Sjömansbiblioteket

For the millions who had fought in the Great War, and for their families, the 'land fit for heroes' turned out to be an illusion; instead there was suffering and deprivation. Out o ...

Who were the underdogs who took on British Imperial forces - and beat them? How could an old farmer who had beaten them before (Piet Cronje), and a middle-aged farmer, who did not ...

In 1899 the Boers, armed with the latest European rifles and artillery, drove through Natal to help themselves to a seaport - Durban - only to spend their energies in laying siege ...

The First World War was a conflict in which personality and character mattered. Its course and outcome were decided by determined individuals who had to make momentous decisions in ...

This is the moving story of a young man who found himself along with thousands of his comrades in the nightmare of Japanese captivity. Unlike so many (it is said that one Commonwea ...

In a tense, crowded thirty-three days in the autumn of 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte organized a coup and made himself dictator of France. Yet his position was precarious. He knew that ...

Three hundred years ago Queen Anne's Captain-General, John Churchill 1st Duke of Marlborough, led the Allied armies in an epic struggle against the powerful French forces of Louis ...

Only three men have ever won a bar to the Victoria Cross; but only two lived to wear the medal and bar, the other, Noel Chavasse, being awarded his bar posthumously. Of the three, ...

Gunfire broke the morning silence on 1 July 1863, as Confederate General Henry Heth pushed his division down Chambersburg Pike toward Gettysburg. In the Civil War's most important ...

When Men at Arnhem was first published in 1976 the author modestly concealed his identity behind a pseudonym and changed the names of his comrades in arms. But the book was at once ...

This book pays tribute to the quite remarkable bravery of those young men who risked, and all too often lost, their lives for their country during the war. The author, himself a di ...

The battle for the possession of the villages of Messines Ridge, Messines, Wytchaete, St. Eloi, took place in 1914-17, and the final battle for Messines in 1918. The 1917 Battle of ...

As the motorist speeds past Arras on the motorway south to Paris, a look to the east should bring into view the hilltop village of Monchy le Preux. This farming community dominates ...

Many books have been written about Napoleon and his campaigns, but very little about the soldiers of his armies and of the organization and conditions under which they lived and se ...

In 1812 Napoleon's magnificent army invaded Russia. Among the half a million men who crossed the border was Albrecht Adam, a former baker, a soldier and, most importantly for us, a ...

Horatio Nelson's first captain was William Locker who recognised the exceptional talents of the young midshipman who was to become the most famous sailor in history. Thirty-seven y ...

This is the most authoritative and comprehensive British account ever published of the brutal North Korean and Chinese mistreatment of British POWs during the Korean War.The author ...

This book guides the reader through the battle for the V Corps beachhead, the fiercest and bloodiest of the Landings. A must for those inspired by Saving Private Ryan and many more ...

Personal accounts of a legendary battle seen through the eyes of Private George Teigh and Lieutenant Samuel FitzGibbon Cox amongst others. Both the Private and the Officer kept dia ...

PHANTOM was - and still is - one of the most secret but most effective of the wartime special regiments. It was formed in 1939 with the mission of finding out exactly where all the ...

Sir Herbert Plumer stood out as an archetypal Colonel Blimp - smart to a fault, white hair, white moustache, pot-belly. But his appearance belies the fact that he was one of the be ...

This book, following a weekend on the Somme with Mary Freeman as she visits the old front line and back areas, is about the soldiers who wrote poetry and those with whom they lived ...

The village sits on top of the ridge that bears its name, a ridge that was an objective on the 1st July 1916. As it was, the whole position was not finally cleared until early Sept ...

This book examines every aspect of The Royal Air Force, including organisation, statistics and operations during World War Two.

Every member of the armed forces who took part in the Falklands Campaign of 1982 can claim that his particular role was unique in that it was experienced by himself alone. But in ...