The action of John Howard is without doubt on the most spectacular commando action of D-Day and WWII. Ten minutes after midnight on June 6th 1944, after an audacious glider landing, airborne troops of the 6th Airborne Division arrived at the bridge at Bénouville which became known as Pegasus Bridge and entered the annals of history. Six kilometres from there, towards the coast, at Melville was installed a German artillery battery which was in turn attacked by British paras a few hours later.

“The Guard Attacks!”. The Imperial Guard, this glorious phalange, the fruit of the Emperor Napoleon’s greatest attention, was almost an army within the “Grande Armée

To the northeast of Brittany, in the marches, three towns still have their old medieval aspect and reveal their exceptional heritage. These three medieval cities are presented together in a magnificent colour 80-page bound book. The reworked texts and the illustrations were published in the Magazine “Moyen Age” (Middles Ages) and are given here in a practical manner and, with this volume, will find their place in any Middles Ages history or architecture amateur’s library.

The Battle of Normandy organised by the Allies depended on a massive, fast landing which would destabilise the German High Commandby its boldness. In a few hours on 6 June 1944, 150 000 Allied soldiers had set foot on Norman soil. Facing them, an equivalent number of German soldiers, but of whom only a third were operational on this front. The German High Command had been expecting the landings to take place in the Pas-de-Calais, the narrowest part of the channel. It took several days for the Germans to admit that the landings in Normandy were not a deceptive lure. The first hours of the landings were to prove decisive. For the Allied coalition, what was most important was to break through the German defences quickly and broaden the front, and finally to resist enemy counter-offensives. The first weeks of June 1944 were marked by terrible confrontations without any real decisive advantage being obtained. Then powerful conquest and encircling movements were made, which ended up with the Falaise Pocket. This dénouement took place on 21 August near Chambois, a place now known as the “Corridor of death”. The Battle of Normandy ended on 12 September 1944, with the liberation of Le Havre, 99 days after the 6 June 1944.

La présentation d’une nouvelle Alpine en 2017 a redonné vie à une marque mythique, disparue depuis 22 longues années. Alpine était née de la passion d’un homme, Jean Rédélé, qui donna vie à son rêve en 1955. Résolument sportive les premières Alpine se feront une place respectée dans le rallye. Tributaires des mécaniques Renault, elles sauront en tirer le meilleur parti grâce à Amédée Gordini et Marc Mignotet, mais aussi grâce à une structure originale dont elles furent les pionnières, le châssis-poutre. Le modèle le plus emblématique, la berlinette A 110 dominera le rallye européen dans les années 1960, face à des adversaires souvent mieux armés, avant de s’adjuger le titre de première championne du monde des rallyes en 1973. Les 24 Heures du Mans seront une autre aventure qui se terminera avec Renault et la victoire de 1978. Les prix atteints dans les récentes ventes aux enchères auprès des collectionneurs donnent la mesure de la passion qui continue d’animer les nombreux amateurs de la marque. Text in French.

“The Guard charges” Napoleon gave special attention to this splendid unit – the Imperial Guard – and it became a sort of little army within the “Grande Armée”. This study of its organisation is here at its most erudite, like the one on the uniforms and equipment. Discover the uniforms, the equipment, and the weapons used by all those “Grognards”, who were launched into a battle as a last resort, at the decisive moment. Explaining how the Guard was organised into Old, Middle and Young Guards, in this volume, the illustrator-researcher André Jouineau shows the colonel-generals, the grenadiers, the chasseurs à pied, fusiliers, velites, flanqueurs, wards, workmen, sappers, doctors, magistrates and foot gunners; in the second volume he shows the centaurs of the Guard’s cavalry. This small practical, clear, concise, logical and visual tool is a real vade mecum, intended for imperial history buffs as well as figurine makers. The third volume – a compilation of two dossiers published in the fifth and sixth issues of the magazine ”Soldat” – is the new, improved, entirely revised and re-drawn larger version (more than fifty per cent more characters) than the previous work published several years ago now by the authors. In this volume : the last mounted units of the Guard, the follow-up units, the Horse Artillery, the Artillery trains and teams, the Health Service, the Guard HQ Staff but also the Emperor’s Household, the Emperor and the first uniforms of the Royal Guard.

More than seventy-five years after wards, “Chariot” is still thought of as the most daring and most spectacular commando operation of the whole of WWII, called on the other side of the Channel “the greatest raid of all time”. Indeed you had to be mad or British to go up the estuary of the River Loire at night, into Saint-Nazaire in order to ram an old destroyer full of explosives on a time fuse against the Joubert docks. And all this was done to make the only dry-dock vast enough to take the super cruiser Tirpitz, the terror of all the Allied navies, totally unusable. This raid had as tremendous an impact in France as it did in Britain, proving to the Allies and to all of occupied Europe that the Third Reich was not invulnerable. To tell the story of this extraordinary coup de main, Jean-Charles Stasi has consulted the German, British and French archives, interviewed former commandoes as well as the inhabitants of Saint-Nazaire who witnessed the raid. His tale is lively and alert and is illustrated with a lot of period photographs, as well as maps, drawings and boat profiles, to plunge the reader into the heart of the action and to allow him relive the preparations for this extraordinary operation. Text in French.

This book is just as much for amateurs of good cooking as it is for enthusiasts of the Middle Ages. Each recipe is adapted to today’s tastes; it is placed in its historical context and details are provided in the insets for it to be reproduced. Forty recipes are brought together from the very depths of the Middle Ages, the Merovingian period, then the transition period that was the 15th Century. This new book enables the reader to follow how culinary practices evolved throughout the Middle Ages. Indeed, cuisine never stopped developing from the 5th Century through to the end of the 15th, and was a compromise between the Mediterranean and the Capetien styles. The former was a legacy from Greco-Latin antiquity, incorporating elements from the invading barbarians’ cuisine ; the latter was created at the court of the Kings of France during the last two centuries of the medieval period. Posterity has retained two representative works: le Viandier de Taillevent and the Mesnagier de Paris. These two works are the base of our gastronomy and are part of our culinary heritage. Let’s re-discover the tastes, colours, textures and bouquets of dishes that shouldn’t be forgotten : brouet, galimafrée, comminée, cretonnée, porée… today they all deserve a place once again on our tables. Text in French.

This book presents the history of the Hoplites, fighters who permanently altered the art of war in the West. You will be able to enter the history and the life of its elite warriors which appeared in the 8th century BC and discover their equipment and martial tactics. Richly illustrated, you can study the most beautiful artefacts and iconographic witnesses. Ce livre présente l’histoire de ces combattants, les Hoplites, qui ont modifié durablement l’art de la guerre en Occident. Ainsi, vous pourrez pénétrer dans l’histoire et la vie de ses guerriers d’élite apparus au VIIIe siècle av. J.-C et découvrir leur équipement et leurs tactiques martiales. Richement illustré, vous pourrez observer les plus beaux artefacts ou témoins iconographiques.

This exceptional book highlights the role and difficulties of the crews who served this mythical tank. The technical pitfalls and solutions by the designers are explained and the different combat methods developed by the allies are detailed. This book exhaustively lists the equipment, the engines and the generated models. Includes an exceptional iconography, including color plates, materials and markings.Cet ouvrage d’exception met en avant le rôle et les difficultés des équipages qui ont servi ce char mythique. Les écueils techniques et les solutions trouvées par les concepteurs sont expliquées, les différentes méthodes de combat mises au point par les alliés sont détaillées. L’ouvrage liste de façon exhaustive les équipements, les motorisations et les modèles engendrés. Une iconographie exceptionnelle, dont des planches couleurs, des matériels et marquages.

These three volumes represent the most complete and detailed study of the uniforms and equipment of the German Paras of WWII (Fallschimjäger). Practically each element of the uniform if presented in minute detail, and covers all the different models, parachutists (Knochensack), and the equipment used by the Luftwaffe from the middle of the 1930s to the fall of the Third Reich. Also included are badges of the Fallschimjäger and numerous previously unpublished first-hand accounts. Furthermore will be included detailed descriptions of operations by the ‘Green Devils’ such as the invasion of Norway, the attack on Eben Emael, the Dutch campaign, Crete and North Africa campaigns, Russia, Italy, Normandy, the Ardennes and also included. With the help of collectors and museums from across the world, the author and he German editor have collaborated to produce an unprecedented collections. The Three volumes amount to over 1,000 pages with thousands of photos and collectors’ items including many never seen before.

Four years before the Normandy landings, the French coast was the scene of another major episode in the Second World War. This was Operation Dynamo, much less well known than D-Day. And yet you only have to look at the statistics to see how important this part of the story of the Campaign of France was: between 27 May and 4 June, almost 340 000 French and British troops were evacuated from the Dunkirk pocket by a miscellaneous fleet of 850 boats, among which hundreds of fishing vessels, pleasure boats, lifeboats or Merchant Navy vessels. Thanks to the sailors’ courage but also the RAF pilots’ skill, this operation without precedent was a success which enabled the British to continue to fight the Germans, even though they had to leave behind most of their equipment and weapons. Replaced in its context, Operation Dynamo is here narrated in detail with numerous period photos, maps, aircraft profiles and uniform plates. This military operation and human adventure without precedent breathes again, 77 years later thanks to the film director Christopher Nolan, the author of the Batman trilogy and Interstellar which, with Dunkirk, has become an international blockbuster, to which a chapter of this book is devoted

Marcel Migeo is a big name in the heroic epoch of French aviation, even though he is not as famous as Mermoz, Guillaumet or Saint-Exupéry – he knew all three of them. Refusing a path all mapped-out as a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance, he chose aviation because of his taste for travel and adventure. In January 1923, he left for Syria, sent there as a fighter pilot in the 53rd Escadrille of the Levant, based at Deir-ez-zor. On a Breguet XIV he took part in peace keeping operations in Syria, earning himself the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille du Levant and bar. Each day he wrote down the important events of his daily life in his moleskin notebook: his flying missions, his relations with the local population, his discovery of Syrian towns and countryside. These notes gave rise to a manuscript, unpublished until today. He became an insurance broker in his native city, Reims. Marcel Migeo wrote ten or so books most of which were devoted to flying. We owe him accounts of the war, like Batailles dans le ciel (Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Aéro-Club de France) and biographies of Saint-Exupéry, Henri Guillaumet, Maryse Bastié and Dider Daurat. Almost a hundred years later, his writings on Syria have a pertinent and astonishingly contemporary flavour since the country is being torn apart by a six-year-old civil war which has taken on an international dimension. The journalist and writer, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, himself from Reims, has written the preface to this book as a tribute to the memory of Marcel Migeo whom he knew and whose tales of youth in turn have something to do with developing his own interest in that heroic period of aviation.

L’un des As du Normandie-Niémen avec seize victoires homologuées, Roger Sauvage a publié peu après son retour en France le récit de son expérience au sein de cette unité de chasse franco-russe devenue mythique dans l’histoire de l’aviation. Racontant la vie du « Neu-Neu » au plus près des combats et du quotidien des pilotes comme des mécaniciens, Un du Normandie-Niémen a rencontré un grand succès dès sa sortie et a été plusieurs fois réédité par la suite. Désormais introuvable, ce livre aussi vivant qu’instructif est très recherché par les passionnés d’aéronautique. Heimdal répond aujourd’hui à leur attente en proposant un ouvrage grand format comprenant l’intégralité du texte original, enrichi d’éclairages historiques permettant d’en mieux comprendre les différentes parties. Mais aussi, grâce à la famille de Roger Sauvage, un très grand nombre de photos dont une bonne partie prises par l’aviateur lui-même sur le front russe. Sans oublier les caricatures de Pierre Déchanet, dessinateur du groupe et ami de Roger Sauvage. C’est la première fois que ces dessins, relatant la vie quotidienne du « Neu-Neu » avec détails et humour, vont être présentés dans leur intégralité.

So little is known about the weapons, uniforms and living conditions of World War II Japanese soldiers (Heitai), these almost undisputed conquerors who operated throughout East Asia during the conflict. Through this magnificently illustrated book, the reader can finally have a glimpse into the personal possessions of the soldiers of the Imperial Army. Drawing upon an impressive collection – carefully preserved through the decades – every aspect of an Heitai’s daily existence is detailed with beautiful photos accompanied by a description. All items are classified, from weapons to clothes (tropical and polar) through to food, communication equipment, decorations, helmets, badges, devices of vision, gas masks, water bottles, cameras, tents and shoes. Also included are Propaganda posters and readings provided to the Heitai during long quiet periods of service, isolated on the Pacific islands. By studying the equipment of Japanese soldiers – from the dagger to the toothbrush, and from the grenade to underwear – we can uncover the history of these soldiers in a more in depth and evocative way than the cinema or a text could ever achieve. At the same time, it is interesting to note the differences and similarities between the equipment of an Imperial Army fighter and that of a GI. “Heitai” is an exceptional work on the Imperial Army that provides unique insights of the Japanese fighters, formerly America’s most formidable enemy.

On the 5th of June 1940, the Germans launched their second great offensive of the western campaign against a much-enfeebled French army. Despite intense fighting around the Somme and the Aisne the numerical superiority of the enemy began to tell forcing the French troupes to gradually retreat. On June 13th Weygand sent out the order to retreat and save itself at which point it would appear that the campaign was over. However, fierce fighting continued around the areas of the Loire, Verdun, the Sarre and the Rhine. Over twelve days a struggle raged between those who wanted to continue the fight lead by Reynaud and de Gaulle and those who favoured and armistice led by Weygand and Petain. The fall of the Reynaud government on the 16th June sealed the end of the French campaign.