Armoured Warfare in the North African Campaign (Images of War Series)

By Anthony Tucker-Jones

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Book Description:

Armoured Warfare in the North African Campaign (Images of War): The North African campaign, the struggle of the Italians and Germans against the Allies in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia between 1940 and 1943, was a war of movement and maneuver, of dramatic changes of fortune, and it was a war in which mechanized forces - tanks in particular - excelled. Compared with the heavily populated landscapes of northwest Europe, the empty open spaces of North Africa appeared to be ideal operating terrain for tanks, yet the harsh desert conditions tested men and machinery to the limit, as Anthony Tucker-Jones demonstrates in this remarkable selection of wartime photographs. The use of armor during the entire course of the campaign is covered, from the initial Italian offensive, the arrival of Rommel's Panzergruppe Afrika, the battles fought along the North African shore which culminated in El Alamein, then the Allied advance into Tunisia which led to the final defeat of the German and Italian armies. The images give a fascinating inside view of combat, but they also reveal the daily routines of tank warfare 65 years ago, and give a vivid impression of what it was like to fight in and live with the tanks of the day - the German Mk IIIs and Mk IVs and the Tiger, the British Matildas and Valentines and the American Grants and Shermans that contributed so much to the Allied victory. Training, maintenance, transportation and supply are shown, as are the daily lives of the tank crews and extreme conditions in which they worked and fought.

Excellent photo-history with many previously unpublished rare photos taken in the desert.
- Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK365 - Armoured Warfare in the North African Campaign (Images of War Series)

GERMAN HALFTRACKS AT WAR 1939-1945 (Images of War)

By Paul Thomas

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Book Description:

GERMAN HALFTRACKS AT WAR 1939-1945 (Images of War): In the aftermath of The Great War, which saw the introduction of the tank, the more far sighted military leaders realized that the future of warfare hinged on a balance of mobility, firepower and protection.Tanks would need to be accompanied into battle by supporting arms, specifically infantry, artillery and engineers. An all fully-tracked field army was thought to be too expensive, so the semi-tracked support vehicle (commonly called a halftrack) was born. The halftrack concept was embraced by the French, the US and most notably Germany.The Germans commissioned numerous types of half-tracked tractors, which were classified by the weight of their towed load. These vehicles were designated Sonderkraffarzeug (special motorized vehicle), abbreviated as Sd.Kfz. Without these vehicles the Blitzkrieg would not have been possible.These front-wheel steering vehicles with tracked drive transformed the fighting quality of the armored divisions. They carried the infantry alongside the advancing panzers and brought guns and pontoon-bridge sections. The halftrack also became the preferred reconnaissance vehicle.

The half-track gave protection and mobility to the infantry allowing them to keep up with the panzers. - Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK366 - GERMAN HALFTRACKS AT WAR 1939-1945 (Images of War Series)

LENINGRAD: Hero City (Images of War)

By Nik Cornish

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Book Description:

LENINGRAD: Hero City (Images of War): The 900-day siege of the Soviet city of Leningrad by the combined forces of the Germans and the Finns is one of the most remarkable, and terrible, events of the Second World War, yet until recently it has not received the attention it deserves - it has been overshadowed by other massive confrontations on the Eastern Front, at Stalingrad and Kursk. And rarely has the compelling story of the siege been told through graphic wartime photographs like those that author Nik Cornish has collected for this book. Many of these images have not been published before, and they give an unflinching insight into the reality of the conditions of the siege as it was experienced by the soldiers on each side and by the civilians trapped in the city who were threatened by starvation, disease, shelling and assault. The entire course of the siege is covered, from the encirclement of September 1941, through the successive attempts by the Wehrmacht to break in and the dogged, sometimes desperate defense put up by the Red Army, to the withdrawal of the Germans and the lifting of the siege in January 1944. Nik Cornish's portrait of the ruthless struggle of Hitler's armies to capture the second city of the Soviet Union and the determination and suffering of the defenders will be fascinating reading for everyone who is interested in the war on the Eastern Front.

One of the most remarkable, and terrible, events of the Second World War. - Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK367 - LENINGRAD: Hero City (Images of War Series)

STALINGRAD: Victory on the Volga (Images of War)

By Nik Cornish

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Book Description:

STALINGRAD: Victory on the Volga (Images of War)): The Soviet victory over the Germans at Stalingrad was decisive for the war on the Eastern Front and for the Second World War as a whole, and the story of the long, bitter battle on the banks of the Volga has fascinated historians ever since. While it has been the subject of countless histories, memoirs and eyewitness accounts, the grueling reality of the battle on the ground, in the shattered streets and buildings of the city, has rarely been recorded photographically.

The great strength of Nik Cornish's selection of unforgettable images is in its scale. He documents every aspect of the fighting - the dreadful conditions endured by the soldiers, the jagged outline of the ruined city, the harrowing daily routine of street fighting and close-quarter combat, the casualties and the dead, and the battle behind the lines - the tremendous effort made by the Germans and the Soviets to sustain their men in what had become a fight to the death. But perhaps most memorable of all, the photographs give us glimpses of the lives and deaths of soldiers on both sides who participated in one of the most terrible battles in history.

You'll feel the desperation of the battle as well as the cold in your bones and the shells exploding! - Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK368 - STALINGRAD: Victory on the Volga (Images of War))

BERLIN: Victory in Europe (Images of War Series)

By Nik Cornish

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Book Description:

BERLIN: Victory in Europe (Images of War): Book Description
In April and May 1945 the city of Berlin was the site of the final destructive act of the Second World War in Europe. The German capital became a battleground. After three weeks of ruthless fighting against a desperate, sometimes suicidal, defense, the Red Army took the city and crushed the last remaining German armies in the East. This momentous battle and the elaborate preparations for it were recorded in graphic detail by photographers whose images have come down to us today. These images, which give us an unforgettable glimpse into the grim reality of mid-twentieth-century warfare, are the raw material of Nik Cornish's evocative book.Using a rich selection of rare photographs from the Russian archives as well as images from German sources, most of which have not been published before, he traces the course of the entire campaign. The battles fought in East Prussia, eastern Germany and Hungary - in particular the assault on Budapest - are covered. But the body of his book is devoted to the battle for Berlin itself - the monstrous onslaught launched by Zhukov's armies on the Seelow Heights, the bitter street fighting through the suburbs, then the ultimate confrontation, the merciless room-by-room struggle for the center of the city and the Reichstag.

Each chapter opens with a concise summary of events followed by dozens of photographs of German and Russian troops, tanks, artillery, aircraft, combat scenes, etc. In short, as a fairly inexpensive, visual history of the Berlin campaign, Nik Cornish's book has a lot to offer.
- Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK294 - BERLIN: Victory in Europe (Images of War Series)

HITLER'S DEFEAT ON THE EASTERN FRONT (Images of War Series)

By Nik Cornish

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Book Description:

HITLER'S DEFEAT ON THE EASTERN FRONT (Images of War): Drawing on rare and previously unpublished photographs accompanied by in-depth captions, the book provides an absorbing analysis of this traumatic period of the Second World War. It reveals in detail how the battle of Kursk was the beginning of the end and how this massive operation led to the Red Army recapturing huge areas of the Soviet Union and bleeding white the German armies it struck. Despite the adverse situation in which both the German Army and its Waffen-SS counterparts were placed, soldiers continued to fight to the bitter end and attempted to build new defense-lines. But as the Red Army launched its long awaited summer offensive on June 1944, German forces were forced to withdraw under the constant hammer blows of ground and aerial bombardments. Those German forces that survived the artillery barrages, the onslaught of the tank armadas, and mass infantry assaults, streamed back from the battlefield and fought vicious battles through the Baltic States, Byelorussia, and built up new defense along the Vistula in Poland. As the final months of the War were played out on the Eastern Front, the Army and Waffen-SS, with diminishing resources, withdrew across a devastated Reich and fought out their last battle with party militia forces around a devastated Berlin.

An interesting book concerning the 1944-45 years on the Eastern Front, with 'rare German photographs' allowing at times a much more intimate view of the men caught up in the fighting from Kursk to their streaming back to the Reich for the Battle of Berlin.
- Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK295 - HITLER'S DEFEAT ON THE EASTERN FRONT (Images of War Series)

OPERATION BARBAROSSA Hitler's Invasion of Russia (Images of War Series)

By Hans Seidler

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Book Description:

OPERATION BARBAROSSA: Hitler's Invasion of Russia (Images of War): Hitler's decision to renege on his alliance with Stalin and invade Russia in June 1941 was to have the most far reaching consequences for the world. Indeed, if there was one critical turning point in the Second World War, it would have to be this.

The latest book in the Images of War series uses over 300 rare contemporary photographs to capture the scale, intensity and brutality of the fighting that was unleashed on June 22, 1941. No less than 4.5 million men of the Axis Power advanced on a 2,900 kilometer front.

We see how the apparently unstoppable German-led assaults crushed the Soviet resistance. But Russian determination, aided by the terrible winter conditions and over extended lines of communication, checked the Nazi onslaught.
In the annals of warfare there has never arguably been such a bitter and costly campaign.

Some inaccurate captions but ballenced with great photos. - Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK296 - OPERATION BARBAROSSA: Hitler's Invasion of Russia (Images of War)

BLITZKRIEG POLAND (Images of War Series)

By Jon Sutherland & Diane Canwell

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Book Description:

BLITZKRIEG POLAND (Images of War): These photographs are taken from three unpublished albums featuring the German invasion of Poland in 1939. One set was taken by an SS officer, another by a regular officer and a third by a soldier attached to a medical unit. Included are German units on the move, tanks, artillery and aircraft.

There are several shots of recently knocked out Polish vehicles, captured Polish troops and civilians. The shots reflect the rapid pace of the German advance through Poland, some of the cities, towns and villages show signs of heavy fighting, whilst others appear to be untouched. One of the sets show a German unit mounted in fast open cars, heavily armed, speeding through the Polish countryside. Another features armored vehicles and engineers, while another shows the ambulance teams moving up to the front through devastation and chaos.

There are also numerous opportunities throughout the book to see uniforms in their various guises and how they were actually worn in practice. There are shots of earlier German armor, "antique" Polish armor, and photographs of German troops at rest and preparing to move forward again.

About the Authors:

Jon Sutherland & Diane Canwell have written over 200 books, including several military history titles for Pen and Sword.  Their otver East Africa and Air War Malta, together with several of Pen and Sword's Images of War series.

BK297 - BLITZKRIEG POLAND (Images of War)

FALLSCHIRMJAGER Elite German Paratroops in World War II (Images of War Series)

By Jon Sutherland & Diane Canwell

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Book Description:

FALLSCHIRMJAGER Elite German Paratroops in World War II (Images of War Series): The photos in this book are taken from an unpublished album that belonged to a member of the elite German Paratroopers. First Sgt Wilhelm Plieschen served with Fallschirmjager Machine Gun Battalion 7, which suffered very heavy losses in the invasion of Crete, then saw bloody conflict as Hitler's "Fire-fighters" on the Russian Front and later put up fierce resistance in places such as Monte Casino. The revealing images that Jon Sutherland has compiled for us depict these struggles in dramatic detail, ranging from photographs taken en route to Crete of the paratroopers in a JU52 to 20 May 1941, when Plieschen was dropped over Crete. Some show other paratroopers drifting down and others feature formations of German aircraft amidst flak.Additionally, Sutherland has included amazing images depicting Germans on the deck of the badly damaged and abandoned HMS York in Souda Bay. There are photographs showing Major Erich Schulz decorating paratroopers on Crete and the then Commander of the Fallschirmjager, General Kurt Student inspecting the troops. We later pay witness to Plieschen in Russia, where outstanding rare photos of paratroopers in heavy winter camouflage clothing portray the men enduring the heavy fighting that occurred in the region.

About the Authors:

Jon Sutherland & Diane Canwell have written over 200 books, including several military history titles for Pen and Sword.  Their otver East Africa and Air War Malta, together with several of Pen and Sword's Images of War series.

Wilhelm Plieschen of 2nd Company of 7th Flieger Division visually plots the progress of his travels through Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and finally Crete as his division puts down insurrection in early 1941. - Michael Kelly President, PzG Inc.

BK298 - FALLSCHIRMJAGER Elite German Paratroops in World War II (Images of War Series)