Combat First World War

World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. "Total war" emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict.

He was the most feared fighter pilot of the First World War. He became a legend in a red aircraft. He died chasing one last victim too low over enemy lines. Manfred von Richthofen — the Red Baron — remains the most famous airman in history. To his enemies he was the red machine in the sky. To Germany he became proof that victory could still be counted, named, and celebrated. To the men who flew with him, he was not simply a symbol, but a disciplined hunter who turned air combat into method. RED BARON tells the story behind the legend: the aristocratic cavalry officer whose first arm was...

An inspiring tale of how a scrappy little World War II aircraft carrier and its untested crew earned a distinguished combat record and beat incredible odds to earn 12 battle stars in the Pacific. "A jaw-dropping tale of American sailors at war overcoming every challenge they faced with loyalty...

They were the first. Before the Rangers had a legend, a handful of ordinary men had to go out and earn it — in the dark, on foot, with everything to lose. Jack Miller came to the war to disappear. A quiet marksman off a hardscrabble farm in the Texas Panhandle, he joined the newborn 1st Ranger Battalion to vanish into something bigger than himself. Instead the Army found the one thing he was good at, reading ground, moving unseen, killing at a distance, and made him the pair of eyes an entire company would come to depend on. From the freezing hills of Scotland to the black water off Arzew...

The 95th Rifles - Wellington's sharpshooters - first into battle and last out. Acclaimed military writer Mark Urban explores the extraordinary story of these military pioneers; the toughest and deadliest infantrymen in Wellington's Army. Immortalised in Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, the 95th...

In the Spring of 1915, a Parisian playboy took to the lethal skies of World War I, becoming the world’s first fighter pilot. Never before had a lone pilot hunted down other aviators. Roland Garros’ aerial exploits unleashed unlimited air combat and changed warfare forever. Before leaving French café society for the Western Front, the young pilot set aviation records, won air races, and introduced manned flight to thrilled crowds in the USA, Europe, and Latin America. Garros scouted for the US Army, strolled as a Boulevardier, sold sports cars, played classical piano, was a lawyer, a ...

The heat came first, the kind that settles into your bones and never quite lets go. Then came the wind, kicking up sand through boots and rifles, through memory and time. But what stayed with him most wasn't the weather. It was the silence before the jump. Patrick Donovan never expected to be among the first. Not to wear the boots of a paratrooper. Not to step out of a C-47 into a sky torn with tracer fire. But in 1942, when the world was on fire and history waited in the dust of North Africa, he was there. From the brutal trials of training to the confusion of combat, Donovan's story is ...

In September 1945, at the end of the second book in this series, Raider Brigade Book 2 The Russian Bear, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Dan West, RAIDER BRIGADE Executive Officer and the RAIDER BRIGADE have been moved back to Schweinfurt, Germany for rest and recuperation after fighting the Soviet 3rd Guards Tank Army in Poland. After several days at the 1945 Schweinfurt military kasernes, they wake up on 14 September and learn they have passed back through a time warp and landed at Conn and Ledward Barracks in the year 1988. Follow LTC West and the RAIDER BRIGADE as they are reunited with their ...

How the age of the great WWI aces came to an end in the skies over the Western Front At the beginning of 1918 the great aces seemed invincible. Flying above the battlefields of the Western Front, they cut a deadly swathe through the ranks of their enemies, as each side struggled to keep control...

Americans love a good fight, and if the cause is just, all the better. When the Kaiser tried to bring authoritarian rule to the west of the Rhine, American expatriates in France stepped up to stop him. Men who knew how to fly offered their services to the young French Air Force - as did men who did not know how to fly, but insisted that they could with hilariously disastrous results. The great Ace Lufbery, along with his comrades Thaw, Hall, Rockwell, and others more or less invented the "dogfight" over the bloody fields of Verdun and Flanders, and when they were not on the attack they ...

An international bestseller, this is a German soldier's first-hand account of life on the Russian Front during the second half of the Second World War. 'Fascinating . . . a painful personal history' New York Times 'To his reader . . . Sajer, doomed to survival, may be as moving as an argument...

With a total of 40 victories, Oswald Boelcke was Germany's first ace in World War I-and a century later he remains a towering figure in the history of air warfare, renowned for his character, inspirational leadership, organizational genius, development of air-to-air tactics, and impact on aerial doctrine. Paving the way for modern air forces across the world with his pioneering strategies, Boelcke had a dramatic effect on his contemporaries. The famed Red Baron's mentor, instructor, squadron commander, and friend, he exerted a tremendous influence upon the German air force.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, millions of young American men were eager to join up and defend their country. William Swanson was among them. The View from My Foxhole tells William Swanson's story of fighting in the jungles of Bougainville and Guam and the ash heap of Iwo Jima. Through it he maintains his sense of humor and thanks his lucky stars for every day he survives.

Patrick Robinson, coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Lone Survivor and “preeminent writer of modern naval fiction” (The Florida Times Union) shares the gripping untold story of Mohammed Gulab, the Afghani warrior who defied the Taliban and saved the life of American hero and Navy...

American history is full of heroes: individuals who went above and beyond to ensure the safety and freedom of others. In some cases, they paid the ultimate price. This is the story of one such forgotten warrior, a World War II US Navy fighter pilot charged with defending Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, and other lands against Japanese air attacks with the Cactus Air Force.

A Times History Book of the Year 2022 From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last. The ‘Devil Dogs’ of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were part of the legendary first...