Only six escapees survived the Sandakan death marches of 1945 in North Borneo, the worst atrocity ever inflicted on Australian soldiers. 1787 Australian and 641 British POWs perished. Previous descriptions of the numerous violent acts have yielded little understanding of a situation where the real struggle was to keep one’s humanity when so many were losing theirs, whether Allied POWs, local residents of Borneo, Javanese slave labourers, or Japanese soldiers. Understanding this extraordinary story is aided by reference to a wide range of sources in different countries and disciplines, and by examining the perspectives of all players in this terrible game of survival.An unusual and extreme POW story, the Sandakan tragedy had four stages: active resistance in 1942-3, stubborn endurance in 1943–4, the collapse of civilized existence in 1945 and, finally, the postwar decades of torment for the six damaged survivors, the gradual assimilation of the story, the healing of the damage and the commemoration of the tragedy by the families and communities involved.

On a rainy evening during the Civil War’s second May, President Abraham Lincoln and two of his cabinet secretaries boarded a treasury department ship to sail to Union-held Fort Monroe in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The trip resulted in the first and only time in the country’s history that a sitting president took direct control of military forces, both army and navy, to wage a campaign with wide-ranging consequences. This little-known slice of the war and its effect on the president is the subject of Steve Norder’s Lincoln Takes Command: The Campaign to Seize Norfolk and the Destruction of the CSS Virginia. For five days that May, Lincoln studied maps, suggested military actions and—in his quiet, respectful way—issued direct orders to subordinate commanders. Helped by movements farther up the Virginia peninsula, the president’s decisions resulted in a host of military actions and successes, including: a naval bombardment of a Confederate fort, the sailing of Union ships up the James River closer to the enemy capital, an amphibious landing of Union soldiers, the capture of Norfolk and the vital Portsmouth and Gosport navy yards, and the destruction of the Rebel ironclad CSS Virginia. Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s treasury secretary, described the actions as a “brilliant week’s campaign.” The president returned to Washington in triumph, hailed as a military and civilian leader. Indeed, some urged him to take direct command of the nation’s field armies.Norder’s years-long investigation draws upon a host of primary sources, including letters, diaries, official reports, and memoirs. This rich blending of material allows for a fresh perspective and interesting insights.Untold numbers of books have been penned about Abraham Lincoln, his presidency, and his struggles during the Civil War, but the fascinating week within the covers of Lincoln Takes Command—which helped shape him as a war president—has never has been told in such full detail. The successes that crowned his short time in Hampton Roads changed the nation’s commander in chief by giving him more of an understanding and confidence in his ability to see what needed to be accomplished, insight that sustained him through the rest of the war.

New Zealand, with close ties to Britain, was heavily involved in the war against Nazi Germany on the battle lines in Greece, Crete, the Middle East, North Africa and Italy. The experience was eye-opening for the new emerging nation, and a lasting bond between New Zealand and Greece was formed. Greece was a poor country in turmoil and pain during the 1940s. A military dictatorship was followed by invasion and terrifying occupation by Germany and its allies, starvation, civil war, political unrest and mutiny in its free military armed forces. New Zealand entered this arena and found a bond with a people that it still celebrates to this day. Absent is the complex, divisive and sometimes violent and surreal relationship between the two countries and the inescapable influence of Britain. Their story stretches from the mountains and open country of Greece and Crete to Middle East deserts, autumn-swept plains of Italy, and the blood-splattered streets of post-liberated Athens. Ironically New Zealand has forgotten the unpalatable but also sacrificed something that would have enhanced its own national storytelling about the war.

This modern and GPS located guidebook to the WW1 battlefields of Ypres and the Somme includes contextual information, maps, photographs and personal stories. This is the book that gives you the experience of a professional guide but allows you to ‘dip in’ andgo at your own pace in your own car. Many people visit the First World War battlefields and leave disappointed, not understanding the connection to the sites they go to or their significance. This guidebook by an experienced teacher, explains the sites, the context and the stories in a simple and easily understood way so that you can enjoy your visit more fully. The book is new and fit for the modern day with GPS locations that can be easily looked up on smart phones and other devices and mapdiagrams which show how to get the most out of the sites when there. There is also contextual information, diagrams and tables to help the understanding of the sites. The book is packed with over 100 maps, illustrations and photographs showing locations, routes and conditions at the time. It also includespersonal stories, the ones normally reserved for the professional guides. It is less about the big picture of brigades and armies and more about what happened on the ground and how you can link the stories to what you can still see.

A revised and updated single-source reference book which accurately details the German field forces employed in Normandy in 1944 and their losses. Dr. Zetterling provides a sobering analysis of the subject matter and debunks a number of popular myths concerning the campaign (the effectiveness of Allied air power; the preferential treatment of Waffen-SS formations in comparison to their army counterparts; etc. ). He supports his text with exhaustive footnoting and provides an organizational chart for most of the formations covered in the book. Includes numerous organizational diagrams, charts, tables and graphs.

After spending four years in the Merchant Navy discovering the world and its pleasures, Werner Henke entered the Reichsmarine as an officer cadet in 1934. However, his need for freedom to go and resume his feminine conquests, his brawling, his love of jazz and dancing, excluded him from the active service of the officer corps of the Kriegsmarine in February 1941. He was aboard U-124 at the time as third officer, out on patrol. Picked out by Admiral Doenitz who was looking for strong personalities to command his U-Boats, he continuedthe patrol as an “officer on availability”. The admiral told him that if he was successful, his slate would be wiped clean. During his last patrol as second officer of U-124, he proved himself by supervising the firing of the torpedoes which sank 6 allied ships. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, was reinstated for active service and was then given command of U-515, a Type IXC in February 1942. With a good crew, he obtained impressive results on his first patrol in the Caribbean by bringing back 10 pennants on his periscope when he returned to Lorient. His submarine, which entered the fray late during the summer of 1942, had already escaped 5 Allied attacks. Without hesitating he confronted a convoy of British warships alone in November 1942 ; he was also one of the rare U-Boats to obtain a kill during the Allied landings in North Africa ; U-515 resisted more than 200 depth charges. Captain Henke was awarded the Knight’s Cross. During his third patrol in the spring of 1943, as German submarine successes were on the decline, U-515 sailed to Freetown and crossed the path of a convoy in which he created panic. He sank 7 ships with their cargo, an operation that was so disastrous for the Allies that Churchill askedfor a report. Henke escaped another 6 Allied attacks. After returning to Lorient with 11 pennants, Henke was awarded the Oak Leaves. On leave in Germany, this navy officer with the strong character, who had already fought an SS officer, destroyed a local Gestapo office. The fourth patrol was cut short by the damage caused after a twelve-hour pursuit by destroyers who dropped more than 310 depth charges… Despite the shooting and the charges by a destroyer, then an attack by two bombers, the fifth patrol ended with four extra boats sunk. But when this ace of the 10th Flotilla left again on combat patrol, his experience and his cunning were not enough to save his submarine. Chased by a whole armada, he was taken prisoner by the Americans and, a rebel to the end, he chose his own destiny…

This new photo album is number 20 in the MMPBooks/Stratus "Camera On" series and is the first to cover an anti-aircraft weapon alone and whilst there have been a few books covering medium German 37mm Flak weapons before the 37 mm Flak 18/36/37 has never been covered in such photographic depth, this truly historically significant weapon along with the other German 37 mm weapons it evolved into are illustrated in this book that contains 160+ photographs. Nearly all of the photos being from the authors collection that were originally taken by ordinary German soldiers not professional propagandists. In this volume we endeavor to show this rarely illustrated equipment in detail but still show it as the soldiers viewed it as both their work place and in some cases also their home, not the highly posed and polished views of the official photographers. This book is an invaluable reference for military historians and modelers alike.

This new photo album is number 18 in the MMPBooks/Stratus "Camera On" series and is the first to cover such equipment as this historically significant mobile radar and its associated power generation equipment the book contains 140+ photographs of the Wurzburg Radar & various sub-types, its power generation sets and many of the types of prepared & temporary installations it operated from, the majority of the photos being from private collections taken by ordinary German soldiers not professional propagandists. In this volume we endeavor to show this rarely illustrated equipment in some detail but still show it as the soldiers viewed it as both their work place and also their home, not the highly posed and polished views of the official photographers.This book is an invaluable reference for military historians and modelers alike

The sad plight of the Five Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole—during America’s Civil War is both fascinating and often overlooked in the literature. From 1861-1865, the Indians fought their own bloody civil war on lands surrounded by the Kansas Territory, Arkansas, and Texas. Clint Crowe’s magisterial Caught in the Maelstrom: The Indian Nations in the Civil War reveals the complexity and the importance of this war within a war, and explains how it affected the surrounding states in the Trans-Mississippi West and the course of the broader war engulfing the country. The onset of the Civil War exacerbated the divergent politics of the five tribes and resulted in the Choctaw and Chickasaw contributing men for the Confederacy and the Seminoles contributing men for the Union. The Creeks were divided between the Union and the Confederacy, while the internal war split apart the Cherokee nation mostly between those who followed Stand Watie, a brigadier general in the Confederate Army, and John Ross, who threw his majority support behind the Union cause. Throughout, Union and Confederate authorities played on divisions within the tribes to further their own strategic goals by enlisting men, signing treaties, encouraging bloodshed, and even using the hard hand of war to turn a profit. Crowe’s well-written study is grounded upon a plethora of archival resources, newspapers, diaries, letter collections, and other accounts. Caught in the Maelstrom examines every facet of this complex and fascinating story in a manner sure to please the most demanding reader.

This is an account of the battle of Kham Duc, one of the least known and most misunderstood battles in the American Phase of the Second Indochina War (1959 to 1975). At the time it was painted as a major American defeat, but this new history tells the full story.The authors have a unique ability to reassess this battle – one was present at the battle, the other was briefed on it prior to re-taking the site two years later. The book is based on exhaustive research, revisiting Kham Duc, interviewing battle veterans, and reading interview transcripts and statements of other battle participants, including former North Vietnamese Army (NVA) officers.Based on their research, the authors contend that Kham Duc did not 'fall' and was not 'overrun'. In fact, it was a successful effort to inflict mass attrition on a major NVA force with minimum American losses by voluntarily abandoning an anachronistic little trip-wire border camp serving as passive bait for General Westmoreland's 'lure and destroy' defensive tactics, as at Khe Sanh.

The origins of most of the west’s Special Forces can be traced back to the Long Range Desert Group which operated across the limitless expanses of the Libyan Desert, an area the size of India, during the whole of the Desert War from 1940 – 1943. After the defeat of the Axis in North Africa they adapted to serve in the Mediterranean, the Greek islands, Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece. They became the stuff of legend. The brainchild of Ralph Bagnold, a pre-war desert explorer, featured, in fictional terms in The English Patient, who put all of his expertise into the creation of a new and, by the standards of the day, highly unorthodox unit. Conventional tactical thinking shunned the deep heart of the vast desert as it was thought to be a different planet, a harsh, inhospitable wilderness where British forces could not possibly survive even less operate effectively. Bagnold, Pat Clayton and Bill Kennedy Shaw created a whole new type of warfare. Using specially adapted vehicles and the techniques they’d learned in the‘30s, recruiting only men of the right temperament and high levels of fitness and endurance, the first patrols set out bristling with automatic weapons. The 30-cwt Chevy truck and the famous Jeep have become iconic, the LRDG, in a dark hour, was the force which took the fight to the enemy, roving over the deep desert – a small raider’s paradise, attacking enemy convoys and outposts, destroying aircraft and supplies, forcing the Axis to expend more and more resources protecting their vulnerable lines. Their work was often dangerous, always taxing, exhausting and uncomfortable. They were a new breed of soldier. The Axis never managed to equip any similar unit, they never escaped their fear of the scorching wilderness. Once the desert war was won they transferred their skills to the Mediterranean sector, re-training as mountain guerrillas, serving in the ill-fated Dodecanese campaign, then in strife torn Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece, fighting alongside the mercurial partisans at a time the Balkans were sliding towards communist domination or civil war. In addition LRDG worked alongside the fledgling SAS and they established, beyond all doubt, the value of highly trained Special Forces, a legacy which resonates today.

Born in June 1922, in Baden, Richard Freiherr von Rosen was to become a true Panzer man. Coming from a noble family, although he wasn’t attracted by war, he nonetheless started an officer’s career. At 18, he was incorporated into the Panzer-Ersatz-Abteilung 35. A rigorous period, after which he spent a few months of occupation in South West France before getting his baptism of fire in a Panzer III during the attack against the USSR, at the end of June 1941. Wounded a few weeks later then recovered, at the beginning of 1942, he joined the famous Wunsdorf armour school out of which he graduated as a Leutnant. In January 1943, von Rosen joined the schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502, equipped with brand new Tiger tanks in which he served on the harsh Eastern Front, in the Kalmuks Plain, before being transferred to the powerful s.Pz-Abt.503 as Zugführer. There, Baron von Rosen went through several bitter armoured confrontations to the south of Kursk, then long months of fighting across the Ukraine into Galicia in the spring of 1944, endlessly confronting the masses of Red Army T-34s. A few weeks after D-Day, the “503” was sent to Normandy where von Rosen and his “Tigers” were hit full blast by Operation Goodwood, to the east of Caen : fierce fighting against British tanks at Emiéville and Manneville. Losses were heavy and the Anglo-American superiority was crushing… Von Rosen and his battalion were withdrawn from the Normandy front, got back in condition, and then issued with new monsters, the “Königstigers”.

This latest in the Casemate Illustrated series explores American armor during the Pacific Campaign of WWII, from 1942-45. During this period there were over twenty major tank battles and operations where tanks provided heavy support to infantry units. These operations include the battle of Tarawa and the Bougainville Campaign. Relying heavily on first-person accounts, the strategies and tactics of the opposing forces are discussed. This book also looks at the Pacific theater, and how American armor was employed with great success in that theater of war. Detailed information on American and Japanese armored forces, including development, equipment, capabilities, organization, and order of battle, is given.

In the summer of 1943, the German launched Operation Zitadelle (Citadel), aimed at cutting off a large number of Soviet forces in the Kursk salient. This offensive resulted in the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of World War II.Kursk quickly became a fierce contest of attrition, as Wehrmacht and elite Waffen-SS Panzer-Divisions with their powerful Tiger and Panther tanks unsuccessfully tried to hammer their way through the intricate lines of strong Soviet defensive positions. What followed was unabated fighting for two weeks as German units were slowly and systematically ground down in a series of brutal armored battles.During this ferocious fighting the Red Army savagely contested every foot of ground, finally ending German invincibility forever. For the first time in its short history, the blitzkrieg concept had failed. The reverberations caused by the defeat at Kursk were immense, and never again did the German war machine go on the offensive in the East. Stiff defensive action was now the stratagem placed upon the dwindling Panzerwaffe right to the gates of Berlin.With comprehensive captions and text, Kursk tells the story of this dramatic battle using rare and unpublished photographs, maps, and highly detailed artist profiles. The book reveals the events leading up to the battle in the first half of 1943, and the build up of forces by both sides before their climatic showdown at Kursk.

Sighted Sub, Sank Same examines the United States Naval air campaign against German U-boats prowling for allied merchant shipping traversing the waters of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean; an economic war waged to cut the lifeline of food and armaments sailing across the Atlantic from North America. This battle of the Atlantic evolved into a far-ranging conflict beyond the North Atlantic and the eastern seaboard of the United States. It covered the frigid waters off Iceland down to the warm waters of Florida, through the Caribbean Sea, across the ocean to the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean Sea, down to Africa, and across the South Atlantic to Brazil’s southern tip. Nazi Germany’s efforts to deny supplies from reaching Europe came at a high price, losing 783 U-boats and approximately 30,000 men between 1939 and 1945 with land and carrier-based naval air units sinking 83 German submarines of the 159 sunk by American aircraft. German allies saw their submarines targeted as well in the Atlantic with Imperial Japanese submarine I-52 and the Italian Archimede falling victim to American naval aircraft armed with depth bombs or acoustic homing torpedoes. This story of the United States Navy’s use of air power to hunt down and destroy German submarines unfolds in dramatic detail in Sighted Sub, Sank Same. The book contains over 200 colour and black and white photographs allowing for a visual imagery of the campaign while personal interviews, interrogation reports, personal correspondence, and after-action reports weave a fascinating history about the naval air campaign in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean Theaters during World War II.

Appearing within the context of the Crusades in Palestine, the militaro-religious order of the Teutonic Knights imposed itself as an essential player in a relatively unknown episode in our part of the world: the conquest and evangelisation of the last pagans in Europe. Living to the south-east of the Baltic Sea, these pagans were confronted with missionary and warlike enterprises rather like crusades. Called upon to defend the frontiers of Poland against the pagans in Prussia, the brothers of the Teutonic Order carved a real state for themselves in this area of the Marches of Christianity. In its desire to tap the crusading spirit so dear to the nobility, the Teutonic order regularly invited knights from all over Europe to join in its military endeavours. Thus it was that a large number of French and English nobles, among them some key figures in the Hundred Years’ War, went off to distant Prussia to fight the “Saracens of the North”. For the rivalries which opposed the Teutonic Knights to their neighbours, pagan or Christian, led not only to military, but also doctrinal, confrontations causing debate about the rights of non-Christian peoples. This book offers a look at the history of the Order of the Teutonic Knights but brings to the forefront its role as a link between the world of chivalry and that of the pagans of North-eastern Europe. The relations of the men with the black crosses and the Baltic peoples, but also with the lords of Western Europe who came to help them, just like their role in the controversial use of force as a tool of conversion, enabled a little-known facet of medieval Europe to be revealed: its eminently cosmopolitan character, making light of national or regional borders and sometimes religious ones, too.