This book commemorates the US paratrooper heroes who died on 20 September 1944 during the attempted crossing of the River Waal to liberate the city of Nijmegen in Holland. The bridge crossing was a key part of Operation Market Garden, made famous in the film A Bridge Too Far, and this beautifully illustrated and researched book traces the significance of the bridge to the overall campaign and details events leading up to the operation. Most importantly, it provides gripping and insightful inform...
The Italian campaign was one of the most debated of the Second World War, splitting the American and British allies, and causing great disharmony. After the fall of Rome and the surrender of Italy, the invasion of Normandy led to the Italian campaign becoming a sideshow as the D-Day Dodgers' fought their way through Italy to the Alps against a grinding defence and extreme weather. In a sequence of 200 wartime photographs Simon Forty sums up the major events of the conflict - from the landings...
In 1940, the strategically vital island of Malta was Britain's last toehold in the central Mediterranean, wreaking havoc among Axis shipping. Launching an air campaign to knock Malta out of the war, first Italy and then Germany sought to force a surrender or reduce the defences enough to allow an invasion. Drawing on original documents, multilingual aviation analyst Ryan Noppen explains how technical and tactical problems caused the original Italian air campaign of 1940-41 to fail, and then how...
The support provided by the Allied air armies to the preparations for the invasion of France and the Normandy campaign is overshadowed by the dramatic and protracted fighting on the ground. Yet the air campaign played a key role in blinding and isolating German forces in northern France in the months preceding the D-Day landings. These Allied air forces then supported the Allied armies as they pushed inland, most notably by hampering the march of Hitler's panzer divisions and controversially bom...
The U.S. Army is the oldest and longest-serving branch of the U.S. military, with 562,000 active service members who currently serve around the world. This detailed 2015 calendar profiles scenes from the lives of these active duty people, whose mission it is to provide peace, security, and defense for the citizens of the United States.
Allied Bombing Raids: Hitting Back at the Heart of Germany
by Philip Kaplan
'Pilots - they are our new nobility. Not dukes or earls or lords, but pilots. Praise them and pray for their glorious survival'. - Lord Beaverbrook The pilots and combined bombing forces of the Second World War are revered for a host of reasons. Their bravery when cast against the odds, their resilience and determination under fire, and the startling extent of their combined achievements towards the collective end of Allied victory have all been noted and celebrated in a variety of ways since...
British Destroyer vs German Destroyer (Duel)
by David Greentree and Mr David Campbell
The opening months of World War II saw Britain's Royal Navy facing a resurgent German navy, the Kriegsmarine. Following the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in early April 1940, British and German destroyers would clash in a series of battles for control of the Norwegian coast. The operational environment was especially challenging, with destroyer crews having to contend with variable weather, narrow coastal tracts and possibility of fog and ship breakdowns. In two engagements at Narvik, t...
Established in 1917 to train Royal Flying Corps aircrew, during WWI Duxford was also the base for two United States Aero Squadrons, 137 and 159, and by the end was a mobilisation airfield for three DH9 day bomber squadrons. During the 1920s and 30s, expansion continued apace, with three fighter squadrons, 19, 29 and 111, and the presence of many illustrious names, including Harry Broadhurst, Johnny Kent and Frank Whittle. The first aerodrome in Fighter Command to receive the Spitfire (in August...
"The Polish Army in 1939 examines the September Campaign showing the background, organization and planning of the Army that faced the German and Soviet forces in the early days of World War II. Despite the short duration of the campaign, the Polish forces inflicted more casualties on the Germans then they would incur until mid-1940. The equipment and vehicles used to defend Poland are show in detail with black and white and color photographs. In addition to a detailed order of battles there are...
Operation Market Garden (WWII Historic Battlefields)
by Simon Forty and Tom Timmermans
The battle of Normandy ended as the Allied armies crossed the Seine at the end of August 1944, a month after Operation Cobra had broken the stalemate. The Allies harried the retreating Germans, who left their tanks and heavy weapons south of the Seine, and by mid-September the Allies were coming up against the defences of Germany itself, the impressive Westwall. As far as the Allies were concerned, the Germans were beaten. The scent of immediate victory was in the air, the only question was whe...
Imperial Roman Warships 193-565 AD (New Vanguard, #244)
by Raffaele D'Amato
The period of relative peace enjoyed by the Roman Empire in its first two centuries ended with the Marcomannic Wars. The following centuries saw near-constant warfare, which brought new challenges for the Roman Navy. It was now not just patrolling the Mediterranean but also fighting against invaders with real naval skill such as Genseric and his Vandals. With research from newly discovered shipwrecks and archaeological finds as well as the rich contemporary source material, this study examines...
The Thracians 700 BC–AD 46 (Men-at-Arms, #360)
by Christopher Webber
For seven hundred years the fierce tribesmen of Thrace dominated a huge stretch of territory between the Danube, the Black Sea and northern Greece. Skilled in light infantry warfare and renowned as cavalrymen, they both resisted, and later served as mercenaries for, all the great regional powers from Persia and Athens to Alexander of Macedon and the Roman emperors. This book brings to light the recent archaeological discoveries which allow a fuller reconstruction of these colourful warriors than...
Fokker D. VII. - the Lethal Weapon
by Marek Rys and Tomasz J. Kowalski
World War I was the time of dynamic development of aviation. Aircraft created during that period and pilots who fought in them, became legends that have fascinated generations of pilots and aviation enthusiasts. Legends of Aviation in 3D is a publishing series with a goal to present legendary aircraft from the pioneer era of military aviation in an innovative way. Thanks to colour 3D renderings we can almost touch the Fokker D.VII, see its details, get to know its meticulous airframe structure a...
The Red Air Force versus the Luftwaffe in the skies over Eastern Europe. June 1941: Having conquered most of Western Europe, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the vast Soviet Union. Disregarding his Non-Aggression Pact with Joseph Stalin, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, a full-scale invasion of the Soviet homeland... aimed squarely at Moscow. In the skies over Russia, the battle-hardened airmen of the Luftwaffe made short work of the Red Air Force during opening days of Barbarossa. To m...
With Grant at Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg
by Wilbur Fisk Crummer
A monumental photo book documenting the scenes of more than 3,000 years of human conflict After a distinguished—and death-defying—career documenting the wars of today, Yan Morvan decided to undertake a different kind of battlefield photography, one that would show how war has imprinted its awful memory on all of human history, and on the landscape as well. Traveling the globe, he sought out the scenes of history’s most important battles, positioning his 8 × 10 Deardorff view camera to capture...
This volume in the Images of War series is the first photographic history of the Chinese Civil War, fought between Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalists and the Communists of Mao Tse-tung, which decided the future of modern China. A selection of over 200 archive photographs, many of which have not been published before, depict the battle for power that took place across the breadth of the country. The armies, air forces and navies of the opposing sides are shown in a sequence of graphic images, as is th...
Formed in 1939 SS-Polizei Division were not considered initially as an SS fighting force, and this status was reflected in the quality of the equipment they were issued. Following operations in France, Greece and then Russia, it was not until 1942 the division was transferred to the Waffen-SS, and eventually upgraded to a Panzergrenadier division, the 4th SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier Division. The book describes how the SS-Polizei Division fought across the Low Countries, the Eastern Front, befor...