Download or read book Defending Crete from the Fallschirmjagers written by Andrew G Taylor and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-11-23 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the spring of 1941, the enemy had taken much of Southern Europe: Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, and with Italy in the Axis it stood to dominate. The powerful British Naval Fleet and the amassed allied infantry of Britain, New Zealand, Australia, disposed Greeks, and the good people of Crete stood between the Axis powers and total control of the Mediterranean. This is the story of a soldier involved in the defense of Crete. The Luftwaffe commanded the air with their Stuka, Junkers and the formidable German Paratroopers: the Fallschirmjäger. It begins with Jack Seed’s part, as a Royal Engineer, in the Balkan Campaign of 1941. Starting with an account of the defense of Crete, it tells of the retreat from an overpowering enemy and of a determined survival until the victorious moments of the war’s end. Along with his comrades, Jack was taken prisoner of war and moved from Stalag to Stalag in railway trucks, enduring terrible hardships at the hands of his German captors for four years. With barely enough food to keep body and soul together, he and his fellow captives were sent out in gangs to work, often in perishingly cold conditions. They devised ways of getting extra food, but their schemes were often discovered by the German guards. They burnt the wood from their bunks in order to keep warm at night. They grew weak and weary and wondered how much more hardship they could stand. But finally, Hitler was dead, Germany had surrendered and the war was over. Within days, Jack was bound for home, flying over the white cliffs of Dover. He had survived. Jack Seed wrote his Second World War memoir during the 1970s, typing two copies for posterity on a mechanical typewriter. Like many with such experiences, his writing was not for any notion of reward, but to formalise his own lasting experience of the Second World War. Now, almost eighty years later, that story is shared.
Download or read book DEFENDING CRETE FROM THE FALLSCHIRMJAGERS written by ANDREW G. SEED TAYLOR (JACK.) and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The 1st Fallschirmj ger Division in World War II written by Ben Christensen and published by Schiffer Pub Limited. This book was released on 2007 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on their combat achievements, friends and foes alike have singled out the men from the German 1st Parachute Division as the best soldiers in World War II, as they at Eben Emael executed the most successful commando raid of the war; on Crete the most audacious attack; and in Monte Cassino the most dogged defense. A total of 129 Knight's Crosses were awarded to men from this division - twice as many as any other German division. For the first time a comprehensive book has been written about the fate of this division based on all available sources and with the invaluable aide of veterans from the division. It is a warts-and-all tale, which gives a candid insight not only to the battles from the German perspective, but also to the minds of the men who became the backbone of the division. The books contains more than 500 color and black and white photos, many of which have never been printed before. Furthermore, there are thirty unique maps in color, thirty detailed Orders of Battle, 500 short biographies of the key personnel in the division, and a list of all the division's Knight's Cross and the German Cross in Gold winners. _x000D__x000D_The first volume, Years of Attack, follows the recruitment and training of the Fallschirmjagers and their revolutionary vertical deployment in Scandinavia, Holland, Eben Emael, Corinth and Crete through to two tough tours as elite infantry on the Eastern Front. The second volume, Years of Retreat, follows the division from the battles of El Alamein, Tunisia, Sicily, Monte Cassino, Bologna, Normandy and Brittany to the final chaotic days before the capitulation. The battles are brought to life through nearly 1,000 eyewitness accounts and add new information to all the battles fought by elements of the German 1st Fallschirmjager Division._x000D_ AUTHOR:
Download or read book Fort Eben Emael written by Simon Dunstan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outbreak of World War II, Fort Eben Emael in Belgium was the strongest fortress in the world, and it lay exactly across the German invasion route of Belgium and France. The fort's elimination was essential for the success of Hitler's invasion of the West. Deemed impregnable to conventional attack, Hitler himself suggested the means for its capture with the first glider-borne assault in military history. On 10 May 1940, ten gliders carrying just 77 paratroopers landed on top of the fort. Using top-secret hollow-charge weapons for the first time in warfare, the assault pioneers of Sturmgruppe Granit subdued Fort Eben Emael within just 30 minutes, and the fortress surrendered within 30 hours. It remains one of the greatest raids in the annals of Special Forces.
Download or read book Lions of Carentan The written by Volker Griesser and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although it is known that Allied airborne forces landed into a German buzzsaw on D-Day, far less is known about the troops they encountered in the dark night of June 6, 1944. One of the formations they encountered was a similarly elite group of paratroopers, who instead of dropping from the skies fought on the defensive, giving their Allied counterparts a tremendous challenge in achieving their objectives. This is the complete wartime history of one of the largest German paratrooper regiments, 6th , from its initial formation in the spring of 1943 to its last day at the end of the war. With numerous firsthand accounts from key members, reporting on their experiences, they describe the events of 1943Ð45 vividly and without compromise. These accounts reveal previously unknown details about important operations in Italy, Russia, on the Normandy Front, Belgium, Holland, the last German Parachute drop in the Ardennes, and the final battle to the end in Germany. With over 220 original photographs, many from private collections and never before published, this book fully illustrates the men, their uniforms, equipment and weapons. Also included is an appendix with maps, battle calendar, staffing plans, a list of field and post-MOB-numbers, and the Knight's Cross recipients of the regiment. Having earned the respect of the Allied forces who fought against it during World War II, this work will inform current readers of the full record of Fallschirmjger Regiment 6, and why the Allied advance into German-held Europe was so painstaking to achieve.
Download or read book Marshal of Victory written by Geogry Zhukov and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 1256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete and unredacted autobiography by Stalin’s star general, chronicling his many campaigns throughout WWII. At Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin—as well as virtually all the principal battles on the Eastern Front during the Second World War—Georgy Zhukov played a major role. He was Stalin’s pre-eminent general throughout the conflict, and he chronicled his brilliant career as he saw it in this essential text. Here, Zhukov reveals intriguing insights into who he was, both as a man and as a commander. He also delves into the military thinking and decision-making at the highest level of the Soviet command—making this volume essential reading for anyone studying the conflict in the east. This edition of the memoirs, which were first published in heavily censored form, features an introduction by Professor Geoffrey Roberts in which he summarizes the additional material omitted from previous editions. He also provides, in an appendix, a translation of Zhukov’s account of the 1953-7 period as well as an interview with Zhukov that has previously not been available in English.
Download or read book Fry The Brain written by John West and published by Spartan Submissions, Incorporated. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fry The Brain is a detailed, original study of urban guerrilla sniping and its employment in modern unconventional warfare. Fry The Brain strives to educate the interested reader in all aspects of modern urban guerrilla sniping. As such, Fry The Brain is a unique, relevant work that is a must read for all students of contemporary guerrilla warfare.
Download or read book Soldiers of Destruction written by Charles Sydnor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1990-05-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the emergence of the Nazi SS and its Death's Head Division, noting the impact of this elite and powerful army upon military history.
Download or read book Kos and Leros 1943 written by Anthony Rogers and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is an illustrated account of the autumn 1943 battle for the Dodecanese, as Winston Churchill attempted to secure the Aegean islands in the wake of the Italian armistice. The occupation was a gamble intended to increase pressure against Germany and at the same time possibly provide encouragement for Turkey to join the Allies. Spearheaded by the Special Boat Squadron and the Long Range Desert Group, garrison troops were deployed to the Italian-occupied Dodecanese, but they were too late to prevent the Germans from taking control of the key island of Rhodes and its all-important airfields. An all-out German offensive followed. Air force and naval units supported a series of assaults by infantry and paratroopers, including specialist forces of the Division Brandenburg. Within three months, only Castelorizzo was still in British hands. Rhodes, Kos and Leros remained under German occupation until May 1945 and the end of the war in Europe. The Dodecanese would be Adolf Hitler's last enduring victory – and the last enduring British-led defeat.
Download or read book Ortona written by Mark Zuehlke and published by D & M Publishers. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterful retelling one of the major victories of Canadian troops over the German army’s elite division during WWII. In one blood-soaked, furious week of fighting, from December 20 to December 27, 1943, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division took the town of Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port town at all costs. Infantrymen serving in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders, supported by tankers of the Three Rivers Regiment, moved from house to house in hand-to-hand combat amid heavy shelling and wrested the town from the grip of the fierce German defenders. Getting into Ortona had been a battle of its own. Ortona, the pearl of the Adriatic, stands on a promontory impregnable from three sides, with seacliffs on the north and east, and a deep ravine on the west. The Canadian infantrymen, drawn from virtually every corner of Canada, attacked from the south under the command of Major-General Chris Vokes, fighting across narrow gullies, mud-choked vineyards and olive groves, into the narrow streets of Ortona itself. When the vicious battle was over, 2605 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands.
Download or read book Crete written by Antony Beevor and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Antony Beevor vividly brings to life the epic struggles that took place in Second World War Crete - reissued with a new introduction. 'The best book we have got on Crete' Observer The Germans expected their airborne attack on Crete in 1941 - a unique event in the history of warfare - to be a textbook victory based on tactical surprise. They had no idea that the British, using Ultra intercepts, knew their plans and had laid a carefully-planned trap. It should have been the first German defeat of the war, but a fatal misunderstanding turned the battle round. Nor did the conflict end there. Ferocious Cretan freedom fighters mounted a heroic resistance, aided by a dramatic cast of British officers from Special Operations Executive.
Download or read book Allied Armored Fighting Vehicles written by George Bradford and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2009-08-12 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with 1:72-scale drawings of armored vehicles from the U.S., Britain, Canada, and Russia.
Download or read book Tank Attack at Monte Cassino written by Jeffrey Plowman and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-07-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early morning, 19 March 1944. Tanks manned by New Zealanders, Indians and Americans launch a daring attack along a narrow mountain track on German positions north of Monte Cassino. So began one of the most audacious Allied attempts to break through the Gustav Line and advance on Rome - and it almost succeeded. Yet the extraordinary story has seldom been told, and it has never been told before in the vivid detail Jeffrey Plowman brings to this new account.Using operational orders, combat reports, unit diaries, post-battle photos from private and public archives and the graphic personal accounts of those who took part, he describes the construction of Cavendish Road and the course of the entire operation that followed. The planning for the attack and the men involved are described in a gripping and clear-sighted way, as is the attack itself - its initial rapid success and its ultimate failure.Eighty years later Jeffrey Plowman reveals exactly what happened and shows how and why this bold thrust against the German strongpoints at Monte Cassino, which could have turned the course of the battle, ended in retreat. His book also features a visitor's guide that covers the length of Cavendish Road from the village of Caira to Massa Albaneta, linking each spot with the events described in the narrative.
Download or read book The Last Man written by Tom Lawson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-27 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little more than seventy years after the British settled Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) in 1803, the indigenous community had been virtually wiped out. Yet this genocide at the hands of the British is virtually forgotten today. The Last Man is the first book specifically to explore the role of the British government and wider British society in this genocide. It positions the destruction as a consequence of British policy, and ideology in the region. Tom Lawson shows how Britain practised cultural destruction and then came to terms with and evaded its genocidal imperial past. Although the introduction of European diseases undoubtedly contributed to the decline in the indigenous population, Lawson shows that the British government supported what was effectively the ethnic cleansing of Tasmania - particularly in the period of martial law in 1828-1832. By 1835 the vast majority of the surviving indigenous community had been deported to Flinders Island, where the British government took a keen interest in the attempt to transform them into Christians and Englishmen in a campaign of cultural genocide. Lawson also illustrates the ways in which the destruction of indigenous Tasmanians was reflected in British culture - both at the time and since - and how it came to play a key part in forging particular versions of British imperial identity. Laments for the lost Tasmanians were a common theme in literary and museum culture, and the mistaken assumption that Tasmanians were doomed to complete extinction was an important part of the emerging science of human origins. By exploring the memory of destruction, The Last Man provides the first comprehensive picture of the British role in the destruction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population.
Download or read book Fatal Crossroads written by Danny S. Parker and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2012 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a leading expert comes the gripping tale of the largest single atrocity committed against American POWs on the Western Front in World War II.
Download or read book Patton s Vanguard written by Don M. Fox and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stirring accounts of the almost legendary campaigns of the United States Fourth Armored Division, universally recognized as "Patton's Best," from its pre-World War II origins up through its famous relief of the 101st Airborne Division during the Battle of the Bulge are presented in this book. The break out of Normandy at Avranches, the isolation of the Brittany peninsula, the armored thrust across France, the tank battles at Arracourt that cemented the reputation of the Fourth Armored, the brutal struggle in Lorraine, and, ultimately, the legendary drive to Bastogne are among the topics. The accounts were assembled through the use of original unit combat diaries and after-action reports, memoirs of key historical figures and abundant supplementary documents and correspondences. But the essence of the book are the first-hand recollections from members of the division gathered by the author. With maps, drawings and photographs.
Download or read book The Cretan Runner written by George Psychoundakis and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A witty, thrilling, and “effortlessly poetic” account of the Cretan resistance during World War II—with a map and 32 black-and-white photographs (The Guardian) George Psychoundakis was a 21-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when the battle of Crete began: “It was in May 1941 that, all of a sudden, high in the sky, we heard the drone of many aeroplanes growing steadily closer.” The German parachutists soon outnumbered the British troops who were forced first to retreat, then to evacuate, before Crete fell to the Germans. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor.
