Download or read book Summary of Stephan Talty s Saving Bravo written by Everest Media and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-03-04T22:59:00Z with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Iceal Gene Hambleton had ached to get away from the listless plains of Illinois his entire life. But he was born into a farming family, and his father discouraged dreaming in him and his brothers. #2 Gene, the eldest son of Iceal Sr. , grew up to be a very different person than his father. He was funny, mischievous, and defiant, and he loved pranks. He grew up resenting his given name, Iceal, and eventually changed it to Gene. #3 Many young Americans in the 1930s and 1940s dreamed of flight. #4 Hayden’s obsession with flight began when he was a child. He would cut out balsa models of airplanes and fly them around his house.
Download or read book Saving Bravo written by Stephan Talty and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2018 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of the Vietnam War, Lt. Colonel Gene Hambleton's memory was filled with highly classified information that the Soviets and North Vietnamese badly want. When Hambleton was shot down in the midst of North Vietnam's Easter Offensive, US forces placed the entire war on hold to save a single man hiding amongst 30,000 enemy troops and tanks. After other missions fail, Navy SEAL Thomas Norris and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go in on foot. Talty describes the riveting story of one of the greatest rescue missions in the history of the Special Forces. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book A Captain s Duty written by Richard Phillips and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I share the country's admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew. His courage is a model for all Americans." --President Barack Obama It was just another day on the job for fifty-three-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, the United States-flagged cargo ship which was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program. That all changed when armed Somali pirates boarded the ship. The pirates didn't expect the crew to fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew. Thus began the tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue when U.S. Navy SEALs opened fire and picked off three of the captors. "It never ends like this," Captain Phillips said. And he's right. A Captain's Duty tells the life-and-death drama of the Vermont native who was held captive on a tiny lifeboat off Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores. A story of adventure and courage, it provides the intimate details of this high-seas hostage-taking--the unbearable heat, the death threats, the mock executions, and the escape attempt. When the pirates boarded his ship, Captain Phillips put his experience into action, doing everything he could to safeguard his crew. And when he was held captive by the pirates, he marshaled all his resources to ensure his own survival, withstanding intense physical hardship and an escalating battle of wills with the pirates. This was it: the moment where training meets instinct and where character is everything. Richard Phillips was ready.
Download or read book The Rescue of Bat 21 written by Darrell D Whitcomb and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When his electronic warfare plane--call sign Bat 21--was shot down on 2 April 1972, fifty-three-year-old Air Force navigator Iceal “Gene” Hambleton parachuted into the middle of a North Vietnamese invasion force and set off the biggest and most controversial air rescue effort of the Vietnam War. Now, after twenty-five years of official secrecy, the story of that dangerous and costly rescue is revealed for the first time by a decorated Air Force pilot and Vietnam veteran. Involving personnel from all services, including the Coast Guard, the unorthodox rescue operation claimed the lives of eleven soldiers and airmen, destroyed or damaged several aircraft, and put hundreds of airmen, a secret commando unit, and a South Vietnamese infantry division at risk. The book also examines the thorny debates arising from an operation that balanced one man’s life against mounting U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties and material losses, the operation’s impact on one of the most critical battles of the war, and the role played by search and rescue as America disengaged from that war.
Download or read book Agent Garbo written by Stephan Talty and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the life of Juan Pujol, a poultry farmer who opposed the Nazis and concocted a series of staggering lies that lead to his becoming one of Germany's most valued spies, while actually acting as a double-agent for the Allies.
Download or read book The Good Assassin written by Stephan Talty and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2020 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The untold story of a Latvian Nazi's gruesome crimes and an Israeli spy's epic journey to bring him to justice-a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis."--
Download or read book Black Irish written by Stephan Talty and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2013 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Returning to the working-class Irish-Catholic community of her childhood in South Buffalo to care for her ailing policeman father, Absalom Kearney joins the police department and begins receiving cryptic messages from a twisted serial killer only to find her investigation stymied by her own colleagues. A first novel by the best-selling author of Empire of Blue Water. 12,000 first printing.
Download or read book Inside SEAL Team Six written by Don Mann and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-11-28 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Inside Story of America's Ultimate Warriors When Osama bin Laden was assassinated, the entire world was fascinated by the men who had completed the seemingly impossible mission that had dogged the U.S. government for over a decade. SEAL Team 6 became synonymous with heroism, duty, and justice. Only a handful of the elite men who make up the SEALs, the US Navy's best and bravest, survive the legendary and grueling selection process that leads to becoming a member of Team 6, a group so classified it technically does not even exist. There are no better warriors on Earth. Don Mann knows what it takes to be a brother in this ultra-selective fraternity. As a member of Seal Team Six for over eight years and a SEAL for over seventeen years, he worked in countless covert operations, operating from land, sea, and air, and facing shootings, decapitations, and stabbings. He was captured by the enemy and lived to tell the tale, and he participated in highly classified missions all over the globe, including Somalia, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As a coordinator for several civilian SEAL training programs, and as a former Training Officer of SEAL Team Six, he was directly responsible for shaping the bodies and minds of SEALs who carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden. But to become a SEAL, Mann had to overcome his own troubled childhood and push his body to its breaking point -- and beyond. Inside Seal Team 6 is a high octane narrative of physical and mental toughness, giving unprecedented insight to the inner workings of the training and secret missions of the world's most respected and feared combat unit.
Download or read book Intrepid Sailors written by Chipp Reid and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reid tells one of the greatest sea stories in the history of the U.S. Navy. Under Commodore Edward Preble, the Navy came of age fighting the scourge of the time, the infamous Barbary Pirates. Intrepid Sailors chronicles the Navy’s campaign to subdue the pirate leader of Tripoli, who declared war on the United States in 1801. After two failed campaigns, Preble took command of the U.S. squadron in the Mediterranean and served notice to world the U.S. Navy would be a force with which to reckon. Among the ships in Preble’s flotilla was a non-descript little ketch. Once a French supply boat, the ketch served Tripoli until the U.S. squadron captured her in 1803. Upon her capture, Preble incorporated the little boat into his force, re-naming her the Intrepid. She was the first ship in the United States Navy to bear the name of Intrepid and would play a central role in some of the primary feats of “Preble’s Boys.” The exploits of the officers and sailors in this campaign are the stuff of legend. In culling myth from fact, Reid went back to original sources, using the words of the men in the campaign to tell their story. Whether it is Decatur leading the daring raid to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia or the escape attempts of American prisoners in Tripoli, Intrepid Sailors brings to life a story many Americans once widely knew but that today has become little more than footnote. Unlike other books on the topic, however, Intrepid Sailors delves into the development of officers and sailors under Preble. Most were half the age of their commander and few had major combat experience. Under Preble, these men forged a legacy of professionalism to which the Navy still adheres. The book also examines one of the most famous friendships in American and Navy history – that of Decatur and Somers. Their thirst for glory and utter devotion to making the U.S. Navy a permanent, respected force inspired all around them but that quest for immortality never caused a breach in their friendship. Instead, that friendship grew stronger, providing even more inspiration. Intrepid Sailors offers a rare insight into the lives of men who today loom larger-than-life and who continue to inspire each new class of naval officer. Stephen Decatur, Richard Somers, Charles Stewart, James Lawrence, Edward Preble and a pantheon of early U.S. Navy heroes all come to life.
Download or read book Alone at Dawn written by Dan Schilling and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling true account of John Chapman, Medal of Honor recipient and Special Ops Combat Controller, and his heroic one-man stand during the Afghan War, as he sacrificed his life to save the lives of twenty-three comrades-in-arms. In the predawn hours of March 4, 2002, just below the 10,469-foot peak of a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, a fierce battle raged. Outnumbered by Al Qaeda fighters, Air Force Combat Controller John Chapman and a handful of Navy SEALs struggled to take the summit in a desperate bid to find a lost teammate. Chapman, leading the charge, was gravely wounded in the initial assault. Believing he was dead, his SEAL leader ordered a retreat. Chapman regained consciousness alone, with the enemy closing in on three sides. John Chapman's subsequent display of incredible valor -- first saving the lives of his SEAL teammates and then, knowing he was mortally wounded, single-handedly engaging two dozen hardened fighters to save the lives of an incoming rescue squad -- posthumously earned him the Medal of Honor. Chapman is the first airman in nearly fifty years to be given the distinction reserved for America's greatest heroes. Alone at Dawn is also a behind-the-scenes look at the Air Force Combat Controllers: the world's deadliest and most versatile special operations force, whose members must not only exceed the qualifications of Navy SEAL and Army Delta Force teams but also act with sharp decisiveness and deft precision -- even in the face of life-threatening danger. Drawing from firsthand accounts, classified documents, dramatic video footage, and extensive interviews with leaders and survivors of the operation, Alone at Dawn is the story of an extraordinary man's brave last stand and the brotherhood that forged him.
Download or read book By Honor Bound written by Tom Norris and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April of 1972, SEAL Lieutenant Tom Norris risked his life in an unprecedented ground rescue of two American airmen who were shot down behind enemy lines in North Vietnam, a feat for which he would be awarded the Medal of Honor--an award that represents the pinnacle of heroism and courage. Just six months later, Norris was sent on a dangerous special reconnaissance mission that would take his team deep into enemy territory. On that mission, they engaged a vastly superior force. In the running gun battle that ensued, Lieutenant Norris was severely wounded; a bullet entered his left eye and exited the left side of his head. SEAL Petty Officer Mike Thornton, under heavy fire, fought his way back onto a North Vietnamese beach to rescue his officer. This was the first time Tom and Mike had been on a combat mission together. Mike's act of courage and loyalty marks the only time in modern history that the Medal of Honor has been awarded in a combat action where one recipient received the Medal for saving the life of another. By Honor Bound is the story of Tom Norris and Mike Thornton, two living American heroes who grew up very differently, entered military service and the Navy SEAL teams for vastly different reasons, and were thrown together for a single combat mission--a mission that would define their lives from that day forward.
Download or read book SEAL Team Six written by Howard E. Wasdin and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2011-05-10 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling book that takes you inside SEAL Team Six – the covert squad that killed Osama Bin Laden SEAL Team Six is a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and counterinsurgency. In this dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin takes readers deep inside the world of Navy SEALS and Special Forces snipers, beginning with the grueling selection process of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S)—the toughest and longest military training in the world. After graduating, Wasdin faced new challenges. First there was combat in Operation Desert Storm as a member of SEAL Team Two. Then the Green Course: the selection process to join the legendary SEAL Team Six, with a curriculum that included practiced land warfare to unarmed combat. More than learning how to pick a lock, they learned how to blow the door off its hinges. Finally as a member of SEAL Team Six he graduated from the most storied and challenging sniper program in the country: The Marine's Scout Sniper School. Eventually, of the 18 snipers in SEAL Team Six, Wasdin became the best—which meant one of the best snipers on the planet. Less than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops, helicopters and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help, and desperately trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of Mogadishu, as it become known, left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded. Howard Wasdin had both of his legs nearly blown off while engaging the enemy. His dramatic combat tales combined with inside details of becoming one of the world's deadliest snipers make this one of the most explosive military memoirs in years.
Download or read book Escape from the Land of Snows written by Stephan Talty and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-01-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable true story of the miraculous journey that made the Dalai Lama into the man he is today and sparked the fight for Tibetan freedom “A hair-raising tale of daring and escape.”—The Washington Post In the early weeks of 1959, a bloody uprising gripped the streets of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa as ragtag Tibetan rebels faced off against their Communist Chinese occupiers. Realizing that the impending battle would result in a bloodbath and his own capture, the young Dalai Lama began planning an audacious escape to India, a two-week journey that would involve numerous near-death encounters, a dangerous mountain crossing, and evading thousands of Chinese soldiers who were intent on hunting him down. The journey would transform this naïve young man into one of the world’s greatest statesmen . . . and create an enduring beacon of hope for a nation. Emotionally powerful and irresistibly page-turning, Escape from the Land of Snows is simultaneously a portrait of the inhabitants of a spiritual nation forced to take up arms in defense of their ideals, and the saga of a burgeoning leader who was ultimately transformed into the towering figure the world knows today—a charismatic champion of free thinking and universal compassion.
Download or read book Crucible of Hell written by Saul David and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning historian, Saul David, the riveting narrative of the heroic US troops, bonded by the brotherhood and sacrifice of war, who overcame enormous casualties to pull off the toughest invasion of WWII's Pacific Theater -- and the Japanese forces who fought with tragic desperation to stop them. With Allied forces sweeping across Europe and into Germany in the spring of 1945, one enormous challenge threatened to derail America's audacious drive to win the world back from the Nazis: Japan, the empire that had extended its reach southward across the Pacific and was renowned for the fanaticism and brutality of its fighters, who refused to surrender, even when faced with insurmountable odds. Taking down Japan would require an unrelenting attack to break its national spirit, and launching such an attack on the island empire meant building an operations base just off its shores on the island of Okinawa. The amphibious operation to capture Okinawa was the largest of the Pacific War and the greatest air-land-sea battle in history, mobilizing 183,000 troops from Seattle, Leyte in the Philippines, and ports around the world. The campaign lasted for 83 blood-soaked days, as the fighting plumbed depths of savagery. One veteran, struggling to make sense of what he had witnessed, referred to the fighting as the "crucible of Hell." Okinawan civilians died in the tens of thousands: some were mistaken for soldiers by American troops; but as the US Marines spearheading the invasion drove further onto the island and Japanese defeat seemed inevitable, many more civilians took their own lives, some even murdering their own families. In just under three months, the world had changed irrevocably: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died; the war in Europe ended; America's appetite for an invasion of Japan had waned, spurring President Truman to use other means -- ultimately atomic bombs -- to end the war; and more than 250,000 servicemen and civilians on or near the island of Okinawa had lost their lives. Drawing on archival research in the US, Japan, and the UK, and the original accounts of those who survived, Crucible of Hell tells the vivid, heart-rending story of the battle that changed not just the course of WWII, but the course of war, forever.
Download or read book The Making of a Navy SEAL written by Brandon Webb and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BEFORE HE COULD FORGE A BAND OF ELITE WARRIORS... HE HAD TO BECOME ONE HIMSELF. Brandon Webb's experiences in the world's most elite sniper corps are the stuff of legend. From his grueling years of training in Naval Special Operations to his combat tours in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, The Making of a Navy SEAL provides a rare and riveting look at the inner workings of the U.S. military through the eyes of a covert operations specialist. Yet it is Webb's distinguished second career as a lead instructor for the shadowy "sniper cell" and Course Manager of the Navy SEAL Sniper Program that trained some of America's finest and deadliest warriors—including Marcus Luttrell and Chris Kyle—that makes his story so compelling. Luttrell credits Webb's training with his own survival during the ill-fated 2005 Operation Redwing in Afghanistan. Kyle went on to become the U.S. military's top marksman, with more than 150 confirmed kills. From a candid chronicle of his student days, going through the sniper course himself, to his hair-raising close calls with Taliban and al Qaeda forces in the northern Afghanistan wilderness, to his vivid account of designing new sniper standards and training some of the most accomplished snipers of the twenty-first century, Webb provides a rare look at the making of the Special Operations warriors who are at the forefront of today's military. Explosive, revealing, and intelligent, The Making of a Navy SEAL provides a uniquely personal glimpse into one of the most challenging and secretive military training courses in the world.
Download or read book The Rifle written by Andrew Biggio and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It all started because of a rifle. The Rifle is an inspirational story and hero’s journey of a 28-year-old U.S. Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all -- WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a U.S. Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last-living WWII veterans. Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. 96 signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.
Download or read book Taking Fire written by Kevin O'Rourke and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2013-09-28 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American military special operations forcesÑRangers, SEALs, and othersÑhave become a well-recognized and highly respected part of our popular culture. But whom do these elite warriors look to in their times of greatest need: when wounded on the battlefield, cut off deep behind enemy lines, or adrift in the expanse of the worldÕs oceans? They look skyward, hoping to catch a glimpse of their own personal guardian angel: a U.S. Air Force pararescue jumper (PJ) who lives, and sometimes dies, by the motto that others may live. Taking Fire provides an up-close look into the heroism and mystique of this little known segment of the Air Force Special Tactics community by focusing on one of the most dramatic rescues of the Vietnam War. It was June 1972 and Capt. Lynn Aikman is returning from a bombing mission over North Vietnam when his F-4 Phantom is jumped by an enemy MiG and shot down. He and his backseater Tom Hanton eject from their crippled aircraft, but Hanton lands near a village and is quickly captured by local militia. Badly injured during the ejection, Aikman lands some distance from the village, and there is a chance that he can be recovered if American rescuers can reach him before the enemy does. Now on the ground and drifting in and out of consciousness, Captain Aikman looks up and suddenly sees his guardian angel in the form of USAF Pararescue Jumper Chuck McGrath. As Sergeant McGrath is preparing to hook the downed pilot to a hoist line, he sees it fall to the ground. Hostile fire on the hovering Jolly Green Giant rescue helicopter has damaged the hoist mechanism causing the operator to cut the line. While circling A-1 Skyraiders strafe the militia to keep them away from Aikman and McGrath, the helicopter crew races to come up with a plan. ItÕs getting dark, and theyÕll only have one chance. Taking Fire is an exciting, highly dramatic story of life and death over North Vietnam. Much more than a chronicle the events of 27 June 1972, the book gives the reader an up-close look at the little known world of the U.S. Air ForceÕs elite aerial rescue force.
