Hank Adlam began his naval flying career in 1941, his first operational posting was to the newly-formed No. 890 Squadron. The squadron's first operational role was to protect a convoy sailing from New York and bound for Greenock. This text contains Hank's reflections on his time as a naval fighter pilot in World War II.

In March 1945 Reg Cleworth, a navigator on PBY Catalina seaplanes flying out of Darwin, went missing in action. No details were ever given about the incident that took his life, nor the reason his plane went down. For Reg?s younger brother, Robert, the news came as a prophecy fulfilled. The last time they saw each other, Reg confided in Robert, ?I don?t think I?m coming back?. Forty years later Robert decided to investigate what happened to his brother....

It is the tutor who tells the young Gustav that he must try to be more like a coconut - that he needs a hard shell to protect the softness inside. This is what his native Switzerland has perfected - a shell to protect its neutrality, to keep its people safe. But his beloved friend, Anton, doesn't want to be safe - a gifted pianist, he longs to make his mark on the world outside. On holiday one summer in Davos, the boys stumble across a remote building....

Max Hastings' study of the greatest and most terrible event in history continues in the second part of his epic book. There are vivid descriptions of the tragedies and triumphs of a host of ordinary people, in uniform and out of it, in an 'everyman's story'. This volume includes the chapters: The Furnace: Russia in 1942, Living with War, Out of Africa, The Bear Turns: Russia in 1943, Divided Empires, Asian Fronts, Italy: High Hopes, Sour Fruits, War...

n the hard-fought winter of 1944 the Allies advanced northwards through Italy, but stalled on the fearsome mountainous defences of the Gothic Line. Two men were parachuted in, in an effort to break the deadlock. Their mission: to penetrate deep into enemy territory and lay waste to the Germans' impregnable headquarters. At the eleventh hour mission commanders radioed for David 'The Mad Piper' Kilpatrick to be flown in, resplendent in his tartan kilt....

Vietnam became the Western world?s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu,...

Liverpool, 1937. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Jessica endures her husband's petty cruelty for the sake of her two young children. Her only escape is the local cinema, where she can lose herself for an hour or two in the glamour and passion of the silver screen. But when she is offered a glass of champagne in a Liverpool hotel - and with it, the thrill of her own romance - her quiet life is shattered forever. When her husband uncovers the truth,...

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. Using the most up-to-date scholarship and research, and writing with clarity and compassion, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative.

The Second World War is the most cataclysmic event in recent European history. In this new history James Holland looks at the conflict from a broader perspective than ever before, and in doing so, challenges some of the fundamentals of its by-now familiar story. The first part of this extraordinary new two-volume account spans oceans and continents from the perspectives of all the nations it will engulf.

The heartwarming and inspiring tale of five brave women in a munitions factory during WWII. Ernest Bevin's 1941 announcement that all woman between 18 and 30 must register for war work has made Emily furious - she's just landed her dream job and the last thing she wants is to have to give it up for a bomb factory in Lancashire. The glamorous Lillian and studious Alice are not too happy either. But for downtrodden Elsie and determined Agnes, the promise...