This concise history of guerilla warfare presents profiles in combat courage from George Washington to Simón Bolívar, Mao Zedong, and beyond.The concept of guerrilla warfare is centuries old, with Sun Tzu's writing on the subject dating back to the sixth century BC. One of the earliest recorded examples of guerrilla tactics deployed by a military leader was the campaign of Roman general Fabius Maximus, who took a course of evasion and harassment against Hannibal's ...

A fascinating chronicle of the Cold War battle where US and Soviet weapons, as well as Cuban and South African troops, took part in the Angolan Civil War.In the late 1980s, as America prepared to claim its victory in the Cold War over the Soviet Union, a bloody war still raged in Southern Africa, where proxy forces from both sides vied for control of Angola. The socialist Angolan government, stocked with Soviet weapons, had only to wipe out the resistance group UNI...

In a remote, enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them…The team was caught in a deadly ambush that not only threatened their lives, but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them. With total disregard f...

"A book that conveys the realities of life for the sniper in Afghanistan, the highs and lows, the fear, boredom and excitement . . . thrilling." — FiretrenchFew soldiers are deemed good enough to be selected and trained as snipers and even fewer qualify. As a result, snipers are regarded as the elite of their units and their skills command the ungrudging respect of their fellows—and the enemy. The author is one such man who recently served a full tour of du...

The definitive inside account of the Falklands War, written by Margaret Thatcher herself.On 21 May 1982, the British people watched with a mixture of pride and fear as their troops landed under heavy aerial bombardment at San Carlos Bay in the Falkland Islands. Since 1833 the islands had been under British sovereignty, and when Argentina launched a full-scale invasion on 2 April 1982 Margaret Thatcher decided to retaliate swiftly and aggressively. Over the following days a task for...

The true story of the US Army legend who organized "Blackburn's Headhunters" against Japan in WWII and went on to initiate Special Forces operations in Vietnam.The fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942—illuminating the white flags of surrender against the dark sky. Outnumbered and outgunned, remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces of the Rising Sun. Yet US Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay down his arms. With...

Every war has at least one - a unit so different, so daring, that it becomes the stuff of which legends are made and heroes are born. Among the South African forces fighting in Angola from 1975 to 1989, that unit was 32 Battalion. Founded in utmost secrecy from the vanquished remnants of a foreign rebel movement, undefeated in 12 years of front-line battle, feared by enemies that included both conventional Cuban armies and Namibian guerrilla fighters, the Buffalo Soldiers became the South ...

In April 1982, Argentina's military Junta sent its armed forces to attack and occupy two British territories in the South Atlantic - the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Within days, Britain had put in motion its greatest naval operation since the Second World War, to expel the Argentines from its territory. This book is the story of the Falklands War - a day-by-day, chronological account of the Argentine invasion and the conflict that liberated the islands.

Brutally honest and devoid of hyperbole, this is Roelf van Heerden's Executive Outcomes. / Unapologetic, unassuming and forthright, the combat exploits of Executive Outcomes (EO) in Angola and Sierra Leone are recounted for the first time by a battlefield commander who was physically on the ground during all their major combat operations. From fighting UNITA for the critical oil installations and diamond fields of Angola to the offensive against the RUF in Sierra Leone to capture the Kono ...

Battle for Cassinga is written as a firsthand account by an ordinary South African paratrooper who was at the 1978 assault on the Angolan headquarters of PLAN, the armed wing of SWAPO. The book relates why the South African government took the political risk in attacking the fortress in an external operation and examines the SWAPO claims that Cassinga was a refugee camp guarded by a few PLAN soldiers. It also explains why Sam Nujoma the SWAPO leader had no option but to perpetuate this fal...

General Jannie Geldenhuys is widely regarded as one of the leading military commanders South Africa has produced. As Chief of the South African Defence Force from 1985 to 1990, he brought his experience to bear on the Border War in Namibia, and was part of the negotiating team that brought an end to the conflict in 1989. In this completely revised and updated edition, Geldenhuys reflects on a military career spanning more than four decades. At the Front covers the years before and during t...

A main selection of the Military Book Club and a selection of the History Book ClubWith his parting words, "I shall return," General Douglas MacArthur sealed the fate of the last American forces on Bataan. Yet one young Army Captain named Russell Volckmann refused to surrender. He disappeared into the jungles of north Luzon where he raised a Filipino army of more than 22,000 men. For the next three years he led a guerrilla war against the Japanese, killing more tha...