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A Home on the Rolling Main

Author: Tony Ditcham

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1848321759

From first joining the Royal Navy in 1940 until the end of the campaign against Japan, Tony Ditcham was in the front line of the naval war. After brief service in the battlecruiser Renown off Norway and against the Italians, he went into destroyers and saw action in most European theatres _ against S-boats and aircraft in 'bomb alley' off Britain's East Coast, on Arctic convoys to Russia, and eventually in a flotilla screening the Home Fleet. During the dramatic Battle of the North Cape in December 1943 he was probably the first man to actually see the Scharnhorst and from his position in the gun director of HMS Scorpion enjoyed a grandstand view of the sinking of the great German battleship (his account was so vivid that it formed the basis of the description in the official history). Later his ship operated off the American beaches during D-Day, where two of her sister ships were sunk with heavy loss of life, and he ended the war en route for the British Pacific Fleet and the invasion of Japan.??This incident-packed career is recounted with restraint, plenty of humour and colourful descriptive power _ his account of broaching and almost capsizing in an Arctic winter storm is as good as anything in the literature of the sea. The result makes enthralling reading, and as the surviving veterans rapidly decline in numbers, this may turn out to be one of the last great eyewitness narratives of the naval war.

British Humour and the Second World War

Author: Juliette Pattinson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-06-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1350199486

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This book skilfully combines cutting-edge historical research by leading and emerging researchers in the field to investigate the utilization of British humour during the Second World War as well as its legacy in British popular culture. Juliette Pattinson and Linsey Robb bring together case studies that address a variety of situations in which humour was generated, including wartime jokes, films, radio, cartoons and private drawings, as well as post-war recollections, museum exhibitions and television comedy. By adopting an original interpretative framework of various wartime and post-war sites, this books opens up the possibility for a more variegated, richer analysis of Britain's wartime experience and its place thereafter in the cultural imagination. Through the lens of humour, this book promises to add critical nuance to our understanding of the functioning of British wartime society. Covering sources such as The British Cartoon Archive, BBC World War II People's War Archive and The Ministry of Information, and including analysis of the lasting role of comedy in Britain's memories and depictions of the war, the result is a rich addition to existing literature of use to students and scholars studying the cultural history of war.

Sand and Steel

Author: Peter Caddick-Adams

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 1070

ISBN-13: 0190601892

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"Sand and Steel gives us D-Day, arguably the greatest and most consequential military operation of modern times, beginning with the years of painstaking and costly preparation, through to the pitched battles fought along France's northern coast, from Omaha Beach to the Falaise and the push east to Strasbourg. In addition to covering the build-up to the invasion, including the elaborate and lavish campaigns to deceive Germans as to where and when the invasion would take place, Peter Caddick-Adams gives a full and detailed account of the German preparations, but the heart of the book is Caddick-Adams' narratives of the five beaches where the terrible drama played out--Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, and the attempt by American, British, and Canadian soldiers to gain a foothold in Europe"--

The Iron Sea

Author: Simon Read

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0306921707

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From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet. The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships -- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean -- roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence." The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea. Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.

The War for England's Shores

Author: G. H. Bennett

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2023-09-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1557504970

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The War for England's Shores examines the Kriegsmarine’s S-Boat offensive along the English Channel and the North Sea from 1940 to 1945, together with British (later Allied) responses to nullify that threat. The campaign against the convoys running along the coast of Britain has been overlooked by historians. Swift and armed with torpedoes and mines, the S-Boat posed a serious threat to the convoys forced to run along the British coast as often as six days out of every seven. Using an array of archival materials from Britain, Germany, and the United States, The War for England’s Shores examines why the Germans failed to make the most of this opportunity to disrupt the British war economy. G. H. Bennett analyzes how the British slowly nullified the threat by embracing new technologies and developing a system of sea control to gradually force the German S-Boat arm to transition from offensive action against Britain's coastal convoys to the defensive posture of waiting for an invasion of France. Considering the war along Britain's coastal convoy routes in the context of twenty-first-century interest in littoral warfare, this work has vital, current appeal using the German S-Boat campaign of 1940 to 1945 to offer significant and surprising new insights.

Rommel's Ghost Division

Author: David Mitchelhill-Green

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2024-07-25

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1526715198

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Adolf Hitler invaded Western Europe on 10 May 1940. After breaking through the supposedly ‘impenetrable’ Ardennes, Erwin Rommel was at the forefront of the Wehrmacht’s audacious drive through France. Rommel, who had no prior experience leading an armored division in combat, moved with such speed and nerve that he frequently surprised French units by arriving far earlier than expected. Crossing the Meuse River, we follow Rommel—in what he referred to as ‘practically a lightning Tour de France’—as he pushed through northern France to the English Channel. His spectacular victory at the coastal port of Saint-Valéry-en-Caux was crowned by the capture of Cherbourg. Following the armistice, Rommel was involved in reenacting certain battles, such as crossing the Somme, for the documentary Sieg im Westen (Victory in the West). This is the story of Rommel and the 7th Panzer Division—the so-called ‘Ghost Division’—in France, 1940.

He Who Would Valiant Be

Author: Terry Lewin

Publisher: eBook Partnership

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1783018399

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Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin was the last Military leader of Great Britain to serve throughout the entire duration of WW2. A career that culminated in his role as head of the British Armed Forces and a seat in the victorious Cabinet of Prime Minister Thatcher that restored British Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. This important book is the very first step on that career path. Since the time of Nelson Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were obliged to keep a Journal, a record of the life, events and actions of the ship in which they served. Terry Lewin was posted as a 19-years old to HMS Valiant, a Jutland-era battleship in December 1939. This book faithfully reproduces his hand-written record of the first year of the War seen from a ship at sea. All Midshipmen kept a journal, not all Midshipmen went on to influence the development of the modern Navy to the extent achieved by Terry Lewin. This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in WW2, and life in the Royal Navy.