Showing titles in Military & War

Dave Baranek (callsign "Bio") was one of 451 young men to receive his Wings of Gold in 1980 as a naval flight officer. Four years later, seasoned by intense training and deployments in the tense confrontations of the Cold War, he became the only one of that initial group to rise to become an instructor at the navy's elite Fighter Weapons School. As a Topgun instructor, Bio was responsible for teaching the navy's and Marine Corps' best fighter pilots how to be even better. He schooled them in the classroom and then went head-to-head with them in the skies.

May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. April 9, 2003: An AP photographer captures a striking image seen around the world of the Gunny Sergeant smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. Popaditch is immortalized forever as "The Cigar Marine."

Summer 2006, Afghanistan: an apparently deserted village, and a rapidly ticking clock... The relentless Taliban ambush which followed saw several British soldiers dead, two armoured vehicles destroyed - and Corporal of Horse Michael Flynn awarded an MC to go alongside his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Mick Flynn has never backed away from a challenge.

Exploding pressure cookers, a thwarted wife's deadly revenge, and transvestites in distress - manning an ambulance in the '70s kept you on your toes. Having survived the rites of passage as a probationer, Les Pringle now has to face up to the reality of life as an ambulance man in Thatcher's Britain. He does this with humour and fortitude - two qualities which are essential if he is to cope with cases ranging from the absurd to the heartrending. From attending murder scenes to delivering babies...it's quite a life for Les and one that he and his shift mates tread with warmth and humour in equal measure.

Ben Timberlake has spent a lifetime in pursuit of the ultimate rush. This is an account of his near-execution in wartime Yugoslavia, his time in the SAS, combat in Iraq, encounters with a gambling-obsessed 9/11 hijacker, veterans blissed out on MDMA, as well as exploring hook-ups in the world of extreme sex and battling a heroin habit on a remote Scottish island. In this pilgrimage on the road of excess Ben looks at the social, biological, religious and personal factors that drive people to the edge and has a whole lot of fun along the way.

Few images more shocked the French population during the Occupation than the photograph of Marshal Philippe Pétain - the great French hero of the First World War - shaking the hand of Hitler on 20 October 1940. In the radio speech after this meeting, Pétain said 'It is I alone who will be judged by History.' Five years later, in July 1945, the hour of judegment - if not yet the judgement of History - arrived.

In 1944, David Render was a 19-year-old second lieutenant fresh from Sandhurst when he was sent to France. Joining the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry five days after the D-Day landings, the combat-hardened men he was sent to command did not expect him to last long. However, in the following weeks of ferocious fighting in which more than 90 per cent of his fellow tank commanders became casualties, his ability to emerge unscathed from countless combat engagements earned him the nickname of the 'Inevitable Mr Render'.

Frederick the Great is one of history's most important leaders. Famed for his military successes and domestic reforms, his campaigns were a watershed in the history of Europe, securing Prussia's place as a continental power and inaugurating a new pattern of total war that was to endure until 1916. However, much myth surrounds this enigmatic man's personality and his role as politician, warrior, and king.

In 2018, Captain Louis Rudd, MBE, walked into the history books when he finished a solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica, pulling a 130kg-sledge laden with his supplies for more than 900 miles. Louis’ skills had been honed in the SAS, on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now - in the most hostile environment on Earth - they would be tested like never before. Alone on the ice, Louis battled through whiteouts, 50-mph gales and temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius. It would take all his mental strength to survive.

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history.

One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

Anyone living in Rhodesia during the 1960s and 1970s would have had a father, husband, brother, or son called up in the defense of the war-torn, landlocked little country. A few of these brave men would have been members of the elite and secretive unit that struck terror into the hearts of the ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas infiltrating the country at that time - the Selous Scouts.

A classic of WWII, this is the vivid memoir of Private Bowlby, who came through the North Africa campaign only to have to battle in bitter fighting against a stubborn and skilled German defence in Italy. It is a truly authentic account of what it was like to fight your way through one of the most gruelling and dangerous campaigns of the Second World War, where so often the hunters became the hunted.

In 1971 William Reeder was a senior captain on his second tour in Vietnam. He had flown armed, fixed-wing OV-1 Mohawks on secret missions deep into enemy territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, on his first tour. He returned as a helicopter pilot eager to experience a whole new perspective as a Cobra gunship pilot. Believing that Nixon's Vietnamization would soon end the war, Reeder was anxious to see combat action. To him, it appeared that the Americans had prevailed, beaten the Viet Cong, and were passing everything over to the South Vietnamese Army so Americans could leave.

From the young airmen who took their frail machines high above the trenches of World War I and fought their foes in single combat, there emerged a renowned company of brilliant aces - among them Ball, Bishop, McCudden, Collishaw, and Mannock - whose legendary feats have echoed down half a century. But behind the elite pilots in the Royal Flying Corps, there were many hundreds of airmen who flew their hazardous daily sorties in outdated planes without ever achieving fame.

The outspoken autobiography of one of Britain's best-known, and respected, generals. With a foreword by Sir Max Hastings.General Sir David Richards is one of the best known British generals of modern times. In 2013 he retired after over forty years of service in the British Army and a career that had seen him rise from junior officer with 20 Commando to Chief of the Defence Staff, the professional head of the British Armed Forces.

Lieutenant Bill Fraser and the six SAS men he led were listed as Missing in Action (MIA) after their failure to return from a raid. Nine weeks later they emerged from a death-defying sojourn across the Sahara Desert, after evading and confounding the enemy.

As a Russian recruit in World War II, Ivan Makarov witnessed General Chuikov pull out his pistol and shoot their regimental commander as a traitor. That was on his first day at the front. Thrown into an open field to face German tanks and artillery fire, with only rifles and machine guns to defend themselves with, almost 2,000 men of his regiment were wiped out in only six days at the Eastern Front. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty.

Six days in hell define every SEAL that moves past the point of no return in their minds. Robert Adams, MD, brings the experiences of his classmates into view with real, difficult to believe experiences, described in frightening detail by the men that lived through the frigid cold, filthy muddy days, and body-destroying events of a winter Hell Week. Eleven of 70 men went on to graduate and serve over 40 years in almost every SEAL or UDT team with honor. Listen to their real-time story, and learn why these 11 men succeeded when so many others failed.

Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, originally from Ohio, was best known as one of the commanders of the 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron, a crack unit of World War I pilots that included many former members of the famed Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron.