Download or read book From Omaha to the Scheldt written by John Forfar and published by John Donald. This book was released on 2003-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Forfar, medical officer, was continuously in the thick of the action as 47 Royal Marine Commando played their distinguished part in World War II in Europe. 47's battle engagements included the D-Day capture of Port-en-Bessin, vital to the British Army's petrol supply; participation in the defence of the Orme bridgehead, and the ultimate break-out, harassing the retreating enemy as it swept northwards in a series of headlong battles along 300 miles of the French and Belgian coasts. battle with its intense fears and physical dangers, the stresses it imposes on body and mind, its killing and wounding, its triumphs and its tribulations, its aftermath. John Forfar saw the deeds of courage and the determination of the commandos at every level. He tells also of the historical significance of the Commando's actions, which the passage of time has revealed, and something of the experiences of the oppressed populations they liberated, as well as the dramas of inhumanity and false witness which are the common currency of war.
Download or read book Terrible Victory written by Mark Zuehlke and published by D & M Publishers. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Zuehlke is an expert at narrating the history of life on the battlefield for the Canadian army during World War II. In Terrible Victory, he provides a soldiers-eye-view account of Canada's bloody liberation of western Holland. Readers are there as soldiers fight in the muddy quagmire, enduring a battle that lasted three weeks and in which 6,000 soldiers perished. Terrible Victory is a powerful story of courage, survival, and skill.
Download or read book Endgame 1945 written by David Stafford and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2007-11-12 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To end a history of World War II at VE Day is to leave the tale half told. Endgame 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Endgame 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Through their ground-level movements, Stafford traces the elaborate web of events that led to the war's real resolution: the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau, and the Allies' race with the Red Army to establish a victors' foothold in Europe, to name a few. From Hitler's April decision never to surrender to the start of the Potsdam Conference, Stafford brings an unprecedented focus to the war's "final chapter." Narrative history at its most compelling, Endgame 1945 is the riveting story of three turbulent months that truly shaped the modern world.
Download or read book The D Day Landing on Gold Beach written by Andrew Holborn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-24 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, across five sectors of the French coast - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword - constituted the largest amphibious invasion in history. This study analyses in depth the preparations and implementation of the D-Day landing on Gold Beach by XXX Corps. Historians have tended to dismiss the landing on Gold Beach as straightforward but the evidence points to a different reality. Armour supported the infantry landing and prior bombing was intended to weaken German defences; however, the bulk of the bombing landed too far inland, and many craft foundered in difficult conditions at sea. It was the tenacity of the assault units and the flexibility of the follow up units which enabled the Gold landing to secure the right flank of the British Army in Normandy. Using detailed primary evidence from The National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, this volume provides a substantial assessment of the background to the landing on Gold, and analyses the events of D-Day in the wider context of the Normandy Campaign.
Download or read book Normandy 44 written by James Holland and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of World War II’s Operation Overlord, from the campaign’s planning to its execution, as Allied forces battled to take France back from Germany. D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the seventy-six days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed the Allied landing, have become the defining episode of World War II in the west—the object of books, films, television series, and documentaries. Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the Overlord campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge. Drawing freshly on widespread archives and on the testimonies of eye-witnesses, Holland relates the extraordinary planning that made Allied victory in France possible; indeed, the story of how hundreds of thousands of men, and mountains of materiel, were transported across the English Channel, is as dramatic a human achievement as any battlefield exploit. The brutal landings on the five beaches and subsequent battles across the plains and through the lanes and hedgerows of Normandy—a campaign that, in terms of daily casualties, was worse than any in World War I—come vividly to life in conferences where the strategic decisions of Eisenhower, Rommel, Montgomery, and other commanders were made, and through the memories of paratrooper Lieutenant Dick Winters of Easy Company, British corporal and tanker Reg Spittles, Thunderbolt pilot Archie Maltbie, German ordnance officer Hans Heinze, French resistance leader Robert Leblanc, and many others. For both sides, the challenges were enormous. The Allies confronted a disciplined German army stretched to its limit, which nonetheless caused tactics to be adjusted on the fly. Ultimately ingenuity, determination, and immense materiel strength—delivered with operational brilliance—made the difference. A stirring narrative by a pre-eminent historian, Normandy ‘44 offers important new perspective on one of history’s most dramatic military engagements and is an invaluable addition to the literature of war. Praise for Normandy ‘44 An Amazon Best Book of the Month (History) An Amazon Best History Book of the Year “Detail and scope are the twin strengths of Normandy ’44. . . . Mr. Holland effectively balances human drama with the science of war as the Allies knew it.” —Jonathan W. Jordan, Wall Street Journal “A superb account of the invasions that deserves immense praise. . . . To convey the human drama of Normandy requires great knowledge and sensitivity. Holland has both in spades.” —Times (UK)
Download or read book D Day Documents written by Paul Winter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-31 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in partnership with the National Archives, D-Day Documents is a commemorative collection of previously unpublished documents marking the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. This unprecedented book contains not only 21st Army Group intelligence reports on 'Omaha' Beach, RAF Photographic Reconnaissance prints and the ship's log of HMS Warspite but various other important official documents covering different aspects of Operations Neptune and Overlord. Crucially, this single volume brings together for the first time the war diary entries of all Anglo-Canadian 'spear-head' units and regiments who landed in France on 6 June 1944. A unique publication, which celebrates one of the most momentous days in modern military history, D-Day Documents will fascinate anyone with an interest in the Second World War, as well as offering an invaluable primary source for military historians.
Download or read book Commando Tactics written by Stephen Bull and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2011-06-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British commandos are among the most celebrated soldiers of the Second World War. Their daring, ingenuity and bravery have given rise to an almost legendary reputation that makes it difficult to appreciate fully their role and their true value as fighting men.Stephen Bull, in this in-depth study of commando tactics and history, seeks to dispel the myths and the misunderstandings that surround them, and he places these elite troops of 70 years ago in the context of their times. He also demonstrates that the idea of the commando took time to develop and that commando operations were far from always successful. Commando tactics amphibious, mountain, close quarter were forged through the often-painful experience of raids and combined operations. And commando tactics and organization remained in a state of flux throughout the war as new situations and challenges arose.Stephen Bulls vivid account will be essential reading for anyone who is interested in commando fighting techniques and the early history of special forces.
Download or read book Sand and Steel written by Peter Caddick-Adams and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-22 with total page 1070 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Caddick-Adams's account of the Allied invasion of France in June 1944 matches the monumental achievement of his book on the Battle of the Bulge, Snow and Steel, which Richard Overy has called the "standard history of this climactic confrontation in the West." Sand and Steel gives us D-Day, arguably the greatest and most consequential military operation of modern times, beginning with the years of painstaking and costly preparation, through to the pitched battles fought along France's northern coast, from Omaha Beach to the Falaise and the push east to Strasbourg. In addition to covering the build-up to the invasion, including the elaborate and lavish campaigns to deceive Germans as to where and when the invasion would take place, Caddick-Adams gives a full and detailed account of the German preparations: the formidable Atlantikwall and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's plans to make Europe impregnable-plans not completed by June 6. Sand and Steel reveals precisely what lay in wait for the Allies. But the heart of the book is Caddick-Adams' narratives of the five beaches where the terrible drama played out--Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, and the attempt by American, British, and Canadian soldiers to gain a foothold in Europe. The Allied invasion of Europe involved mind-boggling logistics, including orchestrating the largest flotilla of ships ever assembled. Its strategic and psychological demands stretched the Allies to their limits, testing the strengths of the bonds of Anglo-American leadership. Drawing on first-hand battlefield research, personal testimony and interviews, and a commanding grasp of all the archives and literature, Caddick-Adams's gripping book, published on the 75th anniversary of the events, does Operations Overlord and Neptune full justice.
Download or read book Armies of Empire written by Allan Converse and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-07 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armies of Empire uniquely reflects upon the experience of two divisions from different armies facing similar challenges in the Second World War. The 9th Australian Division and the British 50th (Northumbrian) Division both saw long service and suffered heavy casualties, and both encountered morale, discipline and battlefield effectiveness problems. In this illuminating, comparative study of Australian and British divisions at war, Allan Converse draws extensively on primary sources as well as recent scholarship on morale and combat efficiency. His fresh approach questions the popular mythology surrounding the Australian Digger and the British Tommy, and shows how it was a combination of leadership, loyalty and tactics, rather than intrinsic national qualities, which resulted in victory for Churchill's armies.
Download or read book The Cover Up at Omaha Beach written by Gary Sterne and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller! The untold story of what really happened on D-Day. The Rangers’ mission was clear. They were to lead the assault on Omaha Beach and break out inland. Simultaneously, other Ranger units would scale the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc to destroy the ostensibly huge gun battery there and thus protect the invasion fleet from being targeted. But was the Pointe du Hoc mission actually necessary? Why did the Allies plan and execute an attack on a gun battery that they knew in advance contained no field guns? And more importantly, why did they ignore the position at Maisy that did? Using personal interviews with the surviving Rangers who fought on the beach and at Pointe du Hoc, The Cover-Up at Omaha Beach presents exceptionally detailed new research that takes the reader into the middle of the action with the Rangers. Gary Sterne has made a painstaking study of what the Allies actually knew in advance of D-Day, including what was known about Maisy Battery. Maps, orders, and assault plans have been found in American, British, and German archives, many of which have only recently been released after staying classified for more than sixty years. Radio communications of the Rangers as they advanced inland have been found, and Royal Air Force intelligence evaluations of bombing missions directed at the site have now been released. All of this combines to make The Cover-Up at Omaha Beach one of the most up-to-date references on the subject. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book Bolt Action Third Edition written by Warlord Games and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-09-26 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revised and updated third edition of the best-selling Bolt Action World War II wargaming rules. Bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop with Bolt Action. Strike out from the beaches of Normandy towards Germany. Sweep across the deserts of North Africa in lightning raids. Battle the enemy and the sweltering heat in the jungles of Asia and on the islands of the Pacific. Fight doggedly from street to street in Arnhem, Stalingrad, and Berlin. Whatever your preferred style of play, your miniature collection, or your historical interests, the diverse army and scenario options will allow you to build a force that fits. Field everything from standard rifle platoons to heavily armoured tank forces, fast-moving reconnaissance patrols, and even artillery units. This third edition features refined and updated rules and starter army lists to get new players straight into the action. Seasoned veterans, meanwhile, will find new tactical depth in the detailed force composition mechanics and a wide variety of fresh challenges in the scenario generation system. Rally your forces, study the terrain, and prepare for battle – the fight continues!
Download or read book Montgomery the Field Marshal written by R.W. Thompson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-11-21 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1969, examines the achievement of Montgomery and the 21st Army Group in the campaign in Northwest Europe in 1944-45. The author observed the campaign first-hand, and has spent twenty years poring over war diaries and regimental papers to provide an in-depth analysis of Montgomery’s generalship, personality, complex relations with his American allies, and his own subordinates. Looking at Montgomery’s performance as a morale builder both for troops and civilians, this books also examines his difficulties with the diplomatic niceties of coalition warfare.
Download or read book Bolt Action Campaign D Day British Canadian Sectors written by Warlord Games and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the historic D-Day landings comes the fight to liberate France and the rest of Occupied Europe. This campaign book focuses on the push inland from the Commonwealth beaches of Gold, Sword, and Juno culminating with the battle for Caen and the Falaise Pocket. Containing new scenarios, Theatre Selectors, and units, including rules for the Canadian Army in Europe and their adversaries, this book has everything players need to continue the liberation of Europe.
Download or read book The Price of Victory written by N A M Rodger and published by Random House. This book was released on 2024-10-24 with total page 905 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final instalment of N.A.M. Rodger's definitive, authoritative trilogy on Britain's naval history At the end of the French and Napoleonic wars, British sea-power was at its apogee. But by 1840, as one contemporary commentator put it, the Admiralty was full of ‘intellects becalmed in the smoke of Trafalgar’. How the Royal Navy reformed and reinvigorated itself in the course of the nineteenth century is just one thread in this magnificent book, which refuses to accept standard assumptions and analyses. All the great actions are here, from Navarino in 1827 (won by a daringly disobedient Admiral Codrington) to Jutland, D-Day, the Battle of the Atlantic and the battles in the Pacific in 1944/45 in concert with the US Navy. The development and strategic significance of submarine and navy air forces is superbly described, as are the rapid evolution of ships (from classic Nelsonic type, to hybrid steam/sail ships, then armour-clad and the fully armoured Dreadnoughts and beyond) and weapons. The social history of officers and men – and sometimes women – always a key part of the author’s work, is not neglected. Rodger sets all this in the essential context of politics and geo-strategy. The character and importance of leading admirals – Beatty, Fisher, Cunningham – is assessed, together with the roles of other less famous but no less consequential figures. Based on a lifetime’s learning, it is the culmination of one of the most significant British historical works in recent decades. Naval specialists will find much that is new here, and will be invigorated by the originality of Rodger’s judgements; but everyone who is interested in the one of the central threads in British history will find it rewarding.
Download or read book American War Plans 1941 1945 written by Steven Ross and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an examination of major American and Anglo-American war plans. Rather than discuss the history of planning, Ross considers the execution of the plans, compares the execution with the expectations of the planners and attempts to explain the differences.
Download or read book Victory at Sea written by Paul Kennedy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping, lavishly illustrated one-volume history of the rise of American naval power during World War II “A brilliant and gripping book by a master historian working at the top of his powers.”—Fredrik Logevall, Harvard University “Paul Kennedy has written a classic in this sweeping narrative account of the desperate struggle to command the seas and America’s rise as a superpower during the Second World War.”—John H. Maurer, U.S. Naval War College In this engaging narrative, brought to life by marine artist Ian Marshall’s beautiful full‑color paintings, historian Paul Kennedy grapples with the rise and fall of the Great Powers during World War II. Tracking the movements of the six major navies of the Second World War—the allied navies of Britain, France, and the United States and the Axis navies of Germany, Italy, and Japan—Kennedy tells a story of naval battles, maritime campaigns, convoys, amphibious landings, and strikes from the sea. From the elimination of the Italian, German, and Japanese fleets and almost all of the French fleet, to the end of the era of the big‑gunned surface vessel, the advent of the atomic bomb, and the rise of an American economic and military power larger than anything the world had ever seen, Kennedy shows how the strategic landscape for naval affairs was completely altered between 1936 and 1946.
