**"A multi-layered portrait of a dedicated professional soldier who was far from being the archetypal rough-hewn paratrooper of popular mythology." —**Eastern Daily PressAt the height of the bitter battle for Mount Longdon during the Falklands War, 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment's assault has stalled in the face of determined resistance. With his platoon held up by an Argentine machine gun, it falls to Sergeant Ian McKay to act. The machine gun has to be silenced to break the dea...

The story of the World War II battle for the French port which ended in a desperate evacuation—from the author of Calais: A Fight to the Finish.As German armored columns moved to seal off French ports from retreating British troops in 1940, Winston Churchill had few reserves he could commit. In an attempt to delay the Germans at Boulogne, Churchill sent in two battalions of the Irish Guards and Welsh Guards in a hastily-organized amphibious landing. In Batt...

This is the story of the SAS raid on Pebble Island during the Falklands War.In atrocious weather, 48 men of 22 SAS Regiment were landed by Sea King Helicopter on the Island. Their task was to destroy the 11 enemy aircraft located at the Airstrip on the Island and neutralize the Argentinean force posted there to guard it.The raid was successful and all the Aircraft were destroyed but debate still goes on as to whether the raid was a political gesture to give the British Public some action o...

The seizure of Pegasus Bridge by six glider borne platoons of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry under Major John Howard very early 6th June 1944, is one of the better-known stories of D-Day. Landing just yards from vital bridges over the River Orne and the Caen Canal near Bnouville, Howard's men took and held the bridges in a remarkable coup de main operation with minimal casualties. The 7th Parachute Battalion dropped in soon afterwards to relieve Howard's men and the act...

In their second Visitor's Guide to the 1916 Battle of the Somme Jon Cooksey and Jerry Murland focus on the series of secondary battles that were key stages in the five-month struggle that followed the start of the offensive on 1 July. They take the visitor – and the reader – across the entire battlefield, covering in graphic detail sites where actions took place that are almost as famous as the Somme itself in the history of the First World War, including Mametz Wood, High Wood, Deville Wo...

By March 1942, mainland France had been under German occupation for almost two years. Every month that passed saw Germany bolster her defenses against an expected allied invasion. Every month that passed saw Germany tighten her grip on Britain's transatlantic lifeline; menacing allied shipping from the French west coast ports. At St Nazaire on the Loire estuary, the vast Normandie dry dock was the only one capable of holding the mighty battleship Tirpitz, still at large and free to hunt al...

The author of Falklands Hero follows the Third Parachute Battalion through a ferocious battle to secure a key strategic position during the Falklands War.This, the first in a series on Special Operations, tells the story of Three Para and the often-neglected struggle for Mount Longdon. It was a battle that tested the discipline, comradeship, and professionalism of the Paras to the limit; it was a battle that witnessed another posthumous Victoria Cross; it ...

The true World War I story of one British town's remarkable response to the message "Your Country Needs You."The Pals battalions were a phenomenon of the Great War, never repeated since. Under Lord Derby's scheme, and in response to Lord Kitchener's famous call for a million volunteers, local communities raised (and initially often paid for) entire battalions for service on the Western Front.Their experience was all too frequently tragic, as men who had kno...

By Christmas 1914 Britain's Regular Army had virtually ceased to exist. Four months of hard fighting had drained its manpower and the Territorial Army were called on to plug the gaps. The part-timers leapt at the chance to serve their country overseas and were soon on their way to the trenches and the harsh realities of war on the Western Front.Flanders 1915 tells the story, through rare and previously unpublished photographs and extended captions, of one of those eager Territorial battali...

One of the few contemporary accounts of the defence of Calais by thirty Brigade in May 1940, plus a wealth of information on how best to visit the battlefield.This is the story of the Battle of Calais, a short but bloody struggle to delay the German advance in May 1940. It is a story of uncertainty, of taut nerves, of heat, dust, raging thirst and hand-to-hand fighting in the narrow streets of the channel port now known to millions of Britons as a gateway to the Co...

Battle Lines Ypres, the first volume in Pen & Swords new series of walking, cycling and driving guides to the Western Front, is the essential companion for every visitor to the Ypres Salient and the battlefields of Belgium. Many of the most famous - and most memorable - Great War sites are featured here. Expert guides Jon Cooksey and Jerry Murland take visitors over a series of routes that can be walked, biked, or driven, explaining the fighting that occurred in each place in vivid detail....

The Retreat from Mons 1914: South is the second volume in Pen & Sword's Battle Lines series to cover the opening campaign of the Great War. It is the essential companion for every visitor who is keen to retrace the path taken by the British Expeditionary Force immediately after the outbreak of the conflict all the important battle sites of the second stage of the retreat are featured here. Expert guides Jon Cooksey and Jerry Murland take visitors over a series of routes that can be walked,...