Download or read book Norwich written by Stephen Snelling and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Singapore and the Thailand Burma Railway written by Lt. Colonel Alfred Knights and published by Arena books. This book was released on 2013-01-14 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents one of the most vivid descriptions of day-to-day life in a Japanese POW labour camp to have appeared so far. The story follows the experiences of the Norfolk Territorial Regiment from 1942 to 1945, under the command of Lt. Col. Knights, during and after the fall of Singapore. Many will recollect having seen the film, The Bridge on The River Kwai. It tended to fictionalise certain matters of fact. This book, drawn directly from a memoir only recently uncovered, reveals that the Japanese designed railway was successfully completed with the forced labour of Allied troops in conjunction with Chinese and Malay captives. The Royal Norfolks were allocated a section of the line which required excavating deep cuttings in the rock hills parallel with the river. They had their 'own' camp with a Japanese officer in charge. He constantly pressed for quicker progress, and for work to be done by all the prisoners, including those in the camp hospital and their officers, contrary to international law. The Regiment's experiences are reported by Lt. Col. Knights in his book. He gives details of his own and others' sufferings, both those inflicted by their captors and those occurring from tropical diseases and insects, all being worsened by a lack of medicines and food. Some of the local Thais, at great risk to themselves, provided a little of both of those commodities. After the railway was completed, the survivors were marched back into Thailand. There they were required to dig a deep ditch round their camp. It was suspected that this would be their grave when they were shot, if the Japanese decided that they had lost the war. Fortunately the two atomic bombs resulted in the Japanese Emperor himself announcing their surrender, forestalling that action. The final chapters of the book are filled with excitement and tension in the efforts of the British officers to hoodwink their captors.

Download or read book The Greatest Raid of All written by Cecil Ernest Lucas Phillips and published by Pan Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A deed of glory intimately involved in high strategy' - Winston Churchill St Nazaire, 1.34am March 28th, 1942 - the destroyer HMS Campbeltown , with her Oerlikons blazing at the enemy guns only a few yards away, crashed with terrific force into one of the enormous lock gates of the Normandie Dock. Operation Chariot had reached its climax. Its object was to destroy the essential gear of the largest dock in the world, so that it could not be used by German battleships, and it was brilliantly successful in its main purpose. The story of the assault, under a storm of enemy fire at point-blank range which set the sea itself on fire, and of the heroism of the men in the 'little ships' raid, carried out by Royal Navy forces - no fewer than five VC's were awarded - is one of the most thrilling and vivid to come out of any war. 'Exciting and moving account of a great epic' Observer

Download or read book Gun Button to Fire written by Tom Neil and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The amazing story of one of the 'Few', fighter ace Tom Neil who shot down 13 enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

Download or read book The Silver Spitfire written by Tom Neil and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliantly vivid Second World War memoir by one of 'the Few' Spitfire fighter pilots. Following the D-Day landings, Battle of Britain hero Tom Neil was assigned as an RAF liaison to an American fighter squadron. As the Allies pushed east, Neil commandeered an abandoned Spitfire as his own personal aeroplane. Erasing any evidence of its provenance and stripping it down to bare metal, it became the RAF's only silver Spitfire. Alongside his US comrades, he took the silver Spitfire into battle until, with the war's end, he was forced to make a difficult decision. Faced with too many questions about the mysterious rogue fighter, he contemplated increasingly desperate measures to offload it, including bailing out mid-Channel. He eventually left the Spitfire at Worthy Down, never to be seen again. THE SILVER SPITFIRE is the first-hand, gripping story of Neil's heroic experience as an RAF fighter pilot and his reminiscences with his very own personal Spitfire.

Download or read book Commando Medic written by Stephen Snelling and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eric Harden was the only British army medic to be awarded the nation's highest honour for battlefield bravery during the Second World War and remains the only rank and file member of the Royal Army Medical Corps to be recognised by the award of the Victoria Cross. As a pre-war member of the St John Ambulance, he saw service during the 1940-41 Blitz and later volunteered for the Commandos, under-going the same rigorous training as the fighting men before being attached to 45 Royal Marine Commando. He landed with his unit on D-Day and was involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the Normandy campaign. During a bitter battle on the Dutch-German border, Harden, known throughout his unit as Doc, was killed saving the lives of wounded men trapped in no-man's land. Commenting on the posthumous award in a speech to the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for War, the Rt Hon James Grigg was sufficiently moved by his selfless actions to say: "I do not remember ever reading anything more heroic."

Download or read book Voices from the Past the Wooden Horse of Gallipoli written by Stephen Snelling and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * The first full-length study devoted entirely to the SS River Clyde and the men who sailed in her in the spring of 1915. * Includes Victoria Cross actions. * A fascinating collection of original eye-witness accounts and contemporary commentary.