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The Verdict of Battle: The Law Of Victory And The Making Of Modern War
by James Q. WhitmanToday, war is considered a last resort for resolving disagreements. But a day of staged slaughter on the battlefield was once seen as a legitimate means of settling political disputes. James Whitman argues that pitched battle was essentially a trial with a lawful verdict. And when this contained form of battle ceased to exist, the law of victory gave way to the rule of unbridled force. The Verdict of Battle explains why the ritualized violence of the past was more effective than modern warfare in bringing carnage to an end, and why humanitarian laws that cling to a notion of war as evil have led to longer, more barbaric conflicts. Belief that sovereigns could, by rights, wage war for profit made the eighteenth century battle’s golden age. A pitched battle was understood as a kind of legal proceeding in which both sides agreed to be bound by the result. To the victor went the spoils, including the fate of kingdoms. But with the nineteenth-century decline of monarchical legitimacy and the rise of republican sentiment, the public no longer accepted the verdict of pitched battles. Ideology rather than politics became war’s just cause. And because modern humanitarian law provided no means for declaring a victor or dispensing spoils at the end of battle, the violence of war dragged on. The most dangerous wars, Whitman asserts in this iconoclastic tour de force, are the lawless wars we wage today to remake the world in the name of higher moral imperatives.
Verdun: The Left Bank (Battleground Verdun)
by Christina HolsteinA Battle of Verdun specialist explores the lesser-known events of the left bank in this illustrated WWI history and battlefield guide. This fascinating study explores the background of the battle and casts light on the first three critical months of fighting there. It also explains fateful decision to change the original German offensive plan, extending the action to the Left Bank of the River Meuse. Using only original French and German sources, historian Christina Holstein describes the fighting on the Left Bank and follows the German offensive as it slowly pushed forward, taking three terrible months to reach its objectives: the two hills known as Cote 304 and the Mort-Homme, or Dead Man. The French defense of the Left Bank hills, described by Germans themselves as outstanding, is also covered in great detail. With intimate knowledge of the Verdun battlefield, Holstein describes the events in vivid detail and provides three walking tours through areas of the Left Bank rarely seen by visitors. This volume also contains more than 150 photographs, most of which have never been published before.
Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I
by John MosierAlongside Waterloo and Gettysburg, the Battle of Verdun during the First World War stands as one of history’s greatest clashes. Yet it is also one of the most complex and misunderstood, in a war only imperfectly grasped. Conventional wisdom holds that the battle began in February 1916 and lasted until December, when the victorious French wrested all the territory they had lost back from the Germans. In fact, says historian John Mosier, from the very beginning of the war until the armistice in 1918, no fewer than eight distinct battles were waged for the possession of Verdun. These conflicts are largely unknown, even in France, owing to the obsessive secrecy of the French high command and its energetic propaganda campaign to fool the world into thinking that the war on the Western Front was a steady series of German checks and defeats. Although British historians have always seen Verdun as a one-year battle designed by the German chief of staff to bleed France white, Mosier’s careful analysis of the German plans reveals a much more abstract and theoretical approach. Our understanding of Verdun has long been mired in myths, false assumptions, propaganda, and distortions. Now, using numerous accounts of military analysts, serving officers, and eyewitnesses, including French sources that have never been translated, Mosier offers a compelling reassessment of the Great War’s most important battle. .
Verdun 1916: The Renaissance of the Fortress
by H. W. Kaufmann J. E. KaufmannWrapped in myth and distortion, the Battle of Verdun is one of the most enigmatic battles of the Great War, and the controversy continues a century later. Before the battle the Germans believed they had selected one of the strongest points in the French defences in the hope that, if they smashed through it, the French would collapse. But Verdun was actually a hollow shell since its forts were largely disarmed and the trench lines were incomplete. So why did the Germans fail to take Verdun? As well as seeking to answer this fundamental question, the authors of this perceptive new study reconsider other key aspects of the battle the German deployment of stormtroopers, the use of artillery and aircraft, how the French developed the idea of methodical battle which came to dominate their military thought after the war. They look too at how Verdun brought about a renaissance of fortress engineering that resulted in the creation of the Maginot Line and the other fortifications constructed in Europe before the Second World War.
Verdun 1917: The French Hit Back (Battleground Verdun)
by Christina HolsteinA tour of the historic French battlefield that goes beyond the usual dates and places, and reveals the full story of the fighting after the fighting. Despite the popular view, the French army did not cease offensive operations after the disastrous Nivelle Offensive of spring 1917 and the subsequent mutinies. Nor did the fighting at Verdun come to an end in 1916.The successful French counteroffensives at the end of that year led to preliminary planning for a two Army operation in 1917 to break out of the Verdun salient and recapture the strategically very significant Briey coal basin. The French Army mutinies of May and June 1917 led to a more limited version of the plan being implemented, with the aim of establishing new lines for a breakout in 1918.The need to rebuild morale in the French army meant that nothing was left to chance. The immense logistical effort of this late summer 1917 campaign and the detailed planning and careful training at all levels brought success to an army weary of war but determined to win. The industrial nature of the preparations, the spectacular numbers of guns, and the first appearance of the Americans at Verdun presage the campaigns of 1918 and the final Allied victory.Christina Holstein, Britain’s premier expert in the battlefields around Verdun, leads the reader around the various vital points of this largely unknown battle of 1917, one which was crucial for the rebuilding of a French army that played such a notable part in the victorious Allied campaign of 1918. Like all the books in the Battleground Europe series, it is profusely illustrated and mapped using contemporary and modern material, with clear maps to support each of the tours.
The Verdun Affair: A Novel
by Nick Dybek“The Verdun Affair is ravishingly beautiful, and as much about love as about war. Nick Dybek is a storyteller of great power.” —Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun A sweeping, romantic, and profoundly moving novel, set in Europe in the aftermath of World War I and Los Angeles in the 1950s, about a lonely young man, a beautiful widow, and the amnesiac soldier whose puzzling case binds them together even as it tears them apart.In 1921, two young Americans meet in Verdun, the city in France where one of the most devastating battles of the war was waged. Tom is an orphan from Chicago, a former ambulance driver now gathering bones from the battlefield; Sarah is an expatriate from Boston searching for the husband who wandered off from his division and hasn’t been seen since. Quickly, the two fall into a complicated affair against the ghostly backdrop of the ruined city. Months later, Sarah and Tom meet again at the psychiatric ward of an Italian hospital, drawn there by the appearance of a mysterious patient the doctors call Douglas Fairbanks (after the silent film actor)—a shell-shocked soldier with no memory of who he is. At the hospital, Tom and Sarah are joined by Paul, an Austrian journalist with his own interest in the amnesiac. Each is keeping a secret; each has been shaken by the horrors of war. Decades later, Tom, now a successful screenwriter, encounters Paul by chance in LA, still grappling with the questions raised by this gorgeous and incisive novel: How to begin again after unfathomable trauma? How to love after so much loss? And who, in the end, was Douglas Fairbanks? From the bone-strewn fields of Verdun to the bombed-out cafés of Paris, from the riot-torn streets of Bologna to the riotous parties of 1950s Hollywood, The Verdun Affair is a riveting tale of romance, grief, and the far-reaching consequences of a single lie.
The Verdun Affair: A Novel
by Nick Dybek'The Verdun Affair is ravishingly beautiful, and as much about love as about war . . . Dybek is a storyteller of great power. If there's any justice, this novel will be widely read and recognized. I absolutely adored it' Paula McLain, bestselling author of THE PARIS WIFE and CIRCLING THE SUNA sweeping, romantic, and profoundly moving novel, set in Europe in the aftermath of World War I and Los Angeles in the 1950s, about a lonely young man, a beautiful widow, and the amnesiac soldier whose puzzling case binds them together even as it tears them apart.In 1920, two young Americans meet in Verdun, the city in France where one of the most devastating battles of the war was waged. Tom is an orphan from Chicago, a former ambulance driver now gathering bones from the battlefield; Sarah is an expatriate from Boston searching for the husband who wandered off from his division and hasn't been seen since. Quickly, the two fall into a complicated affair against the ghostly backdrop of the ruined city. Months later, Sarah and Tom meet again at the psychiatric ward of an Italian hospital, drawn there by the appearance of a mysterious patient the doctors call Douglas Fairbanks (after the silent film actor) - a shell-shocked soldier with no memory of who he is. At the hospital, Tom and Sarah are joined by Paul, an Austrian journalist with his own interest in the amnesiac.Each is keeping a secret; each has been shaken by the horrors of war. Decades later, Tom, now a successful screenwriter, encounters Paul by chance in LA, still grappling with the questions raised by this gorgeous and incisive novel: How to begin again after unfathomable trauma? How to love after so much loss? And who, in the end, was Douglas Fairbanks?From the bone-strewn fields of Verdun to the bombed-out cafés of Paris, from the riot-torn streets of Bologna to the riotous parties of 1950s Hollywood, The Verdun Affair is a riveting tale of romance, grief and the far-reaching consequences of a single lie.
The Verdun Regiment: Into the Furnace: The 151st Infantry Regiment in the Battle of Verdun 1916
by Johnathan BrackenAlthough the French fielded the largest number of Allied troops on the Western Front in the First World War, the story of their soldiers is little known to English readers. The immense size of the French armies, the number of battles they fought, and the enormous losses they incurred, make it difficult for us to comprehend their experience. But we can gain a genuine insight by focusing on one of the defining battles of that war, at Verdun in 1916, and by looking at it through the eyes of a small group of soldiers who served there. That is what Johnathan Bracken does in this meticulously researched, detailed and vivid account.The French 151st Infantry Regiment spent fifty days under fire at Verdun in 1916 and another thirty-five in 1917, and lost 3,200 soldiers killed or wounded. Yet their ordeal was no different from that of hundreds of other infantry units that fought and endured in this meat-grinder of a battle. Their diaries and memoirs tell their story in the most compelling way, and through their words the larger human story of the French soldier during the war comes to life.
The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World
by Patrick WymanThe creator of the hit podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome explores the four explosive decades between 1490 and 1530, bringing to life the dramatic and deeply human story of how the West was reborn. In the bestselling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.As told through the lives of ten real people—from famous figures like Christopher Columbus and wealthy banker Jakob Fugger to a ruthless small-time merchant and a one-armed mercenary captain—The Verge illustrates how their lives, and the times in which they lived, set the stage for an unprecedented globalized future.Over an intense forty-year period, the seeds for the so-called "Great Divergence" between Western Europe and the rest of the globe would be planted. From Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic to Martin Luther's sparking the Protestant Reformation, the foundations of our own, recognizably modern world came into being.For the past 500 years, historians, economists, and the policy-oriented have argued which of these individual developments best explains the West's rise from backwater periphery to global dominance. As The Verge presents it, however, the answer is far more nuanced.
Vertical Dive
by Michael DimercurioDuring NATO exercises, the French Navy unveils Le Vigilant, a nuclear submarine so advanced that it can elude any radar system in the water. But France's maritime marvel is about to become its own worst enemy. A band of Algerian terrorists has hijacked Le Vigilant. They mean to wipe Paris and every major French city off the face of the earth-and then turn their missiles against the great Satans of the United States and Russia. Despite the French Navy's protests, two NATO subs are called into action: the USS Hampton, captained by veteran sub warrior Burke Dillinger, and the USS Texas, commanded by iron-willed Peter Vornado. Paris is being evacuated. Time is running out. And the coming conflict will pit the ultimate in technological weaponry against pure courage, skill, and determination....
Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany
by Harald JähnerThe dramatic and consequential history of Germany&’s short-lived experiment with democracy between the world wars, when vibrant cultural experimentation collided with political and economic turmoil Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launched an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic, named for the city where it was established, endured for only fifteen years before it was toppled by the insurgent Nazi Party in 1933. In Vertigo, prizewinning historian Harald Jähner tells the Republic&’s full story, capturing a nation caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty and struggling toward a better future. In the aftermath of World War I, Germany was buffeted by political partisanship, economic upheaval, and the constant threat of revolutionary violence. At the same time, many Germans embraced newly liberated lifestyles. They flouted gender norms, flooded racetracks and dance halls, and fostered a vibrant avant-garde that encompassed groundbreaking artists like filmmaker Fritz Lang, painter Wassily Kandinsky, and architect Walter Gropius. But this new Germany sparked a reactionary backlash that led to the Republic&’s fall to the Nazis and, ultimately, the conflagration of World War II. Blending deeply researched political history with the firsthand experiences of everyday people, Vertigo is a vital, kaleidoscopic portrait of a pivotal moment in German history.
Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar Germany and France: Comparative Perspectives
by Manuel Borutta Jan C. JansenThis volume compares one of the largest instances of 'ethnic cleansing' – the German expellees from the East (Vertriebene) – with the most important case of decolonization migration – the French repatriates of Algeria (pieds-noirs).
A Very . . . Pregnant New Year's (36 Hours)
by Doreen RobertsFAMILIES FEUD ON NEW YEAR’S EVE…A GIANT AVALANCHE STRIKES…TWO ENEMIES ARE TRAPPED IN A SNOWBOUND CABIN…When fate stranded them together, Anne Parker fought her attraction for roguish Brad Irving. She couldn’t possibly want this scoundrel—her father’s sworn enemy, breaker of hearts. Until…uh-oh! She’d just made love with the one man in the world she shouldn’t have. Yet never in her life had she felt such fierce desire as she felt now for Brad. And soon a baby was on the way… Would their child be raised a Parker or an Irving? Or was this finally the truce they were looking for?
The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA
by Evan ThomasDrawing on extensive interviews with old spooks and the social friends and family of his subjects, The Very Best Men is a fascinating narrative that brings to life a crucial piece of American history.The Very Best Men is the story of the CIA's early days as told through the careers of four glamorous, daring, and idealistic men who ran covert operations for the government from the end of World War II to Vietnam. Evan Thomas re-creates the personal dramas and sometimes tragic lives of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, who risked everything to contain the Soviet threat. Within the inner circles of Washington, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war -- by stealth and "political action" and to do by cunning and sleight of hand what great armies could not, must not be allowed to do. In the end, they were too idealistic and too honorable, and were unsuited for the dark, duplicitous life of spying. Their hubris and naïveté led them astray, producing both sensational coups and spectacular blunders like the Bay of Pigs and the failed assassination attempts on foreign leaders in the early 1960s. Thomas draws on the CIA's own secret histories, to which he has had exclusive access, as well as extensive interviews, to bring to life a crucial piece of American history.
Very Crazy, G.I.: Strange But True Stories of the Vietnam War
by Kregg P. J. JorgensonAMERICAN BOYS AT WAR IN VIETNAM--AND INVOLVED IN INCIDENTS YOU WON'T FIND IN THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. In this compelling, highly unusual collection of amazing but true stories, U. S. soldiers reveal fantastic, almost unbelievable events that occurred in places ranging from the deadly Central Highlands to the Cong-infested Mekong Delta. "Finders Keepers" became the sacred byword for one exhausted recon team who stumbled upon a fortune worth more than $500,000--and managed, with a little American ingenuity, to relocate the bounty to the States. Jorgenson also chronicles Marine Sergeant James Henderson's incredible journey back from the dead, shares a surreal chopper rescue, and recounts some heart-stopping details of the life--and death--of one of America's greatest unsung heroes, a soldier who won more medals than Audie Murphy and Sergeant York. Whether occurring in the bloody, fiery chaos of sudden ambushes or during the endless nights of silent, gnawing menace spent behind enemy lines, these stories of war are truly beaucoup dinky dau ... and ultimately unforgettable.
A Very Different War: RAAF Operations in the Korean War
by Owen ZuppThe Korean War lies between the enormity of the Second World War and the controversy of Vietnam. Although it often slips through the cracks of history, it represented a global shift as two opposing ideologies clashed and the Cold War heated up. The fledgling United Nations was called to act, and Australia joined the 21 nations committed to supporting South Korea. Within days of the North Koreans crossing the 38th Parallel, the RAAF was flying missions from its base in Japan. In the ensuing three years, the RAAF gained respect among its peers and the attention of the opposing military powers. When the war reached a crisis point, with UN forces pinned down and threatened with being pushed off the peninsula into the sea, the RAAF was at the epicentre. During the war, the RAAF entered the jet age, and the transition was not without challenges and losses. Ultimately, a generation of RAAF leaders emerged from the ranks of sergeant pilots and junior officers who underwent their baptism of fire on the Korean Peninsula. Using No 77 Squadron operations as a timeline, this concise history of the RAAF involvement in the war examines the roles of the transport unit, nurses, ground crews, prisoners of war and those who still have no known resting place.
A Very Fine Commander': The Memories of General Sir Horatius Murray GCB KBE DSO
by John DonovanThe contrast between soldiering in peace and war is well illustrated by Nap Murrays experiences. It took him 16 years to reach the substantive rank of Major in 1938 but by 1944 he was an acting Lieutenant General.His fascinating memoirs, skillfully edited by his nephew, cover an extraordinary career from young officer service in India, China and Egypt, his experiences with the German Army in 1937 before the dramas of WW2. His accounts of action and injury in the early war years in France, North Africa, Sicily and Normandy, prepare the reader for Murrays long and distinguished record as a Divisional commander in Italy, Palestine, Catterick and finally the Commonwealth Division in Korea. It was Monty himself who described Murray as A Very Fine Commander praise indeed, a memoir can be very revealing about the character of its author. Entirely free of self-aggrandisement or pride this book leaves the reader unsurprised at the success and popularity of its author.
A Very Long Engagement
by Sebastien JaprisotSet during and after the First World War, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is the tale of a young woman's search for her fiance who she believes might still be alive despite having officially been reported as "killed in the line of duty." Unable to walk since childhood, fearless Mathilde Donnay is undeterred in her quest as she scours the country for information about five wounded French soldiers who were brutally abandoned by their own troops. A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is a mystery, a love story, and an extraordinary portrait of life in France before and after the War.
The Very Long Game: 25 Case Studies on the Global State of Defense AI (Contributions to Security and Defence Studies)
by Joseph Verbovszky Heiko Borchert Torben SchützThis open access book is the outcome of a unique multinational effort organized by the Hamburg-based Defense AI Observatory (DAIO) to portray the current state of affairs regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by armed forces around the world. The contributions span a diverse range of geostrategic contexts by providing in-depth case studies on Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States. The book does not speculate about the future implications of AI on armed forces, but rather discusses how armed forces are currently exploring the potential of this emerging technology. By adopting a uniform analytical framework, each case study discusses how armed forces view defense AI; how they are developing AI-enhanced solutions, adapting existing structures and processes, and funding their defense AI endeavors; to what extent defense AI is already fielded and operated; and how soldiers and officers are being trained to work with AI.
Very Long Range P-51 Mustang Units of the Pacific War
by Carl MolesworthThe pilots called themselves the 'Tokyo Club'. It was a simple task to become a member. All you had to do was strap yourself into a heavily loaded P-51 Mustang, take off from Iwo Jima (a postage-stamp sized volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean), fly 650 miles north over the sea - often through monsoon storms - in your single-engined aircraft to Japan, attack a heavily defended target in the vicinity of the enemy's capital city and then turn around and fly home while fretting over your shrinking fuel supply and perhaps battle damage as well. If your gas held out and you were not blown off-course on your return trip, you landed back at 'Iwo' after an eight-hour flight. Do it once and you earned membership in the club. Do it 15 times and you earned a trip home. But make one mistake or have one touch of bad luck, and you had a very good chance of ending up dead. This book will tell the little-known story of these brave men and their efforts to defeat the aerial forces defending Japan during the final five months of World War 2. Used initially to provide fighter escort for B-29s bombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities, the Iwo Jima-based P-51s enjoyed such success that they were soon called on to make low-level attacks against ground targets in preparation for the invasion of Japan. The book will cover the three Mustang-equipped Very Long Range fighter groups of the USAAF's Seventh Fighter Command - the 15th, 21st and 506th FGs - based on Iwo Jima with an action-packed text, many rare photos drawn from private collections and appendices providing statistical information. These units flew some of the most colourful P-51s ever seen in USAAF, and the author has extensive photographic references available to allow Jim Laurier to produce profile illustrations of 30 P-51D/Ks in their finery.
Very Long War: The Families Who Waited
by Margaret ReesonA Very Long War is about the experiences of the families of men missing in the New Guinea islands during World War 2, many of whom never returned. When Japan entered the Pacific war, the Australian Government evacuated all Australian women and children from the Territory of New Guinea. The women found themselves suddenly alone and solely responsible for the welfare of their families. Back in Australia, they were cut off from letters and reliable news for three and a half years. Rumours abounded, adding to their trauma and anxiety. Like the families of POWs, they lived in a limbo of waiting. For many of them, the effects of the mystery and the trauma have continued to the present day. A Very Long War is a calm, respectful narrative, beautifully told, never over-written. Its poignant, sometimes shocking stories are treated with insight and restraint. Through the voices of those who provided oral testimony, it echoes the common condition of all people struggling to deal with trauma and loss.
A Very Principled Boy: The Life of Duncan Lee, Red Spy and Cold Warrior
by Mark A. BradleyDuncan Chaplain Lee was an unlikely traitor. A Rhodes Scholar, patriot, and descendent of one of America’s most distinguished families, he was also a communist sympathizer who used his position as aid to intelligence chief #147;Wild Bill” Donovan to leak critical information to the Soviets during World War II. As intelligence expert Mark A. Bradley reveals, Lee was one of Stalin’s most valuable moles in U. S. intelligence, passing the KGB vital information on everything from the D-Day invasion to America’s plans for postwar Europe. Outwitting both J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy, he escaped detection again and again, dying a free man before authorities could prove his guilt. A fast-paced cat-and-mouse tale of misguided idealism and high treason, Perry's book draws on thousands of previously unreleased CIA and State Department records to reveal the riveting story of one of the greatest traitors of the twentieth century.
A Very Private Diary: A Nurse in Wartime
by Mary Morris'Mary is a talented writer and a humane observer of her remarkable experiences. Her diary is full of vivid, sometimes shocking vignettes ... [A] fascinating and deeply moving book' DAILY MAIL'We know so much about Mary's war because she broke the rules. Keeping a diary was strictly forbidden while on active service, which makes Mary's remarkably complete account all the more exceptional' DAILY EXPRESSThe newly discovered diary of a wartime nurse - a fascinating, dramatic and unique insight into the experiences of a young nurse in the Second World War.'I always seem to be saying good-bye to men whom I might have loved had there been enough time...'1939: 18-year-old trainee nurse Mary Mulry arrives in London from Ireland, hoping for adventure. Little did she know what the next seven years would bring.In her extraordinary diary, published now for the first time, Mary records in intimate detail her life as a nurse, both on the Home Front and on the frontline. From nursing children during bombing raids in London to treating Allied soldiers in Normandy, Mary's experiences gave her vivid and unforgettable material for the private diary she was dedicated to keeping.Filled with romance, glamour and inevitably sadness, too, these are the rich memories of an irrepressible personality, living through the turbulent years of the Second World War.
A Very Private Diary: A Nurse in Wartime
by Mary MorrisMary Mulry was eighteen years old when she arrived in London from Ireland to begin training as a nurse. The year was 1939. She had hoped for an adventure and a new start; she could not have predicted what the next seven years would bring.In this extraordinary diary Mary recorded in intimate detail her experiences as a nurse on the Home Front and later working on the frontline in Europe. In London, she nursed critically ill children during bombing raids and narrowly escaped with her life in one the worst nights of the Blitz. In Normandy, arriving on the heels of the D-Day invasion, she tended to Allied soldiers and German prisoners of war. In war-torn Belgium, she witnessed harrowing casualties from the Battle of Arnhem.Yet romance, glamour and adventure were never far away for Mary, even if her relationships often had to be cut short. 'I always seem to be saying good-bye to men whom I might have loved had there been enough time,' she writes.Nurses were not allowed to keep diaries on active service, but Mary - fortunately for us - was not one for following rules. Her rebellious spirit, sharp wit and irrepressible personality shine through the pages of her 'very private diary', published now for the first time.Read by Lara Hutchinson(p) 2014 Orion Publishing Group
Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939–1945
by Patrick BeeslyOperational Intelligence Centre was the nerve centre of the British Admiralty in World War II, dedicated to collecting, analyzing and disseminating information from every possible source which could throw light on the intentions and movements of German naval and maritime forces. OIC labored tirelessly, despite early disappointments, to supply the Navy and RAF with the intelligence that would enable them to defeat Hitler and his admirals. Patrick Beesly, an insider drawing on considerable personal knowledge, reveals, in full, the compelling story of OIC. He throws light on dramatic episodes such as the hunt for the Bismarck; the tragedy of Convoy PQ17; the long war against the U-boats; and on many other significant events critical to the course of the war. Very Special Intelligence, here presented with a new Introduction which sets the work in context and takes account of new research, is the fascinating story of an organization which contributed so much to Allied success.