Bayonet Battle: Bayonet Warfare in the Twentieth Century

Sidgwick & Jackson, 1998. New book, 266 pages, some rubbing wear to jacket. In a century when land warfare had become increasingly mechanised and weapons have acquired greater accuracy and range, infantry have still used bayonet charges to win an attack or beat off assaults. This book is a history of the greatest of such actions, where raw courage and cold steel have often won the day over technology and numbers. Bayonet Battle starts with an account of the bayonet actions during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, when Japanese infantry carried positions at bayonet point in the face of determined Russian resistance. The book moves ten years forward to the outbreak of World War I and the horrors of trench warfare. Despite the defences on the Western Front there were still heroic bayonet actions, such as the Australian attacks at Pozieres in 1916 during the battle of the Somme. WW2 was a conflict of manoevre and technology, but Bayonette Battle shows that hand to hand fighting was still often the deciding factor in battles. Moving into the modern era, this book includes actions during the Korean War, Vietnam War and the British recapture of the Falklands in 1982, when 3 Para stormed Mount Longdon at bayonet points and the Scots Guards took Mount Tumbledown with cold steel. For each of these and other actions in Bayonet Battle, the strategic and tactical situation in covered in full to set the scene of the action. The fighting itself is, where possile, told through the words of those who took part or who witnessed it. In this way Bayonet Battle conveys the full horror, excitement and atmosphere of a type of close quarter fighting that has changed little since ancient times.. Hard Cover. As New/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.