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Author: Paddy Ashdown Publisher: Aurum ISBN: 1781310831 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 416
Book Description
The complete story of the remarkable canoe raid on German ships in Bordeaux Harbour – by the man who himself served in the Special Boat Squadron. In 1942, before El Alamein turned the tide of war, the German merchant fleet was re-supplying its war machine with impunity. So Operation Frankton, a daring and secret raid, was launched by Mountbatten’s Combined Operations and led by the enigmatic ‘Blondie’ Hasler – to paddle ‘Cockleshell’ canoes right into Bordeaux harbour and sink the ships at anchor. It was a desperately hazardous mission from the start – dropped by submarine to canoe some hundred miles up the Gironde into the heart of Vichy France, surviving terrifying tidal races, only to face the biggest challenge of all: escaping across the Pyrenees. Fewer than half the men made it to Bordeaux; only four laid their mines; just two got back alive. But the most damage was done to the Germans’ sense of impregnability. Paddy Ashdown, himself a member of the Royal Marines’ elite Special Boat Squadron formed as a consequence of Frankton, has always been fascinated by this classic story of bravery and ingenuity - as a young man even meeting his hero Hasler once. Now, after researching previously unseen archives and tracing surviving witnesses, he has written the definitive account of the raid. The real truth, he discovers – a deplorable tale of Whitehall rivalry and breakdowns in communication – serves only to make the achievements of the ‘Cockleshell’ heroes all the more heroic.
Author: Paddy Ashdown Publisher: Aurum ISBN: 1781310831 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 416
Book Description
The complete story of the remarkable canoe raid on German ships in Bordeaux Harbour – by the man who himself served in the Special Boat Squadron. In 1942, before El Alamein turned the tide of war, the German merchant fleet was re-supplying its war machine with impunity. So Operation Frankton, a daring and secret raid, was launched by Mountbatten’s Combined Operations and led by the enigmatic ‘Blondie’ Hasler – to paddle ‘Cockleshell’ canoes right into Bordeaux harbour and sink the ships at anchor. It was a desperately hazardous mission from the start – dropped by submarine to canoe some hundred miles up the Gironde into the heart of Vichy France, surviving terrifying tidal races, only to face the biggest challenge of all: escaping across the Pyrenees. Fewer than half the men made it to Bordeaux; only four laid their mines; just two got back alive. But the most damage was done to the Germans’ sense of impregnability. Paddy Ashdown, himself a member of the Royal Marines’ elite Special Boat Squadron formed as a consequence of Frankton, has always been fascinated by this classic story of bravery and ingenuity - as a young man even meeting his hero Hasler once. Now, after researching previously unseen archives and tracing surviving witnesses, he has written the definitive account of the raid. The real truth, he discovers – a deplorable tale of Whitehall rivalry and breakdowns in communication – serves only to make the achievements of the ‘Cockleshell’ heroes all the more heroic.
Author: Peter Huchthausen Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0142004650 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
From the evacuation of Saigon in 1975 to the end of the twentieth century, the United States committed its forces to more than a dozen military operations. Offering a fresh analysis of the Iranian hostage rescue attempt, the invasions of Granada and Panama, the first Gulf War, the missions in Somalia and Bosnia, and more, author and distinguished U.S. naval captain Peter Huchthausen presents a detailed history of each military engagement through eyewitness accounts, exhaustive research, and his unique insider perspective as an intelligence expert. This timely and riveting military history is “a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the nature of war today” (Stephen Trent Smith).
Author: Barbara Park Publisher: Yearling ISBN: 0307797066 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 128
Book Description
Poor Oscar Winkle! Ever since his little brother, Robert (not-so-affectionately known as Slobert), showed up seven and a half years ago, he's been specializing in ruining Oscar's life. So he comes up with Operation: Dump the Chump, a brilliant scheme to get even with the pesky creep.
Author: Robert Lyman Publisher: Quercus ISBN: 1623652626 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
During the Second World War, it is hard to imagine a situation where the British High Command could think that one of the only ways they could attack Hitler was to send ten canoeists with limpet mines to paddle one hundred miles up the Gironde estuary, in the middle of winter, in an attempt to sink German blockade ships in Bordeaux harbor. Yet this is precisely what happened in 1942. The man who gave the go-ahead for the audacious commando raid--Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of Combined Operations--fully anticipated that all ten men would die in the attempt. Mountbatten wasn't far wrong--two ripped their collapsible canoes as they were manhandling them out of the submarine; two drowned when their canoes capsized entering the Gironde estuary; and a further six were captured by the Germans and later executed. By complete chance, the two canoeists who managed to escape--Major "Blondie" Hasler and Marine Bill Sparks--stumbled into the arms of the French resistance. Once in their care, Hasler and Sparks made their way across France and into Spain, crossing the Pyrenees in the company (though they did not know it) of a Gestapo agent intent on bringing down the resistance network. Operation Suicide is the first account of this enthralling raid for over fifty years. In utilizing primary source material, including detailed German records captured by the British in 1944 (which remained censored until 1976), Robert Lyman brings to life one of the most courageous and dramatic events to take place in the darkest days of the Second World War.
Author: Jeffery a Birkeland Publisher: South Prairie Publishing ISBN: 9781732379404 Category : Languages : en Pages : 378
Book Description
A Brilliant Operation follows the National Army's 362nd Infantry Regiment during twenty intense months of active service during the First World War. The story tracks the farmers, cowboys, miners, and store clerks from several western states who answered their draft notice and who would eventually merge into a regiment of infantry, receiving their basic training at Camp Lewis, Washington, before deployment to France. There they ventured into the abyss of the Western Front with General Pershing's American First Army, becoming heavily engaged in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive with the 91st Infantry Division. Then, on a late September afternoon before the village of Gesnes-en-Romagne, their lingering attachments to the romance of war, as well as their innocence, died at the hands of the Boche. Bringing to life these western soldiers' stories is the interweaving of their diaries, letters, and official reports into an account of their day to day trials, intermixed with photos and maps to visually follow their journey. These stories propel the reader into the mud-filled trenches and onto troop trains reeking of horse manure. There are rat infested billets, and gas permeated field rations. Along the way hope and despair push the men towards the November armistice and beyond. Eventually, they returned home where, after well-intended cheers and handshakes, the men were left to their memories with an unspoken expectation that they would fit back into a society incapable of understanding who they had become. With this promise, A Brilliant Operation honors the sacrifices this "great" generation made during their World War.
Author: Max Hastings Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 0062953621 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 436
Book Description
Best Nonfiction of 2020 -- Kirkus Reviews One of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force’s 617 Squadron. The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story—and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron—has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis’s mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams—the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron’s valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest. In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses—making the mission a success. An example of Churchill’s “military theatre” at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology—a story to be told for generations to come. Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.
Author: Juan Pujol García Publisher: Biteback Publishing ISBN: 1849546258 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
He was GARBO to the Allies and ALARIC to the Germans – the most successful double agent of the Second World War. Indeed, his spy network across Britain was so highly regarded that he was decorated for his achievements ... by both sides. Throughout the war, GARBO kept the Germans supplied with reports from his ring of twenty-four agents. Hitler's spymasters never discovered or even suspected a double-cross, but all the agents in GARBO's network existed solely in his imagination. In one of the most daring espionage coups of all time, GARBO persuaded the enemy to hold back troops that might otherwise have defeated the Normandy landings on D-Day; without him, the Second World War could have taken a completely different course. For decades, GARBO's true identity was a closely guarded secret. After the war, he vanished. Years later, after faking his own death, Juan Pujol García was persuaded by the author to emerge from the shadowy world of espionage, and in this new edition of his classic account, now updated to include his agents' original MI5 files, GARBO reveals his unique story.
Author: James D. Kiras Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198902085 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 529
Book Description
Special Operations Success establishes a new benchmark in military theory in this deeply analytic and innovative work. It answers several pressing questions: How successful have American special operations been over the past quarter-century? Are special forces fated to cycles of expansion and misuse? Will special forces invariably exceed the authorities granted to them because of they are? Is a general theory of special operations feasible given the range of activities and conditions that fall under the category? Kiras' work is based on two decades of practical, teaching, and consulting experience within different special operations communities, and its analysis and conclusions are designed to inform practitioners, policymakers, educators, and the general public. The book develops a framework, in the form of a theory comprising capabilities and control, for the comprehensively evaluating special operations success, and is divided into three parts: Part I lays the foundation for a general theory of special operations, Part II explores the two component parts of theory, capabilities and control, and Part III uses various aspects of the theory, depending on available information, to assess the success of special operations over a twenty-year period in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States.
Author: Paddy Ashdown
Author: Paddy Ashdown
Author: Peter Huchthausen
Author: Barbara Park
Author: Robert Lyman
Author: Jeffery a Birkeland
Author: Max Hastings
Author: 
Author: Juan Pujol García
Author: James D. Kiras
Author: Alfred Draper