British Military

Spying and treachery are as much a part of warfare as weapons and death. This has always been the case since the earliest battles and is not likely to change in the future. And yet, even within this irregular system, there are certain rules, especially in past eras such as the American Revolution. First, while spying on behalf of one's country is perfectly respectable, betraying one's nation is treason. Second, honorable men do not involve those too innocent to understand the consequences of their actions in their schemes.

Dawn. 19th July 1972. A force of nearly 300 heavily armed, well-trained guerrillas launches a surprise attack on the small fishing village of Mirbat. All that stands in their way is a troop of just nine SAS, aided only by an elite band of fighter pilots overhead. Two years earlier, a Communist rebellion had threatened the Arabian Peninsula, in the strategically critical Sultanate of Oman. Following a covert intelligence mission, 22 SAS deployed their largest ever assault force against the rebels. But this was to be a bitter and hard-fought campaign culminating the Battle of Mirbat.

The Armies of the Revolutionary War reveals to readers the complexity of the organization of the military forces of the rebelling American colonies as well as the British Army and Navy. The book also discloses the intricate intelligence gathering network both armies devised to spy on each other to gain an advantage in the titanic struggle for America's independence.

At ten years old, young Douglas M. Gebbie witnessed the igniting spark of World War II firsthand. As Douglas and his family listen intently to the BBC radio broadcast, the world-altering news rings out: Hitler has invaded Poland.

With the exception of the terrible retreat from Afghanistan, none of England's many little wars have been so fatal in proportion to the number of those engaged as our first expedition to Burma. The Burman policy of carrying off every boat on the river, laying waste the whole country, and driving away the inhabitants and the herds, maintained our army as prisoners in Rangoon through the first wet season; and caused the loss of half the white officers and men first sent there.

He leaves his homeland to protect his family. She flees her hometown to abandon hers. At a remote mountaintop retreat, an optimistic triple amputee British Special Forces veteran meets a pessimistic American beauty in the valleys of their lives. In his valley of determination… Highly decorated for his heroism in fighting terrorism on behalf of his grateful nation, Keenan has sacrificed enough for his country. Yet, his enemies are going after him and his former team members as an act of personal vengeance. To protect his family, Keenan leads a trail away from Britain. Off the grid, he is ...

The loss of British bombers over Occupied Europe began to reach alarming levels in 1941. Could it be that the Germans were using a sophisticated form of radar to direct their night fighters and anti-aircraft guns at the British bombers? British aerial reconnaissance discovered what seemed to be a rotating radar tower on a clifftop at Bruneval, near Le Havre. The truth must be revealed. The decision was taken to launch a daring raid on the Bruneval site to try and capture the technology for further examination.

As Albert Slater lays his wife to rest, his raw pain mixes with old scars from the First World War. That pain has stayed with him throughout his life, but protecting his children’s innocence, he has kept it from them. He decides to write his story for them to read when he joins his wife in heaven. He writes about his training, his first action and how he endured the rest of the war. He also tells how he settled back into sedate rural English village life, with support from his friends and his love of cricket. ‘From the Mud’ is one man’s story and his way of keeping the memory of his...

What can a boy get up to? The London suburbs, 1980. Chris was no stranger to a sense of purpose; to right and wrong. His days followed a course formed by school, music, sport, and his rambunctious peers, but he itched for more than just a comfortable life. He dived headfirst into mischief and mayhem; finding athleticism, girls, and chance romance. Sandy beaches and craggy mountains beckoned, and a cheeky travel trip around Europe by train; and he endured trials on the way to becoming an elite parachutist. Could he seek meaning and learn resilience, despite the setbacks and turmoil of ...

This groundbreaking study of agriculture's role in the war defies long-held notions that Northern industrialization and urbanization led to clashes between North and South. Huston argues that the ideological chasm between plantation owners in the South and family farmers in the North led to the political eruption of 1854-1856 and the birth of a sectionalized party system.

When the leaders of the French Revolution executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793, they sent a chilling message to the hereditary ruling orders in Europe. Believing that monarchy anywhere presented a threat to democratic rule in France, the leaders of the revolution declared war on European aristocracies, including those of Great Britain. For more than 20 years thereafter, France and England waged a protracted war that ended in British victory.

When MI5 agent Dragan Kelly gets word of a ‘priceless treasure’ heard spoken of by Eva Braun in Hitler’s bunker, he’s certain of one thing. He must be the one to find it. Reunited with his team - the enigmatic and unpredictable Sybilla Thorstaadt, and the ‘mad’ priest Wolfgang Rahn - Kelly enlists the help of a tough ex-German paratrooper, Horst Manteufel, the last guard commander in Hitler’s bunker. As Kelly expects, nothing is straightforward. Every step they take is dogged by the sinister and mysterious Thule secret society. If that wasn’t enough, Gestapo chief Heinrich...

At the beginning of 1941, it was unclear whether the Allies would be able to remain in the war for much longer. The potential of a German invasion of Britain loomed. The Battle of Britain, fought throughout the summer and early autumn of 1940, was unquestionably epic in scope. The largest air campaign in history at the time, the vaunted Nazi Luftwaffe sought to smash the Royal Air Force, but thankfully, the RAF stood toe to toe with the Luftwaffe and ensured Hitler’s planned invasion was permanently put on hold.

In October 1863, Ian Steele, having taken on the identity of Captain Samuel Forbes, is fighting the Pashtun on the north-west frontier in India. Half a world away, the real Samuel Forbes is a lieutenant in the third New York Volunteers and is facing the Confederates at the Battle of Mission Ridge in Tennessee. Neither is aware their lives will change beyond recognition in the year to come. In London, Ella, the love of Ian's life, is unhappily married to Count Nikolai Kasatkin.

In 1942 the young soldier Arthur Dodd was taken prisoner by the German Army and transported to Oswiecim in Polish Upper Silesia. The Germans gave it another name, now synonymous with mankind’s darkest hours. They called it Auschwitz. Forced to do hard labour, starved and savagely beaten, Arthur thought his life would end in Auschwitz. Determined to go down fighting, he sabotaged Nazi industrial work, risked his life to alleviate the suffering of the Jewish prisoners and aided a partisan group planning a mass breakout.

British and American commanders first used modern Special Forces in support of conventional military operations during World War II. Since then, although special ops have featured prominently in popular culture and media coverage of wars, the academic study of irregular warfare has remained as elusive as the practitioners of special operations themselves.

On 16 July 1940, Hitler issued Directive No. 16, setting in motion Operation Sea Lion: his plan to invade England. The success of Operation Sea Lion hinged entirely on the destruction of the RAF and the Royal Navy, but even as Hitler's plans swung into action and England, barely recovered from Dunkirk, rallied her defences, the Battle of Britain began and in just a few months Germany had lost all hope of dominating England's skies and with it, the key to the invasion. On 17 September, 1940, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely and the entire episode faded from memory.

Despite a propensity toward fierce criticism of his generals, with great regard the Duke of Wellington referred to William Carr Beresford as ‘the ablest man I have yet seen in the army’. Marshal William Carr Beresford is the story of a celebrated and distinguished Irishman, honoured and decorated by the governments of Great Britain, Portugal and Spain, who served as Commander in Chief of the Portuguese army for eleven years. The book follows the trajectory of Beresford’s extensive military career. Born the illegitimate son of the 1st Marquis of Waterford, Beresford joined the British ...

As the Japanese swept across Asia in the early years of World War II, the retreating Allies looked for ways to keep up the fight. In Malaya and Burma, agents had been left behind to stir resistance behind enemy lines, building up anti-Japanese operations from the safety of the jungle. In China, the American Office of Strategic Services helped both Nationalists and Communists in resisting the Japanese.

With all the immediacy of an eyewitness account, Anthony Pitch recounts the dramatic story of the British invasion of Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1814. The British torched the Capitol, the White House, and other buildings, setting off an inferno that illuminated the countryside for miles around and sent President James Madison galloping out of town. The author's gripping account also describes the valiant defense of nearby Fort McHenry and the story of the writing of The Star Spangled Banner.