Author: Ian Stanley Ord PlayfairPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 1040
Book Description
The Mediterranean and Middle East: The campaign in Sicily 1943, and the campaign in Italy, 3rd September 1943 to 31st March 1944
Author: Ian Stanley Ord PlayfairPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 1040
Book Description
Gunners from the Sky
Author: Paul ChrystalPublisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399088114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
This is the story of the 1st Air Landing Light Regiment RA and its role in the Italian campaign and at the Battle of Arnhem. It is also the story of one of its soldiers: 14283058 Gunner Eric Wright Chrystal, father of the authors. Eric joined the army in September 1942 and, after training, joined the newly formed glider-borne regiment the following year. He first saw action in Italy in 1943, where he was seriously wounded. On 17 September 1944, two years to the day since he enlisted, he and the regiment were landed by glider near to Arnhem in the Netherlands. The authors recount set their father’s experiences in context by describing the formation of the unit and the many months of training in England. Their involvement in the Italian campaign, where Eric served with E Troop, 3 Battery, is then recounted, detailing their actions at Rionero, Foggia and Campobasso, where Eric was wounded. It then moves on to describe 1st Air Landing Light Regiment’s preparation for and involvement in Operation Market (the Airborne half of Market Garden). This very detailed account of the fighting highlights the regiment’s pivotal (but often neglected) role near Arnhem bridge. Here, after nine days of intense combat, Eric was among the many captured and held until the end of the war. The inclusion of Eric’s own eyewitness testimony lends a very personal touch to this excellent account of the regiment’s experience of combat and life in the PoW camps.
The Battle of Sicily
Author: Samuel W. MitchamPublisher: Stackpole Books
ISBN: 0811746690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
The campaign for Sicily from the Axis point of view. Reassesses the German Army's performance. Details about German commanders who have been neglected by historians.
Royal Artillery in the Second World War
Author: Richard DohertyPublisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750979313
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 455
Book Description
During the Second World War, the Germans considered the Royal Artillery to be the most professional arm of the British Army: British gunners were accurate, effective and efficient, and provided fire support for their armoured and infantry colleagues that was better than that in any other army. However, the Royal Artillery delivered much more than field and medium artillery battlefield support. Gunner regiments manned antitank guns on the front line and light anti-aircraft guns in divisional regiments to defend against air attack at home and abroad. The Royal Artillery also helped to protect convoys that brought essential supplies to Britain, and AA gunners had their finest hour when they destroyed the majority of the V-1 flying bombs launched against Britain from June 1944. Richard Doherty delves into the wide-ranging role of the Royal Artillery, examining its state of preparedness in 1939, the many developments that were introduced during the war – including aerial observation and self-propelled artillery – the growth of the regiment and its effectiveness in its many roles. Royal Artillery in the Second World War is a comprehensive account of a British Army regiment that played a vital role in the ensuing Allied victory.
Diversion and Deception
Author: Whitney T. BendeckPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806169680
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
Among the operations known as Plan Bodyguard, the deception devised to cover the Allies’ Normandy landing, was the little known but critical Plan Zeppelin, the largest and most complex of the Bodyguard plans. Zeppelin, in conjunction with the Mediterranean Strategy, succeeded in pinning down sixty German divisions from southern France to the Balkans in time for D-Day. This was the work of “A” Force, Britain’s only military organization tasked with carrying out both strategic and tactical deception in World War II. Whitney T. Bendeck’s Diversion and Deception finds “A” Force at its finest hour, as the war shifted from North Africa to Europe. Focusing on the years 1943 to 1945, Bendeck describes how “A” Force, under the leadership of Dudley Clarke, orchestrated both strategic and tactical deception plans to create notional threats across the southern perimeter of Europe, with the chief objective of keeping the Germans pinned down across the Mediterranean. Her work offers a close and clarifying look at “A” Force’s structure and command, operations and methods, and successes and failures and, consequently, its undeniable contribution to the Allies’ victory in World War II. By shining a light on the often overlooked Mediterranean theater and its direct connection to European plans and operations, Diversion and Deception also provides a deeper understanding of Allied grand strategy in the war. Combining military and deception histories—so often viewed in isolation—this book provides context for the deceptions and adds a layer of knowledge regarding the planning of military operations. The result is a more complete and nuanced view of Allied operations than is to be found in most histories of World War II.
The North African Air Campaign
Author: Christopher M. ReinPublisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700618783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
In the summer of 1942, Axis forces controlled almost the entire southern shore of the Mediterranean. Less than a year later, they had been swept from the African continent-thanks in no small part to efforts of the fledgling U.S. Army Air Force. Indeed, USAAF in North Africa emerged as a senior partner in the Alliance, supplying aircraft and crews at a rate the other partners were unable to match. Going beyond the spare analysis of North African air operations in previous accounts, Christopher Rein shows how American fighter planes and heavy bombers, employed in almost exclusively tactical and operational roles, played a pivotal role in the Alliance's successful ground campaigns. This aerial armada also had a significant negative impact on enemy logistics through its bombing raids on Axis ports, shipping, and airfields. In the process, USAAF helped foster and develop a pattern of inter-service cooperation that remains at the foundation of American close-air-support doctrine today. Rein chronicles the emergence of USAAF in the late interwar and early WWII periods as a more heterogeneous and creative fighting force than earlier works have led us to believe. He then analyzes little-known aspects of the war, including early air operations in the eastern Mediterranean and in the TORCH landings. He explores some of the key issues confronting Eisenhower, such as how to establish USAAF priorities and how to deploy long-range bombers, fighters, and attack forces. In describing the struggle for balance in the employment of air assets between strategic bombing and interdiction in a time fraught with inter-service rivalry, he shows how, despite occasional mistakes such as the heavy losses involved in the Ploesti raids, USAAF struck a suitable balance and even invested more assets in interdiction than traditional accounts of strategic bombardment would suggest. A virtual operational-level history of the USAAF during the formative period of American airpower, Rein's account pulls together material from diverse sources to demonstrate that today's Air Force emphasis on mobility, intelligence, reconnaissance, and close support for ground forces have deep roots. By showing that the Army Air Force in World War II did not neglect support for ground and naval forces in order to concentrate exclusively on strategic bombing, it suggests lessons for military and civilian leaders in the employment of air forces in current and future conflicts.
Love, Bill
Author: Jan Krulick-BelinPublisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480892912
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 511
Book Description
Long before becoming a museum curator, author Jan Krulick-Belin curated memories, photographs, and mementos of her father who died when she was just six. Her mother rarely spoke about him again, until a year before her own death, when she gave Jan a box of one hundred love letters he had written her during World War II. Love, Bill chronicles the true story of Krulick-Belin's life-changing pilgrimage of the heart to find the father she thought she'd lost forever. The letters lead her on an extraordinary journey following her father's actual footsteps during the war years, leading to unexpected discoveries from Morocco to Paris to upstate New York. She learns about her parents' great love story, about the war in North Africa, and about the fate of the Jews in Morocco, Germany, and France. Love, Bill offers a testament to the enduring power of determination, love, family, and the unbreakable bond between fathers and daughters.
Armies of Empire
Author: Allan ConversePublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521194806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
This book uniquely reflects upon the experience of two divisions from different armies in WWII.
Fighting the People's War
Author: Jonathan FennellPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108756492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 967
Book Description
Fighting the People's War is an unprecedented, panoramic history of the 'citizen armies' of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, the core of the British and Commonwealth armies in the Second World War. Drawing on new sources to reveal the true wartime experience of the ordinary rank and file, Jonathan Fennell fundamentally challenges our understanding of the War and of the relationship between conflict and socio-political change. He uncovers how fractures on the home front had profound implications for the performance of the British and Commonwealth armies and he traces how soldiers' political beliefs, many of which emerged as a consequence of their combat experience, proved instrumental to the socio-political changes of the postwar era. Fighting the People's War transforms our understanding of how the great battles were won and lost as well as how the postwar societies were forged.
Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage
Author: Veysel Apaydin iPublisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1787354849
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage focuses on the importance of memory and heritage for individual and group identity, and for their sense of belonging. It aims to expose the motives and discourses related to the destruction of memory and heritage during times of war, terror, sectarian conflict and through capitalist policies. It is within these affected spheres of cultural heritage where groups and communities ascribe values, develop memories, and shape their collective identity.