‘Being a JTAC is the closest a soldier on the ground in the midst of battle can get to feeling like one of the gods — unleashing pure hellfire, death and destruction.’— Duncan FalconerMeet Sergeant ‘Bommer’ Grahame, one of the deadliest soldiers on the battlefield. He’s an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller — pronounced ‘jay-tack’) — a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A-10 tank-busters, F-15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own ...
He was a Soviet Top Gun—yet left all of the power and glory behind when he engineered the most audacious act of defection in Cold War history. On May 20, 1989, Soviet Air Force Captain Alexander Zuyev escaped from an air base in Soviet Georgia. Under the threat of Russian air defense missiles, and with other fighters in hot pursuit, Zuyev carried out a real-life flight to freedom even more breathtaking then classic works of fiction like and .ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
In the fall of 2009, Taliban insurgents ambushed a patrol of Afghan soldiers and Marine advisors in a mountain village called Ganjigal. Firing from entrenched positions, the enemy was positioned to wipe out one hundred men who were pinned down and were repeatedly refused artillery support. Ordered to remain behind with the vehicles, twenty-one year-old Marine corporal Dakota Meyer disobeyed orders and attacked to rescue his comrades.With a brave driver at the wheel, Meyer stood in the gun turret exposed to withering fire, rallying Afghan troops to follow. Over the course of the five hours, ...
I was so blown away by this book I had to meet Viktor in person and now count him as a personal friend. The book is factual in every respect and is difficult to put down once started. John Barron is an excellent author and did a first class job of writing Viktor’s story. In addition to an exciting escape story it reveals why the Soviet Union had to collapse of its own ineptitude, deceit, and corruption. It details humorous incidents such as army pilots’ mess-hall riots due to bad food. is also a biography of an ...
Everyone has seen the footage: a heavily bearded Saddam Hussein blinking under the bright lights of infantry cameras, dazed to find himself in U.S. Army custody. Yet while the breaking news was broadcast around the world, the story of the remarkable events leading up to that moment on December 13, 2003 has never before been fully told. offers the full, behind-the-scenes account of the search for Saddam Hussein, as related by the Army interrogator whose individual courage and sheer determination made the capture possible.In July of 2003, Staff Sergeant Eric Maddox was deployed to Baghdad alongside intelligence analysts and ...
During the 1930s the Soviet Union launched a major effort to create a modern Air Force. That process required training tens of thousands of pilots. Among those pilots were larger numbers of young women, training shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. A common training program of the day involved studying in “flying clubs” during leisure hours, first using gliders and then training planes. Following this, the best graduates could enter military schools to become professional combat pilots or flight navigators. The author of this book passed through all of those stages and had become an experienced training pilot ...
Iraq, 2004. Sgt. Dan Mills and the rest of the 1st Battalion, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, were supposed to be winning hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives…Within hours of the battalion’s arrival in Iraq, a grenade bounced off one of their Land Rovers, rolled underneath, and detonated. The ambush marked the beginning of a full-scale firefight during which Mills killed a man with a round that removed his assailant’s head.The mission had already gone from bad to worse. Throat-burning winds, blast bombs, and militias armed with AKs, RPGs, and a limitless supply of mortar rounds were the icing on the cake for Mills and his men. For the next six months—isolated, besieged, and under constant fire—their battalion refused to give an inch. This is thebreathtaking true chronicle of their endurance, camaraderie, dark humor, and courage in the face of relentless, lethal assault.
KurzbeschreibungDieses Buch legt auf der Basis von 150.000 Seiten Abh?rprotokollen erstmals eine ?berzeugende Mentalit?tsgeschichte des Krieges vor. In von Briten und Amerikanern eigens eingerichteten Lagern wurden deutsche Kriegsgefangene aller R?nge und Waffengattungen heimlich abgeh?rt. Sie sprachen ?ber milit?rische Geheimnisse, ?ber ihre Sicht auf die Gegner, auf die eigene F?hrung und auf die Judenvernichtung. Das Buch zeigt die Kriegswahrnehmung von Soldaten in historischer Echtzeit und vermittelt eine faszinierende und erschreckende Innenansicht des Zweiten Weltkriegs durch jene Soldaten, die gro?e Teile Europas verw?steten. Zudem wird im Vergleich zu anderen Kriegen herausgearbeitet, was am F?hlen und Handeln der deutschen Soldaten spezifisch f?r den Nationalsozialismus war und was nicht.
The primary goal of is to strengthen the faith of its readers by showing the power of others’ faith under the most extreme circumstances imaginable. This is accomplished through 365 one-page stories from America’s greatest conflict presented in a daily devotional format with relevant scripture readings for each day of the year. Additionally, the book presents a unique and concise history of World War II with summaries, maps, and photographs of the major campaigns of the war. On this level, the individual stories provide insights into the war and combat not found in typical historical accounts.2009 Silver Medal ...
relates the U.S. Marines’ unprecedented, relentless drive across the Pacific during World War II, from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, detailing their struggle to dislodge from heavily fortified islands an entrenched enemy who had vowed to fight to extinction—and did. (All but three of the Marines’ victories required the complete annihilation of the Japanese defending force.) As scout and machine-gunner for the First Marine Division, the author fought in all its engagements till his wounding at Peleliu. Here he uses firsthand experience and impeccable research to re-create the nightmarish battles. The result is both an exciting chronicle and a ...
From the air, the Pacific island of Iwo Jima looks like a large, gray pork chop. Its strategic location, midway between the U.S. B-29 airfields on the Marianas Islands and the Japanese home islands meant that it had to be seized no matter what the cost. On February 19, 1945, the invasion of Iwo Jima was launched. It became the greatest battle fought by the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II. From it came the most famous image of the war, the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi. When it ended a month later, the Marines had suffered 20,000 casualties—almost 5,000 men killed in action. And an astonishing twenty-six Marines were awarded America's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor.
Countless books have been written about why Nazi Germany lost World War II, yet remarkably little attention has been paid to the equally vital question of how and why it was able to hold out as long as it did. The Third Reich did not surrender until Germany had been left in ruins and almost completely occupied. Even in the near-apocalyptic final months, when the war was plainly lost, the Nazis refused to sue for peace. Historically, this is extremely rare.Drawing on original testimony from ordinary Germans and arch-Nazis alike, award-winning historian Ian Kershaw explores this ...
What is it like to kill? What is it like to be under fire? How do you know what’s right? What can you never forget?In , award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks these difficult questions of eleven soldiers and marines, who—by sharing the truth about their wars—display a rare courage that transcends battlefield heroics.For each of these men, many of whom Sites first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth means something different. One struggles to recover from a head injury he believes has stolen his ability to love; another attempts to make amends for the killing of an innocent man; yet another finds respect for the enemy fighter who tried to kill him. Sites also shares the unsettling narrative of his own failures during war—including his complicity in a murder—and the redemptive powers of storytelling that saved him from a self-destructive downward spiral.
The Russo-Japanese War grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea. Harry Collingwood (William Joseph Cosens Lancaster (M: 1851 May 28 — 1922 Jun 10)) provides a personal narrative of this conflict, that served as a prelude for the following two World Wars of the Twentieth Century.
