34 War and Militaria


72270 SUB: Real Life on Board with the Hidden Heroes of the Royal Navy’s Silent Service by Danny Danziger


Even as you read this review, a classified number of the Royal Navy’s deadly nuclear submarines lurks undetected in the depths of the 300,000,000 cubic miles of the world’s oceans. Completely self-sufficient for months at a time, they lie in wait, ready to watch, listen, intercept or attack, wherever they may be needed, from the Mediterranean coast of Libya to the ice caps of the Arctic. Should the UK be devastated by a nuclear strike, they might just be the last military force standing. Each hunter-killer contains 200,000,000 pounds of hardware. 261 pages with maps. £17.99 NOW £6


72650 THE GUNFIGHTERS: How the West Was Won


by Bruce Wexler


The term ‘gunfighter’ did not come into popular use until the 1870s. The earlier term used was ‘man- killer’ or - as bad man Clay Allision described himself - ‘shootist’. Gunfighters were on both sides of the law, as both ‘civilizers’ and


criminals, and many swapped sides when it suited them. The gunfighters whose legends have survived all had some extra characteristic or other that has kept their image alive. Such idiosyncrasies encompassed: high morals, depravity, good looks, mystery, vicious temper, sadism, dandyism or marksmanship. This thrilling, bloodthirsty volume includes such celebrities as Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holliday, Jesse James and many more. 175 pages 20.5cm by 26cm bulging with colour and b/w illus, many of them contemporary, and gunfighter filmography. $19.95 NOW £7


72480 SOVIET GENERAL AND FIELD RANK


OFFICER UNIFORMS: 1955 to 1991 by Adrian Streather


This comprehensive and staggeringly detailed guide covers all uniforms worn by the Marshal of the Soviet Union, Marshals, Generals and all field rank officers from 1955 to 1991 on land, sea and air, plus border and intelligence services. With colour (mainly) and b/w photos throughout, it features a well-researched history of each type of uniform, the period it saw service and how it was made, from the boots to the epaulettes. It allows enthusiasts to identify what they want and providing a great many anecdotes from the author’s extensive purchasing experiences, frequently very funny. 128pp softback. £14.99 NOW £4.50


72502 WILDEST PROVINCE: SOE in the Land


of the Eagle by Roderick Bailey In the summer of 1943 small teams of élite British soldiers from the Special Operations Executive began to parachute into Albania, their task being to encourage anti-Axis resistance groups and carry out sabotage missions. Their first priority was to find and befriend bands of local guerrillas. The SOE troops were plagued by illness, lice and frostbite, while the guerrillas they were attempting to persuade were much keener on killing them or other guerrillas than their well-armed German and Italian occupiers. British support eventually went to Albania’s communist-led partisans. It was a choice which continues to have ramifications even today. Here are men such as Antony Quayle, the actor, Julian Amery, future MP and minister and the remarkable, irrepressible Ed “Trotsky” Davies, among many others. Photos plus maps, 405pp. £25 NOW £6.50


72602 DOGFIGHT: True Stories of Dramatic Air


Actions by Alfred Price The author himself was an RAF aircrew officer for 15 years. From operations over the fields of France during the First World War, through accounts of the indomitable spirit of the RAF during the Battle of Britain, to the horrifying loss of life inflicted by Hitler’s Blitzkrieg offensive over the Soviet Union - when more than 300 aircraft fell in


air-to-air combat during one single day - no detail is spared. The jet age is vividly brought to life, together with the air force’s role in the Vietnam War and the Falklands, the part played by reconnaissance aircraft in modern warfare, and the precision of attacking pin-point targets in Iraq. 350 paperback pages with b/w archive photos, diagrams and map. £9.99 NOW £5


72523 FRANCO’S FRIENDS: How British Intelligence Helped Bring Franco to Power in Spain by Peter Day


In 1936, a British plane flew to the Canaries. On board, Major Hugh Pollard was travelling in the company of two attractive young blondes, but this was no holiday - Pollard was a long-time MI6 agent embarking on a very secret mission, bound for Morocco and on the plane was another special passenger, General Francisco Franco. This book tells the little-known story of how MI6 helped orchestrate the coup and this revelatory account draws on previously classified files. Details the bribes, the plots and the moral dilemmas. 244pp in paperback, photos. £9.99 NOW £4


71313 WAR MEMORIALS IN BRITAIN by Jim Corke


We are taken along the road to remembrance and encouraged to observe notable bronzes and architectural monuments like the Royal Dockyard in Chatham, Birmingham’s Hall of Memory, Herne Bay’s seafront clock tower, circular open colonnades such as the one in Cardiff’s Alexandra Park, the D-Day Museum at Portsmouth and the most stunningly beautiful liminal lights where heraldic symbols and stained glass portraiture makes beautiful window art. Useful gazetteer. 64 page paperback with colour photos. £5.99 NOW £2.75


71255 DICTIONARY OF


MILITARY QUOTATIONS by Peter Tsouras


Distills the wisdom of soldiers, commanders and military historians in one volume and 4,000 years of military history from Machiavelli and Xenophon, Crazy Horse to Eisenhower, superb apophthegms and observations. Do or Die, Command, Centre of Gravity, Exhortation, Marksmanship,


Opinion, Offence and Defence, Morale, Speeches and the Spoken Word, Strategy and Veterans are among the topic headings to turn to in this very browseworthy tome. 800 individuals quoted, 4000 years of wisdom from professionals of arms and from the sack of Sumerian Ur around 2000BC to more recent themes from Rwanda and Kosovo. 400 subject areas, 3500 quotations, 512pp in facsimile reprint. ONLY £3.50


72593 AND THE SHOW WENT ON: Cultural


Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding When the Germans occupied Paris it had lost 60% of its population, but cultural life soon resumed. Hitler was a particular enthusiast for the architecture of the Paris Opera and in August it reopened with a production of Berlioz’s Faust. The Cannes film festival struggled on, but many film producers were Jewish and started to leave for the States. Andre Gide wavered between support and resistance, and finally emigrated to Tunisia. Jean Cocteau’s allegiances were shaky and at the end of the war he feared arrest. Camus and Sartre, in spite of their resistance contacts, both had plays produced during the occupation. Roughcut pages. 340pp, photos. £20 NOW £6


71187 FIGHTING MEN OF WWII: Allied Forces’ Uniforms, Equipment


and Weapons by David Miller Comprehensive in coverage, this 384 page heavyweight sets out to examine in detail the weapons, clothing and equipment of the armies of Great Britain, its Dominions and the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, New Zealand,


India and South Africa), the USA, the Soviet Union, France, Poland, China, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Greece, Norway and Yugoslavia during the period of WWII, collectively referred to here as the Allied Forces. Here are minutely detailed descriptions and specifications of all rifles, pistols, revolvers, bayonets, knives, grenades, flamethrowers, mortars and anti-tank missiles that were employed, as well as all clothing from boots to headgear and everything in between for all climates and regiments, battle and ceremonial, and also rank badges and other insignia, goggles, water bottles, medical kits, radios, mess tins. Nearly all the 1000 plus items featured have never been featured in book form before. The fighting man of every country and unit is placed in context and a wealth of contemporary photos show him, his weapons and equipment in action. Hundreds of colour photos of items and b/w archive photos, 9½”×12¼”. £41.99 NOW £16.50


72606 FOR THEM THE WAR WAS NOT OVER: The Royal Navy in Russia 1918-1920 by Michael Wilson


In a totally captivating history, the author tells the story of the British Royal Navy’s part in a little-known war. 11th November 1918, as thousands of men were looking forward to their demobilisation, civil war still raged in Russia. The Allied Forces who were left in that huge country found that they faced an implacable foe. Leon Trotsky was energetically reorganising his rabble of revolutionaries into an effective fighting machine - the Red Army. The White Russian Army, who sided with the Tsar, was still fighting the Bolsheviks, especially in the north of Russia, and the Royal Navy sent a squadron of ships in support, while British troops continued to battle against the Bolsheviks on land. The Russian towns of Murmansk and Archangel became British enclaves as our soldiers and sailors fought a valiant but doomed war against this new, and unexpected enemy. Civil war dragged on for several years and, in the end, the Bolsheviks were victorious on all fronts. 143 paperback pages, illus. £16.99 NOW £6


71010 CAMP Z: The Secret Life of Rudolf Hess by Stephen McGinty


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. 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. 336 pages, photos and plans. £18.99 NOW £5


71292 DISCOVERING BRITISH MILITARY BADGES AND BUTTONS by R. J. Wilkinson-Latham


Another wonderful Shire publication illustrating hundreds of examples, this book first examines the development of the various styles of military head-dress badges from 1751 when the use of private crests was forbidden, to the introduction of ‘cap badges’ in 1894. Since that date every style of badge for each regiment of the regular Army is described or illustrated. Subsequent reorganisations are brought up to the present with new badges designed for the brigade system of 1958, the large regiments of the 1970s, and the radical Army reorganisation since 1990. 88 page small paperback. £5.99 NOW £3


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. Here are 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 spectacular Avro Lancaster. Colour and monochrome photos. 144pp in large softback. £14.99 NOW £4.50


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, the ‘Few’ of the RAF fought and won the greatest air battle in history. 260pp, 8" x 12" softback.


£14.99 NOW £4


71260 FALKLANDS AIR WAR by Chris Hobson


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 1982 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. 208pp, numerous colour and b/w illus, aircraft and ships, statistics. £24.99 NOW £8


71264 GREAT GERMAN ESCAPE by Charles Whiting


Subtitled ‘Uprising of Hitler’s Nazis in Britain’s POW Camps’. 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 and a goodly number of them fanatical National Socialists. What if these desperate young men were given the promise of an airborne landing by German forces in Britain? 182pp in softback, photos and map. £12.99 NOW £2.75


71277 REPORTED MISSING: Lost Airmen of the Second World War


by Roy Conyers Nesbit The author follows in detail the stories of six airmen including St. Exupery who never came back. 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. Other


pilots lost include the debonair Adrian Warburton, the nine bomber crew who baled out over Pforzheim in March 1945, and the world’s first Skyjack. 176pp, photos.


£19.99 NOW £4


71294 DISCOVERING BRITISH REGIMENTAL TRADITIONS by Ian Beckett


Constantly in print since 1999, and here in a revised edition including many colour illustrations, is a book that charts the history of the British Army by using one of its most distinctive aspects - its regimental traditions. There are chapters on Veterans and who qualifies to be a Chelsea Pensioner, Ranks and Appointments, Badges, Nicknames like the ‘Rusty Buckles’ and Uniforms, explaining the origin of khaki. The author also describes existing monuments and memorials to regiments, how families can trace servicemen among their ancestors and lists regimental and military museums. 136pp in paperback, colour illus. £9.99 NOW £5


71393 HONOUR RESTORED by Peter Brown 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. Peter Brown 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


71817 DIEPPE: The Greatest Air Battle 19th


August 1942 by Norman Franks A blow-by-blow painstaking reconstruction of the day’s events, 19th August 1942, when Canadian troops and British commandoes made their now-famous ‘reconnaissance in force’ against the harbour town of Dieppe. They were supported and protected by the largest array of RAF aircraft ever seen in World War Two until that time. Here is a minute by minute, hour by hour account of operations. The RAF flew nearly 3,000 sorties: the Luftwaffe 945. Air combat, ground attacks, bombing and smoke-laying missions cost the RAF over 100 aircrafts and the Luftwaffe nearly 50. All this happened in just 16 hours. Plus words of pilots who took part in the Dieppe Raid. 256pp in illustrated paperback.


£9.99 NOW £3.75


71388 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF FIREARMS by Jim Supica, Doug Wicklund


and Philip Schreier 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. New materials have seen the use of lightweight ‘plastic guns’ like the Glock. 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. While hunting, self-defence and military use still predominate, the sporting and recreational use of firearms is steadily increasing. 304 pages 29.5cm x 24cm, 1,500 colour and archive photos. ONLY £10


71635 FIGHTING TECHNIQUES OF THE ORIENTAL WORLD AD 1200-1860 Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics by Michael Haskew et al


This excellent and wide-ranging introduction describes in detail the fighting techniques and equipment of the armies of East Asia, from the age of Mongol expansion in the 13th to the Anglo-Chinese Opium wars of the mid-19th centuries. Looks at the use and merits of swordsmen, spearmen and archers, and the revolutionary impact of gunpowder weapons. Chapter two examines the creation of cavalry by the Mongols, and the crucial development of the horse-archer as a key battlefield element. The third chapter looks at command structures and the development of technologies which enabled small, well-drilled armies to defeat much more numerous foes. Colour maps and b/w artworks, colour photos. 256pp, 8" x 10", 2008. $35 NOW £4.50


71717 DEAD MEN RISEN by Toby Harnden This is the story of the Welsh Guards, of the British Army and of Afghanistan. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to be able to tell it.’ The book dilutes the saccharine perception of soldiering and vividly renders the smell of sweat, the cordite and the acrid scent of fear. A tremendous lump of a book, 656pp with colour photos and other illus plus sections of expurgated files about the Taliban. £8.99 NOW £3.75


71735 HELLFIRE by Ed Macy


In 2006, Ed Macy was part of an élite group of pilots assigned to the controversial Apache AH Mk1 gunship programme. For his first month ‘in action’ Ed saw little more from his cockpit than the back end of a Chinook. Then, in the skies over Now Zad, under fire and out of options, he had one chance to save his own skin and those of the men on the ground. Though the Apache bristled with awesome weaponry, its fearsome Hellfire missile had never been fired in combat. In a split-second decision he pulled the trigger. Overnight the course of the Afghan war was changed and the gunship had been transformed from an expensive liability to the British Army’s greatest asset. 422 pages with colour and b/w photos, maps, Apache cutaways, and glossary of terms. £18.99 NOW £6


WAR MEMOIRS


In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.


- Winston Churchil


73257 ON THE DECK OR IN THE DRINK: Flying with the Royal Navy 1952-1964


by Lt. Brian R. Allen RN (Rtd) Brian Allen first went to sea as a naval aviation officer cadet on board HMS Indefatigable in 1952 and by 1954 he was flying a Vampire T22. He moved on to Anti-Submarine duties in 1955 with 737 Sqn, flying Fairey Fireflys, before being among the first to fly the Navy’s new anti-sub aircraft, the twin turboprop Fairey Gannet,


one of the ugliest aircraft ever, with a deep belly which necessitated a perilous climb into the cockpit. For Allen however - apart from the climbing in bit - the Gannet was a pleasure to fly, comfortable and reliable. A successful tour of the far-East aboard HMS Albion followed, after which he was transferred to 751 Sqn aboard HMS Warrior, an old WWII carrier on its final commission. The lack of facilities on board was bearable, but the aircraft came as a shock - an elderly Grumman Avenger, with piston engine and a tail-wheel, which required some rapid and fraught retraining before they left for the Pacific on Operation Grapple, the testing of Britain’s first atomic weapons. He transferred to helicopters in 1960, surviving a ditching after whilst with HMS Albion and was posted to Helicopter Trials and Development. It was while trialling a prototype Wasp in 1961 that his tail rotor failed and he, the machine and his co-pilot Colin spun out of control into the sea off Portland Bill. Tragically Colin died and Brian suffered back injuries so severe it was the end of his flying career, and he completed his commission as an Air Traffic Control Officer. Candidly retold and with plenty of technical info and lashings of good humour, he sums it up in the final rule of his “20 Rules of Flying” at the end. Photos, 176pp.


£19.99 NOW £7.50


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