Assault From The Sky

A key look at the history of airborne forces from the Second World War to the 1980s, studying their training and equipment as well as their actions in battle. The introduction of Airborne forces revolutionised military tactics and thinking throughout the twentieth century. In this exciting edition, ex-paratrooper John Weeks presents a history of the Airborne forces across the globe, studying the generals, the planners and parachutists, as well as the aircraft, gliders, weapons and helicopters, alongside a look at their background and their most famous actions, such as Crete, Arnhem, D-Day and the crossing the Rhine. Within each chapter, Weeks presents detailed analyses of the main airborne forces. Airborne raids caught popular imagination from early in the Second World War, when the Germans carried out daring and alarming raids. The assault is fast and dynamic, and most of all, unpredictable, which in the early 1940s led all participants of the war to develop airborne forces of their own.

“Action-packed . . . he brings the reader artfully through the fog of war with clarity” (20th Century Aviation Magazine). Vietnam has often been called our “first helicopter war,” and indeed, the US Marine Corps, as well as Army, had to feel its way forward during the initial combats. But by 1967, the combat was raging across South Vietnam, with confrontational battles against the NVA on a scale comparable to the great campaigns of WWII. In 1968, when the Communists launched their mammoth counteroffensive, the Marines were forced to fight on all sides, with the helicopter giving them the additional dimension that proved decisive in repelling the enemy. The author of this book, a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient who has also worked at the USMC History Division and National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, uses his experiences as a company commander to bring the story to life by weaving personal accounts, after-action reports, and official documents into a compellingly readable narrative of service and sacrifice by Marine pilots and crewmen. The entire story of the war is depicted through the prism of Marine helicopter operations, from the first deployments to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam against the Viet Cong through the rapid US buildup to stop the North Vietnamese Army, until the final withdrawal from our Embassy. “Superlative research.” —Leatherneck

A dedicated U. S. Army Helicopter pilot tries to survive his tour of duty in Vietnam. To do so he must survive combat missions, bad weather, mechanical problems and human error. This is his fascinating story.

During the 1980s war in El Salvador, Radio Venceremos was the main news outlet for the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), the guerrilla organization that challenged the government. The broadcast provided a vital link between combatants in the mountains and the outside world, as well as an alternative to mainstream media reporting. In this first-person account, "Santiago," the legend behind Radio Venceremos, tells the story of the early years of that conflict, a rebellion of poor peasants against the Salvadoran government and its benefactor, the United States. Originally published as La Terquedad del Izote, this memoir also addresses the broader story of a nationwide rebellion and its international context, particularly the intensifying Cold War and heavy U.S. involvement in it under President Reagan. By the war's end in 1992, more than 75,000 were dead and 350,000 wounded—in a country the size of Massachusetts. Although outnumbered and outfinanced, the rebels fought the Salvadoran Army to a draw and brought enough bargaining power to the negotiating table to achieve some of their key objectives, including democratic reforms and an overhaul of the security forces. Broadcasting the Civil War in El Salvador is a riveting account from the rebels' point of view that lends immediacy to the Salvadoran conflict. It should appeal to all who are interested in historic memory and human rights, U.S. policy toward Central America, and the role the media can play in wartime.