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Author: John P. Cann Publisher: Helion ISBN: 1913118231 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 74
Book Description
Portuguese paratroopers or “paras” began as a stepchild of the army and found a home in the Portuguese Air Force in 1955. Initially, the post-World War Two Portuguese Army seemed to have had mixed emotions about the need for elite, special-purpose forces that operated in small units with the attendant flexibility and elevated lethality. Shock troops have been traditionally controversial, and even the vaunted military theorist Baron Karl von Clausewitz saw little point in them. The history of the paras in the Portuguese Army is illustrative of this ambivalent view. Nevertheless, in a “war of the weak” in which insurgents avoid government strengths and exploit its vulnerabilities using agility, deception, and imagination, such small, crack government units are particularly well suited to counterinsurgency operations. This appreciation emerged with the threat of a new kind of war in Portuguese Africa, an insurgency, and the new and visionary Air Force well understood the potential of paras when combined with the mobility of the helicopter. The Air Force saw an urgent need for troops who could fight an unconventional war, who could not only defeat an enemy but separate him from the population in which he sought concealment and support and on which he depended for funding, recruits, and intelligence. These were specialised warfighters who in one minute were physically destroying an insidious enemy and in the next administering aid and support and protecting a vulnerable population. These were just the troops that Portugal would require for military success in its approaching battle fought between 1961 and 1974 to retain its African possessions, and this vision would be realized on the African battlefield with devastating consequences. This book tells the paras’ story as researched from Portuguese sources. It details how they were formed and trained and how they developed their imaginative, effective, and feared tactics and applied them in operations to protect the population from insurgent predations and destroy a vicious enemy.
Author: John P. Cann Publisher: Helion ISBN: 1913118231 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 74
Book Description
Portuguese paratroopers or “paras” began as a stepchild of the army and found a home in the Portuguese Air Force in 1955. Initially, the post-World War Two Portuguese Army seemed to have had mixed emotions about the need for elite, special-purpose forces that operated in small units with the attendant flexibility and elevated lethality. Shock troops have been traditionally controversial, and even the vaunted military theorist Baron Karl von Clausewitz saw little point in them. The history of the paras in the Portuguese Army is illustrative of this ambivalent view. Nevertheless, in a “war of the weak” in which insurgents avoid government strengths and exploit its vulnerabilities using agility, deception, and imagination, such small, crack government units are particularly well suited to counterinsurgency operations. This appreciation emerged with the threat of a new kind of war in Portuguese Africa, an insurgency, and the new and visionary Air Force well understood the potential of paras when combined with the mobility of the helicopter. The Air Force saw an urgent need for troops who could fight an unconventional war, who could not only defeat an enemy but separate him from the population in which he sought concealment and support and on which he depended for funding, recruits, and intelligence. These were specialised warfighters who in one minute were physically destroying an insidious enemy and in the next administering aid and support and protecting a vulnerable population. These were just the troops that Portugal would require for military success in its approaching battle fought between 1961 and 1974 to retain its African possessions, and this vision would be realized on the African battlefield with devastating consequences. This book tells the paras’ story as researched from Portuguese sources. It details how they were formed and trained and how they developed their imaginative, effective, and feared tactics and applied them in operations to protect the population from insurgent predations and destroy a vicious enemy.
Author: Jason Woods Publisher: Frontline Books ISBN: 1399040219 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 266
Book Description
The date is the 6 June 1944. The paratroopers on board the aircraft are crammed together, joking and singing over the drone of the engines, none of them dwelling on the gnawing fear in their guts. They reach the French coastline, and everyone goes quiet when loud explosions and flashes erupt around the aircraft. Pilots desperately dodge and swerve through the cool night air while the men hold firm, preparing to jump. They reach the open door; the green light flicks on and they leap without hesitation into a sky lit up by flak, ready to meet their fate. One after another, thousands of white parachutes billow out and the men fall through the air not knowing where they might land or if they will even survive the drop; but their minds are set. They are clear about their mission and its critical importance as part of the bigger picture. Some ’chutes do not open, weapons and kit are torn off in the slipstream, and anti-aircraft guns pick men off and many never make it to the ground alive. The Normandy landings of 1944 were just one of the many famous operations in the stunning history of the Paras. This book by former paratrooper Jason Woods gives the reader an unprecedented snapshot of the role that these brave and determined paratroopers have played throughout their history, demonstrating not only the courage, strength and fitness of the men who make up this mighty regiment, but also their intelligence, compassion, and wicked sense of humor. This powerful journey through aspects of all the key wars and conflicts that the regiment has been engaged in over the last eighty years is made through the eyes of those who served. The book reveals how the Paras have become seen as an elite fighting force, feared by those who have had the misfortune to come up against them on the field of battle. This book covers challenging operations in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone. It includes an exciting overview of Operation Telic in Iraq, the epic battles in Afghanistan, and subsequent withdrawal of all British citizens and troops from Kabul in 2021, on Operation Pitting. Packed with short interviews and poignant quotes, many original and never seen before, from current and former Paras, the author highlights the regiment’s constant evolution, as the battlefield conditions have changed, into today’s modern 16 Air Assault Brigade Rapid Reaction Force and Special Forces Support Group, while always maintaining the core standards and ethos embodied in the regimental motto Utrinque Paratus – ‘Ready for Anything’. Finally, get a glimpse into the transition many Paras make when they eventually leave the regiment and join the secretive private security industry, known as the ‘Circuit’.
Author: John Parker Publisher: Metro Publishing ISBN: 1782190503 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
Since their foundation during the Second World War, the Parachute Regiment has acquired a formidable reputation as tough, fearless soldiers. 'The Red Devils' have played a key role in many of the battles of the past sixty years - the capture of Sicily, the D-Day landing, the heroic but doomed attempt to capture the bridge at Arnhem. In the savage wars of 'peace' since the Second World War, the Paras have seen action all over the world - from Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt, Borneo and the Falklands to Bosnia. For his authoritative book, John Parker has gathered together the testimony of numerous veterans of the Parachute Regiment. Their first-hand accounts of the major events in their history make enthralling reading, bringing home the reality and cruelty of combat.
Author: Nabaparna Ghosh Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108489893 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
This book offers an on-the-ground view of colonial Calcutta's neighbourhoods, where kinship-like ties shaped urban space and resisted city-making efforts of the state.
Author: Ross Slater Publisher: Kings Road Publishing ISBN: 1782197079 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 205
Book Description
It's 8am, it's freezing cold and I'm about to dump a lorry load of coal on the doorstep of the Prime Minister. Just a typical day in the life of an activist for Greenpeace, the world's biggest and best-known environmental campaigners. They're hoping I'll help them score massive publicity coup - one that will embarrass a government breaking its promises over climate change. What they don't know, however, is that I'm a double agent.. And if everything goes to plan they're walking into a trap - one of my making.When ex-Paratrooper and policeman Ross Slater took on a close protection security job for Greenpeace he got more than he bargained for. Soon he found himself a double agent, spying on his eco-warrior paymasters for Special Branch and ultimately a government twitchy about any kind of protest activity on British soil.During five explosive years as an insider, Slater immersed himself in the radical lifestyle of the environmental activist, blurring truths and lies and battling to stay straight while drug taking and a free love spirit went on around him. In that time he was taken hostage, caught plotting an attack on a nuclear power station and nearly arrested outside No.10. But all the while he provided UK law enforcement with the most comprehensive breakdown it has ever received of the organisation's global hierarchy.The role of undercover police officers in environmental groups has been brought into sharp focus following a recent and now Slater gives a unique perspective on what it takes to be an undercover agent and how our government spies on green groups.
Author: John P. Cann
Author: John P. Cann
Author: Jason Woods
Author: John Parker
Author: Nabaparna Ghosh
Author: Ross Slater
Author: 
Author: Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar
Author: Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) Audit Office
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons
Author: