Militaria

//Militaria
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  • December, 1977:  an urgent messaged was flashed from NORAD that a Soviet satellite had begun to malfunction by flipping out of its orbit - and was going to crash into the earth's surface.  What followed was a real-life science fiction nightmare as scientists and politicians from America, Canada and the Soviet Union became embroiled in a terrifying tangle of intrigue and guessing games.  Now the full story of this nightmare is told.
  • The in-depth inside story of the victory in Africa and Europe by Montgomery's Chief-of-Staff.  This is not just a re-telling of the battles and campaigns de Guingand fought with Montgomery, the Eighth Army and the 21st Army Group; it is also an insight into what it takes to get armies equipped and in place to achieve those victories as well as an evaluation of some of the personalities of the leadership of the Western Allies through defeat onward to victory.
  • Being Reports on Various New Zealand Towns and Country Places and On Some of the Doings of Their People as Described in Korero, Magazine of the Army Education Welfare Service.  Korero was an illustrated troop magazine, a fortnightly bulletin  that contained articles, sketches and verse of interest to members of the Armed Forces. Contributions were sought from individuals within the New Zealand Armed Forces and were intended to give New Zealanders serving overseas a brief survey of the towns and districts they had left.  A maximum of £3 in canteen orders was made as payment. The surveys are not profound social studies nor are they superficial - but they are observant and sympathetic. Drawings were used rather than photographs as  photographs did not reproduce well on newsprint. Illustrated with excellent black and white sketches. Korero is Maori for talk, discussion or meeting.

     
  • In the space of three and a half weeks during May and June of 1940, Nazi Germany came perilously close to winning the war a scant ten months after it started. The British Expeditionary Force and the French and Belgian allies were cut off in the North and driven to the very sands of the Channel and the ruins of Dunkirk, the lone port still in the hands of the B.E.F. Britain faced catastrophe. How that catastrophe was averted through a combination of enemy blunders and British resourcefulness is told here in an account that exposes the 'miracle' of Dunkirk.  Here is the true story, chronicled through diaries, memoirs and personal reminiscences of the hundreds of men who lived through those weeks; COs, foot soldiers, generals and privates. Very in-depth.

  • When the author, a wounded veteran of 21, arrived in Rome in 1944, the question most Italians asked him was: 'What took you so long?' What indeed? Were the Allied High Command to blame? Were the generals incompetent? Was the Anzio landing itself a tactical error? In 1956 Raleigh Trevelyan published, as The Fortress, the diaries he had surreptitiously kept in the Anzio trenches and, as a result, made contact with a number of Germans who had been only yards away from him twelve years earlier. Now that statesmen and generals have published their memoirs and official histories of the war have been written, it seems possible at long last to attempt an answer. This is a remarkable book, bringing together the skill and insight of an accomplished historian, the narrative drive of a gifted storyteller, and the rage and terror of a man experiencing at first hand the momentous events from Anzio to Monte Cassino and on to Rome. The reader follows the fate of the 'poor bloody infantry' on both sides of the line; sees a group of Romans adapting to the idea that the Germans are still there; penetrates the secrets of the Vatican; watches the Allied and German generals on the spot fight with their High Commands and hears what Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin thought about it at the time. Illustrated with black and white photographs and even some contemporary cartoons.
  • A detailed history of the World War II American B-29 Enola Gay, its crew, and the controversial mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Painstakingly researched, the story behind the decision to send the Enola Gay to bomb Hiroshima is told through firsthand sources. From diplomatic moves behind the scenes to Japanese actions and the US Army Air Force’s call to action, no detail is left untold. Touching on the early days of the Manhattan Project and the first inkling of an atomic bomb, investigative journalist Gordon Thomas and his writing partner Max Morgan-Witts, take WWII enthusiasts through the training of the crew of the Enola Gay and the challenges faced by pilot Paul Tibbets.  Illustrated with black and photographs.
  • For four years in World War II, out of an unquestioned love for their mother country, the Russian people heroically defended their soil with their blood. Here is the full story of the valor of the sons and daughters, soldiers and villagers, Cossacks and snipers who battled in Moscow and Stalingrad, in the Caucasus and the Arctic, at the Brest fortress and Kursk Bulge. From the account of the aging Russian general who suffered drenchings in ice-cold water rather than collaborate with his Nazi captors to that of the nineteen-year-old private who flung himself on the gun port of a German pillbox so that his comrades could advance, these pages not only chronicle extraordinary selfless acts of heroism but also rectify an astonishing oversight in innumerable histories of World War II.  With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.
  • S.O.E. was a small, tough British secret service dirty-tricks department.  Its job was to support and stimulate resistance in occupied countries. It was wound up after the war.  Its total strength was never more than 10,000 men and 3,200 women, over a third of them secret agents - it exercised vast influence on the war all over the world. This is a readable volume on how S.O.E was created and run, the calibre of the men and women involved, what tools they used and how, when and where they used them, where they did well - and where they did badly. Illustrated with black and white photographs.

  • Part One of this autobiography relates the dramatic escape to Australia of three young Swiss sisters during the Japanese invasion of Singapore, then traces their gradual and complete adaption to the Australian way of life by the youngest sister, Annelies. Part Two is the story of their father, the Swiss Consul and their mother Gritli, who remained in Singapore at their posts in dedication to their community. This second part is translated from the recently discovered original diaries of their father, Rudolph Arbenz.