Operation Neptune [Illustrated Edition]
Operation Neptune [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Cmdr. Kenneth Edwards

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2016-11-11

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 1787203298

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‘Operation Neptune’ was the codename for the naval component of the invasion of France in June 1944. The complete invasion codename was ‘Operation Overlord’, and ‘Neptune’ was phase one of a much bigger plan. Nevertheless, the task of safely landing 160,000 men with all of the supporting equipment was an operation on an unprecedented scale. The operation, planned by a team under Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan, was the largest amphibious invasion in world history and was executed by land, sea, and air elements under direct British command with over 160,000 troops landing on 6 June 1944. Of these, 73,000 were American troops, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadian. To achieve the successful landings, 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved. The invasion required the transport of soldiers and material from England by troop-laden aircraft and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. The landings took place along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The planning required for such a mammoth undertaking was vast, and all to be maintained under the strictest secrecy. The fact that the Germans were caught by surprise is incredible, and a great debt of gratitude is owed to the men and women who worked so hard to bring off the greatest sea-borne invasion in history. This book, written only one year after the invasion by a senior British naval officer who was closely involved, provides the detail behind the conception, planning and successful execution of ‘Neptune’. Richly illustrated throughout.

Airborne Operations In World War II, European Theater [Illustrated Edition]
Airborne Operations In World War II, European Theater [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Dr. John C. Warren

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 178625297X

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Includes 12 maps, 12 photos and 2 charts. THE seminal study of the Allied large scale airdrops of the Second World War in the European Theater. “The first combat airborne missions in history were flown by the Germans in 1940. Recognizing the possibilities of such operations, the British and Americans followed suit. The first British mission was flown in February 1941, and the first American mission was flown from England to Oran, Algeria, on 8 November 1942 as part of the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. Other, later missions, principally in the Mediterranean region, provided the American troop carriers with an apprenticeship in airborne warfare. However, until the summer of 1944 no force larger than a reinforced regimental combat team was flown into action in any Allied mission. In World War II the only Allied airborne operations employing more than one division took place in the invasion of Normandy, the unsuccessful attempt to win a bridgehead across the Rhine at Arnhem, and the successful crossing of the Rhine at Wesel. Consequently the study of airborne missions in the European Theater of Operations is of particular importance for the light it throws on the planning and performance of large-scale airborne assaults.”

Killing Bin Laden
Killing Bin Laden

Author: Peter Panzeri

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-09-20

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1472804090

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On May 2, 2011 a ten-year manhunt drew to a deadly end as the men of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (a.k.a. SEAL Team Six) closed in on their prey, Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Flown from Afghanistan by Army Special Operations Command's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and evading detection by the Pakistani military, two US helicopters flew towards the compound where they believed Bin Laden to be. Forty minutes later one helicopter had crashed and five people were dead, including the al-Qaeda leader. In this book the story of the raid is told, from start to finish, using specially commissioned full-colour artwork, photographs, and maps. The operation, codenamed Neptune Spear, is expertly analyzed and the events are told in a concise and clear account of its build-up, execution, and aftermath, demonstrating the skill and courage of the men who carried it out.

OMAHA BEACHHEAD - (6 June-13 June 1944) [Illustrated Edition]
OMAHA BEACHHEAD - (6 June-13 June 1944) [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Anon

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 178289263X

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Illustrated with over 40 photos and 15 maps of the engagement. The momentous events of the 6th of June 1944, D-Day, still resonate around the world, almost 200,000 Allied Soldiers were thrown against the Nazi dominated coast of France in a bid to free Western Europe from the Fascist grip that had held it since 1939. The plan was audacious, ambitious and exceptionally dangerous, the Allied Planners had decided to attack across five sectors over the beaches of Normandy, from the British and Canadian forces on the right at the mouth of the river Orne to the American Troops at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula. Without doubt the toughest sector of all was the beach code-named “Omaha” it was vital as it linked the Americans with the British landing to the east; however it was beset with sheer cliffs at either end of the beach, a deep sloping beach, the most advanced defences and the best of the German troops on the coast. As this book recounts in vivid detail, the reality on the beaches was truly hellish, wide beaches swept by artillery, mortar, machine gun and rifle fire filled with casualties as men clung to the beach obstacles for the only cover to be had. As the American troops on the ground struggled forward, errors in navigation led to reinforcements being routed to the wrong beaches and supporting amphibious tanks sank in the rough seas. That any of the men made it off the beaches at all was a miracle based on inspired leadership, hard training and sheer courage in the face of horrendous death dealing fire. As immortalised in the film Saving Private Ryan, this book produced by the American Army Historical Section recounts in superb, often brutal, detail the struggle on Omaha Beach. It is tale never to be forgotten and as the narrative based on the personal interviews with the men and officers of the 1st, 2nd and 29th divisions, along with the official reports and documents it is as engaging as it is authoritative.

United States Army in WWII - Europe - Cross-Channel Attack
United States Army in WWII - Europe - Cross-Channel Attack

Author: Gordon A. Harrison

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 978

ISBN-13: 1782894136

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[Includes 4 charts, 31 maps and 62 illustrations] Cross-Channel Attack has been planned and written as the introduction to the history of those campaigns in 1944 and 1945 which led to the destruction of the German armies in the west. It provides necessary background for the study of all the campaigns in the European Theater of Operations. The narrative of operations ends on 1 July 1944, with the Allies firmly established in Normandy. The concluding chapters show the successful fruition of plans and preparations reaching back as far as January 1942; but the seizure of the Norman beaches and the establishment of a lodgment area are only a beginning, a point of departure for the drive to the Elbe and the Baltic. Although Cross Channel Attack includes discussion of certain problems of high command and logistics, a more complete treatment is accorded these subjects in two volumes now under preparation in this series: The Supreme Command and Logistical Support of the Armies. Whether the reader approaches the book with the justified pride that he was a member or supporter of the winning team, or whether he reads to learn, is a matter for him to decide. The victor tends to prepare to win the next war with the same means and methods with which he won the last. He forgets the difficulty of reaching decisions, the planning problems, his faltering, his unpreparedness. The vanquished is wont to search far afield for new and improved methods, means, and equipment. The accomplishments of those who fought in this period were indeed great, as were the sacrifices. But from the national viewpoint it would seem desirable to read this volume with the self-critical eye of the vanquished as well as with the pride of the victor, an approach which the thoughtful reader will not find difficult.

No Easy Day
No Easy Day

Author: Mark Owen

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0525953728

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Mark Owen is a pseudonym for Matt Bissonnette.

Neptune's Inferno
Neptune's Inferno

Author: James D. Hornfischer

Publisher: Bantam

Published: 2012-03-06

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0553385127

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“A literary tour de force that is destined to become one of the . . . definitive works about the battle for Guadalcanal . . . [James D.] Hornfischer deftly captures the essence of the most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war.”—San Antonio Express-News The Battle of Guadalcanal has long been heralded as a Marine victory. Now, with his powerful portrait of the Navy’s sacrifice, James D. Hornfischer tells for the first time the full story of the men who fought in destroyers, cruisers, and battleships in the narrow, deadly waters of “Ironbottom Sound.” Here, in stunning cinematic detail, are the seven major naval actions that began in August 1942, a time when the war seemed unwinnable and America fought on a shoestring, with the outcome always in doubt. Working from new interviews with survivors, unpublished eyewitness accounts, and newly available documents, Hornfischer paints a vivid picture of the officers and enlisted men who opposed the Japanese in America’s hour of need. The first major work on this subject in almost two decades, Neptune’s Inferno does what all great battle narratives do: It tells the gripping human stories behind the momentous events and critical decisions that altered the course of history and shaped so many lives. Praise for Neptune’s Inferno “Vivid and engaging . . . extremely readable, comprehensive and thoroughly researched.”—Ronald Spector, The Wall Street Journal “Superlative storytelling . . . the masterwork on the long-neglected topic of World War II’s surface ship combat.”—Richard B. Frank, World War II “The author’s two previous World War II books . . . thrust him into the major leagues of American military history writers. Neptune’s Inferno is solid proof he deserves to be there.”—The Dallas Morning News “Outstanding . . . The author’s narrative gifts and excellent choice of detail give an almost Homeric quality to the men who met on the sea in steel titans.”—Booklist (starred review) “Brilliant . . . a compelling narrative of naval combat . . . simply superb.”—The Washington Times

Manhunt
Manhunt

Author: Peter L. Bergen

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2012-05-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0307955583

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The gripping account of the decade-long hunt for the world's most wanted man. It was only a week before 9/11 that Peter Bergen turned in the manuscript of Holy War, Inc., the story of Osama bin Laden--whom Bergen had once interviewed in a mud hut in Afghanistan--and his declaration of war on America. The book became a New York Times bestseller and the essential portrait of the most formidable terrorist enterprise of our time. Now, in Manhunt, Bergen picks up the thread with this taut yet panoramic account of the pursuit and killing of bin Laden. Here are riveting new details of bin Laden’s flight after the crushing defeat of the Taliban to Tora Bora, where American forces came startlingly close to capturing him, and of the fugitive leader’s attempts to find a secure hiding place. As the only journalist to gain access to bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound before the Pakistani government demolished it, Bergen paints a vivid picture of bin Laden’s grim, Spartan life in hiding and his struggle to maintain control of al-Qaeda even as American drones systematically picked off his key lieutenants. Half a world away, CIA analysts haunted by the intelligence failures that led to 9/11 and the WMD fiasco pored over the tiniest of clues before homing in on the man they called "the Kuwaiti"--who led them to a peculiar building with twelve-foot-high walls and security cameras less than a mile from a Pakistani military academy. This was the courier who would unwittingly steer them to bin Laden, now a prisoner of his own making but still plotting to devastate the United States. Bergen takes us inside the Situation Room, where President Obama considers the COAs (courses of action) presented by his war council and receives conflicting advice from his top advisors before deciding to risk the raid that would change history--and then inside the Joint Special Operations Command, whose "secret warriors," the SEALs, would execute Operation Neptune Spear. From the moment two Black Hawks take off from Afghanistan until bin Laden utters his last words, Manhunt reads like a thriller. Based on exhaustive research and unprecedented access to White House officials, CIA analysts, Pakistani intelligence, and the military, this is the definitive account of ten years in pursuit of bin Laden and of the twilight of al-Qaeda.

Torpedo
Torpedo

Author: Katherine C. Epstein

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2014-01-02

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0674727401

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When President Eisenhower referred to the “military–industrial complex” in his 1961 Farewell Address, he summed up in a phrase the merger of government and industry that dominated the Cold War United States. In this bold reappraisal, Katherine Epstein uncovers the origins of the military–industrial complex in the decades preceding World War I, as the United States and Great Britain struggled to perfect a crucial new weapon: the self-propelled torpedo. Torpedoes epitomized the intersection of geopolitics, globalization, and industrialization at the turn of the twentieth century. They threatened to revolutionize naval warfare by upending the delicate balance among the world’s naval powers. They were bought and sold in a global marketplace, and they were cutting-edge industrial technologies. Building them, however, required substantial capital investments and close collaboration among scientists, engineers, businessmen, and naval officers. To address these formidable challenges, the U.S. and British navies created a new procurement paradigm: instead of buying finished armaments from the private sector or developing them from scratch at public expense, they began to invest in private-sector research and development. The inventions emerging from torpedo R&D sparked legal battles over intellectual property rights that reshaped national security law. Blending military, legal, and business history with the history of science and technology, Torpedo recasts the role of naval power in the run-up to World War I and exposes how national security can clash with property rights in the modern era.

The Canadian Army At War - Canada's Battle In Normandy
The Canadian Army At War - Canada's Battle In Normandy

Author: Colonel C.P. Stacey O.B.E.

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1782893504

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Contains 5 maps and 41 Illustrations. “The decisive battle in North-West France in the summer of 1944 was fought and won by gallant men from many nations. Britain, the United States, and Canada contributed the largest components; but Poland provided a fine division, the French Forces of the Interior and subsequently French regular forces played essential roles, and Belgium, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia all did their part. The victory won by the selfless cooperation of the men who made up these international forces is the property of no one nation; it is the monument of brave soldiers who died in different uniforms for one cause. “If this was a joint triumph of many nations, it was also a victory shared by the three fighting services. Sea, land, and air, they worked together for the defeat of the enemy so unselfishly and unceasingly that it would be difficult to say where the credit due to one element ended and that due to another began. All were courageous, all were skilful, all were bold; and together they achieved one of the greatest victories in the history of warfare and left all civilization their debtors. “In this campaign to which so many races and services contributed, the Canadian Army played a part of some significance. It is of that particular part that these pages tell.