British War World Ii

At ten years old, young Douglas M. Gebbie witnessed the igniting spark of World War II firsthand. As Douglas and his family listen intently to the BBC radio broadcast, the world-altering news rings out: Hitler has invaded Poland.

This is the riveting story of Noor Inayat Khan, the descendant of an Indian Prince Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, who became a British secret agent for SOE during World War II. Born into an illustrious Indian family in 1914 and brought up in the non-violent Sufi religion, Noor seemed an unlikely secret agent. Yet she became the first female radio operator to be landed in enemy-occupied France, and refused to abandon her post in Paris in 1943, continuing her work under extremely dangerous circumstances.

On August 1, 1945, a month before the formal end of World War II, the British War Office announced the disbanding of a small, eclectic unit, the Long Range Desert Group. Since its founding five years earlier, in June 1940, the LRDG had pioneered and refined the concept and tactics of deep penetration, covert reconnaissance in the North African desert, and later as a more varied special forces operations unit in the Aegean, Italy, and the Balkans.

Selina Lennox is a Bright Young Thing. Her life is a whirl of parties and drinking, pursued by the press and staying on just the right side of scandal, all while running from the life her parents would choose for her. Lawrence Weston is a penniless painter who stumbles into Selina's orbit one night and can never let her go even while knowing someone of her stature could never end up with someone of his. Except Selina falls hard for Lawrence, envisioning a life of true happiness. But when tragedy strikes, Selina finds herself choosing what's safe over what's right.

In 1940 Winston Churchill established the Special Operations Executive to "set Europe ablaze". Three years later David Smiley and Billy McLean were parachuted into Northern Greece and crossed the border into Albania to do just that. For the next eight months Smiley mediated between the competing resistance factions and organized them to conduct ambushes and acts of sabotage on fascist armies and infrastructure.

At the end of August 2012, BBC ran a report about the commemoration of a young man who had been killed more than 70 years earlier. Just 12 days before Oswald St John Pigg’s death, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had already immortalized the men of the Royal Air Force with one of the West’s most famous war-time quotes. But the sentiment and gratitude Churchill expressed back in 1940 is very much alive today. The sacrifice made by “The Few”, the British and Allied fighter pilots who won the Battle of Britain in 1940, remains close to the hearts of the British public.

Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories.

Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where...

One of the most important breakthroughs in military technology associated with World War I, and certainly the one that continues to capture the public imagination, was the use of airplanes, which were a virtual novelty a decade before. While the war quickly ground to a halt in its first few months, the skies above the Western Front became increasingly busy. The great powers had already been acquiring aircraft for potential uses, but given that aerial warfare had never been a major component of any conflict, it’s understandable that few had any idea what the planes were capable of.

The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight -- the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M. Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War...

In Churchill's D-Day, Allen Packwood and Richard Dannatt narrate and analyze Sir Winston Churchill's emotional turmoil and epic decision-making before, during, and after the world-defining action of D-Day. Culled from the official Churchill Papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, the book features historical documents, letters, and more, for a Churchillian experience of D-Day leadership, military strategy, and humanity.

The fascinating, untold story of how British intelligence secretly used homing pigeons as part of a clandestine espionage operation to gather information, communicate, and coordinate with members of the Resistance to defeat the Nazis in occupied Europe during World War II. Between 1941 and 1944...

Elise, an artist grieving the loss of her son and a fracturing marriage, is in North Norfolk to restore Marsh House to its former glory, its walls adorned with the fading murals and paintings of its long-ago owner, Lilias Carter-Brown. Elise makes an immediate connection to the house, to Sam—a carpenter and a comfort—and to history itself when an old photograph draws Elise into Lilias’s heartbreaking past. In 1939, with war threatening, Lilias and her sister turn Marsh House into a sanctuary for London evacuees—a young boy and his mother.

The joint British and US campaigns in the European theater of operations during World War II rank among the most impressive examples of coalition warfare in history. In just eighteen months, the US and British armies integrated their planning, intelligence, and command structures more thoroughly than any previous alliance.

The gripping story of the years that ended the Great War and launched Europe and America onto the roller coaster of the twentieth century, Crucible is filled with all-too-human tales of exuberant dreams, dark fears, and the absurdities of chance In Petrograd, a fire is lit. The Tsar is packed...

A scandalous affair. A power struggle for the throne. A sensational rivalry between an English queen and an American social climber. In this electrifying novel, the New York Times bestselling author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue tells the story of the Abdication of Edward VIII—and the two women...

In 1945, the New Yorker commissioned star reporter Rebecca West to cover the London trial of William Joyce, who stood accused by the British government of aiding the Third Reich. Joyce was alleged to have hosted a radio program, Germany Calling, devoted to Nazi propaganda and calls for a British surrender. The legal case against Joyce (known as "Lord Haw-Haw" for his supposedly posh accent) proved to be tenuous and full of uncertainties.

On the morning of November 9, 1942, the Dunedin Star, a 13,000-ton refrigerated cargo ship, was tugged off her moorings, and nudged into the mouth of the Mersey River, that iconic entranceway to Liverpool Harbor, and the British gateway to the outside world. On her port side, Fort Perch hung ghostly and silent in the dawn light, and the old Leashow Lighthouse blinked forlornly on the North Wirral headland. As she passed the harbor walls and entered open water, the harbor pilot shook the captain's hand and wished him Godspeed,.

If you like Max Hastings and World War II naval history, then you will love this autobiography, which gives an easy-to-understand insider view of life in the Royal Navy during the war. Ronnie Turner had set his sights on a career with the Royal Navy, and like Ant Middleton, he wouldn't stop until he'd achieved his goal of having "a smack at the boche". Drawn from Ronnie's illegal war diary, this enjoyable tale of pocket battleships, torpedoed crews, and Admiral Harwood's tattoos, all sprinkled with Spike Milligan-like humor, make this a story you won't want to put down.

'Well-researched and enthralling, Peter Ricketts brings the wartime Foreign Office to life.’ – Tim Bouverie 'The gripping story of how the men and women of the Foreign Office secured Britain's victory in the Second World War and created a new international order.' – Professor Helen...