Search Results: Military from The Real Book Shop

The first history of one of the most significant battles of the First World War. A major victory for the Allies, Amiens is the battle many military historians credit with precipitating the end of the war. The surprise attack was launched on 8 August 1918, with over 500 tanks (the largest number to participate in any battle of the war), 1,000 aircraft and 21 divisions of the Allied forces. The German supreme commander, General Erich von Ludendorff, described the first day as the black day of the German army in the history of the war. The operation succeeded and by 13 August the Allies had penetrated 11 miles along a 47-mile front, killing or wounding 50,000 Germans. Thirty years in the writing, Amiens is the first book to study the battle in minute detail. Using eyewitness accounts from numerous survivors, the authors take us into the trenches, the tanks and the cockpits. Used like new. DJ price-clipped. Otherwise, perfect.

Aviation The Early Years chronicles the first years of man-powered flight in photographs, from the end of the last century to the era of the great Zeppelins, and shows us in numerous marvellous pictures the story of the pioneers and adventurers who extended the boundaries of human achievement.
Large book.
Well illustrated throughout with Getty Images.

Before the Bomb, there were simply 'bombs', lower case. Bombs are as old as hatred itself, but it was the twentieth century, one hundred years of almost incredible scientific progress, that saw the birth of the Bomb, the human race's most powerful and most destructive discovery. Since 8.14 a.m. 6 August 1945, when a lone B-29 aircraft appeared over the skies of Hiroshima and destroyed a city, the Bomb has haunted our dreams and threatened our existence.
In this magisterial account, Gerard DeGroot gives us the life story of the Bomb, from its birth in the turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Siberia to unsettling maturity in test sites and missile silos all over the globe. The Bomb killed hundreds of thousands outright, condemned many more to lingering deaths and made vast tracts of land unfit for life. For decades it dominated the psyches of millions, becoming a… Read More

World War 1 was a watershed in British military and social history, and even now the repercussions can still be felt. No town or village in the British Isles escaped their casualties, and the creative genius of a generation was wiped out, at an incalculable loss to society. This book looks in detail at how the British soldier lived, fought and died during the traumatic war years. Enlistment, training and all aspects of life on active service are carefully examined, including discipline, relaxation and even the type and quality of food that soldiers ate. The analysis of the British infantryman's experience is greatly aided by the memories of old soldiers, which both support the author's statements and themselves provide an interesting and often vivid account of life on the Western Front. CONDITION: as new - light shelf wear.

While other books have speculated on the history and nature of Britain's intelligence services, this is the first to tell the story through the documents themselves. Only ten years ago access to these original sources would have been impossible, but now experts Twigge, Hampshire and Macklin draw on the spies' and spymasters' own words from the National Archives' unique intelligence files - including the very latest remarkable releases from MI5. Historical narrative is interwoven with colourful tales from the past that highlight some of the greatest successes - and failures - along the way, as well as the motives and machinations of those responsible for them. And readers who want to explore sources for themselves are given all the guidance they need. As the Iraq War and its aftermath bring the intelligence profession back into the spotlight, ""British Intelligence"" is compelling reading for anyone interested in the shadowy world of 20th-century espionage. NEW.

The summer of 1958 was a nerve-racking time. Ever since the Soviet Union proved that it possessed an operational intercontinental ballistic missile with the launch of Sputnik, the world watched anxiously as the two superpowers engaged in a game of nuclear one-upmanship. Tensions escalated between the United States and the Soviet Union over their respective nuclear weapons reserves, both sides desperate for a solution to the threat of the massive, instant destruction the one could cause on the other.In the midst of this rising tension, Nicholas Christofilos, an eccentric Greek-American physicist, brought forth an outlandish, albeit ingenious, idea to defend the US from a Soviet attack: launching atomic bombs from the South Atlantic Ocean, about 1,100 miles from Cape Town, to detonate in outer space to fry incoming Soviet ICBMs with an artificial radiation belt. Known as Project Argus, this plan is the biggest, most secret, and riskiest scientific experiment in history, and classified details of this… Read More

After an immense, but useless bombardment, at 7.30am on 1st July 1916 the British Army went over the top and attacked the German trenches. It was the first day of the Battle of The Somme and the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties. This is account of that fateful day. Well illustrated throughout, with b/w photographs and hand-drawn maps. CONDITION: Used, very good. Light shelf wear, slight marks and very light tanning, commensurate with age. No inscriptions. Binding very good.

In the autumn of 1914 the original British Expeditionary Force faced a heavily reinforced German drive towards the channel. Field Marshal Sir John French, the British Commander-in-Chief, had sent his men north in an attempt to outflank the Germans across the open ground of Flanders. Here they advanced into the face of a huge German attack and commenced the first of the trench-warfare battles, where lines that would remain almost static for the rest of the war were established causing the towns of La Bassée, Armentières, Messines and Ypres to become landmarks of history. Although the Germans failed to reach the channel ports, the death knell had rung for the BEF, which was virtually wiped out in this brave defence. CONDITION: Like new. Light shelf wear.

The Gallipoli expedition of 1915 was designed to knock the Turkish Empire out of the First World War and open a supply route to Russia. Characterised by outstanding courage and determination, the campaign is also remembered for the appalling military incompetence in the higher commands of both sides. As new. Light shelf wear.

The only major fleet engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland has been surrounded by controversy ever since. The British public felt Admiral Jellicoe had failed - a reaction rooted in a hundred years of the 'Nelson cult', a conviction that anything short of a Trafalgar-style annihilation was letting the side down. True, the German Fleet had sunk more ships and suffered fewer casualties, but the British had forced them to disengage and run for port and were still cruising off Denmark spoiling for a fight. This title recounts in detail how on an early summer's evening in 1916, the two fleets clashed head to head: the events that followed would spark a polemic that still rages today. As new. Light shelf wear. Very small pen mark on 1st title page.

The only major fleet engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland has been surrounded by controversy ever since. The British public felt Admiral Jellicoe had failed - a reaction rooted in a hundred years of the 'Nelson cult', a conviction that anything short of a Trafalgar-style annihilation was letting the side down. True, the German Fleet had sunk more ships and suffered fewer casualties, but the British had forced them to disengage and run for port and were still cruising off Denmark spoiling for a fight. This title recounts in detail how on an early summer's evening in 1916, the two fleets clashed head to head: the events that followed would spark a polemic that still rages today. As new. Light shelf wear. Very small pen mark on 1st title page.

This is the untold story of Tom Wintringham, a founder-member of the British Communist Party and a great character, described in the New Dictionary of National Biography as a 'uniquely British revolutionary'.

When the First World War broke out in August 1914 the Imperial German Army mistakenly assumed that the BEF - 'that contemptible little army' - would be easily defeated. They were stopped in their tracks by the numerically inferior British force, whose excellent marksmanship cost the closed packed German ranks dear. Eventually forced to fall back by overwhelming German numbers, the British carried out a masterful fighting retreat across Belgium and northern France. At Mons, nine and a half British battalions held four German divisions at bay for an entire day. This book examines not just the battle of Mons itself but also the ensuing British retreat including the actions at Le Cateau and Villers-Cotterêts. As new. Light shelf wear.

This is the fascinating story of how Nazi war criminals escaped from justice at the end of the Second World War by fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports, and the role played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the major powers in smuggling them away from prosecution in Europe to a new life in South America. The Nazi sympathies held by groups and individuals within these organizations evolved into a successful assistance network for fugitive criminals, providing them not only with secret escape routes but hiding places for their loot. Gerald Steinacher skilfully traces the complex escape stories of some of the most prominent Nazi war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann, showing how they mingled and blended with thousands of technically stateless or displaced persons, all flooding across the Alps to Italy and from there, to destinations abroad. The story of their escape shows clearly just how difficult the apprehending of war criminals can be. As Steinacher shows,… Read More

'and from Hastings to the War of the Sudan'
Antiquarian book aimed at older children of the 1800s.
Blue boards decorated in red with gold text to front and spine.
Fair. Rubbing and bumping to outside boards and spine. Inner fly pages completely detached (still present) frayed at the edges and tanned. spine very loose. Frontispiece 'Almeida' present. 294 pages present. Some end pages missing, including text. Presentation plate on front pastedown, dated 1907.

In The Secret Battle A. P. Herbert tells the story of an idealistic, young officer called Harry Penrose. First in Gallipoli, then in the trenches of France, he is tested and brought to breaking point as he battles to retain the ideals of military glory, duty and courage amidst the daily grinding miseries of the trenches. It lays bare the real horrors of the First World War without melodrama, or sensationalism. The author tells his tale not with indignant protest, but with a sad resignation making this a haunting and deeply moving book.Despite the glowing accolades it would later receive, when it was first published in 1919, just a few months after the Armistice, a war-weary public were not ready for a book that so fundamentally challenged the assumptions and beliefs on which the war had been fought. Because of that it never quite gained the status it really deserved and deserves. Ninety years on it has lost none of its freshness, relevance and poignancy. It remains an incredibly touching story of what… Read More

The Royal Navy's small vessels and armoured cars in the Great WarThis book has been created by Leonaur's editors by bringing together historical accounts from Conrad Cato's two books, 'The Navy in Mesopotamia 1914-17' and 'The Navy Everywhere.' Cato was a serving officer in the Royal Navy in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and drew on his own experiences for his first book which originally-and unusually-contained both non-fiction and fictional pieces. The fiction has been removed from this edition to allow the whole of the author's second book, about the actions of the Royal Navy at war in East Africa and in the Cameroons, to be included here. Cato describes the activities of the first 'kite-balloon' ship, 'HMS Manica,' at Gallipoli and in East Africa, before dealing with the Tangistani Raids in the Persian Gulf , the Red Sea patrol, the Aden patrol and the little known activities of the navy's armoured cars in Romania and in Serbia. Cato does not attempt to give a formal history, but instead informs us… Read More

A fine overview of subs and sub-killersThis comprehensive book concerns the operations of the Royal Navy to deal with the enemy submarine threat in the conflict for the dominance of the seas and oceans during the Great War. The global nature of this first massive war of the twentieth century gave the submarine its first opportunity to be a significant and influential weapon. Such was its impact and so clandestine its sphere of operation that methods to oppose it were developed with urgency, ingenuity and variety. Here the reader is introduced to the hydrophone, the depth charge and other bizarre initiatives to combat the underwater predators. The Convoy system, mine-laying, mine-sweeping, nets and traps are covered in detail. Of particular interest are the ships specifically designed to destroy the submarines-here are the armed trawlers, the ships disguised as harmless merchant vessels, secretly armed to deliver deadly retaliation as their trap was sprung and the fast patrol and torpedo pursuit boats.… Read More

Wartime magazine, distributed to WW2 Allied Forces in India and the Far East. Paper cover, stapled, 75pp. Front cover showing Betty Grable (design by Wingrove). Contains several articles, including 'The Oversized Trunk' by Sax Rohmer. Also runs an article 'Men of the Year 1944'. CONDITION: General moderate wear. Staples rusted. Still well-bound and readable. An insight into the real mindset of the Allied Forces troops.

Classic World War II French Resistance true story.