Showing titles in Armed Forces

From historian and columnist in Leatherneck and Armor magazines, this is the exciting, personal account of a marine fighter squadron in the South Pacific during the critical days of 1943, when the tide turned against the Japanese. Based on individual interviews and wartime documents, this is a thrilling narrative of the marines who lived, and died, during the toughest battles of the entire war.

These are the combat experiences of the first Marine to command a special operations task force, recounted against a backdrop of his journey from raw Second Lieutenant to seasoned Colonel and Task Force Commander; from leading Marines through the streets of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul to directing multi-national special operations forces in a dauntingly complex fight against a formidable foe.

Born in the Philippines to an American father and a Filipina mother, George Cooper is one of the few surviving veteran pilots who saw action over such fearsome targets as Rabaul and Wewak. Not just another flag-waving story of air combat, Jayhawk describes the war as it really was - a conflict with far-reaching tentacles that gripped and tore at not only the combatants, but also their families, friends, and the way they lived their lives.

From the best-selling author of The Commando and Born to Fight comes a fascinating investigation of modern warfare that combines methodical research and the fast-paced action of battle with the personal stories of the combatants on both sides of the line. Taking us from the suburbs of western...

JOIN SAS LEGEND PHIL CAMPION AS HE SHARES HIS DEEPLY PERSONAL LIFE STORY, WARTS AND ALL In WHO DARES WINS Big Phil Campion reveals his chequered past, from terrible abuse suffered in a string of kids' homes to psychological abuse suffered at a top public school. Phil guides you through his...

Bloomsbury presents Blazing Star, Setting Sun by Jeffrey Cox, read by Lance C Fuller. From popular Pacific Theatre expert Jeffrey R. Cox comes this insightful new history of the critical Guadalcanal and Solomons campaign at the height of World War II. Cox's previous book, Morning Star, Rising...

For more than three decades, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was the US Navy’s premier carrier-based, multirole fighter jet. From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power. Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14, from the Gulf of Sidra to the Iran-Iraq War to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.

A stirring narrative of World War II's final major battle—the Pacific war's largest, bloodiest, most savagely fought campaign—the last of its kind. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, more than 184,000 US troops began landing on the only Japanese home soil invaded during the Pacific war. Just...

By the summer of 1945, Adm. Bull Halsey's US Third Fleet had fought its way far enough in the Pacific that its carrier-based fighters could launch attacks on Japan itself in preparation for the invasion of the home islands, planned for the fall of 1945. This mission US Navy fighters, fighter-bombers, dive-bombers, and torpedo-bombers - Hellcats, Avengers, Helldivers, and more - carried out with a vengeance, striking airfields, industrial targets, and coastal facilities while flying into the teeth of Japanese air defenses.

War at Sea is a dramatic global tour of this remote museum and other formerly lost traces of humanity's naval heritage. It is also an account by the world's leading naval archaeologist of how underwater exploration has discovered these remains, thus resolving mysteries, adding to our understanding of the past, and providing intimate details of the experience of naval warfare. 

The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot. "A heart-pounding narrative of the courage, sacrifice, and tragedy of America's elite fighter pilots." —James M. Scott, New York Times bestselling author of The...

This is the story of a young man who trained as a pilot, and then flew with the Royal Flying Corps in France during the First World War, eventually becoming an ace. Hugh White flew F.E.2D Scout aircraft as a reconnaissance patrol pilot and later in the war was promoted to squadron leader of squadrons flying the S.E.5a, which was Britain's best fighter aircraft at the time. During the two years of flying, he experienced and survived a series of escapades including a dramatic mid-air collision with the enemy. 

The Crew recounts the intimate, personal testimonies to the author of Wing Commander Ken Cook who served as Bomb Aimer with the Comans crew. The Crew specifically follows Flying Officer Jim Comans and his crewmen from their enlistment as volunteers, through training and into operational service...

George Thenault’s The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille was published in 1921. These pilots were fighting at the beginning of military aviation. Thenault’s account covers all aspects of this squadron in World War One, from their activities on the ground to battles in the air.

Graham Pitchfork has built on these reminiscences to trace the roles of Beaufighter squadrons spread across all the theaters of World War Two operations. From home bases, through north-west Europe, North Africa, Malta, and the Mediterranean to the far Far East and south-west Pacific, the Beaufighter served far and wide as did the crews of the RAF, RAAF, SAAF, and New Zealand and Canadian squadrons. All are covered in this quite unique book to be savored by all those interested in the war in the air from 1939-1945. 

The Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller, brought to by Penguin and published for the 75th anniversary 'Powerful . . . there is rage in his ink. McKay's book grips by its passion and originality. Some 25,000 people perished in the firestorm that raged through the city. I have never seen it better...

With a total of 40 victories, Oswald Boelcke was Germany's first ace in World War I-and a century later he remains a towering figure in the history of air warfare, renowned for his character, inspirational leadership, organizational genius, development of air-to-air tactics, and impact on aerial doctrine. Paving the way for modern air forces across the world with his pioneering strategies, Boelcke had a dramatic effect on his contemporaries. The famed Red Baron's mentor, instructor, squadron commander, and friend, he exerted a tremendous influence upon the German air force.

Simo Häyhä was a man of action who spoke very little, but he was respected by his men and his superiors and given many difficult missions, including taking out specific targets. Able to move silently and swiftly through the landscape, melting into the snowbound surroundings in his white camouflage fatigues, his aim was deadly and his quarry rarely escaped. The Russians learned of his reputation as a marksman and tried several times to kill him by indirect fire. He was promoted from corporal to second lieutenant and he was awarded the Cross of Kollaa.

Sailing across the Pacific, the battle-scarred heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis had just delivered a secret cargo that would trigger the end of World War II. Heading westward, she was sunk by a Japanese submarine. In 12 minutes, some 300 men went down with her. More than 900 other spent four horrific days and five nights in the ocean with no water to drink, savaged by a pitiless sun and swarms of sharks. Incredibly, no one knew they were there until a navy patrol plane accidentally discovered them. In the end, only 316 crewmen survived. How could this have happened - and why?

The Mosquito was probably World War II's most versatile combat aircraft. This book contains hundreds of firsthand accounts from many of the two-man crews who flew in them; pilots and navigators. It portrays the dramatic experiences of flying in its many roles as pathfinder, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, precision bombing, and low-level ground attack aircraft. It describes many of the RAF's most audacious raids on prime, but difficult, targets where carpet bombing by heavy bombers was likely to be ineffective and cause unnecessary casualties to civilians.