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...

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 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trenches and the harsh realities of war on the Western Front.Flanders 1915 tells the story, through rare and previously unpublished photographs and extended captions, of one of those eager Territorial battali...

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...

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...

In the early hours of 15 May 1982, three Sea King helicopters carrying 42 men of 22 SAS Regiment and attachments, lifted off from the carrier HMS Hermes and headed towards the remote Pebble Island on the north coast of West Falkland. Their task? To destroy the Argentinian Pucara aircraft stationed on the grassy airstrip above the isolated Pebble Island settlement, eliminate the defending garrison and neutralize the threat posed by the airfield as an Argentinian forward operating base. The ...

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,...

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....

An illustrated and informative guide to the WWI battlefields south of Arras, France, including some of the most significant battles of 1917.Some of the most famous and frequently visited battlefields on the Western Front are just to the south of the Arras. These sites include Battery Valley and Observation Ridge, Telegraph Hill, Monchy-le-Preux, Wancourt, and Bullecourt. And this clearly written, highly illustrated guide is the ideal introduction to them.Expe...

Until now Hugh Butterworth was just one of the millions of lost soldiers of the Great War, and the extraordinary letters he sent home from the Western Front have been forgotten. But after more than ninety years of obscurity, these letters, which describe his experience of war in poignant detail, have been rediscovered, and they are published here in full. They are a moving, intensely personal and beautifully written record by an articulate and observant man who witnessed at first hand one ...

Mons to the Marne, the latest volume in Pen & Sword's Battle Lines series of walking, cycling and driving guides to the Western Front, 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 First World War. All the most famous battle sites of the Great Retreat are featured here. Expert guides Jon Cooksey and Jerry Murland take visitors over a series of routes that can be walked or biked or ...