Cassell military paperbacks

This book tells the story of the Red Army's epic struggle to drive the Germans out of Russia and back to Berlin. Using Soviet, German, and Eastern European primary sources, John Erickson describes fighting and hardship on an almost unimaginable scale. The narrative covers battles on all the fronts. The inside information on the Soviet system of war reveals how, under maximum stress, the Russian army achieved near-impossible feats in the field and the factories. All the diplomatic moves and counter-moves, including the all-important conferences at Tehran and Yalta, also come alive.

"This is the story of two great naval battles of the First World War and the ultimate triumph of British revenge at sea. In 1914 Great Britain's naval supremacy was challenged for the first time since Trafalgar. The East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron of the Imperial German Navy, under the command of Vice-Admiral Graf von Spee, itching for battle, found and shattered a British fleet at Coronel, in Chile. The Royal Navy had been defeated, and in Britain public bewilderment soon turned to anger. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, and Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, ordered the destruction of von Spee's ships, sending a powerful force to the Southern Seas which included the battle-cruisers Invincible and Inflexible. Just five weeks after their earlier victory, the Germans went to attack the Falklands, only to fall into the clutches of a now powerful, and prepared, British fleet; there ensued the Battle of the Falkland islands, and a famous victory for the Royal Navy. The British had wreaked their revenge on the Germans."--BOOK JACKET.

World-renowned British historian Sir Max Hastings recounts one of the most horrific months of World War II. June 1944, the month of the D-Day landings carried out by Allied forces in Normandy, France. Germany’s 2nd SS Panzer Division, one of Adolf Hitler’s most elite armor units, had recently been pulled from the Eastern Front and relocated to France in order to regroup, recruit more troops, and restock equipment. With Allied forces suddenly on European ground, the division—Das Reich —was called up to counter the invasion. Its march northward to the shores of Normandy, 15,000 men strong, would become infamous as a tale of unparalleled brutality in World War II. Das Reich is Sir Max Hastings’s narrative of the atrocities committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division during June of 1944: first, the execution of 99 French civilians in the village of Tulle on June 9; and second, the massacre of 642 more in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10. Throughout the book, Hastings expertly shifts perspective between French resistance fighters, the British Secret Service (who helped coordinate the French resistance from afar and on the ground), and the German soldiers themselves. With its rare, unbiased approach to the ruthlessness of World War II, Das Reich explores the fragile moral fabric of wartime mentality.

This book is a classic narrative history of the last year of the First World War. Author John Terraine was associate producer and chief screenwriter of the 1963‒64 BBC TV documentary The Great War. He was the founder and President of the Western Front Association, a member of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. For the weary Allies, 1918 was truly a year of victories ‒ and at last, the final triumph. First came the defensive victories of the British and the French against the last desperate offensive launched by the Germans in the spring. Then came the turning point of Foch’s counter-offensive on the Marne followed by Haig’s great attack on 8 August, the black day of the German Army, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line and the pursuit of the defeated German Army across the wasteland of war. This challenging and perceptive book gives honour where it is due: to a victorious British Army in 1918.

The stories of twelve fictional soldiers, all based on recorded accounts, at the heart of well-known actions. None of the protagonists is ranked higher than company commander; some are professionals, some volunteers or conscripts, none especially heroic. This is a taste of battle as millions of ordinary soldiers have had to experience it.

On August 17, 1943, the entire strength of the American heavy bomber forces in England set out to raid two vital industrial targets deep in southern Germany. For American commanders it was the culmination of years of planning and hoping, the day when their defensive formations of Flying Fortresses could at last perform their true role and reach out by daylight to strike at targets in the deepest corners of industrial Germany. The day ended in disaster. Thanks to the courage of the aircrews, the bombers broke through to the targets and caused heavy damage, but sixty of the planes were shot down and the hopes of the American commanders were shattered. Historically, it was probably the most important day for the American air forces during the Second World War. - Jacket flap.

"Ten of the most important battles of the 19th century colonial wars that ravaged the land for 70 years are covered here. Detailed and objective (the Zulus are never patronized as "noble savages"), [this book] brings you across the world to a land where the European soldiers soon found themselves out of their element ... Ambushes, full-scale battles, bloody chaos and an army that refused for decades to submit. This is the story of southern Africa in the 19th century"--Jacket.

Though it gives an unusual vision ftom the Nazi side, the author is so clearly biased in favour of the germans that he hardly finds any fault with them. Totally partial . Avoid reading it. Grrald Doyle

Beginning with Pearl Harbor in 1941 and concluding with Japan's surrender in August 1945, this is a detailed and authoritative narrative history of the war in the Pacific between the United States and Japan.