Download or read book Victoria Cross Heroes of World War One written by Robert Hamilton and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Victoria Cross had been in existence over 60 years when Archduke Franz Ferdinand fell to an assassins bullet, the event that triggered a Europe-wide call to arms in August 1914. It was an award that democratised military honours, for it was open to all ranks, the sole qualification being a display of conspicuous bravery in the field. The sovereign whose name it bore was personally responsible for the Crosss simple legend: For Valour. Forged, it is said, from cannons captured during the Crimean War, the medals were rather too plain for some tastes. The Times derided the VC as a dull, heavy, tasteless prize when the first investiture ceremony took place in Hyde Park on 26 June 1857. But its virtue, quite deliberately, lay in its very simplicity. It was the action for which the medal was given that should dazzle, not the decoration itself. The Victoria Cross became pre-eminent: first in line when pinned to a uniform or appended to a recipients name. Over 500 VCs had been awarded by the outbreak of the First World War. That figure more than doubled during the four-year-long conflict. Trench warfare, when the rival camps might be dug in less than 100 yards apart, afforded endless opportunities to show courage and mettle in the face of the enemy. Many were honoured for attacking feats, often taking the fight to the foe when the odds were stacked against survival. But hurling oneself into the fray was but one of valours many faces. Stretcher-bearers, medical staff, pipers and chaplains also showed the same strength in adversity, the same disregard for personal safety, the same willingness to exceed the call of duty. And, in over 180 instances, a readiness to make the ultimate sacrifice for King and Country. The call to act could come at any moment. In William McFadzeans case it came when the safety pins slipped from two grenades in a crowded trench just before the Somme battle. He flung himself onto the bombs, saving his comrades at the cost of his own life. For Rex Warneford it came in the skies over Ghent on 7 June 1915, when he became the first man to down a German airship in flight. He was thrown from his plane during a flight ten days later. For Jack Cornwell it came during the Battle of Jutland, when, mortally wounded, he stuck doggedly to his post awaiting orders. He was 16 years old. This book chronicles the inspiring, thrilling, humbling and deeply moving stories behind the 628 Victoria Crosses awarded during the course of the Great War. Without inscription, those 628 medals, like all the others cast by London jewelers, Hancocks over the past century and a half, would have no intrinsic worth. Once earned, inscribed and conferred, they assume inestimable value.
Download or read book Victoria Cross Heroes Volume II written by Michael Ashcroft and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Lance-Sergeant Johnson Beharry VC THE VICTORIA CROSS is Britain and the Commonwealth's most prestigious gallantry medal for courage in the face of the enemy. It has been bestowed upon 1,355 heroic individuals from all walks of life since its creation during the Crimean War. Lord Ashcroft, who has been fascinated with bravery since he was a young boy, now owns 200 VCs, by far the largest collection of its kind in the world. Following on from the bestselling Victoria Cross Heroes, first published in 2006 to mark the 150th anniversary of the award, Victoria Cross Heroes: Volume II gives extraordinary accounts of the bravery behind the newest additions to Lord Ashcroft's VC collection - those decorations purchased in the last decade. With nearly sixty action-packed stories of courageous soldiers, sailors and airmen from a range of global conflicts including the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 and the First and Second World Wars, this book is a powerful testament to the strength of the human spirit and a worthy tribute to the servicemen who earned the Victoria Cross. Their inspirational deeds of valour and self-sacrifice should be championed and never forgotten.
Download or read book Albert Ball VC written by Colin Pengelly and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An action-packed military biography of a British fighter pilot and his rise through ranks during World War I. World War I pilot Albert Ball’s invincible courage and determination made him a legend not only in Britain but also amongst his enemies, to whom the sight of his lone Nieuport Scout brought fear. Ball enlisted in the British army in 1914 with the 2/7th Battalion (Robin Hoods) of the Sherwood Foresters, Notts, and Derby Regiment. By October, 1914, he had reached the rank of Sergeant and then became Second-Lieutenant to his own battalion in the same month. In June, 1915, he trained as a pilot in Hendon. Then in October, he obtained Royal Aero Club Certificate and was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. He further trained at Norwich and Upavon, being awarded the pilot’s brevet in January, 1916. In May, he opened his score, shooting down an Albatros C-type over Beaumont. Days later he shot down two LVG C-types, while flying his Nieuport 5173. Captain Albert Ball made his final flight on May 7, 1917, when he flew as part of an eleven-strong hunting patrol into action against Jagdstaffel 11, led by Lothar Von Richthofen. Albert was pursuing the Albatros Scout of Lothar, who crash-landed, wounded. Then many witnessed Albert dive out of a cloud and crash. He died minutes later in the arms of a French girl, Madame Cecille Deloffre. Ball rose from obscurity to the top rank of contemporary fighter pilots in only 15 months. In that period, he had been awarded the MC, DSO, and two Bars, and was credited with at least 44 victories.
Download or read book VC Heroes The True Stories Behind Every VC Winner Since World War Two written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a nation with a long and proud military tradition, one token stands above all the others as a mark of recognition for the ultimate acts of individual feats of arms: the Victoria Cross. Awarded for one reason alone - to mark extreme acts of great heroism by British and Commonwealth servicemen in the face of the enemy - it is unquestionably the hardest club in the world to gain entrance to. Its holders, ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen, are linked by an uncommon bond of exceptional bravery displayed often at great personal risk and against impossible odds. The VC has been awarded only sixteen times since the end of the Second World War in 1945. Some of these awards were made to recipients who paid the ultimate sacrifice while demonstrating gallantry beyond the call of duty. Forged in battle, from the shell-scarred hills of Korea, to the windswept marshland of East Falkland and today's counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, each one of these VC has a uniquely inspiring tale to tell. These are their incredible stories.
Download or read book Triquet s Cross written by John MacFarlane and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2009 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The call to adventure, 1910-1942 -- The road of trials, 1943 -- A Canadian Victoria Cross, March 1944 -- Army public relations, April 1944 -- Hero in an army at war, May 1944-August 1945 -- Last attempt at being a regular soldier, 1945-1947 -- A hero's return to the ordinary world, 1947-1980.
Download or read book British VCs of World War 2 written by John Laffin and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the 106 deeds that merited the award of the Victoria Cross during the Second World War.
Download or read book D Day Girls written by Sarah Rose and published by Crown. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The dramatic, untold history of the heroic women recruited by Britain’s elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II “Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)—and all of it true.”—Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To “set Europe ablaze,” in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France. In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently declassified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There’s Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE’s unflappable “queen.” Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence—laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war. Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage—and the energy of politically animated women—can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high. Praise for D-Day Girls “Rigorously researched . . . [a] thriller in the form of a non-fiction book.”—Refinery29 “Equal parts espionage-romance thriller and historical narrative, D-Day Girls traces the lives and secret activities of the 39 women who answered the call to infiltrate France. . . . While chronicling the James Bond-worthy missions and love affairs of these women, Rose vividly captures the broken landscape of war.”—The Washington Post “Gripping history . . . thoroughly researched and written as smoothly as a good thriller, this is a mesmerizing story of creativity, perseverance, and astonishing heroism.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book The Blocking of Zeebrugge written by Captain A. F. B. Carpenter and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2012-04-12 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A full and exciting account of the Zeebrugge raid, on St. George's Day, April 23rd, 1918, in which the author won the VC - one of eight won in the raid. The raid, one of the Great War's most daring naval exploits, was designed to close off the German-occupied Belgian port of Zeebrugge, a principal base for the U-boat packs that were preying on British shipping. The brainchild of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, the raid followed months of meticulous planning, which, together with two abortive early attempts, are detailed in the first part of Carpenter's book. The second part of the book deals with the raid itself and the famous fight for possession of the mole controlling Zeebrugge harbour by troops landed from the cruiser HMS Vindictive. The book details the disappointing results of the smokescreen laid down to campouflage the raid and the successful sinking of the three concrete-filled British blockships, Thetis, Intrepid and Iphignia in the Zeebrugge harbour channel, and makes high claims for both the material and morale results of the raid, which cost 500 British casualties, including around 200 dead. The morale lift to allied spirits of the bold attack, coming at the height of the German Spring offensives in 1918, were probably more important than in achieving its desired results. The book is accompanied by forewords from Admirals Beatty and Sims, and by Marshal Foch, supreme Allied Generalissimo in 1918. It is accompanied by five dramatic drawings of the raid by the artist Charles De Lacey, and by some forty photographs, including 'before and after' reconnaissance aerial shots of the damage done, and eight charts, maps and plans of Zeebrugge port and its environs. Also accompanied by an appendix listing the ships and forces involved in the raid, and by an index.
Download or read book The History of the Victoria Cross written by Philip Aveling Wilkins and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Victoria Crosses of the Great War written by Collins and published by Collins. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible and uplifting stories surrounding the recipients of this highest of honours as described by The Times is republished in this highly illustrated volume. Photographs, maps and accounts are shown in detail.When war was declared in August 1914 The Times under its chief editor, Wickham Steed, embarked on an extraordinary project. As well as authoritative daily war reports in the paper itself, a separate weekly supplement would be produced, with 40 extra, illustrated pages of in-depth analysis. The result was The Times History of the War, collected into 22 massive volumes in 1921: 11,000 pages; 6 million words; thousands of photographs, graphics, illustrations and maps.The pages detailing The Victoria Cross have been extracted from those volumes to produce this detailed story of the heroic tales surrounding the recipients of this most famous of honours 100 years ago.
Download or read book Special Forces Hero written by Thomas Harder and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until the German occupation of his native Denmark in April 1940 Anders Lassen had no interest in the War. Yet over the next five years he became a highly decorated Special Forces legend and the only non-Commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross. After taking part in a mutiny on board a Danish ship, he made his way to Scotland. He first joined the Special Operations Executive before serving with the Small Scale Raiding Force, Special Air Service and Special Boat Service. He took part in the daring Operation Postmaster, off West Africa, and raided the Channel Islands and the Normandy coast. He saw most action in Eastern Mediterranean, fighting in Crete, the Dodecanese, Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and finally Italy. In April 1945, now a major aged 24, he was killed at Lake Comacchio, where his gallantry earned him his posthumous VC. This superb biography is not just a worthy tribute to an outstanding soldier, but a superb account of the numerous special force operations Anders was involved in.
Download or read book The Battle of the Atlantic written by Jonathan Dimbleby and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril," wrote Winston Churchill in his monumental history of World War Two. Churchill's fears were well-placed-the casualty rate in the Atlantic was higher than in any other theater of the entire war. The enemy was always and constantly there and waiting, lying just over the horizon or lurking beneath the waves. In many ways, the Atlantic shipping lanes, where U-boats preyed on American ships, were the true front of the war. England's very survival depended on assistance from the United States, much of which was transported across the ocean by boat. The shipping lanes thus became the main target of German naval operations between 1940 and 1945. The Battle of the Atlantic and the men who fought it were therefore crucial to both sides. Had Germany succeeded in cutting off the supply of American ships, England might not have held out. Yet had Churchill siphoned reinforcements to the naval effort earlier, thousands of lives might have been preserved. The battle consisted of not one but hundreds of battles, ranging from hours to days in duration, and forcing both sides into constant innovation and nightmarish second-guessing, trying desperately to gain the advantage of every encounter. Any changes to the events of this series of battles, and the outcome of the war-as well as the future of Europe and the world-would have been dramatically different. Jonathan Dimbleby's The Battle of the Atlantic offers a detailed and immersive account of this campaign, placing it within the context of the war as a whole. Dimbleby delves into the politics on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the role of Bletchley Park and the complex and dynamic relationship between America and England. He uses contemporary diaries and letters from leaders and sailors to chilling effect, evoking the lives and experiences of those who fought the longest battle of World War Two. This is the definitive account of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Download or read book Too Brave to Live Too Young to Die Teenage Heroes From WWI written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Metro Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-05 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War I was a slaughter on an unprecedented scale. Nevertheless there was no shortage of young men willing to sacrifice themselves for their country. Some lied about their age to join up, not just at the start of the war when it was seen as a glorious adventure, but even towards the end when the true horror of the mechanized butchery was known to one and all.This book concerns the young men who were not yet twenty when they won the Victoria Cross, the British armed forces highest award for gallantry. Many perished in the action that earned them the VC. Others survived to receive the award, but then went on to die later in the war.One was as young as sixteen. Several were just eighteen, though they were supposed to be nineteen before they were allowed to serve overseas. They were sailors and airmen, as well as soldiers, and they came from Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Nepal and India.Each one demonstrated an exceptional nerve and bravery. While some did survive World War I - even going on to serve in World War II - they showed an reckless indifference to death that made them Too Brave to Live, Too Young to Die.World War I has been over for nearly a hundred years now, but the tales of their valour live on. These men and their exploits deserve to be remembered - in the hope that young men will never be called on to do such things again.
Download or read book The Complete Victoria Cross written by Kevin Brazier and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fully revised paperback edition of the complete chronological record of VC holders is an essential work of reference for every student of military history. All the British and Commonwealth servicemen who have been awarded the highest honour for exceptional acts of bravery and self-sacrifice are commemorated here. The first VCs awarded for the Crimean War and in the nineteenth-century colonial wars are described, as are the VCs awarded in the world wars of the twentieth century and the most recent VCs awarded during present-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The extraordinary exploits recounted in this fascinating book make unforgettable reading.
Download or read book The Victoria Cross written by Michael Madden and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an ambitious endeavour to capture the history of Australia's pre-eminent award for acts of bravery in the face of the enemy and its highest military honour, the Victoria Cross (VC). Since 1856 when the award was created by Queen Victoria, 100 Australian servicemen have been recognised with the Cross. This book, however, is not a ......
Download or read book The First VCs written by Mark Ryan and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would you do if you were struck by an enemy bullet in wartime, then realized you were still alive? For most of us, that would be the end of our fight. If we were capable of thought while we tried to cope with the pain, we'd probably hope to be rushed to hospital, so that someone could save our lives. But a hundred years ago, in the opening battle of World War I at Mons, two young men didn't react like that. Lieutenant Maurice Dease and Private Sidney Godley, born only weeks apart into sharply contrasting worlds, shared the same defiance. They didn't think of themselves and went back for more, sustaining dreadful wounds in the process. One man died, the other lived—pieced back together painstakingly by the Germans, who had taken so many casualties of their own while overrunning the British position. Together Dease and Godley became the first winners of the Victoria Cross in World War I.
Download or read book Queen Victoria s Matchmaking written by Deborah Cadbury and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted the most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother. As her reign approached its sixth decade, Queen Victoria's grandchildren numbered over thirty, and to maintain and increase British royal power, she was determined to maneuver them into a series of dynastic marriages with the royal houses of Europe. Yet for all their apparent obedience, her grandchildren often had plans of their own, fueled by strong wills and romantic hearts. Victoria's matchmaking plans were further complicated by the tumultuous international upheavals of the time: revolution and war were in the air, and kings and queens, princes and princesses were vulnerable targets. Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Europe from London to Saint Petersburg, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions to enthralling effect. It is at once an intimate portrait of a royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the marriages the Queen arranged. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined Queen Empress the next.
