True Military

In the inspiring tradition of Black Hawk Down, this is the riveting real-life story of how an Australian SAS signalman's courage under fire saved more than 80 lives. It is an enthralling eyewitness account of the war on terror. Jock Wallace was pumped. It was the start of Operation Anaconda, the US-led military offensive to flush out al Qaeda and Taliban from their last stronghold in the Shahi Kot Valley in Afghanistan.

AK47s, masked thugs, and brutal urgency erupt from Roy Hallums' account of his abduction in Iraq, shredding through those frequently sterile cable news reports revealing that another "American contractor is being held hostage...". Hallums was the everyman behind that report⁠—a 56-year-old retired Naval commander working as a food supply contractor in Baghdad's high-end Mansour District. His abduction was transacted in a matter of minutes, amidst a hail of gunfire and a handful of casualties.

In July 2009 Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, with the rest of The Firm - Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon - a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for.

Following on from the success of Victor Boys and Vulcan Boys, Tony Blackman, in collaboration with Anthony Wright, brings you Valiant Boys to complete the V Force set. This is a fascinating collection of personal accounts of operating Britain's first V bomber by aircrew and ground crew. The book tells the story from the aircraft's birth taking off from Vickers' tiny airfield at Wisley near Brooklands to its premature death from fatigue.

Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point him out: always ready with a drink and a story, he was a well-known figure in the local bars. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumour, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before.

In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad - now St Petersburg - and began the longest blockade in recorded history. By the most conservative estimates, the siege would claim the lives of three-quarters of a million people. Most died of starvation. Drawing on previously unseen sources, The Forbidden Garden tells the remarkable and moving story of the botanists who remained at the Plant Institute during the darkest days of the siege, risking their lives in the name of science.

From noted historical nonfiction writer Franklin Hook comes this compelling true tale of one particular invasion and one particular man. Bruce Beard was one of many soldiers involved in the controversial US invasion of Panama in 1989. Despite a record of good conduct, his service was marred by drug abuse. Without the resources to deal with his problem, Beard fell apart until he ended up with a bad conduct discharge and since returning home has been denied care for his PTSD.

When Jill Stephenson received the call that her son, Ben Kopp, had been shot in the leg while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom, her fear was that he would lose his leg. But soon her fears would be realized in more devastating ways. Due to complications, Ben went into a coma, and eight days later he was pronounced brain-dead. Corporal Ben Kopp, an American hero who was credited with saving the lives of six of his fellow soldiers on the battlefield, was struck down defending his country; he died a ranger, a warrior, and a patriot. And his heroism would not stop at death.

In January 2003, 28-year-old GCHQ translator Katharine Gun received an email from the US National Security Agency that would turn her world upside down. The message requested Katharine’s assistance in co-ordinating an illegal US-UK spy operation which would secure UN authorisation for the Iraq invasion. Horrified, she decided to leak the information to the British press. Katharine’s decision would change her life forever, as she was arrested under the Official Secrets Act whilst becoming a cause célèbre for political activists.

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.

Toto Koopman - beautiful, mixed-race, bisexual Vogue cover girl in 1930s Paris and lover of the all-powerful press baron and wartime cabinet minister Lord Beaverbrook. Coco Chanel, brilliant couturier and parfumier, rich beyond dreams and friend of Winston Churchill, the greatest-ever Briton. Both the toast of Parisian and London high society.

In the summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interred at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention centre - Auschwitz. It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazis' terrifying designs.

At All Costs transports you to the battlefront for more than two centuries of astonishing military confrontations. From the Battle of Minden in 1795 to dramatic Second World War stories and the Battle for Goose Green in the Falklands, Bryan Perrett gives astoundingly vivid accounts of international forces in daring actions, achieving victory against the odds.

He needs to protect her, possess her, but she doesn’t want him… Ruggedly handsome and wickedly dangerous, Rune has spent his entire life as a warrior. First a Viking, then an immortal vampire. Fighting is all he knows. Until he meets Brigit. His total opposite, she’s fiery and full of life. She’s perfect. He aches for her. The only problem is, she doesn’t want anything to do with him. A tough, kick-ass cop, Brigit hates it when men judge her on her size and her looks. She’s spent her life keeping her city safe and she isn’t about to give that up just because a brooding, ...

Years after meeting Pablo Escobar, Peter was hired by the Cali Cartel to assassinate the Colombian drug lord. After months of grueling training, Peter and his group of mercenaries were alerted that the day had come to pick up their weapons and board two helicopters bound for Escobar’s mansion. This book also details Peter’s 25 years of engaging in hair-raising conflict worldwide, from Britain's parachute regiment and the SAS to private military companies and an almost fatal skydiving incident.

It's time to revisit 1945 and the final days World War II in a way that no one else ever has. Grab your thinking cap and join author Steve Ubaney in volume two of his five volume "Who Murdered?" book series, where he probes every part of FDR's mysterious death. We have been told all the lies for decades, and now it's time to answer some very pointed questions.

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.

Twenty-four aircrew who flew the iconic aircraft with the Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Air Force, and the South African Air Force (SAAF) relate their experiences and affection for the Blackburn Buccaneer. Arranged in chronological order, the book traces the history of the aircraft and the tasks it fulfilled. In addition to describing events and activities, it provides an insight into the lifestyle of a Buccaneer squadron and the fun and enjoyment of being a "Buccaneer Boy" in addition to being part of a highly professional and dedicated force.

In the middle of World War II, Nazi military intelligence discovered a seemingly easy way to win the war for Adolf Hitler. The three heads of the Allied forces - Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin - were planning to meet in Tehran in October, 1943. Under Hitler's personal direction, the Nazis launched "Operation Long Jump", an intricate plan to track the Allied leaders in Tehran and assassinate all three men at the same time. Historian Bill Yenne retells the incredible, globe-spanning story of the most ambitious assassination plot ever thwarted.

In the closing months of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Japanese, mostly civilians, died. American planes were beginning to run low on plausible targets when it was decided to use two atomic weapons in a final flourish to try to end the war. Richard Overy’s remarkable book rethinks how we should regard this last stage of the war and the role of the bombs. The popular view that bombing worked in this case has now to be set in a broader context of what was happening in Japan in the months before surrender. The easy equation ‘bombing equals surrender’ is no longer viable.