Battle Diary

A fast-paced account by a soldier who was twice decorated. Charlie Martin, company sergeant-major in the Queen’s Own, was with his beloved A Company in all of the significant Normandy actions.

‘The child you threatened once, the young shoot you stepped on, the Tamil you teased, is standing with a gun in front of you.’ This short diary was recovered from Malaravan’s kit after he was killed in action in 1992, when barely twenty. In it, he recounts his unit’s journey to Maankulam, the island’s granary, to fight a critical battle where they routed the Lankan military. The LTTE’s planning and tactics, the fervour and camaraderie of the young Tigers, and the actual combat are minutely chronicled. As a foil to the violence, Malaravan brings out the beauty of the Tamil forest and countryside and the humanity and support of the common people for them, despite their suffering under army rule. Bittersweet, fresh and lyrical at times, War Journey is a testament to the Tamil longing for a homeland and the wider conflict that once engulfed the island.

"My belief in this war is as deep as any faith can be." One of the most personal, compelling, and enduring accounts of life as an American Civil War battlefield commander is in these pages. Wounded five times and promoted to General in January, 1865, Rutherford B. Hayes would later become the 19th President of the United States. In a diary and in letters, Hayes recounts in great detail major battles, his men, technology of arms, and the southern countryside and people. With wit and affection he writes to his beloved wife, Lucy, and his children, mother and uncle (his father died before his birth), and friends. "Sergeant Ritter had a bullet shot into his head lodging between the scalp and skull. He fell, but instantly jumped up saying, 'You must shoot lower if you want to kill me.'" Of Hayes, Ulysses S. Grant wrote, "[h]is conduct on the field was marked by conspicuous gallantry as well as the display of qualities of a higher order than that of mere personal daring." When approached by one of his men for permission to marry, Hayes tells us: "I asked him why he was in a hurry to marry; if he knew much about her; and what was her name. He replied, 'I like her looks;' and after confessing that he didn't know her name, that he thought it was Eliza Watson(!), he admitted that the thing was this: Eight hundred dollars had been left to him payable on his marriage, and he wanted the money out at interest!" At times he becomes introspective and philosophical: "Queer world! We fret our little hour, are happy and pass away. Away! Where to? This longing after immortality!" At other times, he talks of good times and the friendships among officers and men: "Well, what good times we have had! Wit, anecdote, song, feast, wine, and good fellowship—gentlemen and scholars." Unlike many of the wonderful accounts by everyday foot soldiers, this perspective by an educated commander and future president provides you with a tale that is both broad and personal. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

Amanda MacLeish might be the only student in Mr. Abrams's fifth-grade class who doesn't mind doing her homework. Now that her father has left home and moved into a motel, the only thing that brings Amanda any joy is writing her fictional diary entries about a young girl named Polly who lives amid the chaos of the Civil War. Polly would understand Amanda. With one brother fighting for the North and one fighting for the South, Polly knows just how it feels to have a family split in half. But if the North and the South could find a way to reunite despite their differences, can't Amanda's family do the same? In this touching novel by Claudia Mills, the heroine learns that enduring a split doesn't have to mean losing a family. The Totally Made-up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Diary of the wife of Herbert Henry Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister who lead Great Britain during the first two years of World War I. Covers the early war years and Lloyd George's defeat of Asquith's government in December 1916.

"Arguably the finest account of sniping during World War II." – Adrian Gilbert, author of Challenge of Battle. "Undoubtedly literature’s most remarkable account of sniper action." – Charles W. Sasser, former US Army Special Forces soldier and author of One Shot–One Kill Lyudmila Pavlichenko was one of the most successful – and feared – female snipers of all time. When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 she left her university studies to join the Red Army. Ignoring offers of positions as a nurse she became part of Soviet Russia’s elite group of female snipers. Within a year she had 309 confirmed kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. Renowned as the scourge of German soldiers, she was regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort and, in 1942, on Stalin’s personal orders, she travelled as part of a Soviet delegation to the West, fundraising in Canada, Great Britain and the USA. Dubbed ‘Lady Death’, she spoke out about gender equality in the Red Army and made the case for the USA to continue the fight against the Nazis in Europe. The folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her exploits – ‘Miss Pavlichenko’ – and she visited the White House, where she formed an unlikely but long-lasting friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. In November 1942 she visited Coventry and accepted donations of £4,516 from Coventry workers to pay for three X-ray units for the Red Army. She also visited a Birmingham factory as part of her fundraising tour.

Fahey was a 24-year-old garbage-truck driver when he enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 3, 1942, and became a seaman first class on the USS Montpelier. During almost three years of battle in the Pacific Ocean, he defied Navy rules against keeping a diary by writing copious notes on loose sheets of paper that appeared to anyone watching to be ordinary let