Showing results for "The Front" in Military

By 1943, after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad, the Wehmacht's panzer armies gradually lost the initiative on the Eastern Front. The tide of the war had turned. Their combined arms technique, which had swept Soviet forces before it during 1941 and 1942, had lost its edge. Thereafter the war on the Eastern Front was dominated by tank-led offensives and, as Robert Forczyk shows, the Red Army's mechanized forces gained the upper hand, delivering a sequence of powerful blows that shattered one German defensive line after another.

Dawn on Sunday, June 22, 1941 saw the opening onslaughts of Operation Barbarossa as German forces stormed forward into the Soviet Union. Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle. A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They saw epic battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, and yet it was a daily war of attrition which ultimately proved fatal for Hitler's ambition and the German military machine.

General Erhard Raus was one of the German Army's finest panzer generals and a leading exponent of blitzkrieg in the east. German panzers were witnesses to the incredible onslaught that was the first few months of Barbarossa, then the gradual strengthening of Russian resistance, counterattack and, ultimately, the long and drawn-out German retreat. Raus and his panzers were tested in every conceivable tactical situation and, inevitably, Raus became highly versed in all aspects of mobilized warfare.

The Finnish Front Line is a historical biography of Urho Kekkonen, the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland. Gordon F. Sander focuses on Kekkonen's pivotal first term as president, which was bracketed by two crises that together formed the template for both Finland's relationship with the Soviet Union from 1956 through the fall of the USSR, and Kekkonen's own "special" relationship with Moscow: the Night Frost crisis of 1957, which derived from the Kremlin's desire to exert greater influence on Finnish politics.

In June 1944, an Allied army of British, American, and Canadian troops sought to open up a Second Front in Normandy. But they were not only fighting to bring the Second World War to an end. After decades of Anglo-American struggle for dominance, they were also contending with one another—to determine who would ascend to global hegemony once Hitler's armies fell. Marc Milner traces this bitter rivalry as it emerged after the First World War and evolved during the fragile peace which led to the Second.

On June 14, 1863, US Major General John Adams Dix received the following directive from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck: "All your available force should be concentrated to threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible." With General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marching toward Gettysburg and only a limited Confederate force guarding Richmond, Halleck sensed a rare opportunity for the Union cause.

In Fast Jets on the Front Line, Alan Munro reflects on his time in the RAF and the Cold War jets which he flew. Having started his career after basic training on the Gloster Javelin with No. 228 OCU, Alan went on to become a flying instructor at No. 1 Flying Training School, Linton-on-Ouse. But with the United Kingdom's withdrawal from East of Suez, he found himself with a ground posting and questioning whether he would see front-line flying again.

Er beschreibt seine Kriegserlebnisse aus der Sicht eines Frontoffiziers, welcher nicht nur das Bindeglied zwischen Truppe und Stab darstellte, sondern es auch verstand seine Männer im Kampf mit nach vorne zu reißen. In den Zeilen findet man schrecklichen und schöne Erlebnisse wieder, welche das Leben und Sterben des Deutschen Soldaten täglich begleiteten.

Dog Soldiers tells the story of two brave young ‘dog soldiers’ (Army bomb dog handlers), killed in action in Afghanistan with their dogs by their side, through the inspirational words of their mothers. Lance Corporal Kenneth Rowe and Lance Corporal Liam Tasker were both dog lovers from...

Hans Schiller was a seventeen-year-old student in Bromberg, Prussia, when World War I broke out in August 1914. He enlisted in the German army and was assigned to an artillery unit on the Eastern Front. From 1915 to 1917, Schiller saw action in what is now Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. After the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917 and Russia's withdrawal from the war, Schiller was transferred to the Western Front. He arrived in time for Germany's last great offensive in the west.

Forty-one Australian soldiers died in action over 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan; in that time more than 1400 veterans have taken their own lives. Veterans today are chronically over-represented when it comes to PTSD, depression, homelessness and suicide. Australians rightfully pause on Anzac Day each year to solemnly remember fallen soldiers, but are we forgetting our returned veterans whose personal battles continue every single day, and how did we get to this point?

Best-selling author and award-winning former BBC Chief News Correspondent Kate Adie reveals the ways in which women's lives changed during World War One and what the impact has been for women in its centenary year. In 1914 the world changed forever. When World War One broke out and a generation of men went off to fight, best-selling author and From Our Own Correspondent presenter Kate Adie shows how women emerged from the shadows of their domestic lives. Now a visible force in public life, they began to take up essential roles - from transport to policing, munitions to sport, entertainment, even politics.

Robert Forczyk's incisive study offers fresh insight into how the two most powerful mechanized armies of WWII developed their tactics and weaponry during the early years of the Russo-German War. He uses German, Russian, and English sources to provide the first comprehensive overview and analysis of armored warfare from the German and Soviet perspectives.

From the beginning of World War II through the early days of Vietnam, groundbreaking female photojournalist and war correspondent Dickey Chapelle chased dangerous assignments her male colleagues wouldn’t touch, pioneering a radical style of reporting that focused on the humanity of the oppressed. She documented conditions across Eastern Europe in the wake of the second world war. She marched down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with the South Vietnamese Army and across the Sierra Maestra Mountains with Castro.

Erhard Steiniger joined his Wehrmacht unit on October 12, 1940, as a radio operator, a role which required his constant presence with troops at the Front, right in the midst of combat. On June 22, 1941, he accompanied his division to Lithuania where he experienced the catastrophic first day of Operation Barbarossa. He later witnessed intense clashes during the conquest of the Baltic islands and the battles leading up to Leningrad on the Volkhov and Lake Ladoga.

On October 12, 2000, at 11:18 a.m., an 8,400-ton destroyer, the USS Cole, was rocked by an enormous explosion. The ship’s commander, Kirk Lippold, watched as tiles tumbled from the ceiling, mugs of coffee tumbled to the floor, and everything not bolted down seemed to float in midair. Lippold knew in a matter of moments that the Cole had been attacked. What he didn’t know was how much the world was changing around him.

Der dritte Teil meiner Trilogie "Sonne im Staub – Labyrinth der Fronten" begleitet den Verlauf nach meiner Rückkehr aus Afghanistan. Die Konsequenzen meiner Entscheidungen der Vergangenheit werden mir ungeschönt vor Augen geführt. Der Zug meines Lebens fährt nun auf Gleisen, für die ich nie ein Ticket wollte und doch wird er mich an ein Ziel bringen. Denn egal wohin unsere Reise geht, dort wo wir ankommen, sind wir nicht allein! Nun im letzten Teil, kann ich meine Erlebnisse so schildern, wie sie mir auch in meinen Alb- und Tagträumen begegnen.

Military historian Richard Holmes turns his attention to the infamous First World War trench line, the Western Front. Of the nine million British and Dominion soldiers who were killed in action in the Great War, most died here. In this thorough examination of the role the Front played in the war...

German tanks rolled unimpeded across the Russian steppes at the start of Hitler’s campaign against the Soviet Union. But in 1943, the so-called Slavic "untermensch" (subhumans) gain the initiative and transform the country into a hell for Hitler’s invasion forces. Nearly 100,000 Germans are captured after the Battle of Stalingrad at the beginning of the year. Ahead lies cold, hunger and ill-treatment, and only five percent of prisoners will return to Germany after the war.

On 6 June, 1944, Britain woke up to a profound silence. Overnight, 160,000 Allied troops had vanished and an eerie emptiness settled over the country. The majority of those men would never return. This is the story of that extraordinary 24 hours. Using a wealth of first-person testimonies, renowned historian Max Arthur recounts a remarkable new oral history of D-Day, beginning with the two years leading up to the silent day that saw the UK transformed by the arrival of thousands of American and Canadian troops.