- Sorry, this product is unavailable.
-
Bletchley Park was where one of Word War II's most famous and crucial achievements was made: the cracking of Germany's Enigma code in which its most important military communications were couched. This country house was home to Britain's most brilliant mathematical brains - including Alan Turing - and the scene of immense advances in technology...indeed, the birth of modern computing. The military codes deciphered there were instrumental in turning both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in North Africa. Plenty has been written about the scientists and the code-breaking, in both fact and fiction, from Robert Harris and Ian McEwan to Andrew Hodges' biography of Turing. But what of the thousands of men and women who lived and worked there during World War II? This is not only a history of life at Bletchley Park; this is also an amazing compendium of memories from people now in their eighties of skating on the frozen lake in the grounds and the high jinks at nearby accommodation hostels - and of the implacable secrecy that meant girlfriend and boyfriend working in adjacent huts knew nothing about each other's work. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
To many people the most glamorous of aeroplanes is the fighter, by the idea of men flying alone high above the earth in the open cockpit of First World War aircraft, as they fought the gaily-coloured Fokker, Albatross and Pfalz of the German Air Service. This 'feeling for the fighter' was strengthened in 1940 when the Hurricanes and Spitfires of the Royal Air Force saved Britain from German invasion. This book describes the fighters of both wars; there is also the entire development of the fighter from its primitive beginnings up to the supersonic age. The most significant fighters of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States, Japan and the U.S.S.R. are among those featured. Illustrated with black and white photos. -
By the summer of 1941 Rommel was Hitler's favourite general. Sent to North Africa to halt the British advance into Libya, he not only stopped the British offensive but drove them back to their Egyptian base. He seemed unbeatable on the field so the British planned to kill him. On the eve of the British offensive Operation Crusader, a specially trained commando team marched into the desert and attacked Rommel's headquarters. At the same time, the newly created SAS parachuted sabotage teams close to the German airfields to knock out the enemy air forces on the ground. The author reveals how poor planning and incompetence in high places was counterbalanced by fantastic bravery and brilliant improvisation that enabled a handful of survivors to escape back to British lines and tell the true story of Operation Flipper: the plot to kill Rommel.
-
Blitzkrieg: Traces the origins of the war starting with the Armistice at Compiègne in 1919, covering the rise of totalitarianism in Europe, the first terrible months of the Blitzkrieg, the imperialistic aggression of Japan in the Far East, the period of Allied appeasement, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the fall of France. Siege: Begins with the dogged and courageous stand of the British against the onslaught of the Nazi war machine, the war in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, the invasion of the Balkans and Greece, the harsh and brutal war in the North African desert, the suicidal German attack on Russia, the cruelty of the winter war and the attack on Pearl Harbour. Counterattack: The initial period of the Axis reversals and the first steps on the Allied road to victory; the three great turning points of the war ( Stalingrad, Midway and El Alamein) Rome has fallen; the Nazis are reeling under the Russian counter-offensive and the first of the costly, bloody Pacific campaigns. Victory: The last stages of the war in both the European and Pacific theatres; the Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy, the battle of France, the Red Army offensive, the Yalta conference and the capitulation of the Third Reich, concluding with the bitter Pacific Island campaigns, MacArthur's retrurn to the Philippines, the dropping of the atomic bomb and Japan's surrender. Each volume contains rare photographs; over four volumes, 500 photographs and 100,000 words. -
It was at Dunkirk that Toosey's charisma and fortitude were first noted and in 1941 he was given command of an artillery regiment. Sent to fight in the Far East he and his men were embroiled in the battle for Singapore and were taken prisoner after the island's fall in 1942. The Japanese, scornful of the Allied forces for surrendering, determined to make use of the new workforce now at their disposal. Toosey was sent to Thailand to command the 'bridge camp' at Tamarkan where he was ordered to supervise the construction of two railway bridges over the river Khwae Mae Khlong. Starvation rations and harsh working conditions mean that dysentery and cholera were rife and a quarter of the 60,000 prisoners working on the Burma Railway wold perish. Toosey insisted on high standards of hygiene and discipline, giving back the men their self-respect and making himself a buffer for the cruel excesses if the guards. The author is Toosey's grand-daughter. Illustrated with black and white photographs and sketches.
-
The Holy Fox: Andrew Roberts
$95.00The life of Lord Halifax, remembered as the architect of the policy of achievement of Nazi Germany. His meeting with Hitler in 1937 was a milestone in appeasement yet just days before the 1938 Munich conference, Halifax repudiated the policy and demanded the destruction of Nazism. By May 1940, it was he rather than Churchill who was the choice for Britain's war leader. His public life also included Viceroy of India from 1926 - 31 and a deal with Gandhi that ended the Civil Disobedience campaign before it could force the British to quit. -
The Australian Army at Home and Overseas, by Some of the Boys and published by the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1942. Chapters include: Star Over Bethlehem; Diggers in Britain; Midnight Messiah; Purple's Pup; Arab Justice; Digger v. Doughboy and so much more. Our boys' impressions of Christmas in a cold climate and local customs as well as the American servicemen and women here in Australia. The colour plates, interestingly, are pasted in. Tales, jokes, sketches, cartoons and on-the-spot experiences a-plenty. Illustrated in colour and black and white. A treasure mine of information. -
In September 1945, the fate of Hitler was a complete mystery. He had simply disappeared, missing for four months. The author, a British counter-intelligence officer, was given the task of solving this mystery. His brilliant piece of detective work not only proved that Hitler had killed himself in Berlin, but also produced one of the most fascinating history books ever written, telling the extraordinary story of those last days in the Berlin Bunker. Chapters include: Hitler and His Court; Hitler In Defeat; The Court in Defeat; Crisis and Decision; Siege of the Bunker. Et Tu, Brute. The Death of Hitler. Epilogue. -
Traitors: Frank Walker
$20.00In October 1943 Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin signed a solemn pact that once their enemies were defeated the Allied powers would 'pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may be done'. Nowhere did they say that justice would be selective. But it would prove to be just that. This book outlines the treachery of the British, American and Australian governments who turned a blind eye to those who experimented on Australian prisoners of war with details on how Nazis hired by ASIO were encouraged to settle in Australia and how the Catholic Church, CIA and MI6 helped the worst Nazi war criminals escape justice. While our soldiers were asked to risk their lives for King and country, Allied corporations traded with the enemy; Nazi and Japanese scientists were enticed to work for Australia, the US and UK; and Australia's own Hollywood hero Errol Flynn was associating with Nazi spies...What else did they hide? -
What possessed the German people to embrace Hitler and his politics of mass murder? The author, an eminent historian, points to Goebbels' brilliant manipulation of the mass murderer as the key to the Fuhrer's success. Goebbels' diabolical propaganda machine exploited all communication: radio, posters, magazines, documentaries, brochures and spectacular films in the drive to capture the minds of millions. By the use of patriotic myth and tradition, a nation fell under a mass hypnosis on a scale never before paralleled. Illustrated with black and white photos. -
Bill was massive. He had power, intelligence and unmatched courage. In performance and character, he stood above all the other 200,000 Australian horses sent to the Middle East in the Great War. But as war horses go, he had one serious problem. No one could ride him but one man, Major Michael Shanahan. Some even thought Bill took a sneering pleasure in watching would-be riders hit the dust. This is a remarkable tale of a bond between a determined trooper and his stoic but cantankerous mount. They fought together. They depended on each other for survival. And when the chips were down, Bill's heroic efforts and exceptional instincts in battle saved the lives of Shanahan and four of his men. By September 1918, 'Bill the Bastard' was known by the entire Light Horse regiment, who used his name not as an insult, but as a term of endearment. Bill had become a legend, a symbol of the courage and unbreakable will of the Anzac mounted force. There was no other horse like Bill the Bastard. -
Regarded as one of the best books ever written about Australian servicemen in action. It captures the spirit of the whole United Nations' effort to halt aggression in the Land of the Morning Calm. The back-drop of three years of bitter fighting are the snow-capped jumble of mountain peaks swept by chilling winds, the ice-packed rivers, the stark slopes gripped by the cruel cold of winter that froze the steel of men's arms to their flesh and the clouds of stench-laden dust that choked the valleys in summer. Apart from being the story of the exploits of the few thousands of Australian soldiers, airmen and sailors it is also an excellent short history of the whole Korean war. The dramatic events, as told by the men themselves, take the reader to the battlefront in all its grimness. There are also stories from war correspondents, combatants. clergymen and others: some humorous, some hard but all of interest. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
World War II, the most massive and appalling military conflagration in history began on September 1, 1939 when Hitler's troops invaded Poland and from there, it spread inexorably in all directions. On December 7 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, thus bringing the huge American armies into the picture and the Pacific was ablaze as Japan and America fought a devastating island-hopping war across the ocean. As well as swallowing millions of lives, the demands of the military machine gave rise to the atom bomb and the computer; the British Empire was dying but the Commonwealth was heralded; the war made Churchill and the 'spiv'; it created rationing and the Welfare State; it slaughtered 6,000,000 Jews, broke marriages and laid waste to the European economy. This is a graphic account of the fateful years that changed the world forever. Illustrated with black and white photos.
-
They were American and British air force officers in a German prison camp. With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade tools, they sank shafts, forged passports, faked weapons, and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes. They developed a fantastic security system to protect themselves from German surveillance. It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men - every one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and night for more than a year. With black and white photographs. -
Here for the first time is the complete history of Hitler's empire. No other empire ever bequeathed to historians such mountains of evidence about its rise and fall as the Third Reich. The Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced - before the Nazis could destroy their files - an almost hour-to-hour record of the nightmare realm created by Hitler. This record includes the testimony of Nazi leaders, concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters - all the vast paper work behind a conspiracy to conquer the world. This is also the story of Hitler the man - his love affairs, his imprisonment, his suicide. There is also details of the plot to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and hundreds of other inside stories. Most of all, it is the story of how Hitler destroyed his beloved Germany. The author, who watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925 had been reporting on-the-spot from Germany and Europe for almost forty years and spent over five years sifting the mountains of paper that eventually became this definitive history.
-
An account of Churchill's voyage in August 1941 on the Prince of Wales and his meeting with President Roosevelt, the outcome of which was the Atlantic Charter. -
Using secret American, British and German sources previously unavailable, this story appears almost incredible. Few people know that behind all of the great decisions- and many of the small ones - of the past two world wars, lay information gathered from secret intelligence, either from agents or intercepted coded messages. At the time of writing the whole structure was still classified, yet Farago was able to obtain German records that had been lost for a generation, revealing a vast espionage network strung across Britain and the United States. He also shows how the Germans mopped up the British espionage network in 1939, and how it was painfully and carefully rebuilt by a new generation of British intelligence officers who cracked the German codes and fed false information to the Abwehr throughout the war, eventually contributing to the defeat of the Axis powers. -
Toward the end of 1977, articles appeared in Australian newspapers about a remarkable 97 year-old Australian who had just died in Khartoum. They told of an heroic figure who had been with General Freyberg, then a junior officer, when he made his daring Dardenelles swim before the landing at Gallipoli; who had been mentioned in dispatches at the Battle of Beersheba; who had been with Lawrence of Arabia and who had won several decorations, including the George Cross for bravery under fire when he was chauffeur to the Governor-General of the Sudan at the time of his assassination in Cairo in 1924. He was one of the few Australians ever to win the coveted Serbian Eagle. This incredible Australian was Frederick Hamilton March. The newspaper articles so intrigued Sekuless than he began keeping a file on Fred March. Eventually, he travelled to Khartoum, Cairo, Gallipoli and London in a quest for information about this elusive and unknown Aussie hero to piece together the fascinating story of Fred March. Illustrated with black and white archival photographs.
