Download or read book Mastermind of Dunkirk and D Day written by Brian Izzard and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed biography brings to life one of the greatest military heroes of WWII—and demonstrates why his contributions were crucial to Allied victory. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay masterminded the evacuation of some 330,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. He went on to play a crucial role in the invasion of Sicily and the planning and execution of the D-Day invasion, where he commanded the 7,000 ships that delivered Allied forces to the beaches of Normandy. All this from a man who had retired in 1938—only to be persuaded back to the service by Winston Churchill himself. In 1944, Ramsay was promoted to Admiral and appointed Naval Commander-in-Chief for the D-Day naval expeditionary force. A year later, he died in a mysterious air crash. Though Ramsay’s legacy has been remembered by the Royal Navy, his key role in the Allied victory has been widely forgotten. Now biographer Brian Izzard corrects this oversight, arguing that without Ramsay the outcome of both Dunkirk and D-Day—and perhaps the entire war—could have been very different.
Download or read book Alan Brooke Churchill s Right Hand Critic written by Andrew Sangster and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-04-05 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new biography of Churchill’s top WWII advisor is “an excellent book for anyone interested in military leadership” (The NYMAS Review). Voted the greatest Briton of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill has long been credited with almost single-handedly leading his country to victory in World War II. But without Alan Brooke, a skilled tactician, at his side the outcome might well have been disastrous. Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, more often than not served as a brake on some of Churchill’s more impetuous ideas. However, while Brooke’s diaries reveal his fury with some of Churchill’s decisions, they also reveal his respect and admiration for the wartime prime minister. In return Churchill must surely have considered Brooke one of his most difficult subordinates—but later wrote that he was “fearless, formidable, articulate, and in the end convincing.” As CIGS, Brooke was integral to coordination between the Allied forces, and so had to wrestle with the cultural strategy clash between the British and Americans. Comments in his diaries offer up his opinions of both his British and American military colleagues—his negative assessments of Mountbatten’s ability, and acerbic comments on the difficult character of de Gaulle and the weaknesses of Eisenhower. Conversely, he was clearly overindulgent in the face of Montgomery’s foibles. Brooke was often seen as a stern and humorless figure, but a study of his private life reveals a little-seen lighter side, a lifelong passion for birdwatching, and abiding love for his family. The two tragedies that befell his immediate family were a critical influence on his life. Andrew Sangster completes this new biography with a survey of the way various historians have assessed Brooke, explaining how he has lapsed into seeming obscurity in the years since his crucial part in the Allied victory in World War II.
Download or read book One Crew The RNLI s Official 200 Year History written by Helen Doe and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2024-02-15 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a fresh look at the creation of the Institution, and its early founders and examines how it has responded over 200 years.
Download or read book The D Day Companion written by Jane Penrose and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, The D-Day Companion brings together the perspectives and opinions of leading military historians from both sides of the Atlantic. Operation Overlord saw the Allied Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery pit their wits against Hitler in a bold bid to liberate continental Europe. Featuring a foreword by Major Richard Winters, real-life commander of Easy Company as featured in Stephen E Ambrose's Band of Brothers, this is a unique and incisive examination of the momentous events that surrounded June 6, 1944. Each chapter of this book focuses on a different aspect of the D-Day landings, from the build-up to the attack to the experiences of the troops on the ground.
Download or read book Normandy the Sailors Story written by Nick Hewitt and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first account of the Allied navies’ vital contribution to the success of the D-Day landings and the Normandy campaign The Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe is one of the most widely recognised events of modern history. The assault phase, Operation Neptune, began with the D-Day landings in Normandy—one of the most complex amphibious operations in history, involving 7,000 ships and nearly 200,000 men. But despite this immense effort, the wider naval campaign has been broadly forgotten. Nick Hewitt draws on fascinating new material to describe the violent sea battle which mirrored the fighting on land, and the complex campaign at sea which enabled the Allied assault. Aboard ships ranging from frail plywood landing craft to sleek destroyers, sailors were active combatants in the operation of June 1944, and had worked tirelessly to secure the Seine Bay in the months preceding it. They fought battles against German submarines, aircraft, and warships, and maintained careful watch to keep control of the English Channel. Hewitt recounts these sailors’ stories for the first time—and shows how, without their efforts, D-Day would have failed.
Download or read book Standard of Power written by Dan Van der Vat and published by Random House UK. This book was released on 2000 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the Royal Navy through two World Wars and countless minor conflicts.
Download or read book Princes at War written by Deborah Cadbury and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1936, the British monarchy faced the greatest threats to its survival in the modern era -- the crisis of abdication and the menace of Nazism. The fate of the country rested in the hands of George V's sorely unequipped sons: a stammering King George VI, terrified that the world might discover he was unfit to rule a dull-witted Prince Henry, who wanted only a quiet life in the army the too-glamorous Prince George, the Duke of Kent -- a reformed hedonist who found new purpose in the RAF and would become the first royal to die in a mysterious plane crash the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, deemed a Nazi-sympathizer and traitor to his own country -- a man who had given it all up for love Princes at War is a riveting portrait of these four very different men miscast by fate, one of whom had to save the monarchy at a moment when kings and princes from across Europe were washing up on England's shores as the old order was overturned. Scandal and conspiracy swirled around the palace and its courtiers, among them dangerous cousins from across Europe's royal families, gold-digging American socialite Wallis Simpson, and the King's Lord Steward, upon whose estate Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess parachuted (seemingly by coincidence) as London burned under the Luftwaffe's tireless raids. Deborah Cadbury draws on new research, personal accounts from the royal archives, and other never-before-revealed sources to create a dazzling sequel to The King's Speech and tell the true and thrilling drama of Great Britain at war and of a staggering transformation for its monarchy.
Download or read book Holocaust versus Wehrmacht written by Yaron Pasher and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-01-09 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1941, as Nazi Germany began its disastrous campaign against the Soviet Union, Hitler’s other campaign, to exterminate European Jewry, was also commencing in earnest. What began with organized executions carried out by the Einzatsgruppen evolved into systematic genocide, reaching its frenzied final moments just as the Wehrmacht was meeting defeat on the military front. These campaigns—and Germany’s failure—were inextricably linked, Yaron Pasher tells us in Holocaust versus Wehrmacht. Pasher argues, in fact, that the major share of the logistical problems faced by the Wehrmacht during World War II stemmed from Hitler’s obsession with securing the resources—especially from the Reichsbahn railway—needed to implement the “Final Solution.” To a degree never fully recognized or understood, Hitler’s anti-Semitic ideology was his war’s undoing. Through four major Wehrmacht military campaigns—Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk in the east and Normandy in the west—Pasher explores this fatal contradiction in Hitler’s efforts to dominate the European continent. As Operation Typhoon, the sequel to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, got underway in November 1941, organized train transports began carrying Jews to the East—with the last trains taking Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz just as the Allies invaded Western Europe and moved inexorably to encircle the Third Reich. In these years, this book shows us, the trains transporting Jews could have carried men, machines, and fuel to depleted and trapped divisions in the Caucasus, and later, to the Western Front. As the Germans moved deeper into Soviet territory, they became increasingly dependent on train transport—which entailed converting Soviet railway line to German specifications; and yet, however successfully this conversion was completed, the trains that might run on these rails were working elsewhere in service of the Final Solution, leaving the Wehrmacht’s overextended armies without the resources to survive, let alone win, their final battles. In the end, what Hitler called “the Jewish problem” was his downfall. In documenting the distribution of Germany’s resources and operational capabilities through four major campaigns, Holocaust versus Wehrmacht offers a clear picture of the Nazis’ military objectives as inseparable from—and finally, fatally susceptible to—Hitler’s and his henchmen’s other, ideological war to rid Europe of Jews.
Download or read book SOE s Mastermind written by Brian Lett and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete biography of Britain’s WWII spymaster presents an intimate look at his life and career, as well as an insider’s look at the SOE. Major General Sir Colin Gubbins was the driving force behind Britain’s Special Operations Executive, the secret military organization established by Winston Churchill in 1940. First as its Operations and Training Director, and then its Commander, Gubbins orchestrated every aspect of the SOE’s worldwide covert operations. Though Gubbins made enormous contributions to Allied victory, his life and work have remained shrouded in secrecy until now. With copious research and unprecedented access to family archives, biographer Brian Lett reveals the war hero’s early experiences in the Great War, as well as in Russia, Ireland, Poland, and as Head of British Resistance. The result is a fascinating biography that reveals as much about SOEs extraordinary activities as it does about the man who inspired and commanded them.
Download or read book Browned Off and Bloody Minded written by Alan Allport and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than three-and-a-half million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what military life, with all its strange rituals, discomforts, and dangers, was going to be like. Alan Allport’s rich and luminous social history examines the experience of the greatest and most terrible war in history from the perspective of these ordinary, extraordinary men, who were plucked from their peacetime families and workplaces and sent to fight for King and Country. Allport chronicles the huge diversity of their wartime trajectories, tracing how soldiers responded to and were shaped by their years with the British Army, and how that army, however reluctantly, had to accommodate itself to them. Touching on issues of class, sex, crime, trauma, and national identity, through a colorful multitude of fresh individual perspectives, the book provides an enlightening, deeply moving perspective on how a generation of very modern-minded young men responded to the challenges of a brutal and disorienting conflict.
Download or read book Maritime Britain written by J. R. Hill and published by Jarrold Publishing. This book was released on 2005-04 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maritime Britain
Download or read book The Hero of Dunkirk written by Andrew Gordon and published by . This book was released on 2020-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Admiral Bertram Ramsay orchestrated the evacuation at Dunkirk, planned the invasions of North Africa and Sicily, and worked closely with Eisenhower on the Allied landings at Normandy. In the most authoritative portrait we are ever likely to have, Andrew Gordon restores this great naval commander to his essential place in World War II history.
Download or read book Fighting the People s War written by Jonathan Fennell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 967 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.
Download or read book D Day written by Dan Parry and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of D-Day, the turning point in World War 2, has been well documented. But this lavishly illustrated book and accompanying epic TV drama will turn all preconceptions of 'Operation Overlord' on their head. June 2004 marks the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the last time official reunions of veterans will take place - this is our chance to honour the veterans of the biggest military invasion and defence the world has ever seen. Told through the eyes of the men who were there: from veterans - both Allied and German - to the spies, resistance members, reporters and official photographers. Fresh stories, surprising heroes. As the tension of D-Day builds to a nail-biting climax we witness the German army's confused response to the invasion. Their failure to repel the Allies during those first crucial 24 hours is a setback from which they never recover.
Download or read book Ian Fleming and SOE s Operation POSTMASTER written by Brian Lett and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2012-09-19 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of the force of “licensed to kill” secret agents who became the basis for the James Bond spy series. Brigadier Colin Gubbins was M. The Special Operations Executive was his Secret Service. Professor Dudley Newitt was Q. Capt. Gus March-Phillips commanded “Maid of Honor Force,” the team of “James Bonds” who, in a daring operation, sailed a ship to West Africa and stole three enemy ships from a neutral Spanish port on the volcanic island of Fernando Po. Ian Fleming worked closely with M to oil the wheels that made the operation possible, and prepared the cover story, in which the British government lied in order to conceal British responsibility for the raid. M’s agents prepared the ground on Fernando Po, even enmeshing the governor in a honey trap. March-Phillips and his team carried out the raid successfully in January 1942, despite much opposition from the local regular Army and Navy commanders, and in the face of overwhelming odds. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told Fleming’s lies on the international stage, denying any British complicity in the operation. As a result, a secrecy embargo enveloped Operation POSTMASTER until recently. This gripping book proves beyond doubt that this thrilling operation, and the men who carried it out, were the inspiration for Fleming’s fictional 007.
Download or read book Deception in War written by Jon Latimer and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2003-04-29 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Trojan Horse to Gulf War subterfuge, this far-reaching military history examines the importance and ingenuity of wartime deception campaigns. The art of military deception is as old as the art of war. This fascinating account of the practice draws on conflicts from around the world and across millennia. The examples stretch from the very beginnings of recorded military history—Pharaoh Ramses II's campaign against the Hittites in 1294 B.C.—to modern times, when technology has placed a stunning array of devices into the arsenals of military commanders. Military historians often underestimate the importance of deception in warfare. This book is the first to fully describe its value. Jon Latimer demonstrates how simple tricks have been devastatingly effective. He also explores how technology has increased the range and subtlety of what is possible—including bogus radio traffic, virtual images, even false smells. Deception in War includes examples from land, sea, and air to show how great commanders have always had, as Winston Churchill put it, that indispensable “element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.”
Download or read book Admiral of the Narrow Seas written by Andrew Gordon and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2026-04-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bertram Ramsay has acquired almost mythical status in the history of the Second World War, firstly as the principal organizer of the Dunkirk evacuation and then as naval commander of the Allied invasion of Normandy - in the eyes of many, 'the organizer of victory'. But because Ramsay was killed in January 1945 and never wrote his own memoirs, his life has until now been difficult to pin down. Andrew Gordon, prize-winning author of The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, writing with the help of Ramsay's descendants, now describes the career of this intense and territorial man in full, for the first time establishing his true role in the two great tests of his life and conveying his very particular personality. This is a superb biography of a naval officer, which also illuminated afresh British history in the first half of the twentieth century.
