True Military

Des Powell left school with no qualifications and little in the way of formal education. At nineteen he signed up to join the Parachute Regiment. Famously, the Paras is home to the UK military's second-toughest training regime after the SAS. Des Powell knows all about both. In fact, Des knows SAS selection better than anyone because he's done it twice. In SAS: Trial by Fire he tells the story of those gruelling tests: how Para training turned him into a soldier but, more crucially, how the SAS process turned him into a member of the elite.

Barry Broman joined the CIA in 1971 straight out of the Marine Corps, choosing a career in intelligence largely because he wanted to spend his working life in Southeast Asia. Over the next thirty years, he had the privilege of working with brave men and women who were prepared to put their lives on the line in support of the free world during the Cold War, and he enjoyed the life of adventure he had been seeking since childhood. This book brings together tales from his career as a CIA case officer during the Cold War.

Set against the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, Saving Cinnamon chronicles the love story of Navy Reservist Mark Feffer and a stray puppy he bonded with while stationed outside of Kandahar. When Mark is about to return stateside, he decides to adopt Cinnamon and sets up her transport back to the United States. But the unthinkable happens: Cinnamon is abandoned by the dog handler who was supposed to bring her home and disappears without a trace.

In April 1861, Wayland Fuller Dunaway left his college classroom and entered the ranks of the men who fought the bloodiest war ever waged on the North American continent. A Captain in the Army of Northern Virginia, he marched hundreds of miles in Stonewall Jackson's command; saw Generals Lee and Longstreet; was among the first soldiers to fight at Gettysburg, where he also participated in Pickett's Charge; and fought against the lines of strangers in blue who, no matter how many times they were defeated, always returned to invade his beloved Virginia.

Called "A significant Holocaust memoir," Edith's Story is often compared to Anne Frank's diary. In occupied Holland, Edith, from a lively, loving Jewish family in The Hague, went into hiding the same month as Anne Frank. Both Edith and Anne kept diaries, which are remarkably similar in their pre-war teen preoccupations with boys, school and parties. But Edith's world gradually darkens. When Nazi laws forbid her from attending school, riding her bike or even going to the beach, she wears the yellow star as a badge of honor, prompting people in the street to tell her to keep her chin up.

In Manitoba, Winnipeg, a bronze statue of Sir William Stephenson proudly stands as a testament to this hero’s legacy. He was a dedicated soldier, a gifted inventor, an extraordinary businessman, and a spy. From his humble Canadian beginnings, William Stephenson enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps and rapidly moved through the ranks of the armed forces.

Originally intended as a trainer, the Anglo-French Sepecat jet, equipped with the very latest in weapon-aiming and navigational equipment, eventually became the backbone of the RAF's tactical strike-attack and recce forces for a decade from the mid-1970s. In these minutes, the Jaguar Boys - pilots, engineer, and ground crew - tell of the aircraft's drawbacks and joys, their sadness at losses, and their pleasure at its development into a readily deployable and outstandingly capable fighter-bomber for the post-Cold War era.

Part Blackhawk Down, part The Riddle of the Sands, former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson has written an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller. Operation Kronstadt not only reveals the early days of intelligence services but also uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a "mission impossible" against the best defended naval target in Russia.

God & Spies is a firsthand account of America's greatest intelligence coup. Operation Ivy Bells was not a onetime intercept of foreign intelligence but an ongoing operation of multiple Soviet military channels! "How did I end up as a navy diver, 400 feet down in a frigid Russian sea? After making my dad totally disgusted with me, I set out to make him happy. 'Honor thy father' - I struggled with a decision to serve God. 'Lord, I will give my life to you and serve you if you let me make this dive.'"

The Allied invasion of Europe during summer 1944 was widely expected, and it fell to the Axis intelligence services to provide High Command with advance warning of the precise date and place of the landings. Using cryptanalysis of Allied signals, undercover agents and ships, and photographic evidence, Axis intelligence was pitted directly against their Allied counterparts, who actively tried to create a decoy and aim their enemies at the wrong location.

Victor Capesius custodiaba la reserva nazi de gas Zyklon B y proporcionaba fármacos que eran empleados por médicos para llevar a cabo experimentos espantosos y mortales en mujeres embarazadas y niños. Hurgaba en los cadáveres de los judíos en busca de empastes de oro, y llevado por la codicia, arrastraba pesadas maletas llenas de ese metal extraído a miles de víctimas. El farmacéutico de Auschwitz cuenta su historia. Tras una exhaustiva investigación, Patricia Posner recrea la historia de Victor Capesius.

Based on months spent with the battalions in Fallujah and hundreds of interviews at every level (senior policymakers, negotiators, generals, and soldiers and Marines on the front lines) No True Glory is a testament to the bravery of the American soldier and a cautionary tale about the complex, and often costly, interconnected roles of policy, politics, and battle in the twenty-first century.

With unprecedented access to Herbert's diaries, letters and interviews, Mark Hodkinson brings to life the harrowing conditions of Belsen and its eventual liberation. From the events leading up to its gruesome discovery, to the trauma Herbert faced and his abandonment in the aftermath, this is a testament to the power of one person in the face of unimaginable darkness.

Hazard pay. The appeal of extra money while your loved one is in combat, is always enticing, until you remember why you’re getting that extra money. Military life is not for everyone, but for me, it’s as easy as breathing. A part of my everyday life. Deployments come with their own set of rules and it takes a few weeks to find a new normal. Unfortunately, that’s when my world came crashing down.

Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia were captivated by each other from the moment they first exchanged glances across the work floor. It was the beginning of a love story that could have happened anywhere. Except for one difference: this romance was unfolding in history's most notorious death camp, between two young prisoners whose budding intimacy risked dooming them if they were caught. Incredibly, David and Zippi survived for years beneath the ash-choked skies of Auschwitz.

Seize and Hold vividly demonstrates how military objectives can be seized by clever tactics and ruthless action. From the First World War to Vietnam, this collection gives exciting, atmospheric descriptions of 11 20th-century battlefield triumphs. Portraying military skills at their most daring and inventive, Seize and Hold is full of more drama and excitement than Hollywood could ever invent.

Nine thousand men of the First British Airborne Division were parachuted into the peaceful countryside that surrounded Arnhem. Their objective was to capture and hold the bridge over the Rhine ahead of the advancing British Second Army. Nine days later, after some of the fiercest street-fighting of the war, 2,000 paratroopers managed to escape to safety.

As eleven-year-old Peter Nottage stood in the yard, watching in disbelief, a group of Japanese fighter planes swooped down, spraying machine-gun fire across the water. Then the first bomb dropped - and in minutes, Kaneohe Bay was a sea of smoke and flames. To the south, at Pearl Harbor, the huge ships of the American fleet were ablaze. This was no drill. This was war!

1719. Great Britain is at war with Spain. When his mother dies, fourteen year old Dan Leake finds himself alone on the mean streets of Bristol. Faced with starvation or the workhouse, he stows away on a British man-o-war, hoping to find his father who had been pressed into the Royal Navy years before. Falsely accused of theft, Dan is shunned by his shipmates and bullied by the sadistic bosun, as he endures the brutal life aboard an eighteenth century warship. He finally discovers the real thief, and his courage, at the bloody Battle of Cape St. Vincent. At his moment of triumph, he realises...

I’m an anti-Romeo. I remove love. Everyone wants to tattoo their lover on their skin, but what happens when that love goes broke? Me. I happen. I remove the memory one drop of ink at a time. That’s why I’m not falling in love. Ain’t nobody pulling the wool over my eyes. F*ck that. My time serving in the military opened my eyes to the real world. Everybody leaves in one way or another. No way in hell I’m hitching this wagon to one woman when I can enjoy as many as I please while making a fortune lasering ugly tattoos off of heartbroken singles. Don’t hate the player. Hate the ...