The distinctive black and yellow chequered markings of the 353rd Fighter Group, the ‘Slybirds’, made them one of the USAAF ‘Mighty’ 8th Air Force’s most colourful fighter groups. Flying P-47D Thunderbolts and later P-51D Mustangs the 353rd’s appearance in the skies over occupied Europe witnessed growing American air power and helped to change the course of the air war. From mid-1943 until the end of hostilities in Europe, the 353rd participated in all major aerial battles from the 1943 Regensburg and Schweinfurt raids to ‘Big Week’, the attacks on Berlin, and the support of the D-Day landings and Normandy campaign in 1944. They went on to win the Distinguished Unit Citation during the Arnhem operation of September 1944 and after converting to P-51 Mustangs they continued to play a full and prominent role in the final smashing of the Third Reich from the air.Fighting High Publishing has come together with respected 8th Air Force historian Graham Cross to tell the story of the ‘Slybirds’. With access to an unparalleled photographic archive built up over nearly thirty years of close association and friendship with the group, the author provides a detailed representation of all aspects of the group’s key activities. Focussing not just on the aircraft and pilots but also the vital work of the ground crews and service personnel, this is a stunning tribute that fills a major gap in the history of 8th Fighter Command. A full honour roll to those who made the ultimate sacrifice is included along with details of all POWs and all confirmed claims by the Group’s air-to-air aces.Packed with nearly 450 photos, the majority of which are previously unpublished, unseen wartime colour photos and detailed captions, this book is a visual and information feast. This latest volume in Fighting High Publishing’s ‘Odyssey’ series is the most in-depth photographic record of the 353rd to date and provides a unique window on a fighter group at war.

Ils sont un peu les oubliés de l’histoire du Débarquement. Dans la nuit du 5 au 6 juin 1944, alors que les hommes des 82e et 101e divisions aéroportées américaines et ceux de la 6e division Airborne britannique s’apprêtent à sauter sur la Normandie, trente-six commandos français sont largués sur la Bretagne. Ils appartiennent au Special Air Service (SAS), une unité des forces spéciales britanniques créée en juillet 1941 et dont la devise est « who dares wins » (qui ose gagne). Si leur effectif est bien plus modeste que celui de leurs camarades parachutistes alliés, leur mission n’en est pas moins capitale : coordonner et entraîner la Résistance – très active dans cette région – pour empêcher les Allemands qui y sont stationnés d’aller renforcer les troupes déjà positionnées sur la côte ou à proximité. Les trente-six hommes qui vont sauter sont des éléments précurseurs, ils doivent créer deux bases permettant l’arrivée du reste de l’effectif et de matériel dans les jours suivants afin de lancer des opérations de guérilla et de sabotage : Samwest, dans la forêt de Duhault (Côtes d’Armor), et Dingson, dans la forêt de Saint-Marcel (Morbihan). Tout au long de la bataille de Normandie, l’effectif des SAS français ne va cesser de croître et ils vont jouer un rôle majeur pour la libération de la Bretagne. C’est leur histoire méconnue qui est racontée dans ce livre, de leur entraînement en Grande-Bretagne jusqu’à leurs derniers combats en Hollande, en avril 1945. Avec de très nombreuses photos d’époque, des objets et des armes ayant appartenu à certains de ces parachutistes, des cartes et des infographies pour revivre au plus près le quotidien de ces combattants d’élite au cours de l’été 1944. Ouvrage édité en partenariat avec le Musée de la Résistance bretonne de Saint-Marcel (Morbihan). Journaliste et écrivain, Jean-Charles Stasi est l’auteur d’une vingtaine d’ouvrages dont plusieurs consacrés à la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Après avoir relaté l’épopée du commando Kieffer (Commando Kieffer, les Français débarquent en Normandie, Heimdal 2014), il tenait à raconter l’histoire de ces autres combattants français ayant pris part aux combats du Jour J.

Almost a century has passed since the signing of the armistice on 11 November 1918. Of all the soldiers who went through that hell on earth, photographs, letters, stories and old uniforms kept in attics are all that is left. Thanks to a collection of more than ten thousand documents, the author allows us to follow these young men with previously unseen photographs. All these faces, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious, have a story to tell. Many collectors have also allowed us access to their most precious objects, the fruit of their relentless research that helps save these objects that went through four terrible years of oblivion and destruction. Finally, being in the era of Internet, many links allow you to retrace the history of your ancestors and their regiments. Following their baptism of fire at Gallipoli in 1915, the Australians arrived on the Western Front in spring 1916. A few months later came the Somme with 24,000 casualties and the tragic events of Fromelles. Then, these tough men, who had travelled so far, continued fighting in France in 1917 and 1918. Since then, the bond of friendship between France and Australia is still going strong.

Throughout the course of centuries, the Somme has been the scene of numerous battles and the passageway for armies. However, the Great War of 1914-1918 was, by far, the most murderous conflict to fall upon the region, leaving in its wake an indelible mark. Today, the Somme has hundreds of military cemeteries. In the woods, trench lines still wind their way between the shell holes. In the fields, munitions still emerge when the tractor’s plough cuts through the earth.This guide takes a look at the major events that took place in the specific sector and, thanks to a map, covers a circuit of remembrance that follows the armies of both sides.

War changes everyone and for those lucky enough to survive there can be no return to the carefree days before the hell of war broke out. William Earl was a 26 year old Chemist’s Assistant when his call up papers arrived and his life changed forever. Leaving a wife and new baby virtually alone to fend for themselves was a constant worry and circumstances grew worse as the years went by. Joining the 214th Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps as a Nursing Orderly William’s role was no soft posting. He was assigned to the Field Ambulance, so followed the infantry into battle to treat and recover the wounded, often under fire, before removing them from danger. Seeing action in North Africa and throughout the entire Italian campaign at places such as Salerno, Anzio and the Gothic Line William recalls his experiences in detail with the emotion of someone who lost many friends and was the last comforting voice to many a dying soldier. William is a charming, intelligent and independent man who will shortly be celebrating his 102nd birthday. Liz Coward has written his moving story with extracts from his letters home, original photographs, training manuals and official war diaries. Blood and Bandages is a very personal, honest and moving account of one man’s life over 6 years of war. A war which left William asking the guilty question on many a soldier’s lips: “Why did I survive when so many of my friends didn’t?”

Was There Crime in the Second World War? At a time of national emergency, the average person could be forgiven for thinking that crime rates would go down as everyone tried to help the war effort. However, the reality was that criminals saw the war as an opportunity to exploit the emergency conditions and those with a previously unblemished reputation found themselves tempted off the straight and narrow. Criminal activity wasn’t just a civilian occupation. The military services had its share of crime and the influx of foreign troops added to the problem. American and Canadian troops found themselves transported to Britain in preparation for D-Day. Lonely and far from home, some rioted and many looked for other distractions with desertion being a significant problem and one which was often funded by crime.Heavily illustrated with both contemporary and modern photographs Penny takes you back to some of the most infamous wartime crimes such as the blackout ripper, the bath chair murderer and the last person to be prosecuted in Britain for witchcraft. She also delves into the murky world of Spivs, Gangs, prostitutes and Robbers. At a time when rationing, shortages and the blitz meant feeding the family became ever more difficult it was all too easy for the increasingly blurred line of criminality to be crossed. Penny Legg shows how and why crime was committed during the Second World War and what became of those Spivs, Scoundrels, Rogues and Worse who strayed into the underworld.

Charles Pagan and Dick Baron, who served together in WWI, embark on a walking holiday in the Vosges Mountains in France, in 1930. En route they meet Cecil and his sister Clare who is recovering from the loss of her fiancé during the war. Pagan and Baron pitch camp at a guesthouse, but the strange behaviour of locals piques their interest in the surroundings: in particular the old battlefield nearby. They express an interest in visiting it and are told by their host in no uncertain terms that it is not the place to go at night. When they discover they have been locked in their bedrooms, the pair lose no time in putting a rope out of the window and shinning down it, intent on exploring the forbidden territory and viewing the apparition Pagan thinks he has glimpsed briefly by moonlight. Pagan, like W. F. Morris’s preceding novel Bretherton, is a mystery story, but one which could only have been written as a result of the war. Bretherton himself is mentioned in passing by his brothers in arms. It is exciting, spine-chilling, funny, and romantic, but the Great War taints all these elements like a colour filter on a camera. The war is only a decade away and wounds, both mental and physical, are raw. The novel works brilliantly as a thriller in its own right, and but also a commentary on post-war Europe.

The Whistlers' Room is the surprisingly gentle, sensitive story of a section in a German hospital where three soldiers try to recover from battle injuries. They are known as the Whistlers, as all were shot in the throat and their breathing results in a sound "like the squeaking of mice". The author vividly captures the strong young men the soldiers used to be and the battered, wounded people they have become. Pointner, whose obstinacy in holding onto an English sniper's cap means he is mistaken for the enemy, is the worst injured of the trio. Kollin continually dreams that he is cured, and for a brief, heart-breaking moment his breathing appears to be free when he awakes. The precarious balance of life in the hospital shifts when Harry, an English prisoner of war, becomes another whistler. His initial reception by the other patients, and his eventual acceptance into their group, reminds us of what must be so blatant day-in day-out in a hospital: men are all the same regardless of the country they fight for. The story progresses through a simple series of vignettes which are delicately presented without demanding empathy or flinging the reader into a maelstrom of emotion. It is all the more rare, precious and powerful as a result.

The classic, revised story of how an elite group of US Air Force pilots fought a secret air war over Vietnam in Cessna 0-2 and OV-10 Bronco prop planes―flying as low as they could get. The eyes and ears of the fast-moving jets who rained death and destruction down on enemy positions, the Forward Air Controller made an art form out of an air strike―knowing the targets, knowing where friendly troops were, and reacting with split-second, life and death decisions as a battle unfolded. The expertise of the low, slow FACs, as well as the hazards attendant to their role, made for a unique bird’s-eye perspective on how the entire war in Vietnam unfolded. For Tom Yarborough, who logged 1,500 hours of combat flying time, the risk was constant, intense and electrifying. A member of the super-secret “Prairie Fire” unit, Yarborough became one of the most frequently shot-up pilots flying out of Da Nang―engaging in a series of dangerous secret missions in Laos. In this work, the reader flies in the cockpit alongside Yarborough in his adrenaline-pumping chronicle of heroism, danger and wartime brotherhood. From the rescuing of downed pilots to taking out enemy positions, to the most harrowing extended missions directly overhead of the NVA, here is the dedication, courage and skill of the fliers who took the war into the enemy's backyard.

On The Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnam—beginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out.His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril, hardship, and close calls as the best of battle memoirs but it is primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their stories and memorialize their sacrifice. The great books about Vietnam journalism have been about print reporters, still photographers, and television correspondents but if this was truly the first “television war,” then it is time to hear the story of the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living rooms. An award-winning sensation when it was released in Japan in 2008, this book been completely re-created for an international audience. In 2008, the Japanese edition was published by Kodansha in two hardback volumes and titled "I Wanted to Be Capa." It won the 2009 Oya Soichi Nonfiction Award-a prize usually reserved for much younger writers—and Kodansha almost doubled their initial print run to meet the demand. In that period, he was interviewed extensively, a documentary was filmed in which he returned to the people and places of his wartime experience, and a dramatization of his book was written and presented on NHK Radio. A Kodansha paperback was published in 2010 with an initial printing of 17,000 copies and continues to sell at a respectable pace. "Tony Hirashiki is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built. From the day he approached the Bureau Chief in Saigon with a note pinned to his shirt saying he could shoot pictures to the anxious afternoon of 9/11 when we lost him in the collapse of the Twin Towers (and he emerged covered in dust clutching his precious beta tapes,) Tony reported the news with his camera and in doing so, he brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions of Americans." David Westin, Former President of ABC News

The 1st Infantry Division was established in 1917 to participate in the fighting in France and faced the major German offensives of 1918. During the Second World War, it effected its first assault landing in North Africa in 1942. Then followed the invasion of Sicily, D-Day in Normandy, the battle of the Bulge and the conquest of the Reich, as far as Czechoslovakia. According to the division lore, at the time, the U.S. Army consisted of the First Infantry Division and eight million replacements! Thanks to hundreds of historical pictures, the reader will follow the Big Red One’s glorious path in its most difficult assignments.

Award-winning author Scott L. Mingus, Sr., combines the best stories of Volumes One and Two with new anecdotes and photos presenting a complete edition. The Complete Human Interest Stories of the Gettysburg Campaign will resonate with all those intrigued by fascinating stories — both humorous and tragic — as seen through the eyes of Gettysburg soldiers and civilians. Using primary sources including diaries, pension records, historical collections, official records, journals, newspapers, and books, features are presented in chronological order.

“It could be classified as a mere skirmish, but no other fight of the entire four years’ struggle was followed by such important consequences,” explained former Confederate General Thomas Munford years after the Civil War. “It extinguished the campfires of the hitherto invincible army and was the mortal blow which caused the Southern Confederacy to perish forever.” The Battle of Five Forks broke the long siege of Petersburg, triggered the evacuation of Richmond, precipitated the Appomattox Campaign, and destroyed the careers and reputations of two generals. Michael J. McCarthy’s Confederate Waterloo is the first fully researched and unbiased booklength account of this decisive Union victory and the aftermath fought in the courts and at the bar of public opinion.General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had been locked into the sprawling defenses surrounding the logistical stronghold of Petersburg and the Southern capital at Richmond for more than eight months when General Grant struck beyond his far left flank to break the extended Rebel lines. A series of battles led up to April 1, when General Phil Sheridan’s forces struck at Five Forks. The attack surprised and collapsed General George Pickett’s Confederate command and turned Lee’s right flank. An attack along the entire front the following morning broke the siege and forced the Virginia army out of its defenses and, a week later, into Wilmer McLean’s parlor to surrender at Appomattox.Despite this decisive Union success, Five Forks spawned one of the most bitter and divisive controversies in the postwar army when Sheridan relieved Fifth Corps commander Gouverneur K. Warren for perceived failures connected to the battle. The order generated a lifelong effort by Warren and his allies to restore his reputation by demonstrating that Sheridan’s action was both unfair and dishonorable. The struggle climaxed with a Court of Inquiry that generated a more extensive record of testimony and exhibits than any other U.S. military judicial case in the 19th Century. In addition to Sheridan and Warren, participants included Gens. U. S. Grant and Winfield S. Hancock, and a startling aggregation of former Confederate officers.McCarthy’s Confederate Waterloo is grounded upon extensive research and a foundation of primary sources, including the meticulous records of a man driven to restore his honor in the eyes of his colleagues, his family, and the American public. The result is a fresh dispassionate analysis that may cause students of the Civil War to reassess their views about some of the Union’s leading generals.

This short book is a chronological and non-exhaustive study of photographs, letters, stories, weapons, and uniforms of soldiers. This study gives the opportunity to access the very private lives of soldiers who participated in various operations on the Western Front during the Great War.

It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two U.S. Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the juggernaut they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. The first 40 men who came to Berlin in mid-1956 were soon reinforced by 60 more and these 100 soldiers (and their successors) would stand ready to go to war at only two hours’ notice, in a hostile area occupied by nearly one million Warsaw Pact forces, until 1990. Their mission should hostilities commence was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines, and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each man was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, intelligence tradecraft and able to act if necessary as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin was a one of a kind unit that had no parallel. It left a legacy of a new type of soldier expert in unconventional warfare, one that was sought after for other deployments including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the U.

During the Vietnam war 3500 officers and men served in the Swift Boat program in a fleet of 130 boats with no armor plating. The boats patrolled the coast and rivers of South Vietnam, with the average age of the crew being twenty-four. Their days consisted of deadly combat, intense lightning firefights, storms and many hidden dangers. This action-packed story of combat written by Dan Daly, a Vietnam combat veteran who was the Officer in Charge of PCF 76 makes you part of the Swift Boat crew. The six man crew of PCF 76 were volunteers from all over the United States, eager to serve their country in a highly unique type of duty not seen since the PT boats of WWII. This inexperienced and disparate group of men would meld into a combat team – a team that formed an unbreakable, lifelong bond. After training they were plunged into a 12 month tour of duty. Combat took place in the closest confines imaginable, where the enemy were hidden behind a passing sand dune or a single sniper could be concealed in an onshore bunker, mines might be submerged at every fork in the river. The enemy was all around you, hiding, waiting, while your fifty-foot Swift Boat works its way upriver. In many cases the rivers became so narrow there was barely room to maneuver or turn around. The only way out might be into a deadly ambush. Humor and a touch of romance relieve the tension in this thrilling ride with America's finest.