“Gentlemen, do not be daunted if chaos reigns; it undoubtedly will.” So said Brigadier S. James Hill, commanding officer of the British 3rd Parachute Brigade, in an address to his troops shortly before the launching of Operation Overlord—the D-Day invasion of Normandy. No more prophetic words were ever spoken, for chaos indeed reigned on that day, and many more that followed.Much has been written about the Allied invasion of France, but award-winning military historian Flint Whitlock has put together a unique package—the first history of the assault that concentrates exclusively on the activities of the American, British, and Canadian airborne forces that descended upon Normandy in the dark, pre-dawn hours of 6 June 1944. Landing into the midst of the unknown, the airborne troops found themselves fighting for their lives on every side in the very jaws of the German defenses, while striving to seize their own key objectives in advance of their seaborne comrades to come.Whitlock details the formation, recruitment, training, and deployment of the Allies’ parachute and glider troops. First-person accounts by the veterans who were there—from paratroopers to glidermen to the pilots who flew them into the battle, as well as the commanders (Eisenhower, Taylor, Ridgway, Gavin, and more)—make for compelling, “you-are-there” reading. If Chaos Reigns is a fitting tribute to the men who rode the wind into battle and managed to pull victory out of confusion, chaos, and almost certain defeat.Author/military historian Flint Whitlock graduated from the Army's Airborne School at Ft. Benning, GA, in 1965 and spent five years on active duty, including a combat tour in Vietnam. He is the author of nine books, six of which are about World War II, and is currently the editor of WWII Quarterly. He has appeared in documentaries on The History Channel and on the Fox Channel's "War Stories with Oliver North," and now lives in Denver, CO.

“The detail in the book, including scores of photos and maps, is remarkable. What a story he had to tell. And what a story his son Stuart has written. ” - Arnie Wilson Huffington PostPerilous Moon is a lavishly illustrated book that observes Occupied France during World War II through the eyes of British bomber pilot Neil Nimmo and newly discovered period photographs. Shot down by Luftwaffe nightfighter pilot Helmut Bergmann, Nimmo and his crew were the German’s sixth of seven victims in 46 minutes. With seven wrecked Lancasters and 38 Allied airmen killed, Bergmann had singlehandedly turned what should have been a relatively simple RAF raid into a life-long nightmare.With barely time to parachute from Q-Queenie, his stricken Lancaster, Neil Nimmo’s unholy adventure had only just begun. Unusually, Perilous Moon follows both pilots, Nimmo and Bergmann, through the war after that April night, and continues to observe them as the Occupation of France comes to a sticky end.Three weeks after landing on a ploughed field between Amiens and Abbeville, Neil Nimmo was in Paris, the endlessly mysterious Nazi-occupied French capital. Seething with Nazis and intrigue, the beautiful city remained remarkably unscathed, but steeped in political and moral ambiguity.Alongside the occupying forces, the Gestapo and French collaborators, Paris held its share of remarkably brave, often-fearless Resistance workers. But for the moment, average Parisian life would go on, stubborn French individualism triumphing over politics, and hardship met by resignation or stiff resolve. This odd normality wouldn’t last once D-Day came, and after it became clear the desperate Allied gamble had worked, the Germans were caught wrong-footed, and both the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht supply lines were failing.When the Allies broke out from their beachheads and raced south to Paris, many French changed sides or swayed yet further in the Allies favour. Toward the end, as France became a bloody battlefront, with it came intrigue, score-settling and murder. As the tide turned Neil Nimmo was close to it all—things had changed, the previously reluctant and confirmed collaborator now found his stance a dangerous liability, and an evading Allied airman was now an invaluable and possibly life-saving asset.In the late 1980’s Neil Nimmo fell ill and is no longer with us, but in Perilous Moon his son Stuart Nimmo, a Paris based documentary maker, closely chronicles the period with over 200 original, previously hidden photographs. This unusual, fascinating book cuts through the fog that shrouded the Occupation, and which continued to linger for decades to come.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the U.S. Navy had a total of 111 submarines. However, this fleet was not nearly as impressive as the number suggests. It was mostly a collection of ageing boats from the late teens and early twenties, with only a few of the newer, more modern Gato-class boats. Fortunately, with the war in Europe already two years old and friction with Japan ever-increasing, help from what would become known as the Silent Service in the Pacific was on the way: there were 73 of the new fleet submarines under construction. The Silent Service in World War II tells the story of America’s intrepid underwater warriors in the words of the men who lived the war in the Pacific against Japan. The enemy had already begun to deploy advanced boats, but the U.

When General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia in March 1942, having successfully left the Philippines to organise a new American army, he vowed, "I shall return!" More than two years later he did return, at the head of a large U.S. army to retake the Philippines from the Japanese. The place of his re-invasion was the central Philippine Island of Leyte. Much has been written about the naval Battle of Leyte Gulf that his return provoked, but almost nothing has been written about the three-month long battle to seize Leyte itself. Originally intending to delay the advancing Americans, the Japanese high command decided to make Leyte the "Decisive Battle" for the western Pacific and rushed crack Imperial Army units from Manchuria, Korea, and Japan itself to halt and then overwhelm the Americans on Leyte. As were most battles in the Pacific, it was a long, bloody, and brutal fight. As did the Japanese, the Americans were forced to rush in reinforcements to compensate for the rapid increase in Japanese forces on Leyte.This unique battle also saw a major Japanese counterattack - not a banzai charge, but a carefully thought-out counteroffensive designed to push the Americans off the island and capture the elusive General MacArthur. Both American and Japanese battalions spent days surrounded by the enemy, often until relieved or overwhelmed. Under General Yamashita’s guidance it also saw a rare deployment of Japanese paratroopers in conjunction with the ground assault offensive.Finally there were more naval and air battles, all designed to protect or cover landing operations of friendly forces. Leyte was a three-dimensional battle, fought with the best both sides had to offer, and did indeed decide the fate of the Philippines in World War II.

To Great Britain and Germany, the Battle of the Denmark Strait came like a thunderclap in the spring of 1941. The pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, was utterly destroyed, and its newest battleship, Prince of Wales, severely damaged and forced to withdraw. This was at the hands of Germany’s huge battleship Bismarck, on its first foray into North Atlantic waters. The blast of heavy shells between the behemoths resonated both in Whitehall and Berlin.However, despite the wealth of documentary information and photographic evidence available on the battle, there continues to be controversy as to how the conflict was actually fought. This book attempts to resolve the remaining issues by a detailed technical analysis of the circumstances, while new discoveries, revealed for the first time in this book, shed new light on the battle in which the best of both navies traded salvoes and over 1,500 Royal Navy sailors were lost.By carefully considering the factors affecting naval gunnery, such as flight time of shells to their target, reaction time for correcting the fall of shot, and recycle times of the various gun systems, the battle has been painstakingly reconstructed in this book within all of the established time and distance parameters. Not limited to the battle itself, the book also explores the relevant events leading up to the titanic clash, and those events associated with its aftermath.Being a graduate mechanical engineer and professional analyst associated with fielded military weapon systems, the author is uniquely qualified to perform the analytic functions involved in the reconstruction of the battle. His last position was as staff analyst where he provided support to the Federal government in the evaluation of the U.S. Strategic Missile Defence System, and he is also author of the highly acclaimed work, Naval Shipbuilders of the World—From the Age of Sail to the Present Day.

The extreme difficulty of the battles in the Cotentin marshes has already been discussed in Operation Cobra, during which Mont Castre represented a primary obstacle. Here Heimdal presents La Haye-du-Puits, the final hurdle to achieve in order to prepare the departure base necessary for the ultimate breach. Highly illustrated with numerous colour photos, this work offers a rich description of the terrain and equipment used on the battlefield. French Language

This is the remarkable, newfound memoir of a U.S. fighter pilot, who after his escapades of shooting down German aircraft in France found himself shot down by them in turn, thence to begin an even greater adventure. Ted Fahrenwald was a 22-year-old daredevil pilot in the famed 352nd Fighter Group when he bailed out of his burning P-51 Mustang two days after D-Day on his 100th mission. Parachuting into the farmlands of Normandy, he was immediately picked up by the local Maquis, the guerrilla branch of the French Resistance. His rudimentary French, wily and gregarious personality, and backwoods skills allowed him to quickly make fast friends of these unruly outlaws, and he spent the next several months carousing and raiding with their band. But determined to rejoin his squadron, Ted left his new comrades to hike through the fields and forests of the most heavily occupied areas of northern France toward the Channel coast, and the advancing Allied liberation armies. Captured by the Wehrmacht, however, interrogated as a spy, and interned in a POW camp, the author made a daring escape just before his deportation to Germany. Nothing diminished Ted’s talent for spotting the ironic humor in even the most aggravating or dangerous situations, nor his penchant for extracting his own improvised and sometimes hilarious version of justice. The author recorded his swashbuckling adventures at age 24, after his discharge and return to the States. Afterward he went into business and never again put pen to paper. But his immediate reminiscence of his wartime experience - recently found - reveal a literary talent that is rare. At once a suspenseful page-turner and an outrageously witty tale of daring and friendship, this book brings to life the daily intrigues of the multiple sides of World War II.

After the success of Jean-Yves Mary’s previous works, in particular Les Corridor des Panzers and Zur Küste, it was quite clear that there was still a huge demand for similar high-quality, detailed books on tanks and their important role in World War II.This first volume contains many fantastic colour photographs of the German tanks, their units and their leaders, along with a detailed history of their engagement. Any avid modeller, keen tank enthusiast or general historian will find this an invaluable resource. French Language

Iwo Jima remains in the collective memory of Americans as the most horrific battle of the war in the Pacific, no doubt due to the fact that the number of losses that the Marines suffered exceeded those of the Japanese, which was normally not the case, and most likely because it required more than a month of bloody battles for this small island to be captured.This ferocious battle of the elite American Army, fighting against Japanese who would fight to the bitter end, was abundantly covered by reporters belonging to the Marine Corps. More images were taken here than in any other theatre of operations. The photos captured strike at the heart of the fighting, without any complacency or stage setting, paying witness to the veritable harshness of this dramatic period of the war. In this highly detailed book, Charles Trang presents a variety of photographs ranging from tanks, amphibious vehicles, weapons, mortars, rocket launchers and various types of aircraft. Included are more than 400 photographs and original pieces of documentation.

After the publication of his best-selling novel, Joseph Heller usually chose to deny that any of his richly drawn characters were based on his actual war mates. However, to those who served with Heller in the 340th Bomb Group the novel’s characters were indeed recognisable; from the hard-drinking, vengeful, and disillusioned Chief White Half Oat; young, sliced-in-half Kid Sampson; shrieking, frenzied Hungry Joe; to Colonel Cathcart, Doc Dreedle, Yossarian and that capitalist supreme, Milo Minderbinder.In this book we finally encounter the real men and combat missions on which the novel was based. Blending fact, fancy and history with full-blown original illustrations and rare, previously unpublished photos of these daring USAAF flyers and their Corsican-based B-25 Marauders, along with descriptions of the 340th’s real wartime events, the work includes twelve men of the Bomb Group relating twelve richly told tales of their own.Now all of the men upon whom Heller based his characters are gone. However, the last survivor, George L. Wells, was an extraordinary combat pilot and the model for Catch-22s Capt. Wren, and he is the common thread who weaves through this book, allowing the reader to truly feel the war and even thumb through George’s well-worn mission book describing attacks on Axis ports, ships, bridges, and the notorious Brenner Pass. Author Patricia Chapman Meder has been a professional artist in both fine and commercial art for the past 35 years,13 of them in Europe. When Catch-22 was published it was quickly apparent that this book was based on the Bomb Group her father commanded in World War II. This true-life parallel book thus begged to be written.

In 2004 the world was first introduced to The Filthy Thirteen, a book describing the most notorious squad of fighting men in the 101st Airborne Division who were the inspiration for the movie The Dirty Dozen. This is the long awaited work of Jack Womer, one of the squad’s integral members, and probably its best soldier. Womer was originally a member of the 29th Infantry Division and selected to be part of its elite Ranger battalion until, after a year of gruelling training under the eyes of British Commando instructors, they were suddenly dissolved. Bitterly disappointed, Womer asked for transfer to another elite unit, the Screaming Eagles, where room was found for him among the division’s most miscreant squad of brawlers, drunkards and goof-offs. Beginning on June 6, 1944, however, the Filthy Thirteen began proving themselves more a menace to the German Army than they had been to their own officers and the good people of England, embarking on a year of ferocious combat at the very tip of the Allied advance in Europe.In this work, with the help of Steven DeVito, Womer provides an amazingly frank look at close-quarters combat in Europe, as well as the almost surreal experience of dust-bowl-era GI’s entering country after country in their grapple with the Wehrmacht, finally ending up in Hitler’s mountaintop lair in Germany itself.Throughout his fights, Jack Womer credited his Ranger/Commando training for helping him to survive, even though most of the rest of the Filthy Thirteen did not. And in the end he found the reward he had most coveted all along; being able to return to his fiancée Theresa back in the States.

In July 1944, the 9,000-man Japanese garrison on the island of Tinian listened warily as the thunder of the United States Navy and Marine Corps, Army and Air Corps, descended on their neighbouring island, Saipan, just three miles away. There were 20,000 Japanese troops on Saipan, but the US obliterated the opposition after a horrific all-arms campaign. The sudden silence only indicated it was now Tinian’s turn. When the battle for Tinian finally took place the US acted with great skill. Nevertheless, the Japanese resisted with their usual stubbornness, and the already decimated US Marines suffered hundreds of casualties.During the battle Japanese shore batteries were able to riddle the battleship Colorado, killing scores, plus make multiple hits on a destroyer, killing its captain. On the island itself the US used napalm for the first time, paving the way for Marines painstakingly rooting out strongpoints. One last Banzai attack signalled the end to enemy resistance, as Marines fought toe-to-toe with their antagonists in the dark.In the end some 8,000 Japanese were killed, with only 300 surrenders, plus some others who hid out for years after the war. But those Japanese who resisted perhaps performed a greater service than they knew. After Tinian was secured, the US proceeded to build the biggest airport in the world on that island, home to hundreds of B-29 Superfortresses. Among these, just over a year later, were the Enola Gay and Boxcar, which with their atomic bombs would quickly bring the Japanese homeland itself to its knees.

Like many heroes of World War II, General Albert C. Wedemeyer's career has been largely overshadowed by such well-known figures as Marshall, Patton, Montgomery and Bradley. Wedemeyer's legacy as the main planner of the D-Day invasion is almost completely forgotten today, eclipsed by politics and the capriciousness of human nature. In the late 1930s Wedemeyer had the unique experience of being an exchange student at the German Kriegsakademia, the Nazis’ equivalent of Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff School. As the only American to attend, he was thus the only ranking officer in the US who recognised the revolutionary tactics of Blitzkrieg once they were unleashed, and he knew how to respond.As US involvement in the European conflagration approached, Wedemeyer was taken under the wing of George C. Marshall in Washington, but although he conceived the plans for US mobilisation, to his great disappointment he was not appointed to field command once the invasion commenced; further, he had run afoul of Winston Churchill due to the latter’s insistence on emphasising the Mediterranean theatre in 1943.Perhaps because of Churchill’s animosity, Wedemeyer was transferred to the Burma-China theatre, where a year later he would replace General Stilwell. Ultimately, Wedemeyer's service in the Asian theatre became far more significant, though less known. Had the US political establishment listened to Wedemeyer on China during the years 1943-48, it is possible China would not have been lost to the Communists and would have been a functioning US ally from the start, thus eliminating the likelihood of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

In this important new work on Normandy, Georges Bernage offers a close examination of the decisive moments between 5 and 8 June, 1944, when the Panzers arrived on the front line. He details their units and their very first engagements on the battlefield, using remarkable original photographs.This highly detailed album adds up to an invaluable resource for the avid modeller, keen tank enthusiast and general historian alike. French Language

After the war the Jeep, a small military vehicle then mostly unknown to the general public, suddenly became central to the vision of the postwar period. Made famous in magazines and newspapers world-wide, the Jeep was on everything from writing paper, matchboxes and playing cards, and seemed to invade America before conquering the world. This fabulous new book from Histoire et Collections perfectly captures the mood of that period immediately after the war with its lavish full colour illustrations. About the AuthorThe author, Jerome Hadacek is known for both his 1 / 48 and 1 / 10 scale models, and is passionate about tanks and jeeps. He has published extensively as a freelance writer on 4x4 vehicles.

Praise for Mike Guardia:“…meticulously researched, with facts verified by exhaustive sleuthing…a fine work of investigative history.”– Military Writers Society of AmericaThe fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942, illuminating the white flags of surrender against the night time sky. Woefully outnumbered, outgunned, and ill-equipped, battered remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces of the Rising Sun. Yet amongst the chaos and devastation of the American defeat, Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay down his arms.With future Special Forces legend Russell Volckmann, Blackburn escaped from Bataan and fled to the mountainous jungles of North Luzon, where they raised a private army of over 22,000 men against the Japanese. Once there, Blackburn organised a guerrilla regiment from among the native tribes in the Cagayan Valley. “Blackburn’s Headhunters,” as they came to be known, devastated the Japanese 14th Army within the western provinces of North Luzon and destroyed the Japanese naval base at Aparri, the largest enemy anchorage in the Philippines.After the war, Blackburn remained on active duty and played a key role in initiating Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia. Following his return to the United States, Blackburn was appointed “Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities,” where he was the architect of the famous Son Tay Prison Raid. This book follows Donald D. Blackburn through both his youthful days of desperate combat against an Empire, and through his days as a commander, imparting his lessons to the newly realised ranks of America’s own Special Forces.