The Long Road To Victory

[Illustrated with 10 plates of the battles and engagements detailed in the book] Colonel John Buchan, was a man of many talents, a politician of upright morals and forthright character, a novelist of great acclaim and a soldier who served with distinction in the First World War. He collected stories and anecdotes by the dozen, crafting the best and worthiest into this collection which spans the entire conflict. As he himself states in his introduction; “THIS is a book of soldiers’ tales, told, for the most part, by those who took part in the events they record. They are drawn from many branches of service and from many countries; sometimes they are concerned with great and critical operations, but more often they deal with episodes and sideshows in the huge business of war...There has never in the world’s history been such an arena of drama and strange adventure as that long road which the Allies travelled to victory. Libraries will not exhaust its treasures; indeed, it will be years before we, who have ‘been preoccupied with special stages, will be able to grasp the wonders of the whole journey. This budget of wayside tales is only the cutting of a few sheaves at random from an immense harvest.” As the chapter headings confirm the war on the ground and in the air throughout the conflict has been sketched with aplomb, from pilots above the Somme to the deserts of North Africa I. - FIRST YPRES, 1914: THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. II. -”‘TWIXT GUY FAWKES’ AND ST. PATRICK’S.” III. THE “PETROL HUSSARS.” IV. - THE WORST AND THE BEST. V. - THE FIFTEENTH DIVISION AT LOOS. VI. - THE FIGHTING IN THE AIR DURING THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME. VII. - THE CALL. THE TALE OF A TANK. VIII. - THE TANKS AT CAMBRAI. IX. - CUT OFF IN A CAVE. - THE TALE OF A FIGHT BEYOND THE JORDAN. X. -THE SOUTH AFRICANS AT MARRIÈRES WOOD. XI. - ZEEBRUGGE-H.M.S. VINDICTIVE. XII. - THE RIVER COLUMN IN NORTH RUSSIA. XIII. - A SNIPER’S DAY. IV. - THE CAT. XIV. - “BUNKING.”.

Excerpt from The Long Road to Victory This is a book of soldiers' tales, told, for the most part, by those who took part in the events they records. They are drawn from many branches of service and from many countries; sometimes they are concerned with great and critical operations, but more often they deal with episodes and sideshows in the huge business of war. Their romance is the romance of naked truth undecorated by fancy, for the authentic miracles of the last few years have left the professional romancer limping far behind. There has never in the worlds history been such an arena of drama and strange adventure as that long road which the Allies travelled to victory. Libraries will not exhaust its treasures; indeed, it will be years before we, who have been preoccupied with special stages, will be able to grasp the wonders of the whole journey. This budget of wayside tales is only the cutting of a few sheaves at random from an immense harvest. The book is intended especially for those who are only now growing to manhood, and were too young themselves to take part in the campaigns. It would not be a good thing to be always thinking about the war, for the eyes of youth should be turned forward. But it would be a worse thing to forget it, for it is a matter for everlasting remembrance and eternal pride. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This “important contribution to WWII history” reveals the trucking convoy, manned by unsung black soldiers, who helped defeat the Nazis (Publishers Weekly). After the D-Day landings in Normandy, Allied forces faced a golden opportunity—and a critical challenge. They had broken across enemy lines, but there was no infrastructure to supply troops as they pushed into Germany. The US Army improvised a perilous solution: a convoy of trucks marked with red balls that would carry desperately needed ammunition, rations, and fuel deep into occupied Europe. The so-called Red Ball Express lasted eighty-one days and, at its height, numbered nearly six thousand trucks. The mission risked attacks by the Luftwaffe and German ground forces, making it one of the GIs’ most daring gambits. Without the soldiers who successfully executed this operation, World War II would have dragged on in Europe at a terrible cost of Allied lives. Yet the service of these brave drivers, most of whom were African American, has been largely overlooked by history. The first book-length study of the subject, The Road to Victory chronicles the exploits of these soldiers in vivid detail. It’s a story of a fight not only against the Nazis, but against an enemy closer to home: racism.

From the evacuation of France in 1940 to the final dash to Hamburg in 1945, the 5th Royal Tank Regiment were on the front line throughout the Second World War. Theirs was a war that saw them serve in Africa as part of the Desert Rats, before returning to Europe for the Normandy landings. Wherever they went, the notoriety of the 'Filthy Fifth' grew - they revelled in their reputation for fighting by their own rules. The Tank War explains how Britain, having lost its advantage in tank warfare by 1939, regained ground through shifts in tactics and leadership methods, as well as the daring and bravery of the crews themselves. Overturning the received wisdom of much Second World War history, Mark Urban shows how the tank regiments' advances were the equal of the feats of the German Panzer divisions. Drawing on a wealth of new material, from interviews with surviving soldiers to rarely seen archive material, this is an unflinchingly honest, unsentimental and often brutal account of the 5th RTR's wartime experiences. Capturing the characters in the crews and exploring the strategy behind their success, The Tank War is not just the story of an battle hardened unit, but something more extraordinary: the triumph of ordinary men, against long odds, in the darkest of times.

The seventh volume of the acclaimed, official biography: “An engrossing history of Churchill’s crucial role in the grand alliance of World War II” (Los Angeles Times). This seventh volume in the epic, multivolume biography of Winston S. Churchill takes up the story of “Churchill’s War” with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and carries it on to the triumph of V-E Day, May 8, 1945, the end of the war in Europe. Acclaimed historian Martin Gilbert charts Churchill’s course through the storms of Anglo-American and Anglo-Soviet rivalry, and between the conflicting ambitions of other forces embattled against the common enemy: between General de Gaulle, his compatriots in France, and the French Empire; between Tito and other Yugoslav leaders; between the Greek Communists and monarchists; between the Polish government exiled in London and the Soviet-controlled “Lublin” Poles. Amid all these volatile concerns, Churchill had to find the path of prudence, of British national interest, and, above all, of the earliest possible victory over Nazism. In doing so he was guided by the most secret sources of British Intelligence: the daily interception of the messages of the German High Command. These pages reveal, as never before, the links between this secret information and the resulting moves and successes achieved by the Allies. “A milestone, a monument, a magisterial achievement . . . rightly regarded as the most comprehensive life ever written of any age.” —Andrew Roberts, historian and author of The Storm of War “The most scholarly study of Churchill in war and peace ever written.” —Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times

"By extending his analysis to 1820, Nellis challenges both students and scholars to re-examine their assumptions about the American Revolution." - Elizabeth Mancke, University of Akron