Index, bibliography, notes, ill (maps), p.565.non-fictionPasschendaele epitomises everything that was most terrible about the Western Front. The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war- blackened tree stumps rising out of a field of mud, corpses of men and horses drowned in shell holes, terrified soldiers huddled in trenches awaiting the whistle. The intervening century, the most violent in human history, has not disarmed these pictures of their power to shock. At the very least they ask us, on the 100th anniversary of the battle, to see and to try to understand what happened here. Yes, we commemorate the event. Yes, we adorn our breasts with poppies. But have we seen? Have we understood? Have we dared to reason why? What happened at Passchendaele was the expression of the 'wearing-down war', the war of pure attrition at its most spectacular and ferocious. Paul Ham's Passchendaele- Requiem for Doomed Youth shows how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately, wiped out. Yet the men never broke- they went over the top, when ordered, again and again and again. And if they fell dead or wounded, they were casualties in the 'normal wastage', as the commanders described them, of attritional war. Only the soldier's friends at the front knew him as a man, with thoughts and feelings. His family back home knew him as a son, husband or brother, before he had enlisted. By the end of 1917 he was a different creature- his experiences on the Western Front were simply beyond their powers of comprehension. The book tells the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century. Passchendaele lays down a powerful challenge to the idea of war as an inevitable expression of the human will, and examines the culpability of governments and military commanders in a catastrophe that destroyed the best part of a generation. Collapse summary world war 1914-1918 - campaigns - western front, france - campaigns - passchaendaele

Ill (maps), p.326non-fictionOver The Top is based on Harry Hartnett's diaries, which his family gave to Chris Byrett, a lawyer and WWI buff. It details the battles, the long marches and the recoveries with many amusing anecdotes which kept the men smiling and eased the tiredeness of the daily grind.world war 1914-1918 - campaigns - western front - personal recollections, henry george hartnett

Index, bibliography, ill (maps), p.620.non-fictionUsing hundreds of brutally honest and extraordinary eyewitness accounts of the diggers in the muddy and bloody trenches, Western Front Diaries reproduces their private diaries, letters and postcards to tell of their heart-rending experiences, battle by bloody battle. Includes a gallery of previously unpublished photographs.world war 1914-1918 - campaigns - western front, world war 1914-1918 - personal recollections

Index, bibliography, ill (maps), p.248.non-fictionThis abridged edition of the bestselling 'Fromelles' includes the recent discovery of the largest mass war grave since the Second World War, the recovery of the missing Diggers' remains and the names of those who have been identified, as well as the opening of the new Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery in 2010.world war 1914 - 1918 - campaigns - western front - fromelles, war graves - france

Ill., map, ports, 124.p.non-fictionworld war 1914-1918 - campaigns - gallipoli, gallipoli campaign - naval operations

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.232.non-fictionThe story of the exploits of the German cruiser, the Emden in world war one.world war 1914-1918 - naval operations - germany, emden (cruiser)

Index, notes, ill, maps, p.222.non-fictionIt would be hard to find anyone better qualified the "Sally Home of the "11th Hussars to tell the story of the Cavalry on the Western front during the First World War.soldiers - great britain - biography, world war 1914-1918 - western front - cavalry corps

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.187.non-fictionThe biography of Capt George Ingram VC, MM, the last Australian VC recipient of the First World War. From country childhood in Bagshot and Seville to a gunner with the Australian Garrison Artillery and the Tropical Force's Matupi Battery. He then served with the 24th Battalion AIF on the Western Front where he was awarded the Military Medal and the Victoria Cross. After the war he became a soldier settler, an original Shrine Guard and during World War Two he served with the Royal Australian Engineers. Throughout his life he carried the physical and mental scars of his service in the war.soldiers - victoria - biography, george ingram - biography

Bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.245.non-fictionRetrace Australia's role in the First World War from the trenches of Somme Mud to the wider war on the Western Front. Imagine this. You are a country boy and just eighteen. The war has been raging for two years and because of your age, you have not been eligible for enlistment. Your mates, older by a few months are joining up and disappearing to the great adventure across the world in Europe. And there is forever talk of the need for reinforcements, for men like you to join up and support the Empire, Australia and your mates in the line. Such was the case for Edward Francis Lynch, a typical country boy from Perthville, near Bathurst. When war was declared in early August 1914, he was just sixteen and still at school, but like a generation of young males in Australia, there was something to prove and a need to be there. Will Davies, editor of the bestselling Somme Mud, meticulously tracked Lynch and his battalion's travels; their long route marches to flea ridden billets, into the frontline at such places as Messines, Dernancourt, Stormy Trench and Villers Bretonneux, to rest areas behind the lines and finally, on the great push to the final victory after August 1918. In words and pictures Davies fills in the gaps in Private Lynch's story and through the movements of the other battalions of the AIF provides impact and context to their plight and achievements. Looking at these battlefields today, the pilgrims who visit and those who attend to the land we come to understand how the spirit of Australia developed and of our enduring role in world politics.world war 1914-1918 - personal narratives - australia, western front 1914-1918 - australian participation

Ill, maps, p.206.non-fictionA concise history of Australian participation in the great warworld war 1914-1918 - campaigns - australia, world war 1914-1918 - history

Index, ill, maps, p.584.non-fictionArmageddon tells the story of the climactic months of the Second World War, the destruction of Hitler's Germany. Max Hastings has researched archives in four countries and interviewed 170 witnesses to piece together a saga that is at once fascinating military history and the greatest human tragedy of the twentieth century." "This book follows Max Hastings's earlier acclaimed studies of the Second World War, including Overlord and Bomber Command, in examining a great sweep of history with massive research and a host of new insights." "Armageddon embraces the fates of more than a hundred million people, men and women, old and very young, from the tragic teenage fanatics who died in the ruins of Hitler's Reich to the British 'Tommies' who simply yearned to finish a painful job and go home. Few books on the Second World War have so vividly brought together the story of the battlefields, east and west, with the decisions of the generals and the impact of great events upon ordinary soldiers and civilians.world war 1939-1945 - battles - germany, world war 1939-1945 - history

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.440.I history of the siege of Malta, the longest lasting siege in British history.world war 1939-1945 - malta, malta - siege 1940-1943

Ill, maps, p.408.fictionThree vividly imagined accounts of critical moments during the Second World Warworld war 1939-1945 - great britain - fiction, juvenile fiction

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.725.non-fictionDrawing on an unprecedented variety of sources, Mark Mazower reveals how the Nazis designed, maintained, and ultimately lost their European empire and offers a chilling vision of the world Hitler would have made had he won the war.germany - history - 1933-1945, national socialism - germany

Ill, maps, p.242.non-fictionThe exciting first-hand account of heroism and daring sabotage during the Nazi occupation of Norwayworld war 1939-1945 - underground movements - norway, norwegian heavy water sabotage

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.346.non-fictionAccount of the Second World War as viewed and experienced in northern Australia ; includes references to Aboriginal people as coast watchers and rescuers, in army service, as trackers, in the Special Reconaissance Unit ; W.E.H. Stanner and the North Australia Observer Unit ; Protectors of women ; results of war experiences ; white attitudes towards Aboriginal people. world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - australia, darwin - bombing

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.288.non-fictionReaping the Whirlwind offers amazing insight into the events of World War II through the eyes of those who fought against the Allied forces in all theatres of the war. Readers will comb through many previously unpublished accounts of the war from German, Italian and Japanese soldiers, civilians and military leaders. The book covers every major arena of the war: Europe; the German invasion of Russia; Rommel's Afrika Korps; and the Pacific war between Japan and forces of the US, Australia and New Zealand. Reaping the Whirlwind uses the authentic voices of Germans and Japanese people caught up in the conflict and highlights the similar deprivations and dangers experienced by both victors and vanquished. world war 1939-1945 - participation - germany, world war 1939-1945 - participation - japan

Index, maps, p.400.non-fictionThe history of the Australian army medical corps during the period 1943-1945 in the south west pacificworld war 1939-1945 - campaigns - south west pacific, australian army - medical corps

Index, maps, p.735.non-fictionThis book uses the diaries of Lord Alanbrooke to forge a narrative which enriches history no less than history.world war 1939-1945 - history, world war 1939-1945 - diaries

Ill, maps, p.353.non-fictionCovers the period from the Treaty of Versailles to Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister in 1940world war 1939-1945 - history, europe - politics and government - 1918-1945

Index, bibliography, notes, maps, p.857.A portrayal of the Red Army's epic struggle to drive the German army from its territory and to then invade the Reich and reach Germanyworld war 1939-1945 - eastern front, stalin joseph 1879-1953

Index, ill, maps, p.231.non-fictionThe history of the 4th anti-tank regiment 1940-1945 with biographical referencesprisoners of war - australia, world war 1939-1945 - australia - personal narratives

Index, bibliography, maps, ill, p.173.non-fictionThe German army in the Second World War sought to fight and win swift, decisive victories in a succession of short campaigns - blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Flexibility was as essential as the will to win. Battle groups, or shock troops, were created from miscellaneous, and often disparate military units to undertake a specific local operation; it was the army's skill in combining superior numbers, aggressive tactics and the battle group commander's ability to exploit the changing situation on the ground which brought success on the battlefield.

The actions described here cover all theatres of the war, and include battle groups large and small, deployed usually to smash a breach in the enemy line or seal off an enemy penetration. It covers operations in the first dynamic years when Wehrmacht forces defeated the armies of one European country after another in fast campaigns, through to the years after Stalingrad and Africa as they moved towards defeat. 

The battle groups' contribution to Wehrmacht fortunes offer powerful lessons in the tactics of battle management and this book by James Lucas, a military historian known for his close studies of the German soldier, is considered to be one of the most detailed and authoritative accounts on the subject. Collapse summary germany - armed forces - history, germany - regimental histories

Index, bibliography,ill, maps, p.192.non-fictionThe battles of the Waffen-SS in various theatres are described in detail.waffen ss - history, world war 1939-1945 - armed forces - germany

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.592.non-fictionEven Stalin was awed by D-Day. 'In the whole history of war, ' he wrote to Churchill, 'there has never been such an undertaking.' Those who took part in the great cross-Channel invasion, whether soldier, sailor or airman, would never forget the sight. It was by far the largest invasion fleet ever known.world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - france, operation overlord

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.396.non-fictionThe Victors is a breathtaking new work from bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose. It follows the momentous events of the war from D-Day, 6 June 1944, through to the final days when the Allied soldiers pushed the German troops out of France, chased them across Germany, and, on 7 May 1945, destroyed the Nazi regime. -- back cover. world war 1939=1945 - campaigns - europe, world war 1939-1945 - us involvement

Index, notes,ill, maps, p.655.non-fictionOn the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, Eisenhower biographer and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944, had to be abandoned before the first shot was fired.operation overlord, world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - france

Index, il, maps, p.218.non-fictionBritish soldiers tell their stories of life and death at the sharp endworld war 1939-1945 - personal narratives - british, world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - europe

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.374.non-fictionhis is the largely unknown story of another Anzac force, which fought not at Gallipoli, but in Greece, during World War II. Desperately outnumbered and fighting in deeply inhospitable conditions, these Anzacs found themselves engaging in a long retreat through Greece, under constant air attack. Most of the Anzac Corps was evacuated by the end of April 1941, but many men got only as far as Crete. Fighting a German paratroop invasion there in May, large numbers were taken captive and spent four long years as prisoners of the Nazis. The campaign in Greece turned out to have uncanny parallels to the original Gallipoli operation: both were inspired by Winston Churchill, both were badly planned by British military leaders, and both ended in defeat and evacuation. Just as Gallipoli provided military academies the world over with lessons in how not to conduct a complex feat of arms, Churchill's Greek adventure reinforced fundamental lessons in modern warfare - heavy tanks could not be stopped by men armed with rifles, and Stuka dive-bombers would not be deflected by promises of air support from London that were never honoured. In this revised edition, based on fresh archival research, and containing a collection of previously unpublished photos, the truth finally emerges as to how the Australian, Greek, and New Zealand Governments were misled over key decisions that would define the campaign. world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - greece, greek campaign - australian involvement

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.235.This book traces the history of the SAS from its birth. It shows how this unique fighting force overcame the disapproval of military authorities to win glory and fame.world war 1939-1945 - military operations - great britain., special air service regiment