War - General

Afghanistan in the summer of 2006. In blazing heat in remote outposts the 3 Para battlegroup is pitted against a stubborn enemy who keep on coming. Until now, the full story of what happened there has not been told. This is it.

In April 2006, the elite 3 Para battlegroup was despatched to Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. They were tasked with providing security to reconstruction efforts, a deployment it was hoped would pass off without a shot being fired. In fact, over the six months they were there, the 3 Para battle group saw near continuous combat - one gruelling battle after another - in what would become one of the most extraordinary campaigns ever fought by British troops.

Around parched, dusty outposts reliant on a limited number of helicopters for food and ammunition resupply, troops were subjected to relentless Taliban attacks, as well as energy-sapping 50 degree heat and spartan conditions. At the end of the tour, the Taliban offensive aimed at driving the British and Afghan Government troops out of Helmand had been tactically defeated. But 3 Para paid a high price: fourteen soldiers and one interpreter were killed, and 46 wounded.

'3 Para' will tell the stories of the men and women who took part in this extraordinary and largely unreported saga. Best-selling author Patrick Bishop has been given exclusive access to the soldiers whose tales of courage and endurance provide an unforgettable portrait of one of the world's finest and most fascinating fighting regiments, and a remarkable band of warriors. Their bravery was reflected in the array of gallantry medals that were bestowed on their return, including the Victoria Cross awarded to Corporal Bryan Budd and the George Cross won by Corporal Mark Wright, both of whom were killed winning their awards.

3 Para's saga of comradeship, courage and fortitude is set to become a classic.

A tribute to the Royal Air Force 1918-1993.

The distinguished military historian John Keegan unpicks the geography, leadership and strategic logic of the first modern war and takes us to the heart of the conflict. His captivating work promises to be the definitive history of the American Civil War.

A tribute to the role of animals in wartime, including stories of dogs sniffing out mines in the Second World War, the medal winning pigeon G.I. Joe and the parachute jumping SAS mongrel Rob.

The Apache attack helicopter is the British Army's most awesome weapons system. Deployed for the first time in Afghanistan, it has already passed into legend. The only thing more incredible than the Apache itself are the pilots that fly her. For the first time, Apache Dawn tells their story - and their baptism of fire in the unforgiving battle of Helmand province.

Using a mix of versed and unversed passages, this is a war-poem both historic and frighteningly topical. It begins in the 1950s during a period of vigilance and dread in the middle of the Cold War: We hear the thoughts of those involved who are trying to understand and justify their roles, and examine the lives of civilians who are not aware of the impending danger, as well as those who are.

This is a true story of the author's time as a soldier serving in Iraq. He was almost killed twice and finally won the Victoria Cross for bravery rescuing his colleagues from danger.

Less than a month after it marched into France in summer 1870, the Prussian army had devastated its opponents, captured Napoleon III and wrecked all assumptions about Europe's pecking order. Other countries looked on in helpless amazement. Pushing aside further French resistance, a new German Empire was proclaimed (as a deliberate humiliation) in the Palace of Versailles, leaving the French to face civil war in Paris, reparations and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. Bismarck's War tells the story of one of the most shocking reversals of fortune in modern European history.

The culmination of a globally violent decade, the Franco-Prussian War was deliberately engineered by Bismarck, both to destroy French power and to unite Germany. It could not have worked better, but it also had lurking inside it the poisonous seeds of all the disasters that would ravage the twentieth century. Drawing on a remarkable variety of sources, Chrastil's book explores the military, technological, political and social events of the war, its human cost and the way that the sheer ferocity of war, however successful, has profound consequences for both victors and victims.

Sergeant Andy McNab recounts the story of the top secret mission that would reveal the secrets of the SAS to the world for the first time.

When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They escape on foot to the Syrian border. Three men die. One escapes.

But four men are captured. For them, the worst is yet to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they are tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training has prepared them...

Who were the three men the Soviet and American superpowers exchanged on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge on February 10, 1962? They had been drawn into the Cold War by duty and curiosity, rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten. This is the true story of those men.

After WW2 ended, Britain's new Labour government took an unprecedented step - the introduction of compulsory military service in peacetime. When national service ended in 1963 over two million young men had been called up. The experiences of over 100 men, some hilarious others harrowing, are recorded in this book.

In 1943 the war effort was in danger of grinding to a halt because of a lack of coal. In answer Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour, compulsorily sent 20,000 18-year-olds, who'd expected to fight for their country, down the mines. The author paints a picture of the arduous life below ground for the Bevin Boys and the tightly-knit communities, which in some cases welcomed them but in others treated them with hostility.

The Cold War is one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting conflicts in modern history. In this meticulously researched account, Bridget Kendall explores the Cold War through the eyes of those who experienced it first-hand. Drawing on exclusive interviews with individuals who lived through the conflict's key events, she offers a variety of perspectives that reveal how the Cold War was experienced by ordinary people.

Throughout history, the concept of command -- as both a way to achieve objectives and as an assertion of authority -- has been essential to military action and leadership. But, as Sir Lawrence Freedman shows, it is also deeply political. Military command has been reconstructed and revolutionized since the Second World War by nuclear warfare, small-scale guerrilla land operations and cyber interference. Freedman takes a global perspective, systematically investigating its practice and politics since 1945 through a wide range of conflicts from the French Colonial Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bangladesh Liberation War to North Vietnam's Easter Offensive of 1972, the Falklands War, the Iraq War and Russia's wars in Chechnya and Ukraine. By highlighting the political nature of strategy, Freedman shows that military decision-making cannot be separated from civilian priorities and that commanders must now have the sensibility to navigate politics as well as warfare.

'There is only one colour that matters, one that unites us all. And that colour is green.'

The Royal Marine Commandos have become a byword for elite raiding skills and cutting-edge military operations. They are globally renowned, yet shrouded in mystery. With unique insight and authority, Commando captures the essence and heart of this revered military unit then and now, exploring their role patrolling the high seas and policing coastlines around the globe, and revealing their rich history and what it means to win and wear the legendary green beret.

With full and exclusive access to every level of the organisation, author and former Royal Marine Monty Halls tells the real stories of extraordinary individuals through a period of historic global unrest: from Future Commando forces on high-profile drug busts to Mountain Leaders training across glaciers north of the Arctic Circle; from medics who serve as global first responders in conflict to wounded veterans raising vast sums to support their brethren in the Corps Family. These are the modern vanguard of a legendary unit, descendants of the misfits and eccentrics who were so effective and feared in WW2 that Hitler famously ordered them to be shot on sight.

Accompanying a major BBC series on the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, Commandos is an unforgettable glimpse into a rarified world of danger, drama, and valour.

Kate Adie is more than familiar with war zones. In this book she looks at other ordinary women who have performed extraordinary deeds in the theatre of war.

Thousands of miles from friendly ports, the US Navy had finally managed to complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in early 1943. Now the Allies sought to keep the offensive momentum won at such a high cost. This is the central plotline running through this page-turning history beginning with the Japanese Operation I-Go and the American ambush of Admiral Yamamoto and continuing on to the Allied invasion of New Georgia, northwest of Guadalcanal in the middle of the Solomon Islands and the location of a major Japanese base. Determined not to repeat their mistakes at Guadalcanal, the Allies nonetheless faltered in their continuing efforts to roll back the Japanese land, air and naval forces.

Using first-hand accounts from both sides, this book vividly recreates all the terror and drama of the nighttime naval battles during this phase of the Solomons campaign and the ferocious firestorm many Marines faced as they disembarked from their landing craft. The reader is transported to the bridge to stand alongside Admiral Walden Ainsworth as he sails to stop another Japanese reinforcement convoy for New Georgia, and vividly feels the fear of an 18-year-old Marine as he fights for survival against a weakened but still determined enemy. Dark Waters, Starry Skies is an engrossing history which weaves together strategy and tactics with a blow-by-blow account of every battle at a vital point in the Pacific War that has not been analyzed in this level of detail before.

Killed by shrapnel as he served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Olesya Khromeychuk's brother Volodymyr died on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. As Khromeychuk tries to come to terms with losing her brother, she also tries to process the Russian invasion of Ukraine: as a historian of war, as a woman and as a sister.

In a thoughtful blend of memoir and essay, Olesya Khromeychuk tells the story of her brother - and of Ukraine. Beautifully written and giving unique, poignant insight into the lives of those affected, it is an urgent act of resistance against the dehumanising cruelty of war.

A look at the existing attitudes to armaments and war.

Fiona Stanford relates the story of the people left behind when our soldiers go off to fight. She tells how the wives, the girlfriends, the mothers and the children feel as they live with the constant terror that the next death reported on the news might be that of your loved one.

At the age of 23, Brian Wood was thrust into the front line in Iraq. Ambushed, he led a charge across open ground with insurgents firing at just five soldiers. In this compelling memoir, Brian speaks movingly about the three battles in his life, from being ambushed with no cover, to the mental battle to adjust at home, and to being falsely accused of hideous war crimes. It's a dark curve that ends with his honour restored, but, as he says, it was too little, too late.

Ranulph Fiennes himself served in Britain's toughest formation, the SAS. Since his military days he has won acclaim as an extraordinary brave and resourceful Arctic adventurer. It is fitting that he now looks back across 5,000 years of military history to pinpoint and celebrate the best elite units that served and fought across the globe.

The political upheaval of the mid-seventeenth century has no parallel in English history. Other events have changed the occupancy and the powers of the throne, but the conflict of 1640-60 was more dramatic: the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished, to be replaced by a republic and military rule.

In this wonderfully readable account, Blair Worden explores the events of this period and their origins - the war between King and Parliament, the execution of Charles I, Cromwell's rule and the Restoration - while aiming to reveal something more elusive: the motivations of contemporaries on both sides and the concerns of later generations.

Cliff Todd devoted his life to bringing bomb makers to justice. He and his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence's Forensic Explosives Laboratory are the unsung heroes of terrorist bomb attacks - the men and women in white suits who piece together who planted the bombs, what a device consisted of and how the perpetrators might give themselves away.

They played a pivotal role in uncovering the secrets behind some of the world's most horrifying terrorist outrages. Explosive tells the stories of these high-profile cases and details, for the first time, the contribution Todd and his team made in tracking down bombers during a time when Britain was under attack first by the IRA and then by Islamic extremists inspired by al-Qaeda.

Explosive takes the reader into the murky world of the amateur bomb maker, and reveals what Todd's department achieved in many now infamous attacks, including the device concealed in a radio cassette player that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, the IRA attacks on Warrington in Cheshire, the Bali nightclub bombings of 2002, and the 7/7 onslaught in central London that claimed 56 lives and injured 784 others in 2005.
In Explosive, Todd takes us step by step through the investigations, explaining the chemistry, the forensic work and the emotional toll on him and his staff as they sought to recreate and understand what had happened at some of the most shocking tragedies in modern peacetime history.

1982 was a historic year, a year in which the battle for a small group of islands in the South Atlantic dominated the news.

From the initial broadcasts of the growing Argentine threat and Mrs Thatcher's speech to the Commons informing them that a Task Force will sail, to the battles for Goose Green and Port Stanley, the Argentine surrender and the controversial sinking of the Belgrano - all these historic moments, together with all the other important events of the Falklands War, are recorded here, in live BBC Radio News coverage.

Released to mark the 40th anniversary of the conflict, this collection of recordings from the BBC Radio News team brings to life the events of the Falklands War and includes speeches and statements from journalists and survivors, as well as key political figures such as Margaret Thatcher and former President of Argentina Leopoldo Galtieri.

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Aviation writer, Ernest K Gann, describes his years working as a pilot from the 1930s to 1950s, starting at American Airlines when civilian air transport was in its infancy. He's flown in both peace and war, and come close to death many times. Here he reveals the characters he's known and the dramas he's experienced, portraying fate as a hunter constantly in pursuit of pilots. This is a fabulous account of both the history of aviation and one man's life in the air.

After 13 years service in the military, with 4 years as a Special Boat Service sniper, Ant Middleton is the epitome of what it takes to excel. As a point man in the SBS, Ant was always the first man through the door, the first man into the dark, and the first man in harm’s way. In this fascinating and revealing book, Ant speaks about the highs and gut-wrenching lows of his life - and draws valuable lessons that we can all use in our daily lives.

Inspired by the first COVID lockdown, Glimpses of War describes personal experiences of wartime of the last 100 years. Stories of great valour and heroism, of tragedy and sorrow, of hardship and stoicism as well as ordinary people ‘just doing their bit’. The British Modern Military History Society has captured many aspects of war from many perspectives, told in the personal words of those who lived through these times or from their family members or historians.

The author, failed soldier turned journalist, reported on most major conflicts from Northern Ireland in 1969, through Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Middle East to the Falkland's War of 1982. Here the self-confessed coward describes his experiences.

A detailed account of the Boer War in South Africa., giving the painful background to the way in which the British army of that time was completely inflexible and unable to change its traditional and outdated methods of fighting.

Goose Green was the first land battle of the Falklands War. It was also the longest, the hardest-fought, the most controversial and the most important to win. What began as a raid became a vicious, 14-hour infantry struggle, in which 2 Para - outnumbered, exhausted, forced to attack across open ground in full daylight, and with inadequate fire support - lost their commanding officer, and almost lost the action.

This is the only full-length, detailed account of this crucial battle. Drawing on the eye-witness accounts of both British and Argentinian soldiers who fought at Goose Green, and their commanders' narratives, it has become the definitive account of most important and controversial land battle of the Falklands War.

A compelling story of men engaged in a battle that hung in the balance for hours, in which Colonel 'H' Jones' solo charge against an entrenched enemy won him a posthumous V.C., and which for both sides was a gruelling and often terrifying encounter.

Paul Tremelling was just seven years old when he watched the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers leave their home base in Somerset to do battle against the Argentine Air Force in the Falklands War. Two decades later he would join this exclusive club, one of an elite band of Fleet Air Arm fighter pilots, charged with standing in the way of Her Majesty's enemies.

This is the story of what it takes to make it in the dog-eat-dog arena of fighter combat. In the cockpit or crew room, the pressure is relentless, the humour merciless. It's no place for the faint-hearted.

Whether landing on a pitching aircraft carrier deck in the middle of the night or screaming in to save the lives of heroes under fire in Afghanistan, there was no room for self-doubt; only honesty, confidence and do-or-die hard truth. Big Boys Rules.

In return Tremelling and his fellow airborne warriors enjoyed levels of exhilaration and job-satisfaction that would almost unimaginable in any other walk of life.

Either Winston Churchill or George Orwell (or maybe neither of them ...) is reputed to have said 'we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm'.

For nearly twenty years, Tremelling was one of those men. And never happier than when he was in the cockpit of the legendary British jump jet.

Combining visceral action with sharp intelligence, laced with acerbic humour, Harrier pulls no punches in bringing to life the hi-octane, unforgiving world of the fighter pilot, in the air and on the ground.

Strap-in ...

A true story of the author's experiences as a Land Girl during the Second World War.

This is a compelling, no-holds-barred account of the author's extraordinary life, from the day he was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War.

Many books have extolled the exploits of the Gurkhas; In Gurkha Company brings to the subject a depth of experience and understanding that few authors can match. Colonel J.P Cross served for more than thirty years with these tough soldiers, hunting out communist terrorists in the rubber plantations of Malaya and fighting at their side in the jungles of Borneo. His perceptive account paints a portrait of the Gurkha battalions from the inside, enabling the reader to appreciate and understand the unique blend of martial qualities that has made these highland warriors so formidable on the battlefields of the world.

TV journalist and reporter gives his personal account of working during the war in Bosnia and what lessons he has learnt from it.