Winston Churchill called it "the Beast." It was said to be unsinkable. More than thirty military operations failed to destroy it. Eliminating the Tirpitz, Hitler's mightiest warship, a 52,000-ton behemoth, became an Allied obsession. In The Hunt for Hitler's Warship, Patrick Bishop tells the epic story of the men who would not rest until the Tirpitz lay at the bottom of the sea. In November of 1944, with the threat to Russian supply lines increasing and Allied forces needing reinforcements in the Pacific, a raid as audacious as any Royal Air Force operation of the war was launched, under the command of one of Britain's greatest but least-known war heroes, Wing Commander Willie Tait. Patrick Bishop draws on decades of experience as a foreign war correspondent to paint a vivid picture of this historic clash of the Royal Air Force's Davids versus Hitler's Goliath of naval engineering. Readers will not be able to put down this account of one of World War II's most dramatic showdowns.
This major new work fundamentally reassesses the operations by the Western allies to deliver war supplies to Russia via the Arctic sea route between 1941 and 1945. It explores the motives underpinning Western aid, its real impact on the Soviet war effort, and its influence on wider Allied and German strategy as the war developed. It brings to life key participants, political and military, describes the interaction of intelligence with high policy and tactics, and brings a fresh perspective to key events, including the notorious convoy PQ 17. The book disputes the long-standing view that aid to Russia was essentially discretionary, lacking military rationale and undertaken primarily to meet political objectives, with only a minor impact on Soviet war potential. It shows that aid was always grounded in strategic necessity, with the Arctic supply route a constant preoccupation of British and American leaders, absorbing perhaps twenty per cent of Royal Navy resources after 1941 and a significant share of Allied merchant shipping badly needed in other theaters. The Soviet claim, determinedly promoted through the Cold War, that aid was marginal, still influences attitudes in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and contemporary Western opinion. It even resonates through the present war in Ukraine. Andrew Boyd demonstrates that in reality, Western aid through the Arctic was a critical multiplier of Soviet military power throughout the war and perhaps even enabled Russia’s very survival in 1942; and he makes plain that the British contribution to the aid effort was greater than generally acknowledged. The book also emphasises that the Arctic conflict was not framed solely by the supply convoys, important though they were. British, German and Russian operations in a theater – defined by Adolph Hitler in early 1942 as the ‘zone of destiny’ – were shaped by other perceived opportunities and threats. For instance, Germany concentrated its fleet in Norway to forestall a potential British attack while attempting land offensives to cut Russia’s links with its northern ports. It also had vital raw materials to protect. Britain explored potential operations with Russia to dislodge Germany from the Arctic coast and sever her access to important resources. Elegantly written written and incorporating many new perspectives on the Arctic theater, this new work should find a place on the shelves of every historian, scholar and enthusiast whose interests extend to the Russian dimension of the Second World War.
The true story of the WWII pilot who inspired Steve McQueen’s character in The Great Escape: “An extraordinary chronicle of resolve and heroism.” —Midwest Book Review When American fighter pilot William Ash’s plane was shot down over France in 1942, he was captured by German forces and placed in a Nazi prison camp. Ash, bolstered by the grit and ingenuity he developed during his upbringing in Texas during the Great Depression, would spend the rest of the war defying the Nazis and striving to escape from every POW camp in which they incarcerated him. His thrilling exploits made him the inspiration for Steve McQueen’s character in The Great Escape. Ash’s is a saga full of incident and high drama, climaxing in a breakout through a tunnel dug in the latrines of the Oflag XXIB prison camp in Poland—a great untold episode of World War II. Alongside William Ash is a cast of fascinating characters, including Roger Bushell, who would go on to lead the Great Escape, and Paddy Barthropp, a dashing Battle of Britain pilot who became Ash’s best friend and shared many of his adventures. The Cooler King is the uplifting story of one man’s extraordinary resilience in the face of impossible odds, and stands as an inspirational testament to the invincible spirit of liberty.
Dawn, 24 May 1941, two groups of ships, one British, one German meet in the Denmark Strait. Here two giants of maritime history 'HMS Hood' and the 'Bismarck' meet. Within minutes of the battle beginning 'HMS Hood' blows up with a catastrophic loss of life. Out of a crew of 1,418 only three survive. Coupled with this, the Royal Navy's newest battleship is outfought. While this is a cause of celebration for the Germans, 'Bismarck' has been wounded curtailing her Atlantic raiding sortie. Despite the wealth of documentary information and photographic evidence available on the battle, there continues to be controversy as to how the conflict was actually fought. This book analyses the events of 24 May 1941 to both shed new light and provide clarifications on how the battle was fought, the damage that different ships sustained, and how it was that the pride of the Royal Navy was destroyed in such a catastrophic manner.
"Goulty tells the story from the perspective of the ordinary sailor or officer who was there."—The Northern Mariner Although many books have been written about naval actions during the Second World War – histories and memoirs in particular – few books have attempted to encompass the extraordinary variety of the experience of the war at sea. That is why James Goulty’s vivid survey is of such value. Sailors in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy experienced a war fought on a massive scale, on every ocean of the world, in a diverse range of vessels, from battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines to merchant ships and fishing boats. Their recollections are as varied as the ships they served in, and they take the reader through the entire maritime war, as it was perceived at the time by those who had direct, personal knowledge of it. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the experience of individuals – their recruitment and training, their expectations and the reality they encountered on active service in many different offensive and defensive roles including convoy duty and coastal de-fence, amphibious operations, hunting U-boats and surface raiders, mine sweeping and manning landing and rescue craft. A particularly graphic section describes, in the words of the sailors themselves, what action against the enemy felt like and the impact of casualties – seamen who were wounded or killed on board or were lost when their ships sank. A fascinating inside view of the maritime warfare emerges which may be less heroic than the image created by some post-war accounts, but it gives readers today a much more realistic impression of the whole gamut of wartime life at sea.
The Second World War saw a host of heroic raids enacted across the various theatres, all delivered valiantly in a variety of ways by British combatants; on land, by sea and from the air. Daring exploits such as the raid on Rommel, the endeavours of the Cockleshell Heroes and the Dam Busters have become legendary in the annals of warfare. All feature here, alongside details of fascinating lesser-known operations.??It goes without saying that not all the raids were a success; in fact, some went disastrously wrong but the men who carried them out did so with extreme courage and in the knowledge that they might not return. Here, Peter Jacobs tells the gripping stories of some of the most heroic raids of the entire conflict. These include the disastrous landings at Dieppe; the amphibious assault on the dry dock at St Nazaire (more Victoria Crosses were won during this raid than in any other operation of the war); the airborne assaults on the German radar installation at Bruneval and later on Pegasus Bridge as a prelude to D-Day; and the low-level raid by RAF Mosquitos on the prison at Amiens to release members of the French Resistance.??This is an intriguing and insightful historical record of thirty of the most daring and strategic raids of military history and is sure to appeal to all enthusiasts of the genre.
In the tradition of Ben Macintyre, Tim Cook, and other bestselling World War Two historians, a riveting and updated telling of the tragic Dieppe raid of 1942. On the moonless night of August 18th 1942 a flotilla pushes out into the flat water of the Channel. They are to seize the German-held port of Dieppe and hold it for at least twenty-four hours, showing the Soviets the Allies were serious about a second front and to get experience ahead of a full-scale invasion. But confidence turned to carnage with nearly two thirds of the attackers dead, wounded or captured. The raid - the Royal Air Force's biggest battle since 1940- was both a disaster and a milestone in the narrative of the war. It was cited as essential to D-Day, but the tragedy was all too predictable. Using first-hand testimony and highlighting recently declassified source material from archives across several countries, bestselling author Patrick Bishop's account of this doomed endeavour reveals the big picture and unearths telling details that fully bring Operation Jubilee to life for the first time.
From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet. The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships -- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean -- roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence." The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea. Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.
In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or Kamikaze.Drawing on meticulous research and unique personal access to the remaining survivors, Will Iredale follows a group of young men from the moment they signed up through their initial training to the terrifying reality of fighting against pilots who, in the cruel last summer of the war, chose death rather than risk their country's dishonorable defeat—and deliberately flew their planes into Allied aircraft carriers.
For over twenty years the battlecruiser HMS 'Hood' toured the world as the most iconic warship in the Royal Navy. Unmatched in her beauty and charisma, 'Hood' is one of history's greatest warships. During the twilight years of the British Empire the 'Hood 'toured the world showing the flag as a symbol of British power. As the Royal Navy's show-ship, 'Hood' came to command a special place in the hearts and minds of the British public. Such was the regard for HMS 'Hood' that her destruction in the Denmark Strait on the morning of 24 May 1941 by the German battleship 'Bismarck' created dismay across the world. Within minutes of entering battle 'the Mighty Hood' as she was affectionately known, was destroyed by a catastrophic explosion which had echoes of Jutland a quarter of a century earlier. Out of a crew of a crew of 1,418, only 3 survived. The sinking of HMS 'Hood' was the single largest disaster ever sustained by the Royal Navy. This book charts the life and death of this legendary battlecruiser in both peace and war from her early origins, through the interwar years, to her destruction.