Military Disasters

America is under attack! Bug Out! is the story of Frank and Jane, on the run from California in their Motorhome. In Bug Out! Part 8, Frank, Jane, and the group make a terrifying discovery in their Kansas RV Park. Bug Out! Part 9 follows our group as they cope with the new danger they've found at the RV Park, while keeping the enemy at bay. The group partners with a dangerous trio. These new friends can help them defeat the dark forces coming at them, but at what cost? Kansas is still safe, but the enemy is on the move, taking over sections of Denver. The shadowy owner of their RV Park has ...

Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents—Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima—Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.

In the best-selling tradition of Indianapolis and In Harm’s Way comes a “captivating...gripping” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) account of the USS Plunkett - a US Navy destroyer that sustained the most harrowing attack on any Navy ship by the Germans during World War II, later made famous by John Ford and Herman Wouk.

In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the 19th century.

So Others May Live: Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death is the award-winning untold story of the US Coast Guard's quiet but resolute rescue swimmers. From deep ocean caves on the Oregon coast to the panicked and chaotic streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, here are their stunningly heroic stories.

A minor seismic disturbance in a remote section of the Pacific causes barely a ripple of concern for Kai Tanaka, acting director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu. But when an airliner en route from LA to Sydney vanishes in the same location, Kai is the first to realize that a mysterious explosion has unleashed a series of massive waves destined to obliterate Hawaii. In just one hour, Kai will lose all he has ever known - including his wife and daughter - unless he can save them from nature's most destructive force.

Striking, heartfelt, and utterly engrossing, Dispatches from the Edge is an unforgettable memoir that takes us behind the scenes of the cataclysmic events of our age and allows us to see them through the eyes of one of America's most trusted, fearless, and pioneering reporters.

In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor’easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived. On February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, were in the same horrifying predicament. Built with “dirty steel,” and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy.

Perfect for curious young listeners, these eight titles provide exciting details about notable tragedies throughout history. Learn about the impact of catastrophes like the Titanic, Pompeii, the San Francisco Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the Hindenburg, the Great Chicago Fire, and Pearl Harbor in this complete collection of iconic historical moments. With an easy-to-listen-to narrative in each book, listeners will be able to quickly learn about the shock and aftermath of these disasters.

The world's worst air disaster happened more than 40 years ago on a remote Atlantic Ocean island, when two fully loaded 747 passenger jets collided after a horrendous series of human errors. One of the jets, KLM Flight 4805, was traveling more than 150 miles an hour and was within seconds of lifting off when it crashed into Pan Am Flight 1736 taxiing in its path. The loss of lives was staggering - 583 dead. The crash happened after a lengthy series of major and minor human errors. In the intervening years, has aviation advanced to the point that such a disaster can't happen again?

You lack control and just overshot your target… Nick ‘Caboose’ Evans would never admit in a million years that he’d screwed up letting Ivy out of his sights. She was a klutz, washing out of the Academy, nearly destroying government property in the process. He’d lost his temper and his girlfriend in one fell swoop… only to have her rear end his rental car the moment he got to Yonder. Swing around, flyboy, and prepare to take fire… Ivy Quinn saw red as her ex-boyfriend blew past her, driving much too fast. Now a police officer, it was almost enjoyable to pull Nick over… but ...

This audiobook tells the story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the United States' reaction to the event.

Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set out in a convoy of 19 ships sailing for Canada. On board were 90 CORB children, chaperones, and crew, along with paying passengers. When the war ships escorting the Benares to safe waters peeled off, a German submarine attacked and torpedoed the Benares.

Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst nuclear disaster. In the 30 years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers not only its own citizens but all of humanity.

So said Brigadier S. James Hill, commanding officer of the British 3rd Parachute Brigade, in an address to his troops shortly before the launching of Operation Overlord - the D-Day invasion of Normandy. No more prophetic words were ever spoken, for chaos indeed reigned on that day, and many more that followed.

The year is 2026. The US military has a new weapon in its arsenal: an intelligent life-form so versatile that it can not only create a new generation of weapons but can become a weapon itself - entering a host’s body to manipulate (or kill) them. Admiral James Curtiss is tasked with deploying the new weapons, first in Cuba, then Venezuela, then China. But the news of the military’s breakthrough has gotten out and there are menacing forces trying to steal it. What’s more, a single man has somehow harnessed the new power and has become something more than human - godlike.

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and at the bottom rests a B-1B bomber and its cargo of 24 nuclear weapons. Scott Tanner, a former Navy SEAL, and his eccentric partner, David Stafford, are called into action to recover the plane and its deadly cargo, a mission that could determine the fate of Crater Lake National Park forever. Tanner and Stafford soon discover the horrific facts surrounding the accident and are face to face with an enemy who will do anything to prevent the safe removal of the weapons. The terrorists are on the run and with them the means to detonate the ...

At the beginning of 1940 Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945 Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left its people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust. In The Hitler Years - Disaster 1940-1945, Professor Frank McDonough charts the dramatic change of fortune for the Third Reich and challenges long-held accounts of the Holocaust and Germany's ultimate defeat.

After the Yellowstone Caldera erupts, David Kessner and his family are sent running for their lives, only to find out this natural disaster was more sinister than they could have ever imagined. Every step of their path forward is frantic and reveals more and more of the truth...until they have nowhere else to run.

An astonishing civil rights story from Newbery Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin. On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution.