The Peenem Nde Raid

Describes a precision bombing raid by the RAF against the Nazi rocket research center in Peenemunde.

Even while the fighting was still raging in Germany in the spring of 1945, a handful of young U.S. Army officers scored a colossal coup: They connived to steal 100 of the huge V-2s that had been found in an underground factory. They were dismantled and slipped by train out of Germany, destination White Sands, New Mexico.

This book describes one twenty-four-hour period in the Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive in the greatest possible detail. The author sets the scene by outlining the course of the bombing war from 1939 to the night of the Nuremberg raid, the characters and aims of the British bombing leaders and the composition of the opposing Bomber Command and German night fighter forces.The aim of the Nuremberg raid was not unlike many hundreds of other RAF missions but, due to the difficulties and dangers of the enemy defences and weather plus bad luck, it went horribly wrong. The result was so notorious that it became a turning point in the campaign. The target, the symbolic Nazi rally city of Nuremberg, was only lightly damaged and 96 out of 779 bombers went missing.Middlebrook recreates the events of the fateful night in astonishing detail. The result is a meticulous dramatic and often controversial account. It is also a moving tribute to the bravery of the RAF bomber crews and their adversaries.

Broken down by weapon types, the book includes reference tables, diagrams, colorful maps, charts and photographs, presenting all the core data in easy-to-follow formats.

Martin Middlebrook enjoys an international reputation with his superbly researched, compelling accounts of major turning points in the two World Wars.An absorbing account of the biggest bombing offensive in World War Two, based on the accounts of those who experienced it on both sides - in the air and on the ground.

A detailed history of the brief 1980s conflict between the UK and Argentina, from the author of The First Day on the Somme. With the surprise Argentine invasion of the remote Falkland Islands on April 2, 1982, the United Kingdom found itself at war. Due to the resolve of a determined Prime Minister and the resourcefulness of the Armed Forces, a task force, codenamed Operation Corporate, was quickly dispatched. Remarkably, just over two months later, the islands were liberated, and the invaders defeated. By any standards this was an outstanding feat of arms, cooperation made possible by political resolve, sound planning, strong leadership and the courage and determination of the British forces. Martin Middlebrook, the renowned military historian, has skillfully weaved the many strands of this extraordinary achievement into a fascinating, thorough and highly readable account. Thanks to his meticulous research he covers action at sea, on the land and in the air as well as providing the strategic overview. The author’s use of many first-hand accounts reveals what it was like to be part of this audacious military endeavor. The experiences of the Falkland Islanders during the Argentine occupation are also included. Thirty years on, Middlebrook’s The Falklands War is still an authoritative and thoroughly readable account of this historic enterprise. Originally published as Operation Corporate: The Story of the Falklands War, 1982. Praise for The Falklands War “The author’s descriptions of confrontations in the air, on the sea and on the various battlegrounds are superb, as are his explanations of the use of new weapons, such as the Sea Harrier and the Exocet missile.” —Publishers Weekly

Piercing the Fog discusses the development of new sources and methods of intelligence collection; requirements for intelligence at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of warfare; intelligence to support missions for air superiority, interdiction, strategic bombardment, and air defense; the sharing of intelligence in a coalition and joint service environment; the acquisition of intelligence to assess bomb damage on a target-by-target basis and to measure progress in achieving campaign and war objectives; and the ability of military leaders to understand the intentions and capabilities of the enemy and to appreciate the pressures on intelligence officers to sometimes tell commanders what they think the commanders want to hear instead of what the intelligence discloses. The complex problems associated with intelligence to support strategic bombardment in the 1940s will strike some readers as uncannily prescient to global Air Force operations in the 1990s. A half century ago, accurate, timely intelligence contributed significantly to victory and hastened the end of World War II. Such a legacy is worth reading and thinking about by all those responsible for building, maintaining, and employing air power. How well intelligence is integrated with air operations is even more important today than it was in the past. It will continue to prove as critical in the next century as it has been in this one. RICHARD P. HALLION Air Force Historian

Already well-known for his bestselling series of exposés on secret Nazi technology and the survival of the Third Reich after the end of World War II, Oxford-educated historian and physicist Joseph P. Farrell here delves ever deeper into the activities of this nefarious group. In his previous works, Farrell has clearly demonstrated that the Nazis were clandestinely developing new and amazing technologies toward the end of WWII, and that the key scientists involved in these experiments were exported to the Allied countries at the end of the conflict, mainly the United States, in a move called Operation Paperclip. NASA director and developer of the Saturn V rocket that sent Americans to the moon, Werner von Braun, was one of these scientists. Farrell has traced the links between ongoing Reich activities and the newly-formed CIA and other defense/ military/ industrial establishments. Now, Farrell has meticulously reviewed the best-known Roswell research from UFO-ET advocates and skeptics alike, as well as some little-known source material, and comes to a radically different scenario of what happened in Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947, and why the US military has continued to cover it up to this day. Farrell presents a fascinating case sure to disturb both ET believers and disbelievers, namely, that what crashed may have been representative of an independent postwar Nazi power-an extraterritorial Reich monitoring its old enemy, America, and the continuing development of the very technologies confiscated from Germany at the end of the War.