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‘Excellent’ Antony Beevor ‘Saul David is a brilliant historian … In shocking and jaw-dropping detail, he brings a battle that deserves far greater prominence and understanding vividly back to life’ James Holland From award-winning historian Saul David, an action-packed and powerful new narrative of the Battle of Okinawa – the last great clash of the Second World War, and one that had profound consequences for the modern world. For eighty-three blood-soaked days, the fighting on the island of Okinawa plumbed depths of savagery as bad as anything seen on the Eastern Front. When it was over, almost a quarter of a million people had lost their lives, making it by far the bloodiest US battle of the Pacific. In Okinawa, the death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide, convinced by Japanese propaganda that they would otherwise be raped and murdered by the enemy. On the US side, David argues that the horror of the battle ultimately determined President Truman’s choice to use atomic bombs in August 1945. It is a brutal, heart-rending story, and one David tells with masterly attention to detail: the cramped cockpit of a kamikaze plane, the claustrophobic gun turret of a warship under attack, and a half-submerged foxhole amidst the squalor and battle detritus. The narrative follows generals, presidents and emperors, as well as the humbler experiences of ordinary servicemen and families on both sides, and the Okinawan civilians who were caught so tragically between the warring parties. Using graphic eyewitness accounts and declassified documents from archives in three continents, Saul David illuminates a shocking chapter of history that is too often missing from Western-centric narratives of the Second World War.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A terrific book … It really is one of the most enjoyable histories I’ve read in many a year’ JAMES HOLLAND ‘Riveting … A brilliant account’ DAILY MAIL THE FIRST AUTHORISED HISTORY OF THE SBS. Britain’s SBS – or Special Boat Service – was the world’s first maritime special operations unit. Founded in the dark days of 1940, it started as a small and inexperienced outfit that leaned heavily on volunteers’ raw courage and boyish enthusiasm. It went on to change the course of the Second World War – and has served as a model for special forces ever since. The fledgling unit’s first mission was a daring beach reconnaissance of Rhodes in the spring of 1941. Over the next four years, the SBS and its affiliates would carry out many more spectacular operations in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Channel and the Far East. These missions – including Operation Frankton, the daredevil attempt by the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ to paddle up the Garonne river and sink Axis ships in Bordeaux harbour – were some of the most audacious and legendary of the war. Paddling flimsy canoes, and armed only with knives, pistols and a few sub-machine guns, this handful of brave and determined men operated deep behind enemy lines in the full knowledge that if caught they might be executed. Many were. Yet their many improbable achievements – destroying enemy ships and infrastructure, landing secret agents, tying up enemy forces, spreading fear and uncertainty, and, most importantly, preparing the ground for D-Day – helped to make an Allied victory possible. Written with the full cooperation of the modern SBS – the first time this ultra-secretive unit has given its seal of approval to any book – and exclusive access to its archives, SBS: Silent Warriors allows Britain’s original special forces to emerge from the shadows and take their proper and deserved place in our island story.

From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last.

A Times History Book of the Year 2022 From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last. The ‘Devil Dogs’ of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were part of the legendary first Marine Division. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942 – the first US ground offensive of the war – and were present when Okinawa, Japan’s most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the ‘Green Hell’ of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a campaign described by one K Company veteran as ‘thirty days of the meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict on each other.’ Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most effective soldiers in world history – and defeat it. This is the story of how they did just that and, in the process, forged bonds of brotherhood that still survive today. Remarkably, the company contained an unusually high number of talented writers, whose first-hand accounts and memoirs provide the colour, emotion, and context for this extraordinary story. In Devil Dogs, award-winning historian Saul David sets the searing experience of K Company into the broader context of the brutal war in the Pacific and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne. Gripping, intimate, authoritative and far-reaching, this is a unique and incredibly personal narrative of war. Saul David’s previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War. The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st, 6th and 44th Indian, each composed of parachutists and glider-borne troops. Wearing their distinctive maroon berets, steel helmets and Dennison smocks, they served with distinction in every major theatre of the conflict – including North Africa, Sicily, mainland Europe and the Far East. They played a starring role in some most iconic airborne operations in history: the Bruneval Raid of February 1942; the capture of the Primasole, Pegasus and Arnhem Bridges in July 1943, June 1944 and September 1944 respectively; and Operation Varsity, the biggest parachute drop in history, near Wesel in Germany in March 1945. Sky Warriors is an accomplished act of storytelling; authoritative, far-reaching and deeply moving. Building the narrative from the ground-up, Saul David draws on multiple archives, published memoirs, unpublished diaries and letters, and interviews with participants. The end result is a dramatic narrative of the airborne forces’ recruitment, training and wartime exploits. This is the first time the complete wartime story of the British airborne forces has been told.

From bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War. The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st, 6th and 44th Indian, each composed of parachutists and glider-borne troops. Wearing their distinctive maroon berets, steel helmets and Dennison smocks, they served with distinction in every major theatre of the conflict – including North Africa, Sicily, mainland Europe and the Far East – and played a starring role in some most iconic airborne operations in history: the Bruneval Raid of February 1942; the capture of the Primasole, Pegasus and Arnhem Bridges in July 1943, June 1944 and September 1944 respectively; and Operation Varsity, the biggest parachute drop in history, near Wesel in Germany in March 1945.

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SKY WARRIORS AND SBS, COMES AN EPIC HISTORY ABOUT THE NORTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SKY WARRIORS AND SBS, COMES AN EPIC HISTORY ABOUT THE NORTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

December 1943. A German fort sits impregnable atop a mountain. Standing between the Allied forces and their path to Rome is a steep climb up a 200-foot cliff, in the snow, in the middle of the night. As the future of civilisation hangs in the balance, with Axis forces sprawled around the world, a group of highly trained US and Canadian soldiers from humble backgrounds is asked to do the impossible: capture this crucial Nazi stronghold. After completing state-of-the-art training – including skiing, rock climbing and parachuting – they advance upwards, through savage conditions and vicious fighting, into the darkness and towards almost certain defeat ‘Every chapter is filled with harrowing adventure, life and death struggle… The amount of new cutting-edge research is impressive. A monumental achievement!’ Douglas Brinkley ‘Saul David has both a knack with the pen and a nose for a thrilling tale….Masterly [in] style…Readers should exult in The Force, whose heroic subjects deserve to be forever remembered’ Wall Street Journal

In The Indian Mutiny: 1857 Saul David explores one of Britain's most harrowing colonial battles.In 1857 the native troops of the Bengal army rose against their colonial masters. The ensuing insurrection was to become the bloodiest in the history of the British Empire.Combining formidable storytelling with ground-breaking research, Saul David narrates a tale at once heart-rendingly tragic and extraordinarily compelling. David provides new and convincing evidence that the true causes of the mutiny were much more complex, and disturbing, than previously assumed.'A fine achievement by a huge new talent' William Dalrymple, Sunday TimesSaul David is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham and the author of several critically acclaimed history books, including The Indian Mutiny: 1857 (shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature), Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (a Waterstone's Military History Book of the Year) and, most recently, Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire.

In Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire Saul David explores the early part of Queen Victoria's reign,when the British Empire was well on the way to becoming the greatest empire the world had ever seen. This is the story of how it happened and the people who made it happen. In a fast-moving narrative ranging from London to the harsh terrain of India, Russia and the Far East, Saul David shows how Britain ruthlessly exploited her position as the world's only superpower to expand her empire. Yet little of this territorial acquisition was planned or sanctioned by the home government. Instead it was largely the work of the men on the ground, and to those at home it really did seem that the empire was acquired in a 'fit of absence of mind'. Saul David creates a vivid portrait of life on the violent fringes of empire, and of the seemingly endless and brutal wars that were fought in the name of trade, civilization and the balance of power.'Splendid . . . a terrific treasure-chest of anecdotes . . . a splendidly brisk, cool and judicious narrator' Daily Telegraph 'Incisive and acute . . . thorough and occasionally revelatory, [David] always finds a telling phrase, an eye-catching detail or a human story' Sunday Times Saul David is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham and the author of several critically acclaimed history books, including The Indian Mutiny: 1857 (shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature), Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (a Waterstone's Military History Book of the Year) and, most recently, Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire.

Saul David's Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 is a fascinating look at the most controversial and brutal British imperial conflict of the nineteenth century.The real story of the Anglo-Zulu war was one of deception, dishonour, incompetence and dereliction of duty by Lord Chelmsford who invaded Zululand without the knowledge of the British Government. But it did not go to plan and there were many political repercussions. Using new material from archives in Britain and South Africa, Saul David blows the lid on this most sordid of imperial wars and comes to a number of startling new conclusions.'Saul David's brilliant and magisterial account must now be regarded as the definitive history of the Zulu War' Frank McLynn, Literary Review'This meticulously detailed book...give[s] a fully rounded and judicious account of this dismal conflict Guardian'Fascinating, thrilling, convincing... reads like a novel' EconomistSaul David is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham and the author of several critically acclaimed history books, including The Indian Mutiny: 1857 (shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature), Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (a Waterstone's Military History Book of the Year) and, most recently, Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire.

Saul David's All The King's Men is a thrilling history of the British Redcoat from the English Civil War to Waterloo.Between 1660 and 1815 British supremacy on foreign soil was near total. Central to this success was the humble redcoat soldier who showed heroism in battle and stoicism in peace, despite appalling treatment. This is their story: of brutal discipline and inedible food, of loyalty and low pay, of barracks and battlefield - of victory, defeat, life and death.Praise for All The King's Men:'An extraordinary story, packed with drama, incident and great characters...All The King's Men is all you could hope for...Quite an achievement', Patrick Bishop, Country Life'A heady mixture of heroism, incompetence, devilish tactics and plain good luck', Sunday Times 'Filled with swashbuckling derring-do, the reek of blood and gunpowder, combined with shrewd analysis of power, war and psychology', Simon Sebag Montefiore Saul David is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham and the author of several critically acclaimed books, including The Indian Mutiny: 1857, Zulu and, most recently, Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire. He recently presented 'Bullets, Boots and Bandages' for BBC 4 and is a regular contributor to Radio 4.

Follow the epic 5,000-year story of warfare - from the earliest battles to the War on Terror - with this guided tour of every major conflict.Combining a clear and compelling historical narrative with a wealth of fascinating eyewitness accounts and photography throughout, this is the ultimate guide to the history of military conflict, from the armies of ancient Egypt to the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq, and the ongoing Yemeni civil war.War explores the battles, the warriors, the tactics, and the weapons and technology that have shaped conflict worldwide. Lavishly illustrated with paintings, photographs, artefacts, and maps, this book offers a uniquely detailed and visually rich view of all major aspects of human conflict. Whether on the bloody battlefields of the ancient world or in the modern era of drones and laser-guided missiles, this is the complete story of the wars that have shaped our world.

The definitive account of one of the greatest Special Forces missions ever, the Raid of Entebbe, by acclaimed military historian Saul David. On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of Arab and German terrorists who demanded the release of 53 terrorists. The plane was forced to divert to Entebbe, in Uganda -- ruled by the murderous despot Idi Amin, who had no interest in intervening. Days later, Israeli commandos disguised as Ugandan soldiers assaulted the airport terminal, killed all the terrorists, and rescued all the hostages but three who were killed in the crossfire. The assault force suffered just one fatality: its commander, Yoni Netanyahu (brother of Israel's Prime Minister.) Three of the country's greatest leaders -- Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin -- planned and pulled off one of the most astonishing military operations in history.

Hailed as "masterly" (Wall Street Journal) and a "monumental achievement" (Douglas Brinkley), this book tells the riveting, true story of the group of elite US and Canadian soldiers who sacrificed everything to accomplish a crucial but nearly impossible WWII mission. In December of 1943, as Nazi forces sprawled around the world and the future of civilization hung in the balance, a group of highly trained U.S. and Canadian soldiers from humble backgrounds was asked to do the impossible: capture a crucial Nazi stronghold perched atop stunningly steep cliffs. The men were a rough-and-ready group, assembled from towns nested in North America's most unforgiving terrain, where many of them had struggled through the Great Depression relying on canny survival skills and the fearlessness of youth. Brought together by the promise to take part in the military's most elite missions, they formed a unique brotherhood tested first by the crucible of state-of-the-art training--including skiing, rock climbing, and parachuting--and then tragically by the vicious fighting they would face. The early battle in the Italian theatre for the strategic fort cost the heroic U.S.-Canadian commando unit--their first special forces unit ever assembled--enormous casualties. Yet the victory put them in position to continue their drive into Italy, setting the stage for the Allies' resurgence toward victory in WWII. The unit, with its vast range of capabilities and mission-specific exercises, became a model for the "Green Berets" and other special forces groups that would go on to accomplish America's most challenging undertakings behind enemy lines. Knitting first-hand accounts seamlessly into the narrative-drawing on interviews with surviving members and their families; the memoirs, letters, and diaries of Forcemen; and declassified documents in the American, Canadian, British, and German archives--The Force tells a story that is as deeply personal as it is inspiring.

Hailed as "masterly" (Wall Street Journal) and a "monumental achievement" (Douglas Brinkley), this book tells the riveting, true story of the group of elite US and Canadian soldiers who sacrificed everything to accomplish a crucial but nearly impossible WWII mission. In December of 1943, as Nazi forces sprawled around the world and the future of civilization hung in the balance, a group of highly trained U.S. and Canadian soldiers from humble backgrounds was asked to do the impossible: capture a crucial Nazi stronghold perched atop stunningly steep cliffs. The men were a rough-and-ready group, assembled from towns nested in North America's most unforgiving terrain, where many of them had struggled through the Great Depression relying on canny survival skills and the fearlessness of youth. Brought together by the promise to take part in the military's most elite missions, they formed a unique brotherhood tested first by the crucible of state-of-the-art training--including skiing, rock climbing, and parachuting--and then tragically by the vicious fighting they would face. The early battle in the Italian theatre for the strategic fort cost the heroic U.S.-Canadian commando unit--their first special forces unit ever assembled--enormous casualties. Yet the victory put them in position to continue their drive into Italy, setting the stage for the Allies' resurgence toward victory in WWII. The unit, with its vast range of capabilities and mission-specific exercises, became a model for the "Green Berets" and other special forces groups that would go on to accomplish America's most challenging undertakings behind enemy lines. Knitting first-hand accounts seamlessly into the narrative-drawing on interviews with surviving members and their families; the memoirs, letters, and diaries of Forcemen; and declassified documents in the American, Canadian, British, and German archives--The Force tells a story that is as deeply personal as it is inspiring.

From the award-winning historian, Saul David, the riveting narrative of the heroic US troops, bonded by the brotherhood and sacrifice of war, who overcame enormous casualties to pull off the toughest invasion of WWII's Pacific Theater -- and the Japanese forces who fought with tragic desperation to stop them. With Allied forces sweeping across Europe and into Germany in the spring of 1945, one enormous challenge threatened to derail America's audacious drive to win the world back from the Nazis: Japan, the empire that had extended its reach southward across the Pacific and was renowned for the fanaticism and brutality of its fighters, who refused to surrender, even when faced with insurmountable odds. Taking down Japan would require an unrelenting attack to break its national spirit, and launching such an attack on the island empire meant building an operations base just off its shores on the island of Okinawa. The amphibious operation to capture Okinawa was the largest of the Pacific War and the greatest air-land-sea battle in history, mobilizing 183,000 troops from Seattle, Leyte in the Philippines, and ports around the world. The campaign lasted for 83 blood-soaked days, as the fighting plumbed depths of savagery. One veteran, struggling to make sense of what he had witnessed, referred to the fighting as the crucible of Hell. Okinawan civilians died in the tens of thousands: some were mistaken for soldiers by American troops; but as the US Marines spearheading the invasion drove further onto the island and Japanese defeat seemed inevitable, many more civilians took their own lives, some even murdering their own families. In just under three months, the world had changed irrevocably: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died; the war in Europe ended; America's appetite for an invasion of Japan had waned, spurring President Truman to use other means -- ultimately atomic bombs -- to end the war; and more than 250,000 servicemen and civilians on or near the island of Okinawa had lost their lives. Drawing on archival research in the US, Japan, and the UK, and the original accounts of those who survived, Crucible of Hell tells the vivid, heart-rending story of the battle that changed not just the course of WWII, but the course of war, forever.