When Edgar Mobbs ran on a rugby field, people watched. Eyes were drawn to him. A towering, upright presence - long of stride with knees raised high; elegant and powerful.When opponents came too close, out would shoot the famous Mobbs' hand-off - a c…

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on 7 December 1941, had severely damaged the United States Pacific Fleet but had not destroyed it, for the fleet's aircraft carrier force had been at sea when the Japanese struck. This meant tha…

August Schaumann was a natural born storyteller. He describes his Peninsula adventures so vividly that you get the feeling that you are there, riding next to him dodging French cavalry patrols and conquering the hearts and bodies of Spanish and Port…

In Heroes of Coastal Command, Andrew Bird examines the maritime war between 1939 and 1945, interweaving accounts of events of the period with personal stories of individuals caught up in them. Through interviews, letters, diaries and reports, all co…

Napoleon began his military career as an artillery cadet and artillery played a fundamental part in all his great battles. Until the Napoleonic Wars artillery had been seen merely as a supporting arm to the infantry, but Napoleon changed everything.…

Described as one of the greatest mass-murderers in history, Rudolf Hoss, was born in Baden-Baden, on the edge of Germany's Black Forest region, on 11 December 1901\. As a child, his aim was to join the priesthood, but in his early youth he became di…

Fought amid the most challenging terrain of any theatre during the Second World War, the campaign in the Far East saw heroic actions against the unyielding Japanese that resulted in the awarding of more than forty Victoria Crosses greater than a fif…

Emma, Lady Hamilton, rose from poverty to become a media celebrity, and her relationship with Admiral Nelson, and her renowned beauty, made her the most instantly-recognisable woman of her era, with the press following her every move. She was a frie…

As an 18-year old Belgian, Herbert Maeger was blackmailed into volunteering for the Waffen-SS in 1941 in order to save his mother from being sent to a concentration camp.After enduring harsh training with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, considere…

After recounting his early days as a naval cadet, including a voyage to the Far East aboard the cruiser _K ln_, and as the navigator/observer of the floatplane carried by the pocket battleship _Admiral Scheer_ during the Spanish Civil War, the autho…

Winston Churchill was under pressure. The Soviets felt that they were fighting the Germans by themselves. Stalin demanded that Britain should open a second front to draw German forces away from the east. Though the advice Churchill received from his…

In Hertfordshire Soldiers of The First World War the authors explore a series of individual case studies of Hertfordshire men who served in various theatres during the First World War, all of which had been uncovered as part of the Herts At War comm…

At the outbreak of the First World War, the United Kingdom had no aerial defence capability worthy of the name. When the war began Britain had just thirty guns to defend the entire country, with all but five of these considered of dubious value . So…

As the Afrika Korps withdrew after a bruising defeat at El Alamein, it became apparent that Axis forces would not be able to maintain their hold over Libya. Rommel pulled his troops back to Tunisia, digging in along the Mareth Line, and turned westw…

109s! Two, head-on views diving from my left, blinking with light. Curling blue tracers strand about me as I turn towards them. A third got my sight on him for an instant before he went under my nose. My helmets too big for me. Turn pressure pulls i…

The Royal Artillery played a vital, though often forgotten, part in the British armed forces' successful operation to re-capture of the Falkland Islands in 1982. However, the actions of the artillery were recorded by one young officer in a journal w…

With his elfin poker face, receding short golden hair, diminutive but muscular body, and stiff clipped gait, Vladimir Putin is among the world's most recognizable leaders. He has tightly ruled Russia since 31 December 1999, and will firmly assert po…

Naval VCs have been won in places as far apart in time and distance as the Baltic in 1854 and Japan in 1945, in the trenches from the Crimea to the Western Front, in harbours from Dar es Salaam to Zeebrugge, from the Barents to the Java Sea, from Ne…

Above the mud and misery of the trenches and the endless slugging matches of the First World War another contest was played out with all the military glamour, chivalric values and deadly outcome of a mediaeval, knightly tournament. This was the batt…

During the Waterloo Campaign, Wellington had only one division that was composed entirely of British infantry, the 1st Division. This consisted of two brigades of the most famous regiments of the British Army-the three regiments of Guards.The exploi…

The Campaign of Waterloo is the complete account of the climatic campaign and battle of the Napoleonic Wars abstracted from Sir John Fortescue's monumental A History of the British Army. Issued as an independent volume, The Campaign of Waterloo chro…

Winston Churchill was no stranger to storms. They had engulfed him in various ways throughout his long career and he had always turned to face them with jutting jaw and indomitable spirit. Dark clouds had hovered over him from the moment he became B…

The Cold War, with its air of mutual fear and distrust and the shadowy world of spies and secret agents, gave publishers the chance to produce countless stories of espionage, treachery and deception. What Nigel West has discovered is that the most e…

At the height of the savage and bitter Indian Mutiny, the British garrison at Cawnpore found itself surrounded in June 1857\. Through a lack of resources, its commander, Major General Wheeler, agreed to surrender the city providing all the British i…

With the declaration of war in September 1939, the Government Evacuation Scheme was implemented, in which almost one and a half million civilians, mostly children, were evacuated from the British cities thought most likely to be the targets of aeria…

The Victoria Cross is the most exclusive and prestigious of all gallantry awards. In order to retain this exclusivity, the standard of courage, endeavour or sacrifice required for a recommendation to be accepted for the award of the VC must be of th…

The memoir of SOE agent Benjamin Cowburn is rightly regarded as a classic of wartime literature. In simple, gripping detail Cowburn explains the methods of special agents who were dropped into France during the war and the ways that agents would set…

In the first groundbreaking volume of a new series, acclaimed Napoleonic scholar Gareth Glover brings together previously unpublished material relating to the Battle of Waterloo. The range and unique nature of much of the research will intrigue and…

Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914. He was one of the first black leaders to encourage black people to discover their cultural traditions and history, and to seek common cause in the struggle for true liberty a…

The Royal Navy of Nelson's time was such a huge organisation, that it is sometimes hard to comprehend its full scope. Indeed, during the Napoleonic Wars it was by far the largest employer in the entire world.Not only did the Royal Navy maintain a fl…

Captain Cook claimed the honour of being the first man to sail into the Antarctic Ocean in 1773, which he then circumnavigated the following year. Cook, though, did not see any land, and he declared that there was no such thing as the Southern Conti…

The scenes are familiar ones; the young Brylcream Boys sat at dispersal waiting for the haunting call of Scramble , lounging in their shirt sleeves and fur-lined boots, their leather flying helmets lying limp by their side. But what did the RAF figh…

More than a third of a million men set out on that midsummer day of 1812: none can have imagined the terrors and hardships to come. They would be lured all the way to Moscow without having achieved the decisive battle Napoleon sought; and by the tim…

Day Fighters in Defence of the Reich is a detailed, comprehensive daily reference to the air operations flown by the Luftwaffe. These operations were designed to combat the daylight strategic missions by the United States Army Air Force targeting th…

Sekigahara was the greatest samurai battle in history. Japan had long been at civil war until brought under the rule of Oda Nobunaga, and then, following his death at the hands of a traitorous general, that of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It was Hideyoshi wh…

Kurt Freiherr von Plettenberg (1891-1945) was the descendant of Westphalian aristocratic family, and a soldier in both world wars. The expectations, which he along with many of his later fellow conspirators of the 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler in…

The airborne battle for the bridges across the Rhine at Arnhem ranks amongst the Second World War's most famous actions - inspiring innumerable books and the star-studded 1977 movie. This book, however, is unique: deeply moved, the author provides a…

No other publication on this subject comes even close to including the amount of detail provided in this book. An introduction both summarizes previous works on the subject and describes the difficulties of obtaining and verifying information from e…

Following his resignation from the Government after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, Winston Churchill's political career stalled. Never one to give in, Churchill was determined to continue fighting the enemy. He was already a Major in the Territo…

Captain C Shore's enthusiasm for firearms led him to take every possible opportunity to try out different weapons, ammunition and methods of shooting. The result of all his investigations is this practical guide to the sniper's art in World War II.…

In 2002 the wreck of a British cruiser was located by divers off the coast of Tunisia. The stunning photographs of the wreck inspired Dr Richard Osborne to delve into the controversy surrounding the loss of one of the Royal Navy's proudest ships - H…

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was widely regarded as the Luftwaffe's finest fighter. It first saw service in France in August 1941, immediately proving itself at least the equal of the then latest Spitfire variant, the Mk.V.There were a number of characteri…

During the eighth century bc, Sparta became one of the leading cities of ancient Greece, conquering the southern Peloponnese, and from the mid-sixth century bc until the mid-fourth, Sparta became a military power of recognized importance. For almost…

Napoleonic artillery can usually be divided into two types: field, or light artillery which was employed by the armies on campaign and in the field and siege, or heavy artillery, which was employed in siege operations and against opponents holding t…

The accomplishments, and initiatives, both social and economic, of Edward Watkin are almost too many to relate. Though generally known for his large-scale railway projects, becoming chairman of nine different British railway companies as well as dev…

Erich Kempka served as Hitler's personal driver from 1934 until the Fuhrer's suicide in 1945. His candid memoirs provide a unique account that reaches a climax in the dark days in the bunker beneath Berlin's shattered streets.Kempka begins by descri…

Though pressed many times to write about his battles and campaigns, the Duke of Wellington always replied that people should refer to his published despatches, and he refused to add further to his official correspondence, famously remarking that: Th…

_The Art of Renaissance Warfare_ tells the story of the knight during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries from the great victories of Edward III and the Black Prince to the fall of Richard III on Bosworth Field. During this period, new technology…

Set deep in the heart of the Masurian woods of northern Poland, in what was formally East Prussia, lies a vast complex of ruined bunkers and shelters that once constituted Hitler's headquarters - the Wolfsschanze or Wolf's Lair - for Germany's attac…

On 23 June 1812 the French Grande Arme, over 600,000 strong and composed of men from the many nations that had become part of Napoleons empire, poured over the Russian border. In defence of Russia, an army of approximately the same number faced them…