Commando Despatch Rider
Commando Despatch Rider

Author: Raymond Mitchell

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2009-04-03

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1783379294

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“A year of a man and his motorcycle during WW2 . . . The guy was catapulted from teenager to soldier in a few short bounds.” —War History Online In 1944, Ray Mitchell landed in Normandy with his unit 41 Royal Marine Commando. His role in bringing the Third Reich to its knees was that of despatch rider. Often operating alone in totally unfamiliar and hostile terrain, he and his motorbike delivered vital messages to forward units. This is a fighting soldier’s account of war—warts and all—and describes in vivid terms his and his fellow commandos’ experiences and emotions. Over the next ten months the commandos were in the thick of the action in France, the Low Countries and Germany itself. Of particular note was the amphibious landing on the Walcheren Peninsula where the beleaguered German garrison fought fiercely to deny the Allies the vital port of Antwerp. Raymond Mitchell’s vivid memoirs of life and war on the road will be of interest to both military and motorcycling enthusiasts. “A delightful account of life in battle and between battles. It is by turns gripping, exciting, colourful, authentic and human.” —Firetrench “It is a richly detailed account and would be worthy of mention if it were just that of an ordinary infantryman’s experience, but it is all the more valuable as the lot of the despatch rider has never received much attention.” —The Pegasus Archive

Commando Despatch Rider
Commando Despatch Rider

Author: Raymond Mitchell

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 085052797X

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Raymond Mitchell, already a veteran of Sicily and Salerno, served as a Despatch Rider (DR) with 41 Royal Marines Commando throughout the North-West Europe campaign. Fortunately he considered his position in the military hierarchy as too lowly for the ban on keeping diaries to apply to him. As a result, Commando Despatch Rider is both an accurate and atmospheric record of one man's war seen from an unusual perspective. Use of the Unit's War Diary and contemporary records gives this war story a broader dimension.

Commando Tactics
Commando Tactics

Author: Stephen Bull

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2011-06-13

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1783378441

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British commandos are among the most celebrated soldiers of the Second World War. Their daring, ingenuity and bravery have given rise to an almost legendary reputation that makes it difficult to appreciate fully their role and their true value as fighting men.Stephen Bull, in this in-depth study of commando tactics and history, seeks to dispel the myths and the misunderstandings that surround them, and he places these elite troops of 70 years ago in the context of their times. He also demonstrates that the idea of the commando took time to develop and that commando operations were far from always successful. Commando tactics amphibious, mountain, close quarter were forged through the often-painful experience of raids and combined operations. And commando tactics and organization remained in a state of flux throughout the war as new situations and challenges arose.Stephen Bulls vivid account will be essential reading for anyone who is interested in commando fighting techniques and the early history of special forces.

White Rising
White Rising

Author: Jeremy Krikler

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2005-10-20

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9780719068447

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"Racial murder and rebellion lie at the heart of this book. It focuses on South Africa's 'Rand Revolt' of 1922, when Johannesburg and its surrounding towns were wracked by industrial strife, racial violence and insurrection. White workers rose against their employers and the State, black people were hunted through the streets, and strikers launched an onslaught upon police and the army. Krikler recreates this world of intense conflict and analyses the sources and complex nature of its extreme passions. The book suggests novel ways of looking at racial identity and violence, and breaks new ground in other areas - for example, in its assessment of the impact of the First World War on labour movements, and in its exploration of the significance of female violence during the upheaval." "Written with a determination to explore deeper meanings, the book has wide implications for our understanding of race and class in South Africa and elsewhere. It also offers a most vivid portrayal of a rebellion - with all its cruelty, heroism, drama and pathos."--BOOK JACKET.

Stout Hearts
Stout Hearts

Author: Ben Kite

Publisher: Helion and Company

Published: 2016-08-19

Total Pages: 489

ISBN-13: 1911096907

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“At last a book has been written that forensically examines how the British Armed Forces fought its way through Normandy . . . utterly absorbing.” —James Holland, bestselling author of Brothers in Arms Stout Hearts is a book which offers an entirely new perspective on the British Army in Normandy. This fresh study explores the anatomy of war through the Army’s operations in the summer of 1944, informing and entertaining the general nonfiction reader as well as students of military history. There have been so many books written on Normandy that the publication of another one might appear superfluous. However most books have focused on narrating the conduct of the battle, describing the factors that influenced its outcome, or debating the relative merits of the armies and their generals. What was missing from the existing body of work on Normandy specifically and the Second World War generally is a book that explains how an army actually operates in war and what it was like for those involved; Stout Hearts fills this gap. Stout Hearts is essential reading for those who wish to understand the “mechanics” of battle. How does an Army care for its wounded? How do combat engineers cross obstacles? How do tanks fight? How do Air and Naval Forces support the Army? But to understand what makes an Army “tick” you must also understand its people. Therefore explanations of tactics and techniques are not only well illustrated with excellent photographs and high quality maps but also effectively combined with relevant accounts from the combatants themselves. These dramatic stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things are the strength of the book, bringing the campaign to life and entertaining the reader.

The Fighting Fourth
The Fighting Fourth

Author: James Dunning

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2010-06-17

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0750951915

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Covering the legendary Lofoten and Dieppe raids, the D-Day landings and the capture of Flushing, James Dunning recounts the history of No. 4 Commando, an elite wartime special service unit, from formation in 1940 to disbandment five years later. The author, himself, a 'Fighting Fourth' veteran, describes how 500 volunteers, despite initial problems, prejudices and frustrations, developed into one of the most feared fighting formations of the Second World War. The extraordinarily tough and unorthodox training undertaken by No. 4 Commando prepared them for the raids of 1941 and 1942, their protracted involvement on D-Day and for 83 days' action in the struggle for Normandy. Their last major operation was the storming and capture of the vital port of Flushing in November 1944. This readable and authoritative history of the unit reveals their important role in the Second World War.

We Remember D-Day
We Remember D-Day

Author: Frank Shaw

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2014-05-08

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1473502039

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'On leaving the plane I can only say I felt very lonely, except that the sky was full of bullets coming upwards. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before my feet hit the ground with a thud. Almost as soon as my feet touched the ground, I was to find that I had landed directly in front of the muzzle of a German Machine Gun and I received a burst of fire straight at me. I can remember being hit and spinning round with a sudden yell of shock and finishing up flat on my back... I lay there rather dazed for a while, expecting to be hit again at any moment.' John Hunter, Parachute Regiment, Northants. Seventy years ago, on 6 June 1944, a great Allied Armada landed on the coast of Normandy. The invasion force launched on D-Day was a size never seen before and never likely to be seen again. 150,000 soldiers, more than 6,000 ships and 11,000 combat aircraft took part in the assault. The success of that attack led 11 months later to the final liberation of Europe from a ruthless dictatorship that had threatened to permanently enslave it. Such an undertaking on such a scale could not have been achieved without tremendous cooperation between Land, Sea and Air Forces. In We Remember D-Day we hear from the men and women who were involved in the assault; those who risked their lives for a better future. Their stories tell of human bravery and endeavour, pain and heartache, and, most importantly, freedom and hope.