On The Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnam—beginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out.His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril, hardship, and close calls as the best of battle memoirs but it is primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their stories and memorialize their sacrifice. The great books about Vietnam journalism have been about print reporters, still photographers, and television correspondents but if this was truly the first “television war,” then it is time to hear the story of the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living rooms. An award-winning sensation when it was released in Japan in 2008, this book been completely re-created for an international audience. In 2008, the Japanese edition was published by Kodansha in two hardback volumes and titled "I Wanted to Be Capa." It won the 2009 Oya Soichi Nonfiction Award-a prize usually reserved for much younger writers—and Kodansha almost doubled their initial print run to meet the demand. In that period, he was interviewed extensively, a documentary was filmed in which he returned to the people and places of his wartime experience, and a dramatization of his book was written and presented on NHK Radio. A Kodansha paperback was published in 2010 with an initial printing of 17,000 copies and continues to sell at a respectable pace. "Tony Hirashiki is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built. From the day he approached the Bureau Chief in Saigon with a note pinned to his shirt saying he could shoot pictures to the anxious afternoon of 9/11 when we lost him in the collapse of the Twin Towers (and he emerged covered in dust clutching his precious beta tapes,) Tony reported the news with his camera and in doing so, he brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions of Americans." David Westin, Former President of ABC News

The 1st Infantry Division was established in 1917 to participate in the fighting in France and faced the major German offensives of 1918. During the Second World War, it effected its first assault landing in North Africa in 1942. Then followed the invasion of Sicily, D-Day in Normandy, the battle of the Bulge and the conquest of the Reich, as far as Czechoslovakia. According to the division lore, at the time, the U.S. Army consisted of the First Infantry Division and eight million replacements! Thanks to hundreds of historical pictures, the reader will follow the Big Red One’s glorious path in its most difficult assignments.

Award-winning author Scott L. Mingus, Sr., combines the best stories of Volumes One and Two with new anecdotes and photos presenting a complete edition. The Complete Human Interest Stories of the Gettysburg Campaign will resonate with all those intrigued by fascinating stories — both humorous and tragic — as seen through the eyes of Gettysburg soldiers and civilians. Using primary sources including diaries, pension records, historical collections, official records, journals, newspapers, and books, features are presented in chronological order.

“It could be classified as a mere skirmish, but no other fight of the entire four years’ struggle was followed by such important consequences,” explained former Confederate General Thomas Munford years after the Civil War. “It extinguished the campfires of the hitherto invincible army and was the mortal blow which caused the Southern Confederacy to perish forever.” The Battle of Five Forks broke the long siege of Petersburg, triggered the evacuation of Richmond, precipitated the Appomattox Campaign, and destroyed the careers and reputations of two generals. Michael J. McCarthy’s Confederate Waterloo is the first fully researched and unbiased booklength account of this decisive Union victory and the aftermath fought in the courts and at the bar of public opinion.General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had been locked into the sprawling defenses surrounding the logistical stronghold of Petersburg and the Southern capital at Richmond for more than eight months when General Grant struck beyond his far left flank to break the extended Rebel lines. A series of battles led up to April 1, when General Phil Sheridan’s forces struck at Five Forks. The attack surprised and collapsed General George Pickett’s Confederate command and turned Lee’s right flank. An attack along the entire front the following morning broke the siege and forced the Virginia army out of its defenses and, a week later, into Wilmer McLean’s parlor to surrender at Appomattox.Despite this decisive Union success, Five Forks spawned one of the most bitter and divisive controversies in the postwar army when Sheridan relieved Fifth Corps commander Gouverneur K. Warren for perceived failures connected to the battle. The order generated a lifelong effort by Warren and his allies to restore his reputation by demonstrating that Sheridan’s action was both unfair and dishonorable. The struggle climaxed with a Court of Inquiry that generated a more extensive record of testimony and exhibits than any other U.S. military judicial case in the 19th Century. In addition to Sheridan and Warren, participants included Gens. U. S. Grant and Winfield S. Hancock, and a startling aggregation of former Confederate officers.McCarthy’s Confederate Waterloo is grounded upon extensive research and a foundation of primary sources, including the meticulous records of a man driven to restore his honor in the eyes of his colleagues, his family, and the American public. The result is a fresh dispassionate analysis that may cause students of the Civil War to reassess their views about some of the Union’s leading generals.

This short book is a chronological and non-exhaustive study of photographs, letters, stories, weapons, and uniforms of soldiers. This study gives the opportunity to access the very private lives of soldiers who participated in various operations on the Western Front during the Great War.

It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two U.S. Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the juggernaut they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. The first 40 men who came to Berlin in mid-1956 were soon reinforced by 60 more and these 100 soldiers (and their successors) would stand ready to go to war at only two hours’ notice, in a hostile area occupied by nearly one million Warsaw Pact forces, until 1990. Their mission should hostilities commence was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines, and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each man was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, intelligence tradecraft and able to act if necessary as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin was a one of a kind unit that had no parallel. It left a legacy of a new type of soldier expert in unconventional warfare, one that was sought after for other deployments including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the U.

During the Vietnam war 3500 officers and men served in the Swift Boat program in a fleet of 130 boats with no armor plating. The boats patrolled the coast and rivers of South Vietnam, with the average age of the crew being twenty-four. Their days consisted of deadly combat, intense lightning firefights, storms and many hidden dangers. This action-packed story of combat written by Dan Daly, a Vietnam combat veteran who was the Officer in Charge of PCF 76 makes you part of the Swift Boat crew. The six man crew of PCF 76 were volunteers from all over the United States, eager to serve their country in a highly unique type of duty not seen since the PT boats of WWII. This inexperienced and disparate group of men would meld into a combat team – a team that formed an unbreakable, lifelong bond. After training they were plunged into a 12 month tour of duty. Combat took place in the closest confines imaginable, where the enemy were hidden behind a passing sand dune or a single sniper could be concealed in an onshore bunker, mines might be submerged at every fork in the river. The enemy was all around you, hiding, waiting, while your fifty-foot Swift Boat works its way upriver. In many cases the rivers became so narrow there was barely room to maneuver or turn around. The only way out might be into a deadly ambush. Humor and a touch of romance relieve the tension in this thrilling ride with America's finest.

The American battleship USS Iowa is one of the most famous warships of World War Two era. Built in 1943 at New York Naval Yard she was the lead ship of a series of four battleships of the class named after her and deemed some of the world’s largest and best. During the Second World War USS Iowa went into history as a ship aboard which the president of the USA Franklin Delano Roosevelt travelled to Tehran, where the infamous Tehran Conference, in which two other leaders: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet prime minister Joseph Stalin participated, was held. Later the ship was sent to serve in the Pacific, where she took part in almost all major operations against Japanese forces. After a short overhaul in San Francisco in early 1945 she continued operations against Japan, taking part among others in shelling of Kyushu, Honshu and Hokkaido islands, and on 27 August 1945 the ship’s crew accepted surrender of Yokosuka naval base. After the end of the war, in early 1946 Iowa was the flagship of the 5th Fleet, operating in Gulf of Tokio waters and after the return to the US her role was limited to that of a training ship.

Battleship Vittorio Veneto was one of the three Italian Littorio class battleships operating in the Second World War. She was one of the most modern and powerful battleships of her times. She was designed by General Umberto Pugliese and engineer Francesco Mazzullo. She was the first battleship to exceed the limit of 35,000 tons of displacement imposed in the Washington Naval Treaty. The keel of the Vittorio Veneto battleship was laid down by the Italian shipbuilder “Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico”, in Trieste, on 28th October 1934.She was launched on July 1937 and began her service in the Italian Fleet (Regia Marina) by August 1940. She was named in honour of the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto in the First World War and she had three sisters ships: Littorio, Roma and Impero (the last one was never completed). She was armed with a main battery of nine 381 millimeters guns and three triple turrets. She was able to reach the speed of 30 knots (56 Km/h).

The contract for construction of the Panzerschiff E (Ersatz Hessen) was signed with the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel on January 25, 1934. The ship was laid down on February 14 of the same year, but the construction process was halted on July 5, 1934 and the slipway was cleared. In practice, the elements of the hull that had already been built were removed from the slipway. Important, however, was the fact that the contract for the construction of the ship remained valid and it was to be resumed as soon as the modified design had been approved. The most important decision concerning the addition of the third gun turret was made on June 27, 1934 and that was the reason to suspend the construction for some time. However, the 28 cm calibre of the main battery was retained. This decision was taken solely to avoid further delays and the design itself allowed for the subsequent re-armament of the battleship. During the design process, it was recommended that the barbettes were chosen in such a way as to allow for the installation of the larger calibre guns (330, 250 or 380 mm). It was estimated that the re-armament procedure would take approximately 12 to 15 months. The alteration of the number of the main battery guns affected the change of the previous classification from Panzerschiff (armoured ship) into Schlachtschiff (battleship). For the second time the ship was officially laid down on July 6, 1935. The hull was launched on December 8, 1936 and the christening ceremony speech was given by Colonel General Freiherr von Fritsch. The ship’s godmother was the widow of the late Julius Maerker – commander of the armoured cruiser Gneisenau. The launching ceremony did not go without a minor incident. Due to defective drag weights, the launched hull could not be completely stopped, so it hit the wall of the opposite Hindenburg Embankment. Luckily for the ship, the quay sustained more damage than the hull. Further fitting out work continued according to schedule and on May 21, 1938 the ship was commissioned into the Kriegsmarine. Captain Erich Förster, former commander of the light cruiser Karlsruhe, became her commanding officer.

Scirè was an Italian Adua-class submarine, which served during World War II in the Regia Marina (the Italian Navy). She was named after the Ethiopian region, where there was a battle between the Italian and Abyssinian troops during the war in Ethiopia in 1936. She was laid down by the Italian shipbuilder “Odero-Terni-Orlando (OTO)”, in La Spezia, on January 30, 1937. She was launched on January 6, 1938 and was commissioned into “Regia Marina” on April 25, 1938. During the war, she was modified to carry three mini submarines (SLCs). Actually she is one of the most famous submarines in the world due to the missions to Gibraltar and Alexandria.

Laid down at Kure on 11 March 1912, launched 28 March 1914, joined the Navy on 8 November 1915. He was the second battleship bearing the name of the first "Fuso" was one of the first ships of the Imperial Navy,participated in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese war, and among the officers who took him to England, Admiral. The battleship Fuso enrolled in the 1st division of the linear ships of the First fleet. Japan at this time was involved in the first world war, but the ship was tested and the course of combat training in peacetime. The first long-range voyage of the new battleship became patrulirovanie Chinese waters April 1917.

Musashi battleship was the second ship of the Yamato class of Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. She and her sister, Yamato, were the heaviest and most powerful battleships ever constructed, displacing 72800 tons at full load and armed with nine 46 cm Type 94 main guns. Musashi was commissioned on August 1942 and assigned to the 1st Battleship Division. In early 1943 the ship was transferred to Truk, that was the Empire of Japan’s main base in the South Pacific. During this year she sortied several times with the fleet searching for American forces, without success. In 1944 she was used to transfer forces and equipment between Japan and various occupied islands. In early 1944 she was damaged by an American submarine attack and was forced to return to Japan for repairs. In this occasion she was strongly enhanced with anti-aircraft armament. She was present during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June, but she didn’t engage in combat with the American forces. On 24 October 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, after several hours of fighting, Musashi was sunk by a large number of torpedos and bombs hit from the American carrier-based aircraft. The wreck was located in March 2015 by the team of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, to a depth of about 1350 meters (4430 feet).

Yahagi, the second Japanese warship of that name, was the third of the four Agano-class vessels (the other three being Agano, Noshiro and Sakawa). Construction of the Agano-class cruisers was approved by the Japanese parliament (Diet) in March 1939 under the Fourth Naval Armaments Enhancement Program (Dai-Yon-Ji Kaigun Gunbi Jūjitsu Keikaku), also known as “Four-in-Circle” Program (Maru Yon Keikaku), or simply Maru 4. Under the terms of the program, the four light cruisers (kei jun’yōkan), also referred to as type B cruisers (otsu-gata jun’yōkan, or simply otsu jun) and officially classed as second-class cruisers (ni-tō jun’yōkan), were to fulfill the role of destroyer squadron flagships. At that time destroyer squadrons (DesRon), called literarily torpedo squadrons (suirai sentai), consisted of four four-ship destroyer divisions (DesDiv, or kuchiku-tai).

General William T. Sherman’s 1865 Carolinas Campaign receives scant attention from most Civil War historians, largely because it was overshadowed by the Army of Northern Virginia’s final battles against the Army of the Potomac. Career military officers Mark A. Smith and Wade Sokolosky rectify this oversight with No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar, a careful and impartial examination of Sherman’s army and its many accomplishments.The authors dedicate their professional training and research and writing abilities to the critical days of March 11-16, 1865—the overlooked run-up to the seminal Battle of Bentonville (March 19-21, 1865). They begin with the capture of Fayetteville and the demolition of the arsenal there, before chronicling the two-day Battle of Averasboro in more detail than any other study. At Averasboro, Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee’s Confederates conducted a well-planned and brilliantly executed defense-in-depth that held Sherman’s juggernaut in check for two days. With his objective accomplished, Hardee disengaged and marched to concentrate his corps with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston for what would become Bentonville.This completely revised and updated edition of “No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar”: Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign from Fayetteville to Averasboro, March 1865 is based upon extensive archival and firsthand research. It includes new original maps, orders of battle, abundant illustrations, and a detailed driving and walking tour for dedicated battlefield enthusiasts. Readers with an interest in the Carolinas, Generals Sherman and Johnston, or the Civil War in general will enjoy this book.

Joe Singleton was an unlikely hero. A junior manager at a paints and varnish company at the outbreak of war, he was surprised to discover he had a hidden talent for flying. Despite RAF Fighter Squadrons crying out for replacements after the carnage of the Battle of Britain, Joe was posted to the rapidly developing world of night fighting. He flew first Defiants then Beaufighters as the technological race to field effective night fighters hotted up leading to the first tentative attempts to put radar inside an aircraft. He found himself in the thick of the very earliest stages of ground controlled interception and airborne radar engagements. But the grind of fruitless searches and patrols only served to highlight the futility of lives lost in training and the inherent dangers of flying at night with relatively primitive equipment. His skills finally began to bear fruit when piloting a Mosquito and he took place in several successful missions. But the pinnacle came on the night of 19th March 1944 when he scrambled to intercept a big German raid on Hull and he located and shot down a Junkers 188, then went on to shoot down two more, all in the space of thirteen dramatic minutes. He and his navigator survived the crash-landing that ensued, and he went on to be feted as a national hero. Three in Thirteen is a unique sortie-by-sortie account of his journey from bewildered recruit to celebrated expert, illustrated with extracts from Joe’s RAF logbook, and unpublished photographs and illustrations. Roger Dunsford’s extensive experience as an RAF pilot brings a vivid immediacy to Joe’s experiences combined with astute analysis of the planes, the tactics and the events of that fateful night.