Biography & Autobiography : Military

A collection of prose and verse from those who have witnessed the intensity of war at first hand. Beginning with Elizabeth I's speech to her soldiers at Tilbury, and ending with the devastation surrounding the overthrow of Saddam Hussain's Iraqi dictatorship, this work introduces each piece by an original analysis of the story behind the words. more...

Price: $17.99

Henry Wilson was the only British field marshal ever to die in action, killed on his own doorstep in 1922 by two IRA men (one of whom had a wooden leg). Wilson was a flamboyant, maverick Irishman, at the centre of affairs during the First World War years and after, recording everything in his wildly indiscreet diary. Using a wide range of official and private sources, this is the first modern biography of this controversial and misunderstood figure. - ;Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, an Irishman who in June 1922 was assassinated on his doorstep in London by Irish republicans, was one of the most controversial British soldiers of the modern age. Before 1914 he did much to secure the Anglo-French alliance and was responsible for the planning which saw the British Expeditionary Force successfully despatched to France after the outbreak of war with Germany. A passionate Irish unionist, he gained a reputation as an intensely. 'political' soldier, especially during the 'Curragh crisis' of 1914 when some officers resigned their commisssions rather than coerce Ulster unionists into a Home Rule Ireland. During the war he played a major role in Anglo-French liaison, and ended up as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, professional. head of the army, a post he held until February 1922. After Wilson retired from the army, he became an MP and was chief security adviser to the new Northern Ireland government. As such, he became a target for nationalist Irish militants, being identified with the security policies of the Belfast regime, though wrongly with Protestant sectarian attacks on Catholics. He is remembered today in unionist Northern Ireland as a kind of founding martyr for the state. Wilson's reputation was ruined in 1927 with the publication of an official biography, which quoted extensively and injudiciously from his entertaining, indiscreet, and wildly opinionated diaries, giving the impression that he was some sort of Machiavellian monster. In this more...

Price: $39.99

An "awe-inspiring [and] surprisingly detailed" (The Washington Post Book World) chronicle of the turning point in the war against Japan. Immediately after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, eighty brave young men, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, took off from a navy carrier in the mid-Pacific on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission but instead became a resounding American victory and helped turn the tide of the war. The First Heroes is the story of that mission. Meticulously researched and based on interviews with twenty of the surviving Tokyo Raiders, this is a true account that almost defies belief, a tremendous human drama of great personal courage, and a powerful reminder that ordinary people, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, can rise to the challenge of history. more...

Price: $16.00

Now in paperback,the amazing never-before-told story of the greatest escape of the Second World War. In 1944 the OSS set out to recover more than 500 downed airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time. "Riveting." James Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers. "Exciting,breathtaking." Bo more...

Price: $15.00

This book describes the everyday life of a Soviet citizen besieged in the city of Leningrad and his subsequent service in the Red Army during the war and post-war occupation of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. more...

Price: $46.95