Churchill S Wizards

Author : Nicholas Rankin
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 439 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2008-09-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9780571247899

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Churchill's Wizards by Nicholas Rankin Pdf

The real story of how Winston Churchill and the British mastered deception to defeat the Nazis - by conning the Kaiser, hoaxing Hitler and using brains to outwit brawn. By June 1940, most of Europe had fallen to the Nazis and Britain stood alone. So, with Winston Churchill in charge the British bluffed their way out of trouble, drawing on the trickery which had helped them win the First World War. They broadcast outrageous British propaganda on pretend German radio stations, broke German secret codes and eavesdropped on their messages. Every German spy in Britain was captured and many were used to send back false information to their controllers. Forged documents misled their intelligence. Bogus wireless traffic from entire phantom armies, dummy airfields with model planes, disguised ships and inflatable rubber tanks created a vital illusion of strength. Culminating in the spectacular misdirection that was so essential to the success of D-Day in 1944, Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945 is a thrilling work of popular military history filled with almost unbelievable stories of bravery, creativity and deception. Nicholas Rankin is the author of Dead Man's Chest, Telegram From Guernica and Ian Fleming's Commandos. 'This is a story clamouring to be told. We could not have imagined the scope of the inventiveness, the daring of these people's imaginations . . . I could not stop reading this book.' Doris Lessing

Author : Richard Steyn
Publisher : Robinson
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2018-02-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781472140753

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Churchill's Confidant by Richard Steyn Pdf

Brought together first as enemies in the Anglo-Boer War, and later as allies in the First World War, the remarkable, and often touching, friendship between Winston Churchill and Jan Smuts is a rich study in contrasts. In youth they occupied very different worlds: Churchill, the rambunctious and thrusting young aristocrat; Smuts, the aesthetic, philosophical Cape farm boy who would go on to Cambridge. Both were men of exceptional talents and achievements and, between them, the pair had to grapple with some of the twentieth century's most intractable issues, not least of which the task of restoring peace and prosperity to Europe after two of mankind's bloodiest wars. Drawing on a maze of archival and secondary sources including letters, telegrams and the voluminous books written about both men, Richard Steyn presents a fascinating account of two remarkable men in war and peace: one the leader of the Empire, the other the leader of a small fractious member of that Empire who nevertheless rose to global prominence.

Author : Ashley Jackson
Publisher : Quercus
Page : 469 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2014-09-09
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781623658052

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Churchill by Ashley Jackson Pdf

In Churchill Ashley Jackson paints an unvarnished portrait of Winston Churchill that removes the hagiography that has surrounded the myth of one of the greatest politicians of the last hundred years. Winston Churchill attracted far more criticism alive than he has since his death. He was, according to Evelyn Waugh, "always in the wrong, surrounded by crooks, a terrible father, a radio personality." To others, he was the savior of the nation, even of Western civilization, "the greatest Briton" who ever lived. Whatever one's view, Winston Churchill remains splendidly unreduced. He also remains enormous fun--a cartoonist's and caricaturist's dream on the one hand, one of the most powerful and successful statesmen in modern history on the other. Globally famed for his role as a leader during the Second World War, this study resists the temptation to conflate Churchill's post-war career with Britain's demise on the international stage. Nor does it endorse the notion that Churchill became an anachronism as he lived and continued to work, at a prodigious rate, through his seventies and eighties. As well as being Britain's most celebrated politician and war leader, Winston Churchill was a Nobel Prize-winning author. He was one of the most prolific writers of his age and his accounts of the momentous events through which he lived have indelibly marked the way in which modern British history has been conceptualized. Uniquely endowed with talent, energy and determination, Winston Churchill was, as a close wartime colleague put it, "unlike anyone you have ever met before." Ashley Jackson describes the contours and contradictions of Churchill's remarkable life and career as a solider, politician, historian, journalist, painter, amateur farmer and homemaker. From thrusting subaltern to high-flying politician, Cabinet outcast to elder statesman, this is the eternally fascinating story of Winston Churchill's appointment with destiny.

Author : Isla Forsyth
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781474222624

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Second World War British Military Camouflage by Isla Forsyth Pdf

Second World War British Military Camouflage offers an original approach to the cultures and geographies of military conflict, through a study of the history of camouflage. Isla Forsyth narrates the scientific biography of Dr Hugh Cott (1900-1987), eminent zoologist and artist turned camoufleur, and entwines this with the lives of other camouflage practitioners, to trace the sites of camouflage's developments. Moving through the scientists' fieldsite, the committee boardroom, the military training site and the soldiers' battlefield, this book uncovers the history of this ambiguous military invention, and subverts a long-dominant narrative of camouflage as solely a protective technology. This study demonstrates that, as camouflage transformed battlefields into unsettling theatres of war, there were lasting consequences not only for military technology and knowledge, but also for the ethics of battle and the individuals enrolled in this process.

Author : Anthony Tucker-Jones
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-11-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781472847355

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Churchill, Master and Commander by Anthony Tucker-Jones Pdf

'Masterful research, impeccable detail, with a beautifully flowing narrative of which Churchill himself would have been proud.' - Professor Peter Caddick-Adams From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest wartime leader and politician. Deep down though, he was foremost a warlord. Just like his ally Stalin, and his arch enemies Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill could not help himself and insisted on personally directing the strategic conduct of World War II. For better or worse he insisted on being political master and military commander. Again like his wartime contemporaries, he had a habit of not heeding the advice of his generals. The results of this were disasters in Norway, North Africa, Greece and Crete during 1940–41. His fruitless Dodecanese campaign in 1943 also ended in defeat. Churchill's pig-headedness over supporting the Italian campaign in defiance of the Riviera landings culminated in him threatening to resign and bring down the British Government. Yet on occasions he got it just right: his refusal to surrender in 1940, the British miracle at Dunkirk and victory in the Battle of Britain, showed that he was a much-needed decisive leader. Nor did he shy away from difficult decisions, such as the destruction of the French Fleet to prevent it falling into German hands and his subsequent war against Vichy France. In this fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Anthony Tucker-Jones explores the record of Winston Churchill as a military commander, assessing how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office. This book assesses his choices in the some of the most controversial and high-profile campaigns of World War II, and how in high office his decision making was both right and wrong.

Author : David Edgerton
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 464 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2011-09-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199911509

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Britain's War Machine by David Edgerton Pdf

The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.

Author : Evan McGilvray
Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2024-05-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781526786494

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De Gaulle and Churchill by Evan McGilvray Pdf

De Gaulle and Churchill examines the tense and complicated relationship between General de Gaulle as leader of the Free French on the one hand and Winston Churchill and the British Government on the other. Evan McGilvray shows that De Gaulle was a career soldier, not a politician by any means, prior to 1940 but stepped into the leadership vacuum after the fall of France to provide a vital figurehead and rallying point for the Free French movement. His experiences in WW1, where he had served with distinction and was decorated but then was captured and so missed the nadir of despair expressed in the mutiny of 1917, meant he did not share the general defeatism of his peers in 1940. De Gaulle had demonstrated between the wars that he understood modern warfare and the need for modernization and reform of the French forces. Churchill valued the Free French contribution, particularly the French colonies as bulwarks to the British Middle East and jumping-off points for a Mediterranean counteroffensive, but demonstrated his ruthless willingness to ride roughshod over French sensibilities. This was most famously demonstrated by the sinking of the French fleet to prevent it falling into German hands. The author traces their difficult relationship from the dark days of the Fall of France, to the final victory, with de Gaulle by then installed as head of the provisional government of the French Republic. This fascinating study concludes with the immediate post-war period, by which time Churchill and de Gaulle had developed a warmer, more mutually respectful relationship.

Author : Neill Lochery
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2011-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781586488802

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Lisbon by Neill Lochery Pdf

Lisbon had a pivotal role in the history of World War II, though not a gun was fired there. The only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis power operated openly, it was temporary home to much of Europe's exiled royalty, over one million refugees seeking passage to the U.S., and a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and black marketeers. An operations officer writing in 1944 described the daily scene at Lisbon's airport as being like the movie “Casablanca,” times twenty. In this riveting narrative, renowned historian Neill Lochery draws on his relationships with high-level Portuguese contacts, access to records recently uncovered from Portuguese secret police and banking archives, and other unpublished documents to offer a revelatory portrait of the War's back stage. And he tells the story of how Portugal, a relatively poor European country trying frantically to remain neutral amidst extraordinary pressures, survived the war not only physically intact but significantly wealthier. The country's emergence as a prosperous European Union nation would be financed in part, it turns out, by a cache of Nazi gold.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 526 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Intelligence service
ISBN : UCBK:C089074818

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Studies in Intelligence by Anonim Pdf

Author : Center for the Study of Intelligence (U.S.)
Publisher : Government Printing Office
Page : 56 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2009-11-06
Category : Intelligence service
ISBN : 0160845734

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Studies in Intelligence, Journal of the American Intelligence Professional, Unclassified Extracts from Studies in Intelligence, V. 53, No. 3 (September 2009) by Center for the Study of Intelligence (U.S.) Pdf

Author : Nicholas Rankin
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 493 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2023-11-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9780571307777

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Trapped in History by Nicholas Rankin Pdf

Trapped in History tells how the British colonised Kenya and how African nationalism arose under Jomo Kenyatta. It describes the terrifying first attacks by the guerrilla freedom fighters known as Mau Mau. Though defeated, the Mau Mau hastened the end of British rule in Kenya. Trapped in History explores the effect the uprising on the author, who grew up as a child in the Kenya colony. The book is both a history, as well as a memoir, of the end of Empire.

Author : Reg Whitaker,Reginald Whitaker
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2010-10
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781459604209

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The End of Privacy by Reg Whitaker,Reginald Whitaker Pdf

Now in paperback, a sobering look at the threats to privacy posed by the new information technologies. Called ''one of the best books yet written on the new information age'' by Kirkus Reviews and now available in paperback, The End of Privacy shows how vast amounts of personal information are moving into corporate hands. Once there, this data can be combined and used to develop electronic profiles of individuals and groups that are potentially far more detailed, and far more intrusive, than the files built up in the past by state police and security agencies. Reg Whitaker shows that private e-mail can be read; employers can monitor workers' every move throughout the work day; and the U.S. Treasury can track every detail of personal and business finances. He goes on to demonstrate that we are even more vulnerable as consumers. From the familiar - bar-coding, credit and debit cards, online purchases - to the seemingly sci - -''smart cards'' that encode medical and criminal records, and security scans that read DNA - The End of Privacy reveals how ordinary citizens are losing control of the information about them that is available to anyone who can pay for it.

Author : Ben Macintyre
Publisher : Signal
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2020-09-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780771000911

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Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre Pdf

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE “Pure catnip to fans of World War II thrillers and a lot of fun for everyone else.” —Joseph Kanon, The Washington Post Book World The “brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining” (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker) true story of the most successful—and certainly the strangest—deception ever carried out in World War II, from the acclaimed author of The Spy and the Traitor. Near the end of World War II, two British naval officers came up with a brilliant and slightly mad scheme to mislead the Nazi armies about where the Allies would attack southern Europe. To carry out the plan, they would have to rely on the most unlikely of secret agents: a dead man. Ben Macintyre’s dazzling, critically acclaimed bestseller chronicles the extraordinary story of what happened after British officials planted this dead body—outfitted in a British military uniform with a briefcase containing false intelligence documents—in Nazi territory, and how this secret mission fooled Hitler into changing military positioning, paving the way for the Allies’ drive to victory.

Author : Nicholas Rankin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2009-11-10
Category : History
ISBN : 0199756716

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A Genius for Deception by Nicholas Rankin Pdf

In February 1942, intelligence officer Victor Jones erected 150 tents behind British lines in North Africa. "Hiding tanks in Bedouin tents was an old British trick," writes Nicholas Rankin. German general Erwin Rommel not only knew of the ploy, but had copied it himself. Jones knew that Rommel knew. In fact, he counted on it--for these tents were empty. With the deception that he was carrying out a deception, Jones made a weak point look like a trap. In A Genius for Deception, Nicholas Rankin offers a lively and comprehensive history of how Britain bluffed, tricked, and spied its way to victory in two world wars. As Rankin shows, a coherent program of strategic deception emerged in World War I, resting on the pillars of camouflage, propaganda, secret intelligence, and special forces. All forms of deception found an avid sponsor in Winston Churchill, who carried his enthusiasm for deceiving the enemy into World War II. Rankin vividly recounts such little-known episodes as the invention of camouflage by two French artist-soldiers, the creation of dummy airfields for the Germans to bomb during the Blitz, and the fabrication of an army that would supposedly invade Greece. Strategic deception would be key to a number of WWII battles, culminating in the massive misdirection that proved critical to the success of the D-Day invasion in 1944. Deeply researched and written with an eye for telling detail, A Genius for Deception shows how the British used craft and cunning to help win the most devastating wars in human history.

Author : Gareth Hughes
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-30
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9781473854338

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Visiting the Normandy Invasion Beaches and Battlefields by Gareth Hughes Pdf

This informative and easy to use WWII travel guide features everything you need to know while exploring the historic sites of D-Day. Whether planning a school tour or a family holiday, this guide provides everything you need to get the most out of your visit. It includes essential historical context to help everyone appreciate the importance of D-Day beaches and battlefields, as well as important information on WWII museums, monuments, and cemeteries. Author and expert tour guide Gareth Hughes provides handy itineraries covering the best places in the Normandy area. A comprehensive overview of each site includes essential facts, visitor orientation, suggested activities, relevant photos and maps. There are also valuable tips for lunch breaks, free time ideas and other helpful pointers.