Cross. The style is part reference, part gripping narrative, and the book will correct many historical inaccuracies, and includes previously unpublished photographs. The second part comprises an annotated list of ALL 10, 995 RAF Bomber Command airmen who were taken prisoner, together with an extended introduction. The two parts together are the fruit of exhaustive research and provide an important contribution to our knowledge of the war and a unique reference work not only for the serious RAF historian but for the ex-POWs themselves and their families and anyone with an interest in the RAF in general and captivity in particular.

Download or read book Five Past Midnight written by James S Thayer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escaping from Germany’s Colditz Castle where he was being held as a prisoner of war, Captain Jack Cray fights his way to Berlin in April 1945, following a twisted trail of terror across Germany. The American Army commando has just been handed the most dangerous mission of his career—the assassination of Adolf Hitler.

Download or read book SS Major Horst Kopkow written by Stephen Tyas and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-06-25 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously unpublished documents in archives in Europe and the USA show how Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service showed a insensitive disregard for its former agents murdered in German concentration campsA callous disregard by recruiting the Gestapo major responsible for their deaths as a consultant in Britain’s own post-war counter espionage activities against Soviet agentsResearch that shows not only how Britain recruited Kopkow, but also protected him from prosecution as a war criminalHistorically rich in detail with photographs of many of the characters involved On 27 May 1942, SS-General Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated by Czech agents who were trained in the UK and dropped by parachute into Czechoslovakia. Heydrich succumbed to his wounds on 4 June 1942. Two days later, Gestapo Captain Horst Kopkow’s department at Reich National Security headquarters was given fresh orders. From 6 June 1942 until the end of the war, Kopkow was responsible for co-ordinating the fight against Soviet and British agents dropped in Germany or German-occupied territories. This new direction for Kopkow made his name. Within months, the ‘Rote Kapelle’ Soviet espionage ring was uncovered in Belgium whose traces went directly to Berlin and Paris. A new counter-espionage war began and agents caught would pay with their lives. In France and Holland, the Gestapo caught many SOE agents trained in Britain. By spring 1944, around 150 British agents had been deported to concentration camps. By December 1944, almost all had been murdered without trial and Kopkow was directly involved in these murders. Arrested by British forces after the war, Kopkow was extensively interrogated due to his counter-espionage experience. For the next 20 years, Kopkow was a consultant for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. 39 black-and-white photographs

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 337 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.

Download or read book Special Ops Heroes written by Michael Ashcroft and published by Headline. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Special Ops Heroes tells the extraordinary stories behind Lord Ashcroft's collection of SAS and other Special Forces medals - the largest of its kind in the world. The action-packed stories span some sixty years from the exploits of the newly-formed SAS early in the Second World War to the end of the twentieth century. It features several remarkable groups of medals for some of the most audacious escapades of the Second World War as well as more recent medals awarded for bravery in Northern Ireland, Darfur and at the Iranian Embassy Seige in London.

Download or read book Hunting the Nazi Bomb written by Damien Lewis and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “gripping” and “heart-stopping” account of the combined Norwegian and British sabotage raids to stop Hitler from making an atomic bomb (Saul David, Evening Standard). Nothing terrified the Allies more than Adolf Hitler’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon. In a heavy water production plant in occupied Norway, the Führer was well on his way to possessing the raw materials to manufacture the bomb. British Special Operations Executive (SOE)—Churchill’s infamous “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”—working with the Norwegian resistance executed a series of raids in the winter of 1942–43, dropping saboteurs to destroy Hitler’s potential nuclear capability: operations Musketoon, Grouse, Freshman, and finally Gunnerside, in which a handful of intrepid Norwegians scaled a 600-foot cliff to blow the heavy water plant to smithereens. Nothing less than the security of the free world depended on their success. The basis for the movie, The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris, this true story is more harrowing than any thriller, and “Lewis does the memory of these extraordinary men full justice in a tale that is both heart-stopping and moving” (Saul David, Evening Standard).

Download or read book World War II in Literature for Youth written by Patricia Hachten Wee and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume provides a wealth of information with annotated listings of more than 3,500 titles--a broad sampling of books on the war years 1939-1945. Includes both fiction and nonfiction works about all aspects of the war. Professional resources for educators aligned to the educational standards for social studies; technical references; periodicals and electronic resources; a directory of WWII museums, memorials, and other institutions; and topics for exploration complement this excellent library and classroom resource.

Download or read book The Museum s Secret written by Henry Chancellor and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2010-08-24 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Tom Scatterhorn's eccentric father disappears to the Far East in search of rare beetles, closely followed by his mother, Tom is left to spend Christmas with his uncle and aunt, keepers of the weird and wonderful Scatterhorn Museum. But don’t get too excited – because it's a dusty, dingy place, full of tatty stuffed animals and rickety cases of junk. Nobody really wants to visit it anymore, and it looks as if its days are numbered. But when Tom comes to live there, he finds more to the museum than meets the eye. The animals may be ragged and moth-eaten but they have an incredible secret – a secret that originated when the stuffed animals were first made, a hundred years earlier. And then Tom discovers he can go right back to the time of their making. . . . In an exciting adventure that threads in and out of time, from an Edwardian ice fair to the wastes of Mongolia to the jungles of India, Tom discovers that there is far more at stake than the fate of the museum. . . .

Download or read book Saint Nazaire written by James Dorrian and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2006-09-15 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 1942, shipping losses in the Atlantic threatened Britain's very survival. In addition to the U-Boat menace, there was real concern that the mighty German battleship Tirpitz be unleashed against the vital Allied convoys. Yet only the 'Normandie' Dock at St Nazaire could take her vast size in the event of repairs being required. Destroy that and the Tirpitz would be neutralized.Thus was born Operation CHARIOT, the daring Commando raid that, while ultimately successful, proved hugely costly. Using personal accounts, James Dorrian describes the background and thrilling action that resulted in the award of five Victoria Crosses.In a dramatic final twist of events, once the battle was over, the converted former US warship Campelton blew up wrecking the dock gates and killing many Germans who thought the battle was won.