32 War and Militaria


71388 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF FIREARMS by Jim Supica, Doug Wicklund and Philip Schreier


It is easy to forget for how long humans have been using firearms. Early cannons were first used in Europe in the 13th century and, by around 1350 ‘hand gonnes’ had been developed. From then on, firearms have steadily improved. By the early 1400s matchlocks were introduced. In the 1500s the wheel- lock was invented. Flintlocks came in in the late 16th century, then rifling, the percussion cap, repeaters, smokeless powders, auto-loaders and automatic firearms. Today, development continues apace. New materials have seen the use of lightweight ‘plastic guns’ like the Glock. Options for aiming have also expanded dramatically over the past 50 years. Electronic red dot sights, glow-in-the-dark night sights, ultra-compact laser aiming systems and night vision scopes are not only used by the military and the police but have been incorporated in weapons available to the public. The main use of fire-arms has changed over the years. While hunting, self-defence and military use still predominate, the sporting and recreational use of firearms is steadily increasing - particularly in the US, where the National Rifle Association has ensured that the ‘… right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’. Interested readers can also join the NRA by visiting www.NRA.org. 304 pages


29.5cm x 24cm absolutely


brimming over with more than 1,500 colour and archive photos.


ONLY £15


71010 CAMP Z: The Secret Life of Rudolf Hess


by Stephen McGinty Written by an award-winning journalist, this riveting true account of claustrophobia, paranoia and high-stakes gamesmanship is a thrilling page turner. The author makes full use of documentation, contemporaneous reports, diaries, letters and memos to solve a ‘locked room mystery’, but here the


locked room is a man’s mind, a man that no-one can conclude with any degree of confidence is sane. In 1941, Rudolf Hess, then the Deputy Fuehrer of the German Reich, parachuted over Renfrewshire in Scotland on a mission to meet the Duke of Hamilton. His ostensible mandate was to broker a peace deal with the British government. After being held briefly in the Tower of London, he was transferred to Mytchett Place near Aldershot under the codename Z. The house was fitted with microphones and sound recording equipment, and guarded by a battalion of soldiers. Churchill’s instructions were that Hess should be strictly isolated and every effort made to prise any information out of him that might help to change the course of the Second World War. During the ensuing months, a psychological battle was waged between intelligence officers and the man who had been just a heartbeat away from Hitler. But would the new Freudian techniques of ‘dynamic psychologies’ work? 336 pages with b/w archive photos, notes and plans.


£18.99 NOW £8.50


71067 THE ‘SECRET’ WORLD OF VICKERS GUIDED WEAPONS by John Forbat


Hungarian by birth, author John Forbat left Hungary for London and lived there throughout the Blitz. After the war he took a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and became a graduate apprentice at Vickers Armstrong in 1950, and


was swiftly moved onto the “secret” Special Projects Section, which was developing the first guided weapons. The first, the Red Rapier, was not dissimilar to Hitler’s missiles, but guided by radar and carrying a payload of 5,000lbs had an accuracy of 100 yards over 400 miles. Design and guidance systems improved dramatically, and Forbat, heading the team throughout much of the 1950s and early 60s knows more about it than any other. Based on his own involvement and much research at the National Archive and that of Brooklands Museum, here he explains the successes and failures of guided weapon research and testing in the early days. He explains missile and avionics systems and trials with the help of a great many diagrams and photos, and provides much behind the scenes background on the company and the individuals who worked there. As well as the Red Rapier, other projects described in detail include the Blue Boar, Red Dean and the Vigilant anti-tank missile. Crammed with facts, anecdote and declassified information. B/w illus. 255pp softback. £17.99 NOW £6


71264 GREAT GERMAN ESCAPE


by Charles Whiting


Subtitled ‘Uprising of Hitler’s Nazis in Britain’s POW Camps’, this is one of the excellent Pen & Sword Military Books series. Throughout WW2 there had been a potentially lethal Trojan horse inside Britain - from Comrie in Northern Scotland down to Devizes in Wiltshire, in every city, in every race course of


any note, in every football ground were German POWs. Nearly a quarter of a million of them in fact - fit, virile young men, and a goodly number of them fanatical National Socialists. What were these men to do if they were armed and given a plan which transcended nearly escaping? What if these desperate young men were given the promise of an airborne landing by German forces in Britain? This is the gripping story of their abortive mass escape plan and the covert operations that went with it. 182pp in softback with photos and map of a book first published in 1992 as ‘The March on London’. £12.99 NOW £4.50


71267 LESSONS IN IMPERIAL RULE:


by General Sir Andrew Skeen Sub-titled Instructions for British Infantrymen on the Indian Frontier, this handbook for soldiers fighting in the Third Afghan War of 1919 is a fascinating document in its own right and also sheds light on the situation in Afghanistan today. In 1919 the country was a buffer zone between British India and the might of


revolutionary Russia, but the Amir Amanullah was convinced that the British Empire was on the verge of collapse and mobilised near the Khyber Pass. Britain countered the threat with the help of Waziristan militia, whose technique of offering withering fire to cover an assault quickly became standard practice among the British troops. Supported by Gurkhas, the British advanced steadily although losses were substantial. World War I had taught Skeen to devolve strategic power down to junior officers and he found that this paid off in Afghanistan. The business of keeping a column moving is complex and Skeen is justly proud of his record of low level of losses to sniper fire. Arriving in camp, the men will inevitably feel an urge to return sniper fire, and it is the job of a good officer to prevent this waste of ammunition. The role of the junior officer in attack, withdrawal, foraging and demolition is fully covered in the later chapters of the book. In victory, the practice of removing Korans from a defeated population is “a dirty trick” to be discouraged. 144pp. £19.99 NOW £5


71272 OVER FIELDS OF FIRE: Flying the Sturmovik on


the Eastern Front 1942-45 by Anna Timofeeva-Egorova Born in 1916, Anna Egorova worked as a rock-breaker on the Moscow Metro before serving as a front line pilot in World War II. Thrown out of her first flying school because her brother was classed as an undesirable, she finally got to the front line and in 1941 was flying a


U-2. On a mission to pick up Artillery Commander General Zhouk, she was met by the words: “For the Front Artillery Commander they couldn’t find a bloke?” Zhouk was soon eating his words as Egorova swooped and dived to avoid Messerschmitts and eventually had to land, holed in 87 places with a cylinder gone and the petrol tank breached. Walking through the snow for three hours it was the General’s turn to save Anna’s life, keeping her awake when she became delirious. Hearing the Division Colonel Toupanov was selecting pilots for combat regiments Egorova blagged her way into piloting the state of the art ground-attack Sturmoviks. In 1944 she was shot down, taken to a German camp with horrific burns and left to die. But Russian camp surgeon Sinyakov, noted for his miraculous operations, insisted on treating her. Interrogated as a collaborator by SMERSh as the war came to an end, she was eventually freed and returned home to discover her family was wrongly informed of her death and had held a funeral. 206pp, photos. £25 NOW £6.50


71277 REPORTED MISSING: Lost Airmen of the Second World War


by Roy Conyers Nesbit The author Antoine de St. Exupery is one of the most famous airmen to disappear on a mission and in this fascinating piece of research the author follows in detail the stories of six airmen including St. Exupery who never came back. After Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, the


Czech pilot Preucil was persuaded to become a spy, ending up in the U.K. where he joined the R.A.F., was stationed at Usworth and married a local girl. Records show daily accidents at Usworth, some with loss of life. Reported “missing, believed killed” in 1941, Preucil in fact landed in Belgium where he was sheltered by freedom fighters whom he promptly betrayed. He was executed for war crimes in Prague in 1947. A former reconnaissance pilot, Antoine de St. Exupery was assigned to the II/33 reconnaissance unit although he was considered too old to fly the Lockheed latest model F-5a. After writing off his plane he was banned from duty, but resumed flying on the intervention of a friend and failed to return in July 1944. Other pilots lost include the debonair Adrian Warburton, the nine bomber crew who baled out over Pforzheim in March 1945, and the


71260 FALKLANDS AIR WAR by Chris Hobson


At the beginning of 1982 very few in Britain could have pinpointed the Falklands on a map but by the end of the year the U.K. had conducted a short but brutal war in the area in which both sides claimed the moral high ground. 30 years later it is possible to look back on the events with a degree of objectivity and this day-by-day account of the air conflict gives a new angle on personalities and strategy. The British task force included 63 warships against the 20 mustered by the Argentinians, while air power was limited to what could be carried by the Navy’s two aircraft carriers. Hostilities opened on 1 May with a pre-dawn strike on Stanley Airport in which several enemy aircraft were disabled. Day 2 saw the controversial sinking of the Belgrano, while an aborted Argentine Exocet mission resulted in the missiles having to return to main base for reprogramming, an example of poor Argentine technology. On 4 May HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet missile with the loss of 20 lives. The outcome of the war was never seriously in doubt but it dragged on with some brave fighting on both sides. On 19th May a Sea King helicopter transporting a group of SAS troops exploded, and there were even greater casualties among the Argentine forces. 208pp, numerous


colour and b/w illustrations, appendices of British and Argentine aircraft and ships, statistics.


£24.99 NOW £12.50


world’s first Skyjack, where the determination and strength of the crew enabled them to land safely in Malta. 176pp, photos. £19.99 NOW £7.50


71282 UBIQUE: The Royal Artillery in the Second World


War by Richard Doherty “Ubique”, the Latin for


“everywhere”, is the perfect title for this comprehensive and readable account of the branch of the army without which no major operation could take place. Initially deployed in France and Norway, the Royal Artillery was central to the withdrawal of the British


Expeditionary Force from the beaches of Dunkirk. The artillery were constantly called on to cover their comrades in rearguard actions, and according to one authority, the Gunners at Dunkirk were victorious even though the army as a whole was in defeat. Gunners worked with Allied scientists on research to shoot the V2, the world’s first ballistic missile, out of the sky in 1944. The war in North Africa was a different scenario. Rommel’s instructions were to maintain the defensive, but he could not resist an attack on Tobruk, a plan that was thwarted by a storm of fire from the 1st and 107th RHA regiments. The gunners were caught in difficult terrain in Syria and Sudan, and in Greece had once more to cover a retreating and demoralised army. Back in Europe, Montgomery’s plan to be in Rome before Christmas proved over-ambitions, and as the Eighth Army pushed its way through Italy only General Alexander knew the full extent of the shortage of ammunition. Finally during Operation Overlord the Royal Artillery had to muster all its legendary skill, courage and endurance. 288pp, photos. £20 NOW £8


70734 KNIGHTS IN SHINING ARMOR: Myth


and Reality 1450-1650 by Ida Sinkevic


A rare US exhibition catalogue in hardback which explores the popularity of arms and armour in the daily life of Renaissance and Baroque. It looks at contemporaneous paintings, prints, textiles and metalwork that display arms. It focuses on four themes: nobility and authority, religious imagery, performance of war: battles, soldiers and tournaments and finally at myth, story and allegory. The first full page colour plate is Joan of Arc by Peter Paul Rubens, glowing in rich reds and shiny black armour as she kneels in prayer. The Armourer’s Shop 1640-45 shows a heap of helmets, breastplates, axes and other weapons in a very lifelike scene. Tintoretto’s Tancred Baptising Clorinda 1586- 1600 is a graphic depiction of death with angels and a white dove in the sky. Gorgeous woodcut engravings, colour woodcuts, colour photos. 84 large pages. £29.95 NOW £5


67979 SOMME: The Heroism and Horror of War by Martin Gilbert


!


The author first visited the Somme in the 1970s, met three former Guards Officers there and discussed the battle with Paul Maze, the French painter who served as a Sergeant with the British Forces in 1916. He is also grateful for research help to our dear friend, the historian Max Arthur. Gilbert never allows his readers to forget that the ‘embattled armies’ were composed of millions of individuals. The Battle of the Somme was among the bloodiest conflicts of all time yet despite its horrific destruction, the fighting was characterised by incredible individual bravery. 332pp in paperback, illus. £10.99 NOW £3.50


68418 WAR IN THE CRIMEA - An Illustrated History


by Ian Fletcher and Natalia Ishchenko In addition to the work of pioneering photographer Robert Fenton, this book prints many studies by the celebrated war artist William Simpson, sketches made for the Illustrated London News and also highly dramatic studies by Russian artists such as Kokorin or Makovsky. Prior to 1854, trouble had been brewing for some time over Russia’s attempts to secure access to the Mediterranean, but it was a dispute over ownership of the Holy Places of Jerusalem that finally sparked the declaration of war. Facing the might of the Russians were two Allied armies: the British, with little recent combat experience, and the seasoned French troops, many of whose regiments had seen active service in North Africa. It was misunderstandings between the commanders which led to the war’s most famous episode, the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaklava. The author describes the manoeuvres, deployment and numbers of troops in great detail. Old photos and prints. 288pp. £30 NOW £7.50


68568 LAST CRUSADERS by Barnaby Rogerson


Subtitled ‘East, West and the Battle for the Centre of the World’, this book is about the titanic contest between Hapsburg-led Christendom and the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. The battles that were fought and the men who led the armies include Ferdinand and Isabella against Muslim Granada, 1480- 1510, the emergence of the Muslim Corsairs 1480-1510, the division of Christendom between Charles V and Francis I, Suleyman the Magnificent and his five victories, the Barbarossa brothers and the victory of Lapanto. With list of key characters, comparative timelines, family trees, illus and maps. 481pp, softback. £14.99 NOW £3


70535 CUSTER AND THE LITTLE BIGHORN: The Man, The Mystery, The Myth by Jim Donovan


Here is the first major illustrated book to examine the life of George Armstrong Custer, including his famed U.S. Seventh Cavalry attack on an encampment of Lakota and Cheyenne Indians. By the close of the day, the Battle of the Little Bighorn was over and Custer was dead, along with more than 200 of his men. It was a shocking, unexpected defeat for the dashing one-time Boy General, and a magnificent victory for Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Horse and their warriors. But, despite the fact that pictographs fashioned by Red Horse were later to depict the battleground as a glorious victory, with the Seventh Cavalry fleeing or dead, it was to become a tragic last gasp for the Indians’ way of life. The author also examines Custer’s life in full, from his childhood and days at West Point Military Academy, through his glorious Civil War achievements to his death at the Little Bighorn. 224 pages 28.5cm x 22.5cm very lavishly illustrated in colour, paintings and drawings, maps. $29.95 NOW £10


THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN The greatest air battle in history.


71274 PORTRAITS OF THE FEW


by Christopher Yeoman and David Pritchard


This unusual battle of Britain book consists of over 60 portrait paintings by David Pritchard of young men who defended Britain’s skies in the dark days of 1940. Each painting occupies a


whole page and is accompanied by a text written by Yeoman describing the flyer’s major exploits, along with reproductions of combat reports from missions in which he took part. The book is introduced by Squadron Leader Geoffrey Wellum, DFC, whose portrait shows a young man with the narrowed eyes of an aviator. Known as “Boy” when he arrived at Northolt aged 18, Wellum distinguished himself in a continuous round of missions. Squadron Leader Neville Duke joined the crack 92 Squadron after the Battle of Britain and on one occasion blacked out on account of the immense airspeed he had clocked in pursuit of German fighters. Recovering quickly, he saw six Me109s engaging two Spitfires, joined the dogfight and sent a Messerschmitt into a dive. At touchdown his engine stopped for lack of petrol. Wing Commander Terence Kane tried to bale out when his engine exploded but had to climb back into the cockpit to detach himself from the radio and oxygen wires. Turning the aircraft over, he fell into clear space and managed to open his parachute, to be met on the ground by Germans who told him “For you the war is over”. 21cm x 27.5cm, 128pp, over 60 colour reproductions. £21.99 NOW £9


71252 BATTLE OF BRITAIN


by Roy Conyers Nesbit Riding high on the success of their Blitzkrieg campaign that had steamrollered France and the Low Countries into defeat, by June 1940 the Nazi forces were poised on the Channel coast, ready to invade England. In their way stood the heavily outnumbered


squadrons of the RAF which they believed would quickly fall when confronted with the might of Göring’s Lüftwaffe. They could not have been more mistaken. In the desperate air battles that followed, played out against the piercing blue skies of one of the hottest British summers on record, the ‘Few’ of the RAF fought and won the greatest air battle in history. The author served as a navigator on Bristol Beauforts and Douglas Dakotas during World War Two. Superb colour paintings and artworks, contemporary photos. 260pp, 8" x 12" softback. £14.99 NOW £7.50


71393 HONOUR RESTORED by Peter Brown


Squadron Leader Peter Brown ASC’s book is a refreshing look at 1940 subtitled ‘The Battle of Britain, Dowding and the Fight for Freedom.’ At the outbreak of WW2, Air Chief Marshall Dowding was Commander-in-Chief of RAF Fighter Command which had been set up three years earlier to protect Britain against attacks from the air and the threat of invasion.


London was subjected to extensive night bombings for several months. However, our fighter squadrons and defence systems enabled us to maintain mastery of the air. The Battle of Britain ended in 1940 and our island was never again under the treat of invasion. Peter Brown, former Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, presents a vivid account and reminds us of bravery of our fighter pilots and the courage of the British people. He offers a careful analysis of the tactics involved and vigorously defends Dowding’s command and exposes the conspiracy of senior officers that saw Dowding removed from office without due recognition for his achievements. 248pp in paperback with photos, charts and maps.


£12.99 NOW £3.50


71251 BATTLE OF BRITAIN MEMORIAL FLIGHT


by Richard Winslade The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, otherwise known as the BBMF or simply ‘The Flight’ is based at RAF Coningsby in


Lincolnshire. Its collection of five Spitfires, two Hurricanes, a Lancaster and a Dakota performs at flying displays the length and breadth of Britain during the summer display season. Its Lancaster Bomber is rare indeed, being only one of two airworthy examples in the world. During his 50 year career, acclaimed aviation photographer Richard Winslade has gathered his personal favourite photographs showcasing one of the world’s most important collections of historic aircraft with his personal and insightful narratives. He has even photographed the artists who researched the correct colours and markings for the aircraft, the Spitfire stripped back to bare metal, the aircrew of the Douglas DC-3 Dakota ZA947 and pilots like Flt Lt ‘Merv’ Paine at low level in an AB910 Supermarine Spitfire, the Hawker Hurricane and the wide winged and spectacularly impressive Avro Lancaster. Gorgeous colour photography throughout plus historic black and white photos. 144pp in large softback.


£14.99 NOW £6


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