Quality Military History and Aviation Books!
During the Second World War, Focke-Wulf installed a radial engine in its Fw 190 fighter to avoid competing against Messerschmitt for inline powerplants.
The Luftwaffe's decision to assign precious turbojets to Messerschmitt and Arado, and the discovery of compressibility buffeting, made fighter designs most interesting. Kurt Tank proposed to install a centrifugal turbojet of his design in the nose of a Fw 190 A/3 with the intention of replacing it with a Jumo 004 B when available in 1943. Designs followed that could use all turbojets, turboprops, ramjets and rocket engines, either projected or at their disposal.
They constitute the documental material and stunning illustrations in Focke-Wulf Jet Fighters, the first book on the subject. After failing in the TL Jagdfleugzeug contests in March 1943, Volksflugzeug in September 1944 and Hochleitungs Nachtjäger in January 1945, Focke-Wulf finally overcame its competitors with the Jägernotprogramm design: the Ta 183. Although it was too late to intervene in the dying embers of war, it served as inspiration for numerous designs in other countries.
The object of Hitler's Insanity: A Conspiracy of Silence is not to prove that Adolf Hitler was insane.
So much is obvious, both intuitively and from a clinical perspective. Nevertheless, the reasons for arriving at such a conclusion is reiterated and enlarged upon. Instead, the aim of author Andrew Norman is to discover what light Hitler’s associates were able to shed on the personality and modus operandi of the Fuehrer, and to determine the extent to which they – and indeed, Hitler himself – realised that their leader was insane.
The aim is also to investigate the cause of his insanity. In this regard, the testimony of the leading Nazis, who were tried for war crimes at Nuremberg during 1945 and 1946, are of particular relevance. These captured Nazis surely realised that in all probability they would be found guilty and their lives would terminate at the end of a rope. Surely, therefore, they had nothing to lose by giving the 'low-down' on their late Fuehrer, i.e. revealing their innermost thoughts as to his sanity or otherwise.
On 10 May 1940, the French possessed one of the largest air forces in the world. On paper, it was nearly as strong as the RAF.
Six weeks later, France had been defeated. For a struggling French Army desperately looking for air support, the skies seemed empty of friendly planes. In the decades that followed, the debate raged about what had gone wrong. Were there unused stockpiles of planes? Were French aircraft really so inferior?
Greg Baughen examines the myths that surround the French defeat. He traces some of the problems back to the very earliest days of French aviation. He explains how the lessons of the First World War were forgotten and instead unproven, radical new theories came to dominate French thinking.
Just in time, the French realised their mistake, but right up to the decisive German offensive, poor decisions and bad luck dogged French efforts to modernise their air force. Yet, despite the problems, defeat was not inevitable. If better use had been made of the planes that were available, the outcome might have been different.
When war broke out in 1939, Hitler created Strafbattalion (Penal Battalion) units to deal with incarcerated members of the Wehrmacht as well as ‘subversives’. His order stated that any first-time convicted soldier could return to his unit after he had served a portion of his sentence in '...a special probation corps before the enemy'.
Beginning in April 1941, convicted soldiers, even those sentenced to death, who had shown exceptional bravery or meritorious service could rejoin their original units; however, those in probation units were expected to undertake dangerous operations at the front.
Refusal entailed enforcement of the original sentence. The soldiers who ‘won back an honourable place in the national community’ had done everything that was asked of them from suicidal advance teams, shock troops, and laying mines under fire. By 1945, over 50,000 Wehrmacht troops had served in punishment regiments. Strafbattalion: Hitler's Penal Battalions examines the penal units, their combat history and order of battle.
Celebrated on 23 April, St George’s Day has become a topic of discussion as more people wave the flag of St George to proclaim their allegiance and identity despite knowing little about him. Who was St George? How did this Near Eastern martyr become England’s patron saint and an icon of English culture? What is his relevance for today’s secular, multicultural England?
New research reveals that from the third century, St George was revered as a healer, protector of women and the poor, and patron of agriculture and metal-working more than merely a military dragon-slayer. St George and the Dragons explores the origin of the cross of St George and the roles of Richard I, Edward III, and Henry VIII in making St George the patron saint of England.
With a foreword by Professor Emeritus Dan Brown, this richly illustrated celebration of English culture shows how St George can be reinterpreted for our times while remaining true to our English heritage. English, yet international, revered both by Christians and Muslims, St George is a multicultural figure who symbolises universal values.
On January 7, 1891, following the assassination of Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, an obscure Sioux Indian shot and killed Lieutenant Casey in cold blood.
This is the story of the civil trials of Plenty Horses for the murder of the last white man to die in the Great Plains War, trials that legally and dramatically agonized over justifying criminal acts committed during warfare.
Four decades of continuous conflict - skirmishes, battles, massacres and atrocities committed by both sides - provide the catalyst to this incident. Mainly told from an Indian perspective through eyewitness accounts, this volume details aspects of previously lost Lakota and Cheyenne culture and spirituality.
Representing the clash between white expansionism and the continuation of tribal life on the Great Plains, A Man Called Plenty Horses explores decades of bloody fighting, broken treaties, the loss of hunting lands and the slaughter of the buffalo.
Hall's expert analysis investigates Plenty Horses’s forced assimilation into white culture, his despair of life on reservations and the damaging consequences to his cultural heritage caused during the aftermath of his crime, while also considering the wider ranging repercussions on native communities.
The assumption is that most of what we know about the Romans and their history comes from Roman and Greek historians. While this is true up to a point, the reality is that there are many other primary sources that combine to give us the composite picture we have today of the Romans and their world.
The Romans had, in effect, their own brand of social media, engineered to disseminate information, legislation, propaganda, and misinformation to state and religious officials, citizens, the military, and to the enemy - wherever they be. We know what the Romans did for us: roads, central heating, and so on, but, just as importantly, they also developed and perfected records, record-keeping, and other methods of information storage and communication. It is the Roman preoccupation with record keeping and dissemination that informs the picture we have today of Roman civilisation.
Roman Record Keeping & Communications is the first to analyse what Roman social media is: the keeping of records and archive material, and ways of communicating it. Uniquely, this volume assesses the impact this information had in Roman history and on our own appraisal of that history.
The final part of the Lion and the Rose trilogy detailing the TF battalions of the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in the Great War.
Established in 1914, the 2/5th spent thirty months in England engaged in almost every sort of training other than that which they would need at the Front. When they deployed to France in 1917, they were pitted against an aggressive and experienced foe.
The Lion and the Rose: A Biography of a Battalion in the Great War tells the story of their struggle to learn the skills necessary to survive in the pitiless arena of modern warfare and their progress to become the fighting equals of any by the end of the war. With no history written for either 57 Division or the 2/5th, this publication, based on contemporary and unpublished sources, tells their story for the first time.
The book contains sketch maps of the sectors the battalion fought in; accurate co-ordinates for all positions; previously unpublished photographs; the most complete battalion roll yet compiled; and narrates the individual parts played by 1,000 of the officers and men during the war.
This selection is really worth exploring. Fonthill are quickly becoming my favourite publisher as their books are always interesting and the subjects although ‘off-the-beaten-track’ seem focused and offering something new. I am down for St George & the Dragons and A Man called Plenty Horses. Looking forward to reading them.
I came across Strafbattalion and I must say the book is really informative and well put together. There are some interesting titles in this line up – Hitler’s Insanity looks intriguing, so does The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force. From the ‘recommended’ selection I would go for the Steve Winwood and Black Sabbath.