Showing results by publisher "John Murray" in Military

Summer, 1918: Twenty-nine officers crawled into a 16-inch-high, 55-metre tunnel dug only with spoons. This was the culmination of nine months gruelling toil in oxygen-starved darkness. Of the 29 escapees, just 10 would make their way back to Britain. When captured Royal Flying Corps pilots Captain David Gray, Captain Caspar Kennard and 2nd Lieutenant Cecil Blain had arrived at Holzminden - or 'Hellminden' as its occupants called it - the Germans' highest-security prison complex had seemed impregnable.

September 1939. For years now Britain has been rudderless, divided and grievously unequal. Successive governments have floundered as they struggled to cope with economic misery at home and machinations abroad. Many of the country's citizens are seduced by fascism; others are simply left alienated by leaders who seem unwilling or unable to take the decisive action that is so desperately needed.

A uniquely intimate account of ordinary men and women who rose to the challenge of war with acts of great heroism and humanity. War Stories is a fascinating account of ordinary men and women swept up in the turbulence of war. These are the stories - many untold until now - of 34 individuals who have pushed the boundaries of love, bravery, suffering and terror beyond the imaginable. They span four centuries and four continents.

Battlefields have always contained a surprising number of women. Tracing the long history of female fighters, Forgotten Warriors puts the record straight, exploring how war became an all-male space, and getting to the bottom of why women were allowed to be astronauts a full thirty years before they were allowed to fight in combat.

'Please live' were the last words fifteen-year-old Lana said to her mother. Shortly afterwards Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped outside their apartment block in Grozny, Chechnya. On 15th July 2009, she was murdered for telling the truth. This is Lana's story of growing up in a war. Of the intense bond between a mother and daughter, desperate to be together even though it was so much safer for Lana to live elsewhere, often for months at a time. It is a book both about being brave and about being ordinary in extraordinary times.