18 Products

By the summer of 1940 nearly a million and a half British men had joined the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), a response to the very real threat of invasion by a rapidly advancing German Army. This book explores the LDV’s transformation from an enthusiastic yet ill-equipped organisation into the capable Home Guard, which, as the threat of invasion receded, nevertheless became key to the UK’s local defence strategy, as well as a means of combating the purported Fifth Column. Off-mint.

Before 1802 the Royal Marines were known as the Marine Corps, a small but powerful contingent that operated amphibiously to link land and sea, Army and Navy. This detailed history of the Corps charts its transformation into the first modern rapid reaction force and includes the evolution of its operational structures, methods of recruitment (often from criminals) and its role in Britain’s notorious ‘gunboat diplomacy’.

During the North African campaign in 1942, the British used a special force of German-speaking Jews recruited from displaced Germans in Palestine. This ‘Special Interrogation Group’ was equipped with German military police uniforms and equipment and tasked with gathering crucial information from behind enemy lines. This book outlines the formation of the unit and describes its part in the raid on Tobruk in September 1942, which involved trekking across hundreds of miles of desert disguised as German soldiers transporting PoWs.

Although the value of radar to the defence of southern England during the Battle of Britain is well known, little has been written about the electronic arms race that developed thereafter. In addition to radar tracking and communication, radio technology became increasingly important in target and bomb-guidance systems. This book tells the story of the RAF support squadron that provided vital protection to Bomber Command operations by employing radio jamming and radar countermeasures against German defences.

From the German use of paratroopers on Crete (convincing the British and Americans to form their own airborne units) to the Chindits of the Burmese jungle and the Partisans of Yugoslavia, special units and clandestine tactics were a key feature of the Second World War. This analysis uses over 100 colour maps to describe some of the major operations ranging from daring raids, such as the Dam Busters bomber attacks, to large-scale special-forces assaults such as Operation Market Garden.

From the first raids against Royal Navy warships by Italian commando frogmen in 1940, the authors offer a detailed chronicle of frogmen, torpedo chariots and X-Craft midget submarines in action during the Second World War.

Of the many special forces set up after 1940 to 'set Europe ablaze', in Churchill's phrase, some have since become household names, such as the Parachute Regiment and the SAS, while others, having had brief and covert existences, are little known today. This well-illustrated book, aimed at the militaria collector, sets in context the growth and development of Allied Special Forces during the Second World War and provides a guide to the distinctive insignia that they wore.

The stalemate of trench warfare in the First World War precipitated a gradual move towards more dynamic attacks by smaller units. These tactics became especially associated with the German 'stoss' or shock troops, the term later giving way to the more colourful 'stormtroopers'. This analysis of tactical developments in the German Army demonstrates how the elite units emerged and built their reputation, setting the groundwork for the fearsome agents of blitzkrieg in the 1930s.

British intelligence had limited resources in fascist Italy, but still played a crucial role in the conflict there, not least when agent Dick Mallaby was plucked from imprisonment to undertake clandestine communications about the Italian surrender. Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and drawing on many previously classified documents, this is the official history of the Special Operations Executive in Italy, revealing missions as daring as a plot to assassinate Mussolini and plans to arm the Mafia.

Biographies of top WWII snipers, providing technical information, incisive character profiles and graphic insights into the lifestyles of these highly disciplined marksmen. (b&w plates)

The midget submarines that were famously used to attack the battleship Tirpitz in 1943 were developed further and the improved 'XE-class' craft were used in a daring attack on Singapore harbour in 1945. This history recounts how 18 British, Australian and New Zealand submariners, two of whom were awarded the Victoria Cross and several others decorated, piloted two XE craft through the Japanese defences to successfully incapacitate the heavy cruiser Takao.

During the Second World War, the unique conditions of the various theatres together with advances in transport and communications technology opened up new tactical possibilities for a number of daring and unorthodox leaders and their units of elite 'special forces'. This book explores the careers of the most important British, American, German, and Italian Special Forces leaders of the war, including Orde Wingate of the Chindits and David Stirling, founder of the SAS.