A Photographic History Of Amphibious Warfare 1939 1945

Amphibious operations have always been an important element of warfare, but they reached their climax during the Second World War when they were carried out on a large scale in every theater of the conflict. That is why this wide-ranging, highly illustrated history of amphibious warfare 1939–1945 by Simon and Jonathan Forty is of such value. Their book gives graphic accounts of the main amphibious assaults launched by the major combatants, in particular the British, American, German and Japanese – not just large-scale landings like those in North Africa, Normandy, the Philippines and Okinawa, but also raids such as Dieppe and St Nazaire and evacuations like Dunkirk and Kerch. The rapid development of amphibious tactics and equipment is an essential element of the story, as are the vital roles played by the navies, air forces, armies and special forces in each complex combined operation. There is also a section on amphibious operations that were planned but didn’t happen, such as the German invasion of Britain and the Italian and German operation against Malta.

An unprecedented visual record of the diversity and drama of the naval element in World War II.

The infantry can always be found at the sharp end of the battlefield. You may be able to crush an opponent with armour or artillery, but there’s only one way to take and hold ground and that’s with riflemen – the ‘poor bloody infantry’. And it is the infantrymen of the Second World War – from all sides, Allied and Axis – who are the subject of this highly illustrated history. It uses over 400 wartime photographs plus contemporary documents and other illustrations to show the developments in equipment, training and tactical techniques and to give an insight into the experience of the infantry soldier during the conflict. Although the infantry were critical to the war effort, their contribution is often overshadowed by the more dramatic roles played by soldiers with more specialized skills – like tank crew, paratroopers and special forces. They also suffered devastating casualties, in particular during the last phase of the war in the west when around 20 per cent of an infantry division’s riflemen were likely to die and over 60 per cent could expect to be wounded. So as well as describing how the infantry fought, the authors look at the motivation which kept them fighting in awful conditions and despite brutal setbacks. The result is a thorough, detailed and revealing portrait of infantry warfare over seventy years ago.

The Emergence of American Amphibious Warfare, 1898–1945 examines how the United States became a military superpower through the use of amphibious operations. While other major world powers pursued and embraced different weapons and technologies to create different means of waging war, the United States was one of the few countries that spent decades training, developing, and employing amphibious warfare to pursue its national interests.Commonly seen as dangerous and costly, amphibious warfare was carefully modernized, refined, and promoted within American political and military circles for years by a small motley group of military mavericks, intellectuals, innovators, and crackpots. This generational cast of underdogs and unlikely heroes were able to do the impossible by predicting and convincing America’s leadership how the United States should fight World War II.David Nasca reveals that despite the new ways that states have to project military power today as seen with airpower, nuclear weapons, cyber warfare, and special operators, amphibious warfare has proven to be the most important element in transforming the theater of battle. In understanding how amphibious warfare allowed the United States to achieve geopolitical supremacy, competitor states are now looking at America’s amphibious past for clues in how to challenge the United States’ global leadership and expand its power and influence in the world.

On 10 May 1940 German Fallschirmjäger stormed the Dutch fort of Eben-Emael, south of Maastricht. The brilliantly executed operation was the first signal success by airborne troops in the Second World War and it made the military world sit up and take notice. Improved parachutes and the creation of gliders that could carry troops meant that assault forces could be dropped or landed behind enemy lines. This was a significant new tactic which had a dramatic impact on several of the key campaigns, and it is the subject of Simon and Jonathan Forty’s in-depth, highly illustrated history. They tell the story of the development of airborne forces, how they were trained and equipped, and how they were landed and put into action in every theatre of the global conflict. The results were mixed. German airborne forces were victorious on Crete, but the cost was so great that Hitler vowed never to use them in the same way again. The Allies saw things differently. After Crete they built up elite units who would play important roles in later battles – in Normandy, for example, where the British 6th Airborne Division took vital bridges prior to the D-Day landings. These are just two examples of the many similar operations on the Western and Eastern Fronts and in the Pacific which are covered in this wide-ranging book. It offers the reader a fascinating insight into airborne warfare over seventy years ago.

The RIA-Novosti press agency - now known as Sputnik in the West - has one of the best archives of Soviet Second World War photographs and for this remarkable book Alexander Hill has made a superb selection of them. These striking images record vividly, as only photographs can, the brutal conflict on the Eastern Front and the extraordinary experience of the soldiers and civilians who were caught up in it.Every aspect of the struggle is depicted - the fighting on the front lines and behind the lines, aerial combat and naval warfare, the ordeal of living under German occupation, the war industries and Lend-Lease and the massive sacrifices made at every level of Soviet society to defeat the Germans.The photographs and captions take the reader through the entire course of the war, from the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Soviet expansion into Poland, Finland and the Baltic Republics, through Operation Barbarossa and the German advances of 1941 and 1942, to the momentous battles at Stalingrad and Kursk and the sequence of massive offensives mounted by the Red Army that drove the Wehrmacht back to Berlin.The landscapes over which the armies moved, and the shattered towns and cities they left behind, are recorded as are individuals whose faces were captured by the camera during this devastating conflict over seventy years ago.