Mastermind Of Dunkirk And D Day

Author : Brian Izzard
Publisher : Casemate
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2020-04-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781612008394

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Mastermind of Dunkirk and D-Day by Brian Izzard Pdf

This detailed biography brings to life one of the greatest military heroes of WWII—and demonstrates why his contributions were crucial to Allied victory. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay masterminded the evacuation of some 330,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. He went on to play a crucial role in the invasion of Sicily and the planning and execution of the D-Day invasion, where he commanded the 7,000 ships that delivered Allied forces to the beaches of Normandy. All this from a man who had retired in 1938—only to be persuaded back to the service by Winston Churchill himself. In 1944, Ramsay was promoted to Admiral and appointed Naval Commander-in-Chief for the D-Day naval expeditionary force. A year later, he died in a mysterious air crash. Though Ramsay’s legacy has been remembered by the Royal Navy, his key role in the Allied victory has been widely forgotten. Now biographer Brian Izzard corrects this oversight, arguing that without Ramsay the outcome of both Dunkirk and D-Day—and perhaps the entire war—could have been very different.

Author : Andrew Sangster
Publisher : Casemate
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2021-04-05
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781612009698

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Alan Brooke—Churchill's Right-Hand Critic by Andrew Sangster Pdf

This new biography of Churchill’s top WWII advisor is “an excellent book for anyone interested in military leadership” (The NYMAS Review). Voted the greatest Briton of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill has long been credited with almost single-handedly leading his country to victory in World War II. But without Alan Brooke, a skilled tactician, at his side the outcome might well have been disastrous. Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, more often than not served as a brake on some of Churchill’s more impetuous ideas. However, while Brooke’s diaries reveal his fury with some of Churchill’s decisions, they also reveal his respect and admiration for the wartime prime minister. In return Churchill must surely have considered Brooke one of his most difficult subordinates—but later wrote that he was “fearless, formidable, articulate, and in the end convincing.” As CIGS, Brooke was integral to coordination between the Allied forces, and so had to wrestle with the cultural strategy clash between the British and Americans. Comments in his diaries offer up his opinions of both his British and American military colleagues—his negative assessments of Mountbatten’s ability, and acerbic comments on the difficult character of de Gaulle and the weaknesses of Eisenhower. Conversely, he was clearly overindulgent in the face of Montgomery’s foibles. Brooke was often seen as a stern and humorless figure, but a study of his private life reveals a little-seen lighter side, a lifelong passion for birdwatching, and abiding love for his family. The two tragedies that befell his immediate family were a critical influence on his life. Andrew Sangster completes this new biography with a survey of the way various historians have assessed Brooke, explaining how he has lapsed into seeming obscurity in the years since his crucial part in the Allied victory in World War II.

Author : Helen Doe
Publisher : Amberley Publishing Limited
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2024-02-15
Category : Transportation
ISBN : 9781398122369

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One Crew: The RNLI's Official 200-Year History by Helen Doe Pdf

This book takes a fresh look at the creation of the Institution, and its early founders and examines how it has responded over 200 years.

Author : David Stafford
Publisher : Abacus
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2010-02-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780748122295

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Ten Days to D-Day by David Stafford Pdf

D-Day, 6th June 1944, was the climactic battle of the Second World War. Allied triumph was anything but inevitable - there was everything to play for and everything to lose. The story of the actual landings has been told and re-told many times, but no one has actually revealed the part that fate, human error, political infighting, deception and double agents played in the crucial ten days before the landings. David Stafford's compelling narrative, climaxing on the eve of D-Day, gives a day-by-day account of the untold human story behind this momentous event from both the Allied and Nazi perspectives. Stafford focuses on twelve very different human narratives - not only those of Hitler, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Churchill and Rommel, but of an American paratrooper; a Canadian infantryman; a French Jew in hiding, awaiting Liberation but helpless to do anything; and SOE agents fighting to keep their identity secret. TEN DAYS TO D-DAY recounts the entirety of events in the countdown that could have taken a fatefully different direction so many times along the way, revealing how narrow the margin was between victory and defeat. David Stafford, a historian tenured at the University of Edinburgh, is a critically acclaimed chronicler of World War II and is the author of CHURCHILL AND SECRET SERVICE and ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL.

Author : Jane Penrose
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2014-05-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781472810632

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The D-Day Companion by Jane Penrose Pdf

Published to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, The D-Day Companion brings together the perspectives and opinions of leading military historians from both sides of the Atlantic. Operation Overlord saw the Allied Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery pit their wits against Hitler in a bold bid to liberate continental Europe. Featuring a foreword by Major Richard Winters, real-life commander of Easy Company as featured in Stephen E Ambrose's Band of Brothers, this is a unique and incisive examination of the momentous events that surrounded June 6, 1944. Each chapter of this book focuses on a different aspect of the D-Day landings, from the build-up to the attack to the experiences of the troops on the ground.

Author : Dan Van der Vat
Publisher : Random House UK
Page : 504 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015049509196

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Standard of Power by Dan Van der Vat Pdf

The story of the Royal Navy through two World Wars and countless minor conflicts.

Author : Deborah Cadbury
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 389 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2015-03-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781610394048

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Princes at War by Deborah Cadbury Pdf

In 1936, the British monarchy faced the greatest threats to its survival in the modern era -- the crisis of abdication and the menace of Nazism. The fate of the country rested in the hands of George V's sorely unequipped sons: a stammering King George VI, terrified that the world might discover he was unfit to rule a dull-witted Prince Henry, who wanted only a quiet life in the army the too-glamorous Prince George, the Duke of Kent -- a reformed hedonist who found new purpose in the RAF and would become the first royal to die in a mysterious plane crash the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, deemed a Nazi-sympathizer and traitor to his own country -- a man who had given it all up for love Princes at War is a riveting portrait of these four very different men miscast by fate, one of whom had to save the monarchy at a moment when kings and princes from across Europe were washing up on England's shores as the old order was overturned. Scandal and conspiracy swirled around the palace and its courtiers, among them dangerous cousins from across Europe's royal families, gold-digging American socialite Wallis Simpson, and the King's Lord Steward, upon whose estate Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess parachuted (seemingly by coincidence) as London burned under the Luftwaffe's tireless raids. Deborah Cadbury draws on new research, personal accounts from the royal archives, and other never-before-revealed sources to create a dazzling sequel to The King's Speech and tell the true and thrilling drama of Great Britain at war and of a staggering transformation for its monarchy.

Author : Yaron Pasher
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2015-01-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780700620067

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Holocaust versus Wehrmacht by Yaron Pasher Pdf

In 1941, as Nazi Germany began its disastrous campaign against the Soviet Union, Hitler’s other campaign, to exterminate European Jewry, was also commencing in earnest. What began with organized executions carried out by the Einzatsgruppen evolved into systematic genocide, reaching its frenzied final moments just as the Wehrmacht was meeting defeat on the military front. These campaigns—and Germany’s failure—were inextricably linked, Yaron Pasher tells us in Holocaust versus Wehrmacht. Pasher argues, in fact, that the major share of the logistical problems faced by the Wehrmacht during World War II stemmed from Hitler’s obsession with securing the resources—especially from the Reichsbahn railway—needed to implement the “Final Solution.” To a degree never fully recognized or understood, Hitler’s anti-Semitic ideology was his war’s undoing. Through four major Wehrmacht military campaigns—Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk in the east and Normandy in the west—Pasher explores this fatal contradiction in Hitler’s efforts to dominate the European continent. As Operation Typhoon, the sequel to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, got underway in November 1941, organized train transports began carrying Jews to the East—with the last trains taking Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz just as the Allies invaded Western Europe and moved inexorably to encircle the Third Reich. In these years, this book shows us, the trains transporting Jews could have carried men, machines, and fuel to depleted and trapped divisions in the Caucasus, and later, to the Western Front. As the Germans moved deeper into Soviet territory, they became increasingly dependent on train transport—which entailed converting Soviet railway line to German specifications; and yet, however successfully this conversion was completed, the trains that might run on these rails were working elsewhere in service of the Final Solution, leaving the Wehrmacht’s overextended armies without the resources to survive, let alone win, their final battles. In the end, what Hitler called “the Jewish problem” was his downfall. In documenting the distribution of Germany’s resources and operational capabilities through four major campaigns, Holocaust versus Wehrmacht offers a clear picture of the Nazis’ military objectives as inseparable from—and finally, fatally susceptible to—Hitler’s and his henchmen’s other, ideological war to rid Europe of Jews.

Author : Nick Hewitt
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 476 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2024-05-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300277388

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Normandy: the Sailors' Story by Nick Hewitt Pdf

The first account of the Allied navies’ vital contribution to the success of the D-Day landings and the Normandy campaign The Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe is one of the most widely recognised events of modern history. The assault phase, Operation Neptune, began with the D-Day landings in Normandy—one of the most complex amphibious operations in history, involving 7,000 ships and nearly 200,000 men. But despite this immense effort, the wider naval campaign has been broadly forgotten. Nick Hewitt draws on fascinating new material to describe the violent sea battle which mirrored the fighting on land, and the complex campaign at sea which enabled the Allied assault. Aboard ships ranging from frail plywood landing craft to sleek destroyers, sailors were active combatants in the operation of June 1944, and had worked tirelessly to secure the Seine Bay in the months preceding it. They fought battles against German submarines, aircraft, and warships, and maintained careful watch to keep control of the English Channel. Hewitt recounts these sailors’ stories for the first time—and shows how, without their efforts, D-Day would have failed.

Author : Brian Lett
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2016-09-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781473863828

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SOE's Mastermind by Brian Lett Pdf

The first complete biography of Britain’s WWII spymaster presents an intimate look at his life and career, as well as an insider’s look at the SOE. Major General Sir Colin Gubbins was the driving force behind Britain’s Special Operations Executive, the secret military organization established by Winston Churchill in 1940. First as its Operations and Training Director, and then its Commander, Gubbins orchestrated every aspect of the SOE’s worldwide covert operations. Though Gubbins made enormous contributions to Allied victory, his life and work have remained shrouded in secrecy until now. With copious research and unprecedented access to family archives, biographer Brian Lett reveals the war hero’s early experiences in the Great War, as well as in Russia, Ireland, Poland, and as Head of British Resistance. The result is a fascinating biography that reveals as much about SOEs extraordinary activities as it does about the man who inspired and commanded them.

Author : Dan Parry
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Normandy (France)
ISBN : 0563521163

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D-Day by Dan Parry Pdf

The story of D-Day, the turning point in World War 2, has been well documented. But this lavishly illustrated book and accompanying epic TV drama will turn all preconceptions of 'Operation Overlord' on their head. June 2004 marks the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the last time official reunions of veterans will take place - this is our chance to honour the veterans of the biggest military invasion and defence the world has ever seen. Told through the eyes of the men who were there: from veterans - both Allied and German - to the spies, resistance members, reporters and official photographers. Fresh stories, surprising heroes. As the tension of D-Day builds to a nail-biting climax we witness the German army's confused response to the invasion. Their failure to repel the Allies during those first crucial 24 hours is a setback from which they never recover.

Author : Andrew Gordon,Class of 1957 Distinguished Chair in Naval Heritage Andrew Gordon
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2020-02
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0674049829

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The Hero of Dunkirk by Andrew Gordon,Class of 1957 Distinguished Chair in Naval Heritage Andrew Gordon Pdf

Admiral Bertram Ramsay orchestrated the evacuation at Dunkirk, planned the invasions of North Africa and Sicily, and worked closely with Eisenhower on the Allied landings at Normandy. In the most authoritative portrait we are ever likely to have, Andrew Gordon restores this great naval commander to his essential place in World War II history.

Author : Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 752 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 0674024397

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Dunkirk by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore Pdf

"Using new material from British, French, Belgian, German, Russian and Czechoslovakian archives, and interviews with the last surviving witnesses of the Dunkirk campaign, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore can at last tell the true story of how the British Army was evacuated from Dunkirk and from France in 1940."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Jonathan Fennell
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 967 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2019-01-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107030954

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Fighting the People's War by Jonathan Fennell Pdf

Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

Author : Alan John Percivale Taylor
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 1978
Category : World War, 1914-1918
ISBN : STANFORD:36105021833525

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The Illustrated History of the World Wars by Alan John Percivale Taylor Pdf