In the mid-1950s a small group of overworked, underpaid scientists and engineers on a remote base in the Mojave Desert developed a weapon no one had asked for but everyone in the weapons industry desired. This is the story of how that unorthodox team, led by visionary Bill McLean, overcame U.S. Navy bureaucracy and other more heavily funded projects to develop the world’s best air-to-air missile. Author Ron Westrum examines that special time and place—when the old American work ethic and “...

In The Finishing School, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch, author of the acclaimed Warrior Elite, follows SEALs on the ground and in the water as they undergo SEAL Tactical Training.In America’s new war, the first guns in the fight are special operations forces, including the Navy SEALs, specially trained warriors who operate with precision, swiftness, and lethal force. In the constantly shifting war on terror, SEAL units—small in number, flexible, ste...

They are floating cities with crews of thousands. They are the linchpins of any military strategy, for they provide what has become the key to every battle fought since World War I: air superiority. The mere presence of a U.S. naval carrier in a region is an automatic display of strength that sends a message no potential enemy can ignore. Now, Tom Clancy welcomes you aboard for a detailed look at how these floating behemoths function. With his trademark style and eye for d...

FOUR CONGRESSIONAL MEDALS OF HONOR,THIRTEEN NAVAL CROSSES,SEVENTY-TWO SILVER STARS . . .In four and a half years in Vietnam, the Marines of the Third Reconnaissance Battalion repeatedly penetrated North Vietnamese and Vietcong sanctuaries by foot and by helicopter to find enemy forces, learn the enemy's intentions, and, when possible, bring deadly fire down on his head. Heavily armed, well-camouflaged teams of six and eight men daily exposed themselves to overwhelming ...

Now, for the first time, an insider's look at an Air Force combat wing -- the planes, the technology, and the people . . . with Tom Clancy as your guide.Tom Clancy's previous explorations of America's armed forces, Submarine and Armored Cav, revealed exclusive, never-before-seen information an the people and technology that protect our nation. Now, the acclaimed author of Clear and Present Danger and Debt of Honor ...

**A magnificent volume of short novels and an essential World War II report from one of America's great twentieth-century writersA Penguin Classic**On the heels of the enormous success of his masterwork The Grapes of Wrath and at the height of the American war effort John Steinbeck, one of the most prolific and influential literary figures of his generation, wrote Bombs Away, a nonfiction account of his experiences with U.S. Army Air Force bomber crews dur...

"Well-written and superbly researched. . . . Much of this engrossing book is devoted to individual Marines and their actions amid horrific combat." — The Dallas Morning NewsIn a remote mountain stronghold in 1968, six thousand US Marines awoke one January morning to find themselves surrounded by twenty,zero enemy troops. Their only road to the coast was cut, and bad weather and enemy fire threatened their fragile air lifeline. The siege of...

During the early years of World War II in the Pacific theatre, against overwhelming odds, young American airmen flew the longest and most perilous bombing missions of the war. They faced determined Japanese fighters without fighter escort, relentless anti-aircraft fire with no deviations from target, and thousands of miles of over-water flying with no alternative landing sites. Finish Forty and Home is the true story of the men and missions of the 11th Bombardment Group as it fought alone ...

"We are thus not only the first country in the world with the capability to produce nuclear weapons that chose not to do so, we are also the first nuclear armed country to have chosen to divest itself of nuclear weapons."Pierre Trudeau United Nations, 26 May 1978From 1963 to 1984, US nuclear warheads armed Canadian weapons systems in both Canada and West Germany. It is likely that during the early part of this period, the Canadian military was putting more effort, money, an...

An illustrated profile of the Marine Corps component of USSOCOM, its origins & history, training & missions, and special equipment & weapons.The United States Marine Corps has a rich tradition of special operations, from World War II's famed Marine Raiders and Para Marines to Korea and Vietnam's legendary Marine Force Recon companies. Indeed, when Navy underwater demolition teams, the direct predecessors to the SEALs, performed the preinvasion reconnaissance of Iwo ...

"[An] excellent volume on the navy's air war in the Pacific during WWII . . . the author has almost certainly created the best one-volume study of the subject" ( Booklist).In a grand sweeping narrative, Pacific Air tells the inspiring story of how, despite initial disastrous defeats, a generation of young naval aviators ultimately vanquished a superior Japanese air force and fleet in the Pacific. The instruments of the United States aviators' trium...

We could call this book “Special Operations Recon Mission Impossible.” A small group of highly trained, resourceful US Special Forces (SF) men is asked to go in teams behind the enemy lines to gather intelligence on the North Vietnamese Army units that had infiltrated through Laos and Cambodia down the Ho Chi Minh trails to their secret bases inside the Cambodian border west of South Vietnam. The covert reconnaissance teams, of only two or three SF men with four or five experienced indigen...