John C. Reed fought through the war in General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia as an officer in the 8th Georgia Infantry. A graduate of Princeton University and a classically educated aristocrat, he wrote home often and kept careful contemporaneous notes of his experiences in camp and on the battlefield. In 1888, Reed used these documents to produce a detailed memoir of his wartime experiences, but it was never published and because of an archival filing error after his death, was effectively lost for a century. The Military Memoirs of a Confederate Line Officer: Captain

June 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign is underway. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia pushes west into the Shenandoah Valley and then north toward the Potomac River. Only one significant force stands in its way: Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy's Union division of the Eighth Army Corps in the vicinity of Winchester and Berryville, Virginia. What happens next is the subject of this provocative new book. Milroy, a veteran Indiana politician-turned-soldier, was convinced the approaching enemy consisted of nothing more than cavalry or was merely a feint, and so defied repeated instructions to withdraw. In fact, the enemy consisted of General Lee's veteran Second Corps under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell. Milroy's controversial decision committed his outnumbered and largely inexperienced men against some of Lee's finest veterans. The complex and fascinating maneuvering and fighting on June 13-15 cost Milroy hundreds of killed and wounded and about 4,000 captured (roughly one-half of his command), with the remainder routed from the battlefield. The combat cleared the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley of Federal troops, demonstrated Lee could obtain supplies on the march, justified the elevation of General Ewell to replace the recently deceased Stonewall Jackson, and sent shockwaves through the Northern states. Today, the Second Battle of Winchester is largely forgotten. But in June 1863, the politically charged front-page news caught President Lincoln and the War Department by surprise and forever tarnished Milroy's career. The beleaguered Federal soldiers who fought there spent a lifetime seeking redemption, arguing their three-day "forlorn hope" delayed the Rebels long enough to allow the Army of the Potomac to arrive and defeat Lee at Gettysburg. For the Confederates, the decisive leadership on display outside Winchester masked significant command issues buried within the upper echelons of Jackson's former corps that would become painfully evident during the early days of July on a different battlefield in Pennsylvania. Award-winning authors Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus Sr. combined their researching and writing talents to produce the most in-depth and comprehensive study of Second Winchester ever written, and now in paperback. Their balanced effort, based upon scores of archival and previously unpublished diaries, newspaper accounts, and letter collections, coupled with familiarity with the terrain around Winchester and across the lower Shenandoah Valley, explores the battle from every perspective. The Second Battle of Winchester is comprehensive, highly readable, deeply researched, and immensely interesting. Now, finally, the pivotal battle in the Shenandoah Valley that opened the door to Gettysburg has the book it has so long deserved.

For nearly half a century, the battleship was the most powerful weapon on the ocean, deployed by the US Navy and many other fleets. However, their time seemed to be at an end when Japanese carrier-based aircraft destroyed so many at Pearl Harbor in 1941, ushering in the age of the aircraft carrier. Nevertheless, US battleships continued to serve with distinction in various roles throughout World War II and during the Cold War. Naval historian Ingo Bauernfeind tells the dramatic yet successful story of the US Navy’s battleships and battle cruisers by class, ranging from the early Dreadnought-type of the South Carolina-class to the gigantic Montana-class, which were approved but never built. This fully illustrated volume gives a clear overview of each ship’s career, its fate and highlights its significance in American naval history. Besides covering various battles in the Pacific, it also describes the important actions of US battleships providing shore bombardment during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa as well as during the D-day landings in Normandy, thus illustrating their contribution to Allied victory in World War II. Moreover, it covers the little-known actions of the Iowa-class during the Korean and Vietnam wars and even during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when the modernised USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin fired guided missiles and operated drones in addition to the use of their historic 16-inch guns. This volume culminates in a guided tour through the mighty USS Missouri, an overview of the other seven preserved US battleships serving as floating museums for future generations, as well as a dive to the sunken USS Arizona and USS Utah at Pearl Harbor.

This book contains information about a tank very important in the development of Polish armored weaponry. Although only 38 of these combat vehicles were purchased in 1932, allowing for the formation of just two companies, it was significant that the Polish Army received a modern tank, whose utility and properties could be tested in daily service. Simultaneously, a license for the production of Vickers E tanks was purchased - and this was even more important than the acquisition of the equipment itself. Operating Vickers E tanks provided essential knowledge about the necessary design changes - which was crucial for the initiated production of more advanced Polish tanks named 7TP and C7P artillery tractors.The book includes nearly 200 illustrations, consisting of large, clear photographs from the era and colorful profiles of Polish "Vickers" with faithfully reproduced details of equipment, painting, and markings.

After having lived through the hell of the trenches, Ulysse had been told that it was the last war. History decided otherwise. Twenty years later, the World War II breaks out. In this new volume, find again Ulysse and all his family, at the heart of this conflict, between Occupation and Resistance... Will men never learn the lessons of History?

As a good drawing is often better than a thousand explanations, what could be better than a Comic Strip to tell the tale of Operation Overlord and the Allied Landings in Normandy ? Without wishing to give a parody of a famous phrase printed by an equally famous newspaper read by young people aged 7 to 70, it is clear that comic strips are read by a very wide public. Bringing together pictures and texts, they are close to both literature and cinema, but are extremely good at being concise and straight to the point. These are surely the reasons why they are read with great interest by children, teenagers, parents and grandparents alike. I hope that this book will both serve to pass on the message of those who experienced these battles and the occupation first-hand and also interest the younger generations as they learn of the high price paid for Freedom. Such are my wishes as, on behalf of the Normandy Landings Committee, it is my pleasure to give my support to this initiative.

Why use an artificial port ? How they were made and assembled, risks and chances, questions and answers to determine and explain this titanesque enterprise to produce prefabricated ports.

On the night of the 31st of December 1943, two British commandos successfully collected a few samples of sand and peat under the very nose of the Germans posted at Ver-sur-Mer. Five months later, some 25,000 men followed in their footsteps and landed on the same shores, codenamed Gold Beach. Barely had they landed, before the British troops set out to build an artificial harbour, undoubtedly one of the finest technical feats of the Second World War. It was to prove a major asset for securing Allied supremacy in the months that followed the D-Day Landings.

June 6, 1944: a date forever etched in history. With the landing of allied troops on the Normandy coast, so began one of the major confrontations of the Second World War. Twelve weeks of fierce fighting would decide the fate of the war in the West and hasten the defeat of the Third Reich. It is right that everybody should still remember the sacrifice of a region and its people, and that of those men who came from across the Atlantic and across the Channel, to rest forever in this land that they liberated.

The Atlantikwall (Atlantic wall) was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by the German Third Reich in 1942 until 1944 during World War II along the western coast of Europe to defend against an anticipated British led Allied invasion of the continent.Early in 1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was assigned to improve the defenses of the Wall. Rommel believed the existing coastal fortifications were entirely inadequate, and he immediately began strengthening them. By the time of the invasion, the Germans had laid almost 6 million mines in northern France. More gun emplacements and minefields extended inland, along the roads leading out from the beaches. In likely landing spots for gliders and parachutists, the Germans emplaced slanted poles with sharpened tops, which the troops called Rommelspargel ("Rommel's asparagus"), and low-lying river and estuarine areas were permanently flooded as well.Rommel firmly believed that the invasion would have to be stopped at the beach itself, or the situation would otherwise inevitably lead to the defeat of Germany.The defensive wall was never completed; consisting primarily of batteries, bunkers, and minefields, which during 1942-1944 stretched from the French-Spanish border into Norway (Festung Norwegen). The Channel Islands were heavily fortified, particularly the island of Alderney which is the closest to France. Hitler had decreed that 10% of the steel and concrete used in the Atlantic Wall go to the Channel Islands, because of the propaganda value of controlling British territory. Despite the mooting of Operation Constellation et al, the Allies bypassed the islands for this reason and did not try to liberate them when they liberated Normandy. The islands' German garrisons did not surrender until 9 May 1945 - one day after the rest of the German armed forces. The German garrison on Alderney did not surrender until 16 May.Today, many significant vestiges remain of the coastal defence system which Goebbels was to pompously baptise the Atlantic Wall. One of the aims of this guide is to introduce readers to the most interesting sites from an architectural, technical or historical point of view, and which can be observed along the Normandy coastline between the Mont Saint-Michel and Dieppe.

June 6, 1944 minutes after midnight, silent silhouettes fly through the clouds and veer over from l'Orne, north of Caen. At more than 150 km / h, they touch the ground and finish their race a few meters from the bridge of Bénouville, who will enter into posterity under the name of Pegasus Bridge. Ninety men emerge painfully from these gliders and seize in a few minutes of the work by a spectacular "helping hand". He is the vanguard of the 6th Airborne Division which will jump a few minutes later between Orne and Dives, for cover the eastern flank of the Normandy landings. The missions assigned to it will all be successfully completed despite widely dispersed drops. But it is not as the beginning of three long months of fighting for British paratroopers.

1943, on a farm in Arkansas, two brothers, Eddy and JohnnyCollins, receive their mobilization letter: one will disembark atOmaha Beach while the other will have to climb a vertiginouscliff held by the enemy. Will the two brothers end upto regain ?

Sword, commonly known as Sword Beach, was the code name given to one of the five main landing areas along the Normandy coast during the initial assault phase, Operation Neptune, of Operation Overlord; the Allied invasion of German-occupied France that commenced on 6 June 1944. Stretching 8 km from Ouistreham to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, the beach was the eastern most landing site of the invasion. Sword was divided into several sectors, and each sector divided into beaches; thus the British 3rd Infantry Division, assigned to land on Sword, assaulted a two mile (3 km) stretch of Sword codenamed Queen Sector - Queen Red, White and Green beaches. Sword is around 15 km from Caen, the ultimate goal of the 3rd Infantry Division. The initial landings were achieved with low casualties but the advance from the beach was met with traffic congestion, heavily defended areas behind the beachhead and was met by the only armoured counterattack of the day, mounted by the 21st Panzer Division, that halted further progress towards Caen.At 00:16, on June, 1944, 1944, Major John Howard landed with his company just a few yards from Bénouville bridge. In the early hours of D-Day, his British paratroopers were the first Allies to set foot on French soil. They were the vanguard of the 6th Airborne Division whose mission was to secure the east flank of the landing zone, a few hours before the amphibious operation. At dawn, the British 3rd Division, backed by commando units, including Commandant Kieffer's 177 French troops, landed on Sword Beach. At 13:00 hours, Lord Lovat's men joined forces with the paratroopers at Bénouville, forging a vital link between the liberators from the skies and those from the seas.

Following the Normandy invasion of 6 June, 1944, Heersgruppe B under German Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel rushed reserves to the newly created bridgehead in order to crush it and drive the Allied forces into the sea. One of these armored reserves was the newly created 12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend. Extremely well equipped and at near full strength by mid-1944 standards, it was seen as an extremely capable formation that could defeat any Allied invasion.During this period studied in this volume, 7-11 June 1944, the 12. SS-Panzer-Division attempted to capture and hold the battlefield initiative, and in conjunction with other Panzer-Divisionen, throw what would become the Second British Army into the sea. The main thesis presented will be that despite this division's best efforts, it was defeated by a firm Allied defence that repulsed their offensive operations, eventually robbing the Germans of the initiative in a grinding series of bridgehead battles.This first volume will study combat in the period 7-11 June 1944 in the eastern sector of the Normandy Bridgehead. Chapters will analyze the Anglo-Canadian D-Day assault and the deployment of the division, then analyze in detail the fighting of the Hitlerjugend in the following areas: northern Caen, Putot, Bretteville l'Orgueilleuse, Norrey-en-Bessin, Hill 103, Le-Mesnil-Patry, and finally Rots. Also studied will be contrasting German and Anglo-Canadian tactical doctrine, the influence of tactical airpower, and the war crimes committed by the Hitlerjugend immediately after the invasion.The conclusion will reinforce the thesis presented above and a detailed set of appendices will analyze German personnel, equipment, and armored losses during the battles, and losses inflicted on the Allies. This will be Volume 1 of a planned multi-volume commitment.

In early 1945, the Red Army marched into East Prussia. Having advanced across Poland, relentlessly pushing back German forces, the Red Army built up forces along the Oder River, preparing for the final push towards Berlin. But before that battle could take place, it was necessary to clear and destroy German forces in Pomerania and West Prussia. In February 1945, the 2nd Byelorussian Front was advanced west north of the Vistula River toward Pomerania and the major port city of Danzig, with the primary aim of protecting the right flank of Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front, which was pushing towards Berlin. The opening of the offensive saw a series of heavy attacks east of Neustettin against the towns of Kontiz and Koslin. The fighting was bitter, resulting in the entire left wing of the 3rd Panzer Army being cut off.Forward Soviet tank units reached the Baltic, and the German forces in Pomerania became trapped in a series of encirclements. Russian troops then pushed on to Danzig—strategic location and the last German stronghold in the region—reaching it in early March and putting it under siege. A third stage was the operation to take the Arnswalde and Kolberg areas. Kolberg was one of the key German positions in the “Pomeranian wall,” the vital link between Pomerania and Prussia. The German high command had planned to use the port facilities for the logistical supply of nearby German forces, and hoped that the presence of this stronghold would lure Soviet forces away from the main thrust toward Berlin. The ensuing battle was brutal, with Soviet troops eventually seizing Kolberg. Finally, spearheads of the 1st Byelorussian Front advanced against the German Eleventh SS Panzer Army, which was being assembled in Pomerania. What followed was a bitter and bloody battle for the town of Altdamm.The offensive successfully cleared the remnants of German forces northeast of Berlin, allowing Zhukov’s forces to finally launch the battle of Berlin from the Seelow Heights on the Oder on April 16, 1945.

Among the many objectives to be achieved by the Allied troops during the D-Day Landing of June 6, 1944, the radar station built in 1942 by the Todt Organization covers an area of more than 35 hectares. Thirty structures and surveillance and guidance installations, such as the iconic Würzburg-Riese and its 7.5 meter diameter parabola. After several assaults, the site fell on June 17, more than 11 days after Operation Overlord...