England Wars

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Vulcan 607 by Rowland White, read by Roy McMillan. It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943.... When Argentine forces invaded the Falklands in the early hours of 2 April 1982, Britain's military chiefs were faced with a real-life Mission Impossible.

When the war finally ended in May 1945, Lieutenant Danny McClain made good on his promise to come back for Anya in Holland. He expected her to put up a fight but instead found her exhausted and utterly broken. Maybe it was unfair, asking her to marry him when she was so vulnerable. But this much he knew: He would spend a lifetime helping to make her whole again. The war had taken everything from Anya - her family, her friends, her home, her faith. She clung to the walls she'd fortressed around her heart, but what future did she have apart from Danny?

After the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler’s inevitable invasion attempt. For the German army to land across the channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skies - the Royal Air Force would have to be broken. So every day throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties.

The Boer War was the defining conflict of South African history and one of the most important conflicts in the history of the British Empire. Naturally, complicated geopolitics underscored it. The European history of South Africa began with the 1652 arrival of a small Dutch flotilla in Table Bay, at the southern extremity of the African continent. The Boer War: The History and Legacy of the Conflict That Solidified British Rule in South Africa looks at the controversial fighting and the manner in which it affected the 20th century.

The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, and his abdication in order to marry the divorcée, has provoked fascination and discussion for decades. However, the full story of the couple's links with the German aristocracy and Hitler has until now remained untold. Meticulously researched, 17 Carnations chronicles this entanglement, starting with Hitler's early attempts to matchmake between Edward and a German noblewoman.

In May 1940, Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe. The only European power still standing was Great Britain - and the all-conquering German armed forces stood poised to cross the Channel. Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the Channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England.

In 1943 the RAF began a bombing campaign against Germany, the likes of which had never before been seen. Over the next 12 months, tens of thousands of aircrews flew across the North Sea to drop their bombs on German cities. They were opposed not only by the full force of the Luftwaffe but by a nightmare of flak, treacherously icy conditions and constant mechanical malfunction. Most of these crews never finished their tour of operations but were either shot down and killed or taken prisoner by an increasingly hostile enemy.

Simon Schama's sweeping history of Britain breathes life into our past centuries, vividly depicting exactly what life was like for our ancestors and how their experiences have shaped modern British culture and identity. An informative and entertaining mixture of anecdote and analysis, Schama's work offers a real insight into what it is to be British.

The thrilling true account of Hitler's first defeat. One of Britain's most remarkable victories of the Second World War. In the summer of 1940, the Nazi war machine was at its zenith. France, Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries were all under occupation after a series of lightning military campaigns. Only Britain stood in the way of the complete triumph of Nazi tyranny. But for the first time in the war, Hitler did not prevail.

Violent confrontation between armed groups over the supply of illegal narcotics is something we commonly associate with criminal gangs in modern cities, but in the mid-19th century Great Britain went to war with Imperial China in order to continue to supply Chinese addicts with opium. The two wars that followed have become known as the Opium Wars, and they led to the utter defeat of China, the establishment of a British colony in Hong Kong, and the continuation of a narcotics trade that was worth millions of pounds each year to the British.

A comprehensive look at the brutal wilderness war that secured America's independence… With Musket and Tomahawk is a vivid account of the American and British struggles in the sprawling wilderness region of the northeast during the Revolutionary War. Combining strategic, tactical, and personal detail, this book describes how the patriots of the recently organized Northern Army defeated England's massive onslaught of 1777, thereby all but ensuring America's independence.

Discover how Hilter’s forces impacted the people of Great Britain in this edition. If you were to step back in time to London, 1940, despite the fact you’d still be able to pick out the great familiar landmarks such as Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, wonderful green parks and open spaces, you’d also find a city, and for that matter an entire nation, under siege.

Few outside the security services have heard of 14 Company. As deadly as the SAS yet more secret, the operators of 14 Company are Britain's most effective weapon against international terrorism. For every bomb that goes off, 14 Company prevent 12. The selection process is the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding anywhere in the world. This is the true story of one operator and of some of the most hair-raising military operations ever conducted on the streets of Britain.

If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? In response to a declaration by the last governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancpated, tens of thousands of blacks voted with feet, escaping to fight beside the British. Originally designed to break the plantations of the American South, this military strategy instead unleashed one of the great exoduses in American history.

Built in 1927, the German ocean liner Cap Arcona was the greatest ship since the Titanic. When the Nazis seized control, she was stripped down for use as a floating barracks and troop transport. Hitler's minister, Joseph Goebbels, later cast her as a "star" in the epic propaganda film about the sinking of the legendary Titanic. In the Third Reich's final desperate days, when SS Cap Arcona was mistakenly bombed by the British Air Force, concentration camp prisoners packed the ship.

At the outbreak of World War II, MI6 spymaster Thomas Kendrick arrived at the Tower of London to set up a top secret operation: German prisoners' cells were to be bugged and listeners installed behind the walls to record and transcribe their private conversations. This mission proved so effective that it would go on to be set up at three further sites - and provide the Allies with crucial insight into new technology being developed by the Nazis. In this astonishing history, Helen Fry uncovers the inner workings of the bugging operation.

It is Acting Detective Superintendent Nick Dixon’s wedding day. Gig rowers find a body floating in Bridgwater Bay and when the victim is identified as a serving police officer, executed at point blank range with a 3D printed gun, the assistant chief constable is soon knocking on Dixon’s door—wedding night or not. It is the third such killing in as many weeks, but the first two victims were drug dealers, with no apparent connection to the dead officer other than the murder weapon itself.

Cultural and familial fireworks flare when the headstrong teenage daughter of a wealthy New Yorker falls passionately in love with a young man from New Orleans, and from a very different background indeed. What makes this story sizzle and soar are its time and place - the United States during the Civil War and Victorian England - and a couple of key facts about the protagonists.

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Celts, then keep reading...while Celtic culture has stayed alive in Ireland, its roots run much deeper, and they extend much farther than the small island nation off the coast of modern-day Great Britain. The story of the Celts is one of a rapid rise to prominence followed by a slow decline due to the influence of the Romans. But even so, Celtic culture has remained strong in Europe and has been able to persist to this day.

A compelling history of the British Army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—showing how the military gathered knowledge from campaigns across the globe.