The Ritchie Boys - The Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned for Retribution by Bruce Henderson

$19.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

'The last great, untold story of WWII... highly compelling' Daily MailFleeing Nazi persecution for America in the 1930s, the young German-born Jews who would come to be known as The Ritchie Boys were labelled 'enemy aliens' when war broke out. Although of the age to be inducted into the U.S. military, t heir German accents made them distrusted. Until one day in 1942, when the Pentagon woke up to the incredible asset they had in their ranks, and sent these young recruits to a secret military intelligence training centre at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. These men knew the language, culture and psychology of the enemy better than anyone, and had the greatest motivation to fight Hitler's anti-Semitic regime. And so they were trained and sent back into the belly of the beast, Jews returning to the frontlines of battlefields across Nazi-occupied Europe to defeat the enemy that persecuted them and their families. In an epic story of heroism, courage, and patriotism, bestselling author Bruce Henderson draws on personal interviews with many surviving veterans and extensive archival research to finally bring this never-before-told chapter of the Second World War to light. Previously published as Sons and Soldiers ...Show more

Monash: The Soldier who Shaped Australia by Grantlee Kieza

$34.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

The amazing life story of the general who shaped Australia; the first major biography of Monash in over a decade. John Monash's life is emblematic of Australia's much - heralded egalitarian spirit - here is the ultimate outsider: poor, Jewish in an era which still practised anti - Semitism, bookish at a time when intellectual pursuits were frowned upon - who rose to become one of the nation's most enduring folk heroes. Despite a scandalous private life and the experience of virulent racism, he established himself as a major force, not just on the bloody fields of wartime Europe but also in post - war society, where he oversaw vital developments in making Australia into a modern nation. When he died, an astonishing 300,000 Australians attended John Monash's funeral in Melbourne. But who was this unconventional man, what drove him and how did he manage to break down so many walls to rise to such a prominent position? Beyond an account of a much - admired general, this will be the story of an extraordinary and highly unconventional life and its legacy. ...Show more

Breakout at Stalingrad by Heinrich Gerlach; Carsten Gansel (Afterword by); Peter Lewis (Translator)

$22.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

Captured by the Soviets after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, Heinrich Gerlach wrote a novel based on his experiences. In 1949, however, the KGB confiscated his 600-page manuscript. Gerlach returned to Germany in 1950, and, under hypnosis, recalled parts of his narrative. In 1957, it was published und er the title The Forsaken Armyand became a bestseller. In 2011 Carsten Gansel, an academic, made a sensational find in a Moscow archive: the original manuscript of Gerlach's novel. Breakthrough at Stalingraddiffers sharply in tone from the novel published in 1957. Here, a coruscating emphasis on German war crimes and the author's feelings of guilt form a descant to his narrative of the battle and reflections on the pointlessness of war. Breakthrough at Stalingradincludes an appendix by Carsten Gansel, telling the story behind both the 1957 edition of the novel and discovery of its original version. After 70 years, a classic of 20th-century war literature can be enjoyed in its original version. ...Show more

Where Soldiers Lie: The Quest to Find Australia's Missing War Dead (HB) by Ian McPhedran

$39.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

What drives veterans, military experts and forensic investigators to dedicate years to search for and identify the remains of fallen warriors? What does it mean to the families of the dead to be able to lay them to rest? Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missin g In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets. From the jungles of Vietnam, where one man led a decade-long battle to recover and bring home the final six, to Korea, Papua New Guinea and the fields of the Somme, Flanders and Fromelles, Where Soldiers Lie is a deeply human story of perseverance, luck and resolution, a story of incredible determination against difficult odds, of exacting forensic analysis and painstaking detective work, to uncover and identify the remains of Australian soldiers, in battlefield over the decades, and to bring their remains home. Powerful, moving and compelling reading. ...Show more

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy: 1945-1975 by Max Hastings

$24.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'His masterpiece' Antony Beevor, Spectator'A masterful performance' Sunday Times'By far the best book on the Vietnam War' Gerald Degroot, The Times, Book of the Year Vietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and less familiar battles such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh's warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed 2 million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners' victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, Huey pilots from Arkansas. No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings' readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record. ...Show more

The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dronfield

$35.00 AUD

Category: MILITARY | Reading Level: 3 Biography

In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was seized by the Nazis. Along with his teenage son, Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany. There began an unimaginable ordeal that saw the pair beaten, starved and forced to build the very concentration camp they were held in.When Gustav was set to be transferred to Auschwitz, a certain death sentence, Fritz refused to leave his side. Throughout the horrors they witnessed and the suffering they endured, there was one constant that kept them alive- the love between father and son.Based on Gustav's secret diary and meticulous archive research, this book tells his and Fritz's story for the first time - a story of courage and survival unparalleled in the history of the Holocaust. ...Show more

No Easy Day: The Only First-hand Account of the Navy Seal Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen

$19.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

No Easy Day by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer is the first-person account of Bin Laden's execution. For the first time anywhere, a first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from inside the US Navy SEAL team who carried out the extraordinary mission to kill the terrorist maste rmind. No Easy Day puts readers inside the elite, handpicked twenty-four-man team known as SEAL Team Six as they train for the most important mission of their lives: the SEALs were going after bin Laden. From the crash of the Black Hawk helicopter that threatened the mission with disaster to the radio call confirming their target was dead, the SEAL team raid on bin Laden's secret HQ is recounted in nail-biting second-by-second detail. In No Easy Day, team leader Mark Owen takes readers behind enemy lines with one of the world's most astonishing fighting forces, in the only insider's account of their most spectacular mission. Praise for No Easy Day: "No Easy Day amounts to a cinematic account of the raid to kill Bin Laden: you feel as if you're sitting in the Black Hawk as it swoops in". (NY Times). "A blistering first-hand account". (The Sun). Mark Owen is a former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he has participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Owen was a team leader on Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 1 May 2011, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist mastermind's hideout, where he witnessed bin Laden's death. Mark Owen's name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in this book have been changed for their security. Kevin Maurer has covered special-operations forces for nine years. He has been embedded with the Special Forces in Afghanistan six times, spent a month in 2006 with special-operations units in east Africa, and has embedded with US forces in Iraq and Haiti. He is the author of four books, including several about special operations. ...Show more

The Battle of Polygon Wood by Jonathan Passlow

$19.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY | Series: Campaign Ser.

Buoyed by the success of the 1st and 2nd Australian divisions in the Battle of Menin Road, the men of the 4th and 5th Australian divisions filed into the front line ready for the next phase of the battle. Ahead of them lay the blackened remnants of Polygon Wood, a desolate expanse of splintered stumps s hattered by the devastating shellfire. The view across no man's land revealed lines of German barbed wire and a criss-cross of heavily defended trenches. Here and there the Australians could also see solid concrete pillboxes dotted around the landscape. In the centre of the battlefield sat a huge man-made mound of earth - the Butte. Once the stop-butte for an old artillery range, this dominating feature was fortified with machine-guns, laced with barbed wire and riddled with tunnels and dugouts.The Battle of Polygon Wood was the second phase in the British forces' advance on Passchendaele. Success at Polygon Wood would place Broodseinde Ridge within the Second Army's reach. But the entire operation was almost blindsided by a German counter-attack on the eve of the battle. The critical situation on the Anzac Corps right was only saved by Pompey Elliott's 15th Brigade whose desperate efforts to contain the German attack and seize the Second Army's objectives turned a 'fine success' into a 'splendid victory'. But, as author Jonathan Passlow describes in Polygon Wood 1917, this was a victory that was by no means assured and in which luck would play its part. ...Show more

Yours Truly Came Up Smiling by HANDLEY

$29.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

The Shot by Gary Ramage

$15.95 AUD

Category: MILITARY | Reading Level: General Adult

The heart-stoppingly adrenalin-charged - and often dangerous - life and times of Australian war photographer, Gary Ramage. He goes where the troops go - but with a camera, not a gun. As Australia's premier war photographer - and as a former soldier - Gary Ramage has been in and out of just about every c onflict zone that Australia has ever been involved in. He's been embedded with troops, lived, eaten and slept alongside them. Through good times and bad times, through rocket attacks, firefights and funerals, from photographing mass graves in Kosovo to being in East Timor when SAS troops were ambushed, from sleeping under the stars on patrol with Aussie soldiers in Afghanistan to helping out with CPR on a wounded soldier on a medivac chopper, he's been there and documented it. It takes special grit to be a war photographer - it's an extreme and dangerous job. At least 25 journalists / photojournalists have been killed in Afghanistan alone since 2001. Journalists, cameramen, photographers - they've all been captured, tortured and executed. Risk comes with the territory. This is a high adrenalin, sometimes moving, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, entirely gripping story of a man who's living an extraordinary life, documenting some of the most confronting and moving moments in international conflicts and our recent history. Here is the story behind the pictures. ...Show more

Bill the Bastard: The Story of Australia's Greatest War Horse by Roland Perry

$27.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

An epic yarn based on the true story of a great Australian war horse who rode with bravery and valour at Gallipoli, the desert campaigns of Egypt, and Palestine.

The Lost Boys: The untold stories of the under-age soldiers who fought in the First World War (HB) by Paul Byrnes

$45.00 AUD

Category: MILITARY

INDIE AWARD WINNER 2020They were just boys. And they were to face the horrors of a war more diabolical than any of them could have imagined. This is their story. Hundreds of Australian and New Zealander boys enlisted in the First World War, some as young as 13. No one knows how many went to war, but at least 150 Australians did not come back. Their names are on the Roll of Honour, the record of war dead at the War Memorial in Canberra. Most died on the Western Front, in France and Belgium. They took part in every major battle in which the ANZACs fought - from Fromelles in July 1916, to the liberation of Villers-Bretonneux in 1918. Many died in the first wave at Gallipoli or at Lone Pine in August 1915. Why did they go and who allowed this to happen? We can only understand how if we look through their eyes and walk in their shoes. In The Lost Boys, their stories will be told for the first time. ...Show more