Private Jack Poolton was among the Canadians landing at the disastrous raid on Dieppe. Fortunate to have survived, Jack was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Germany. In Destined to Survive: A Dieppe Veteran's Story, Jack Poolton relates the story of his training, capture, and experiences in the POW camp. We follow Jack's three escape attempts, and his subsequent punishment. And we share his elation when Jack and his fellow prisoners are liberated by American soldiers.Poo...

The bestselling, award-winning author of The American Invasion of Canada "has given great drama and immediacy to that turning point in Canadian history" ( Maclean's).On Easter Monday 1917 with a blizzard blowing in their faces, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in France seized and held the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front—the muddy scarp of Vimy Ridge. The British had failed to take the Ridge, and so had the French who had ...

Flashman In The Great War" is an adventure story about Willie Flashman, the grandson of General Sir Harry Flashman. Like his grandfather Willie is a charming scoundrel and coward; he first designs and then unwillingly fights in British and German tanks in WWI.

As a 19-year old Black Watch conscript Tom Renouf's war began with some of the most vicious fighting of the conflict - against Himmler's fanatical 'Hitler Youth' SS Division. It ended with the capture of Himmler himself and Tom taking a trophy he still treasures - the Gestapo commander's watch.Seriously wounded and later decorated with a Military Medal for gallantry, Tom Renouf witnessed the death and maiming of countless of his teenage comrades and saw the survivors transformed in...

From foul food to coping with legions of lice, discover all the dire details of life in the blood and mud of the First World War in Horrible Histories: Terrible Trenches (World Book Day Edition) ... from both sides of the barbed wire. Discover how your own wee could save your life, which animals wore gas masks and why Big Bertha terrified the Brits. With a bright new cover this bestselling title is sure to be a huge hit with yet another generation of Terry Deary and Martin Brown fans.

The memoir of a reluctant soldier coerced into military service by the Nazis and driven from his homeland by the Russians.Following the conquest of his native Latvia by the Nazis, Mintauts Blosfelds was given the stark choice: service in the SS or forced labor in a slave camp. So he "volunteered" to fight for the Nazis.In this memoir he describes his training and how he became an instructor before being sent into Russia. He nearly perished during the terrib...

November 2008 sees the 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War, 'the war to end all wars' that still haunts and fascinates in equal measure. Richard van Emden's new book tells that story as never before through the words and pictures of the men who were there. The Soldier's War includes incredible never-published-before letters and photographs to reveal the true stories of a lost generation.The Soldier's War traces the war chronologically, taking stories from...

On the ghastly battlefields of the First World War, Jimmie Johnston drove teams or pack horses carrying ammunition and hauling guns to the front lines. One night, Johnston was hauling guns back from the front line. Suddenly, in the darkness and pouring rain, he, his team, the wagon, and the guns pitched into an old trench. After disentangling the horses from their harness, Johnston found a trenching tool, dug away the side of the trench, and led the horses out of what had become a sea of m...

Australia's diggers didn't go 'over the top' for King and Country, they did it for their mates and their battalion - extraordinary deeds performed by ordinary men.Henry George Hartnett, known as 'Harry', joined the Australian Imperial Force on 13 September 1915 at the age of 23. He saw action on the Western Front at Fromelles and on the Somme, receiving his first 'Blighty', a wound so serious he was sent back to Britain for treatment, in the Battle of Pozieres. Upon his recovery, h...

A World War II memoir of a clerk who put down his pen and took up a weapon, rising through the ranks to become an elite Special Air Service soldier.Roy Close's wartime experiences make breathtaking reading. Mobilized in 1939 he became part of the BEF and was fortunate to avoid death or captivity during the German blitzkrieg and escape through Dunkirk. Sent to North Africa, he joined the Paras and, from there, to the SAS. In 1944 he operated behind enemy lines with t...

The real history behind the classic war movie and the men who plotted the daring escape from a Nazi POW camp.Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24th–25th 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it ou...

A British Army veteran revisits his military career, sharing thrilling stories of Special Forces missions behind enemy lines during World War II.A pre-war Sapper, Charlie Radford served in North Africa until he returned to the UK for parachute training. He volunteered and joined 2SAS in Scotland. His first behind-the-lines operation was in France (Op. Rupert) cutting railway lines, and he then took park in Operation Loyton, now in armed jeeps. His next assignment (O...