One day. Fourteen hours. Twelve thousand Union cavalrymen against 9,000 of their Confederate counterparts—with three thousand Union infantry thrown in for good measure. Amidst the thunder of hooves and the clashing of sabers, they slugged it out across the hills and dales of Culpepper County, Virginia.And it escalated into the largest cavalry battle ever fought on the North American continent.Fleetwood Hill at Brandy Station was the site of four major cavalry battles during the course of the Civil War, but none was more important than the one fought on June 9, 1863. That clash turned out to be the opening engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign—and the one-day delay it engendered may very well have impacted the outcome of the entire campaign.The tale includes a veritable who’s-who of cavalry all-stars in the East: Jeb Stuart, Wade Hampton, John Buford, and George Armstrong Custer. Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate commander, saw his son, William H. F. Lee, being carried off the battlefield, severely wounded. Both sides suffered heavy losses.But for the Federal cavalry, the battle was also a watershed event. After Brandy Station, never again would they hear the mocking cry, “Whoever saw a dead cavalryman?”In Out Flew the Sabers: The Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863—The Opening Engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign, award-winning Civil War historian Eric J. Wittenberg has written the latest entry in Savas Beatie’s critically acclaimed Emerging Civil War Series.

This book describes nine transplanted Poles who participated in the Civil War. They span three generations and are connected by culture, nationality and adherence to their principles and ideals. The common thread that runs through their lives—the Polish White Eagle—is that they came from a country that had basically disintegrated at the end of the previous century, yet they carried the concepts of freedom they inherited from their forefathers to the New World to which they immigrated. Once in America the pre-war political feuds, ferocious ensuing battles, captures, prison camp escapes and privations of war—often in the words of the soldiers themselves—are fully described. More highly trained in warfare than their American brethren—and certainly more inured to struggles for nationhood— the Poles made a more significant contribution to Civil war combat than is usually described. The first group had fought in the 1830 war for freedom from the Russian Empire. The European revolutionary struggles of the 1840’s molded the next generation. The two of the youngest generation came of age just as the Civil War began, entered military service as enlisted men and finished as officers. Of the group, four sided with the North and four with the South, and the other began in the Confederate cavalry and finished fighting for the Union side. All but one came from aristocratic backgrounds. In a war commonly categorized as a “brother against brother,” a struggle between two American regions, history has not devoted a great deal of attention to the participation of Poles, and foreigners in general. These men fought with a belief in European democratic liberalism. Whether for the North to keep a Union together or to form a new nation from the Southern states, they held to their ideals, and in America’s own greatest conflict continued to fight for their beliefs.

“I thought my men were invincible,” admitted Robert E. Lee.A string of battlefield victories through 1862 had culminated in the spring of 1863 with Lee’s greatest victory yet: the battle of Chancellorsville. Propelled by the momentum of that supreme moment, confident in the abilities of his men, Lee decided to once more take the fight to the Yankees and launched this army on another invasion of the North.An appointment with destiny awaited in the little Pennsylvania college town of Gettysburg.Historian Dan Welch follows in the footsteps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac as the two foes cat-and-mouse their way northward, ultimately clashing in the costliest battle in North American history.Based on the Gettysburg Civil War Trails, and packed with dozens of lesser-known sites related to the Gettysburg Campaign, The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign offers the ultimate Civil War road trip.

Ten years after the publication of his Services Spéciaux (1935-1945), Paillole took up his pen once again in order to shed further light on the critical role that the French Secret Service played in the infiltration of German agencies. In this first English edition of The Spy in Hitler’s Inner Circle, Paillole brings us to the very heart of the world of espionage and counterintelligence, providing unique insight into the key figures that led to the decoding of the Enigma machine at Bletchley and the ultimate collapse of Hitler’s Third Reich, most notably through Hans-Thilo Schmidt, France’s German spy embedded in the very heart of the Third Reich.In compelling narrative style Paillole details how Schmidt delivered intelligence to France right from the source of the German Cipher Office. Schmidt, whose brother Rudolf occupied one of the highest postings in the Third Reich, commander of 2nd Panzer Army in Russia, created an intelligence network between France, Poland and England, and successfully transmitted crucial details about Hitler’s strategic plans. From information about Germany’s rearmament and the reoccupation of the Rhineland, to fundamental technical intelligence about the Enigma machine, Schmidt’s contributions are key to the Allied victory in the intelligence war, despite the fact that France largely ignored his communications.Revealed here are the most secret aspects of the ‘secret war,’ the ‘war of numbers.’ Paillole also sheds further light on the interaction of secret agents working inside the German government, bringing attention to the cooperation between the French, English and Polish agencies surrounding the challenges of decoding the Enigma machine. We learn the innermost details of the roles that men such as Gustave Bertrand, Rudolphe Lemoine, and Richard Sorge played in this dramatic history and ultimately the pivotal role that Bletchley’s Alan Turing was able to perform as a result.Paillole brings renewed focus onto one of the most important espionage affairs of the war, revealing new aspects of the participation of Enigma during the decisive phases of the Second World War: the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Battle of Libya and the Battle of Normandy.

When the Royal Canadian Air Force wouldn’t accept him as a pilot in the summer of 1939, Keith ‘Skeets’ Ogilvie walked across the street in Ottawa and joined the Royal Air Force. A week later he was on a boat to England and a future he could not have imagined. Some unusual luck won him a transfer as a Spitfire pilot to No. 609 (White Rose) Squadron, just as the Battle of Britain was being joined. Over the next months he firmly established his credentials with six confirmed victories and two probables, along with several enemy aircraft damaged. Shot down over France the following July, he was fortunate to be treated for grievous injuries by top German surgeons. Skeets’ home for the balance of the war was Stalag Luft III prison camp. He was the second last man out of the ‘Great Escape’ tunnel but was recaptured three days later. For reasons he never understood, Skeets was one of 23 escapees who were spared from being murdered by the Gestapo. 50 of his fellows were not so lucky. In London on a night off from flying duties, Skeets had been introduced to a fellow Canadian expatriate, Irene Lockwood. While he was testing the limits of his luck, his future wife was experiencing her own adventures in London, living through the daily stress of the Luftwaffe bombing campaign and working with MI12, and later as a wartime photographer with the RCAF. You Never Know Your Luck is the story of two modest people who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, and who rose to the occasion like so many of their contemporaries. Skeets’ and Irene’s own words and memories are the foundations on which the experience of wartime unfolds. A unique perspective from individuals who never failed to wonder at their own fortune.

In the first years of the Civil War, Southern arms won spectacular victories on the battlefield; however, cooler heads in the Confederacy recognized the demographic and industrial weight pitted against them, and counted on British intervention to even those scales in order to deny the United States victory.Bluff, Bluster Lies and Spies is a wild ride through the mismanaged State Department of William Henry Seward in Washington, DC, to the more skillful work of Lords Palmerston, Russell and Lyons in the British Foreign Office. Fearful that Great Britain would recognize the Confederacy and provide the help that might have defeated the Union, the Lincoln administration was careful not to upset the greatest naval power on earth. At the same time, however, Great Britain needed to retain influence on American foreign policy, because her very safety as an empire depended upon it. In face of the growth of the Union navy—particularly its new ironclad ships—she turned out to be a paper tiger who relied on bluff and bluster to preserve the illusion of international strength. Britain had its own continental rivals with whom to vie, and the question of whether a truncated United States or a reunited stronger one was most advantageous was a vital question. Ultimately Prime Minister Palmerston decided that Great Britain would be no match for a Union armada that could have seized British possessions throughout the Western Hemisphere, including Canada, and he frustrated any ambitions to break Lincoln’s blockade of the Confederacy with Britannia.In addition to the naval arms race between Britain and France, Europe was covered with the spies, arms dealers, detectives and publicists who struggled to buy guns and to influence European opinion about the validity of either the Union or Confederate cause. This book describes in full how the Civil War in the New World was ultimately left to Southern battlefield prowess alone to determine, as the powers of the Old World declined to overtly intervene in the American question.

After the first successful flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, the age of aviation was born, and by 1910 army commanders in the United States and Europe began ordering aircraft and experimenting with them. But at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, no-one could yet possibly know how significant a role they would play in the fighting. Aerial reconnaissance, observation and photography impacted the fighting in many ways, but little has been written about it. Balloons and airplanes regulated artillery fire, infantry liaison aircraft followed attacking troops and the retreats of defenders, aerial photographers aided operational planners and provided the data for perpetually updated maps, and naval airplanes, airships, and balloons acted as aerial sentinels in a complex anti-submarine warfare organization. Reconnaissance crews at the Battles of the Marne and Tannenberg averted disaster. The story told here involves the early American Lafayette Escadrille pilots who were looking for heroic deeds and romantic adventure in aerial combat, as well as the German, British and French aces of popular imagination. But the real value of military aviation lay elsewhere; balloonists, unsung heroes, were an essential part of the observation chain, and forever altered the nature of artillery operations. Observation spotters from planes further enhanced the benefit of being able to extend the target range well out of the line of sight and direct artillery fire, though communicating information was far from easy and systems from weighted message bags through light flashes, smoke signals and wireless messages were tried and honed. Eyes All Over the Sky fully explores all the aspects of aerial reconnaissance, and its previously under-appreciated significance. Also included are the individual experiences of British, American and German airmen; true pioneers of aviation warfare.

A Visual History of the U.S. Army's WWII Tank Destroyer In late 1941 the concept of a separate tank destroyer force began to jell. This force would be armed with specialized weapons. While the army’s primary antitank weapons of the late 1930s were 37mm towed anti-tank guns, these were soon deemed to be inadequate against enemy armor. Accordingly, the quest for larger weapons began, as did the desire for a self-propelled antitank gun, or Gun Motor Carriage. The initial efforts, which involved adapting 3/4-ton, Dodge trucks to mount antitank weapons (the M6, née WC-55), which were intended as interim and training vehicles. Product Information: ISBN: 9781944367190 Author: David Doyle Publisher: The Ampersand Group Format: Paperback Pages: 128 Dimensions: 22 z 28 x 1cm.

6 juin 1944, deux divisions aéroportées américaines sont larguées à l’est de la Presqu’île du Cotentin. L’une d’elles, la 101st Airborne Division, a pour mission d’ouvrir les sorties de plages pour la 4th Infantry Division qui va débarquer sur Utah Beach mais aussi de dégager les passages sur la Douve, au sud, au milieu des marais pour atteindre et prendre Carentan, petite ville située au coeur de cette zone aquatique mais aussi carrefour stratégique permettant la jonction avec la tête de pont d’Omaha Beach. Prendre Carentan, c’est réunir les forces américaines, un échec isolerait dangereusement les forces ayant pris pied dans le Cotentin. Les Allemands sont numériquement surclassés mais un régiment d’élite, les paras du Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 6 de von der Heydte, se trouve à proximité et monte en ligne face à la 101e. Ce sera alors un combat acharné entre paras américains et paras allemands, dans le secteur de Saint-Côme-du-Mont puis devant Carentan. Les paras du 502 PIR attaquent la chaussée, avec de lourdes pertes puis sur la ferme Ingouf. C’est enfin le mythique combat du « carré de choux ». Submergé dans Carentan, véritable « Cassino » normand, von der Heydte décroche dans la nuit du 11 au 12 juin, avant la contre-attaque allemande du 13 menée avec la « Götz ». C’est un échec, la bataille est finie. Les Américains ont assuré la jonction entre les deux têtes de pont. Cet ouvrage très documenté suit ces opérations mal connues, jour par jour avec de nombreux témoignages et des documents exceptionnels.

Matthieu Longue nous proposeun récit complet et une analysedétaillée du parcours au combatdu 2e bataillon du 506th ParachuteInfantry Regiment de la101st Airborne, ainsi que les principauxhauts faits d'armes de lamondialement célèbre EasyCompany « Band of Brothers »,avec le concours de vétérans etd'autres spécialistes.En compagnie des paras, lelecteur va suivre, de près, leurentraînement avant de se retrouverau coeur des combats deNormandie, de Hollande, desArdennes et d’Alsace, revivantainsi les moments tragiquesd’une aussi sombre que glorieusepage de l’histoire de l’US Army dela Seconde Guerre mondiale.L'ouvrage comporte de nombreusesdescriptions ainsi quedes organigrammes nous renseignantsur la composition desunités et donnant des informationsprécises sur les armes etles équipements utilisés par lestroupes parachutistes américaines de cette époque.

June 7, 1944. The Allies have landed in Normandy, where they have set a bridgehead : yet this one is narrow and fragile. The Canadians sprint on to Carpiquet, but their attack is crushed by panzers of the Hitlerjugend Division that have just rejoined the frontline. Canadians and Germans are going to fight each other violently, and the tension is at its highest – some Canadian soldiers are murdered in Buron, and at the Ardenne Abbey. June 8, 1944. The Winnipegs are crushed by a German counter-attack in Putot. Some German soldiers are executed on Hill 102, and some Canadian soldiers are executed in Audrieu and Le Mesnil-Patry. Who are the people responsible for those actions ? For the first time, the mystery is partially unveiled. Then, the crazy night attack on Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse – some panzers will burn and light this terrible night. June 9, 1944. The “Ribbentrop Company” attacks Norrey : seven Panther tanks are destroyed. The Hitlerjugend’s counter-attack is stopped. In Norrey, this is “the accident” : shrapnel wipe out a lot of civilians. The acme of horror has been reached. Thanks to a large number of testimonies, given by the combatants and the Norman civilians – who also suffered a lot during the battle –, this book offers a degree of precision never reached regarding the Battle of Normandy. The wartime and current pictures, the portraits of soldiers and civilians, the maps and the plans make this book a real movie of these “three days in hell” between Bayeux and Caen, whilethe frontline was still not stabilized, while the soldiers were trying to go from one enemy strongpoint to another, and while the civilians did not know where the danger was…

A Visual History of the Golden State Battleship BB-44The very first in a new series of value-priced hard cover horizontal format books on U.S. capital ships in the Second World War. Part of the “Extended” Visual History format, this 168 page book is packed with large, clear images of the USS California. Coverage begins with the laying of her keel in 1916 and continues with the ship’s launching, commissioning and outfitting. The title then explores the ship’s long history from her days in the “Blue Water Navy” to her sinking at Pearl Harbor using hundreds of detailed photos. Salvaged and refitted, the USS California was back in action at Saipan just 30 months later. The photographic coverage follows the history of the “Prune barge” all though her WWII experience right through to her decommissioning in 1959. The many photos are accompanied by beautifully rendered line drawings and color plates. An essential companion to the Trumpeter plastic kit.

This beautiful and evocative book gives an illustrated overview of the First World War, on land, on sea and in the air. With original drawings in full colour, Steven Patricia uses 30 years’ experience as a historical illustrator to give an informative and insightful account of the war, portraying the human faces of the participants and capturing moments in time with a vividness and immediacy that brings home both the emotional impact and the tragedy of war. Accompanied by soldier’s diary extracts and other contemporary literature, there are many drawings of the hardware of war: aircraft and airships, submarines and ships, guns and grenades. We also get a glimpse of weary officers relaxing in an RAF mess, see panicking sailors swimming desperately away from a sinking ship, soldiers stumbling across no-man’s land, and the dramatic scene of one of last great cavalry charges of any war, in Egypt. The role of animals is featured, including the importance of horses and rescue and messenger dogs. The text gives a concise introduction to the events of the war and why it started, with maps of the different fronts where fighting took place and a diagram of a trench system. Designed for readers with little familiarity of the conflict, this is a unique and unmissable book in the centenary of the ‘war to end all wars’.

Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom”—the Wilderness of Virginia, seventy square miles of dense, secondgrowth forest known as “the dark, close wood.”“A more unpromising theatre of war was never seen,” said another.Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Immovable object intercepted irresistible force—and the Wilderness burst into flame.With the forest itself burning around them, men died by the thousands. The armies bloodied each other without mercy and, at times, without any semblance of order. The brush grew so dense, and the smoke hung so thick, men could not see who stood next to them—or in front of them. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said.It was, said another, “hell itself.”Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive.For more than a decade, Chris Mackowski has guided visitors across the battlefields of the Overland Campaign. Now in Hell Itself he invites readers of the Emerging Civil War Series to join him in the Wilderness—one of the most storied battlefields of the entire Civil War.

A major event of the Second World War, the landing of June 6, 1944 has been, for more than seventy years, the subject of countless books, films, surveys, reportages and TV series. Nowadays many are aware of the unprecedented technological achievements implied in the planning and construction of two artificial harbours, or of the heroic sacrifice of the Rangers under Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder’s command, who stormed the Pointe du Hoc; or again of the martyrdom the of GIs of the 29th and 1st Divisions of the American infantry on Omaha Beach, which went down in history by the sad name of "Bloody Ohama ". But did you know that the D Day was preceded in late April 1944 by a similar event that took place off the Slapton Sands coast, in Devon, and that caused the death of more than seven hundred soldiers, yet remaining a secret for decades? Did you know that the beautiful Lily Sergeyev, artist and traveller, was considered by the Allies one of their best agents... and by the Germans as one of their most effective spies in Britain? Did you know that Lionel Crabb, sentinel diver of the Royal Navy on the Normandy coast, inspired Ian Fleming to create the character of James Jump? Did you know that the US troops, when completely surrounded in Mortain, were supplied with penicillin, morphine and plasma by dropping empty bomb shells stuffed with chocolate bars used as a cushion to avoid damages? Did you know that Lili Marlene, the Germans’ favourite song, was also popular among Allied soldiers? These are only some of the original and instructive revelations you will find in this book, which is based on the rigorous research carried out in over half a century by Philippe Bauduin, who is passionate about the Landing and the Battle of Normandy since his childhood, and is author of a dozen books on the subject as well as numerous articles.

The second of three volumes, this book is part of a series considered the most complete and detailed study on the uniforms and the equipment used by Second World War German paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger). Virtually every element of the uniforms is presented in detail, including different models of parachutes (Knochensack) and all the equipment used by the Luftwaffe from the mid-30s until the capitulation of the Reich, as well as the typical badges of the Fallschirmjäger and many untold stories. In short, this book accompanies the reader through a visual but detailed reconstruction of the operation of "Green Devils" and the attack Norway carried out during the last days of the Third Reich against the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael, but also through the campaigns in Holland, Crete, North Africa, Russia, Italy, Normandy and the Ardennes. With the help of collectors and museums from all around the world, the author and his German publisher started an unprecedented and prolific collaboration. The three volumes contain thousands of unpublished photos of objects belonging to the Fallschirmjäger, including coins that have never been seen or studied before.