Second World War
Showing 1–16 of 43 results
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A Dangerous Enterprise
£18.99A Dangerous Enterprise
Between 1942 and 1944 a very small, very secret, very successful clandestine unit of the Royal Navy, operated between Dartmouth in Devon, and the Brittany Coast in France. It was a crossing of about 100 miles, every yard of it dangerous. The unit was called the 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla: crewed by 125 officers and men, it became the most highly decorated Royal Naval unit of the Second World War. The 15th MGBF was an extraordinary group of men thrown together in the most secret of adventures. Their mission was to ferry agents of SIS and SOE to pinpoint landing sites on the Brittany coast in Occupied France. Once they had landed their agents, together with stores for the Resistance, they picked up evaders, escaped POWs who had had the good fortune to be collected by escape lines run by M19, as well as returning SIS and SOE agents. This book brings the story of this most clandestine of operations to life.
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Air Marshal Sir Keith Park
£19.99Air Marshal Sir Keith Park
The Battle of Britain from July to September 1940 is one of the finest moments in our Nation’s history. While credit rightly goes to ‘The Few’, victory could never have happened without the inspirational command and leadership of New Zealander Keith Park. He and Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding ensured that Fighter Command was prepared for the Nazi onslaught. Promoted to Air Vice Marshal, Park took over No 11 Group, responsible for the defence of London and South East England in April 1940. A shrewd tactician and hands-on commander, Park husbanded his limited resources and famously wore down Goering’s Luftwaffe, thus forcing Hitler to abandon his invasion plans. This balanced and well overdue account hopefully ensures that Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park receives the credit for victory that he so richly deserves.
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Army Girls
£20.00Army Girls
They were female soldiers in a war Britain wanted to fight without conscripting women. It was a vain hope, by December 1941 for the first time in British history women were called up and a generation of girls came of age in khaki, serving king and country. Barbara trained to drive army-style in giant trucks and Grace swapped her servant’s pinafore for battledress and a steel hat, Martha turned down officer status for action on a gun-site and Olivia won the Croix de Guerre in France. Commemorating the 80th anniversary of conscription for women, this book captures remarkable stories from the last surviving veterans who served in Britain’s female army and brings to life a pivotal moment in British history. Precious memories and letters are entwined in a rich narrative that travels back in time and sheds new light on being young, female and at war.
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Barbarossa
£25.00Barbarossa
Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June 1941, was the largest military operation in history, its aim nothing less than ‘a war of extermination’ to annihilate Soviet communism, liquidate the Jews and create lebensraum for the so-called German master race. But it led to the destruction of the Third Reich, and was entirely cataclysmic; in six months of warfare no less than six million were killed, wounded or registered as missing in action, and soldiers on both sides committed heinous crimes behind the lines on a scale without parallel in the history of warfare. In ‘Barbarossa’, drawing on hitherto unseen archival material – including previously untranslated Russian sources – in his usual gripping style, Jonathan Dimbleby recounts not only the story of the military campaign, but the politics and diplomacy behind this epic clash of global titans.
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Bomber Command
£12.99Bomber Command
Bomber Command is Max Hasting’s in-depth account of the RAF’s bombing offensive, one the most controversial struggles of the Second World War.
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Bomber Command
£20.00Bomber Command
A complete history of Bomber Command, including its crucial role in WWII and later nuclear role in the Cold War.
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Clementine Churchill
£30.00Clementine Churchill
The biography of Clementine Churchill, wife of English Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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Devil, Darling, Spy
£7.99Devil, Darling, Spy
The deadliest weapon is a girl with nothing to lose – Sarah is used to spying in the champagne-fuelled parties of Nazi Berlin. But her new mission is infinitely more deadly – tracking a lethal disease across bullet-torn Africa, to uncover the monster who would use it to create fifty million corpses. Her enemies think she is a terrified little girl. But she is a warrior set to burn them all.
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East of West, West of East
£9.99East of West, West of East
This extraordinary book tells the story of a remarkable family caught in Japan at the outbreak of the Second World War in the Pacific.
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Escaping Hitler’s Bunker
£25.00Escaping Hitler’s Bunker
As the Soviet troops fought their way ever closer to the Reich Chancellery in the final days of the Third Reich, deep underground in Hitler’s bunker fateful decisions were being made. Hitler and some of those closest to him resolved to commit suicide, whilst others sought to try and escape. But who did manage to slip past the Russian soldiers and reach freedom? How did they escape, and what routes did they take through the ruined streets of Berlin? Equally, what became of those who escaped, where did they go, and what happened to those who did not get away? All of these questions are answered in this book.
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Fallout
£14.99Fallout
New York Times bestselling author Lesley Blume reveals how a courageous reporter uncovered one of the greatest and deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century – the true effects of the atom bomb – potentially saving millions of lives. In the days following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the US had begun a secret propaganda campaign to celebrate these weapons as the ultimate peacekeepers – hiding the true extent and nature of their devastation. The cover-up intensified as Americans closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing information from leaking about the horrific and lasting effects of radiation that would kill thousands of people during the months after the blast.
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Faustian Bargain
£22.99Faustian Bargain
Offers the full story of a fateful alliance between past and future mortal enemies-long preceding the well-known Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact-whose dimensions were kept secret from the outside world and yet which set the stage for World War Two and its outcome.
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Firefighting the Blitz
£25.00Firefighting the Blitz
Everyone knew that confrontation with Nazi Germany was inevitable and that London was likely to be a prime target of Hitler’s bombers. So, in January 1939, Aylmer Firebrace, the Chief Officer of London Fire Brigade, was seconded to the Home Office to plan for the capital’s fire defence. Before joining the Fire Brigade, Aylmer Firebrace had been a Royal Navy officer who had fought in the Battle of Jutland during WWI. It was following the Armistice that, in 1919, he became principal officer in the London Fire Brigade. He was promoted to deputy chief and finally chief officer in June 1938. That war struck London soon enough, but it was on 7 September 1940, that Firebrace’s preparations were truly tested with the start of the Blitz. For the next 57 days and nights London was subjected to the longest continuous bombing campaign in history. The result was the creation of the National Fire Service.
£25.00 -
Guidance From the Greatest
£9.99Guidance From the Greatest
The Coronavirus pandemic forced the great British people to dig to the very depths of their resolve. It was during this crisis, the gravest crisis the country has faced since the Second World War, that members of the greatest generation – Tom Moore, Dame Vera Lynn, the Queen – proved vital reminders of the self-effacing stoicism required in times of emergency; to summon our ‘Blitz spirit’ and to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. Taking twelve qualities of the wartime generation, including fellowship, courage and integrity, and drawing on personal interviews with over two hundred Second World War veterans – from SAS officers to London firewomen to Dame Vera herself – ‘Guidance from the Greatest’ shows us how we can improve our individual character and our collective approach to life.
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Hitler and Stalin
£25.00Hitler and Stalin
This compelling book on Hitler and Stalin – the culmination of 30 years’ work – examines the two tyrants during WWII, when Germany and the Soviet Union fought the biggest and bloodiest war in history. Yet despite the fact they were bitter opponents, Laurence Rees shows that Hitler and Stalin were, to a large extent, different sides of the same coin. Hitler’s charismatic leadership may contrast with Stalin’s regimented rule by fear; and his intransigence later in the war may contrast with Stalin’s change in behaviour in response to events. But at a macro level, both were prepared to create undreamt-of suffering, destroy individual liberty and twist facts in order to build the utopias they wanted, and while Hitler’s creation of the Holocaust remains a singular crime, Rees shows why we must not forget that Stalin committed a series of atrocities at the same time.
£25.00 -
Hitler and Stalin
£10.99Hitler and Stalin
This compelling book on Hitler and Stalin – the culmination of 30 years’ work – examines the two tyrants during WWII, when Germany and the Soviet Union fought the biggest and bloodiest war in history. Yet despite the fact they were bitter opponents, Laurence Rees shows that Hitler and Stalin were, to a large extent, different sides of the same coin. Hitler’s charismatic leadership may contrast with Stalin’s regimented rule by fear; and his intransigence later in the war may contrast with Stalin’s change in behaviour in response to events. But at a macro level, both were prepared to create undreamt-of suffering, destroy individual liberty and twist facts in order to build the utopias they wanted, and while Hitler’s creation of the Holocaust remains a singular crime, Rees shows why we must not forget that Stalin committed a series of atrocities at the same time.
£10.99