Giles Milton

Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.

The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Originally published under the titles: When Hitler took cocaine and When Linin lost his brain.

History’s Unknown Chapters

When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain

Nathaniel's Nutmeg

The lively, immersive story of the race to seize Berlin in the aftermath of World War II that fired the starting gun for the Cold War, by the internationally bestselling master of popular history Giles Milton. Berlin’s fate was sealed at the 1945 Yalta Conference: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up between the victorious powers—American, British, French, and Soviet. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, now that the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their pre-war hostility toward and suspicion of each other. The veneer of civility between Allies and Soviets was to break down in spectacular fashion. Rival systems, rival ideologies, and rival personalities ensured that Berlin became an explosive battleground. The warring leaders who ran the zones that Berlin and Germany were divided into were charismatic, mercurial, larger-than-life men you’d sooner expect to find in a Quentin Tarantino movie than a history book, and Giles Milton brings them all to rich and thrilling life—resourced from their diaries, memoirs, and unpublished papers. We meet men like America’s explosive Frank “Howlin” Howley, a blunt sharp-tongued colonel with a relish for mischief who detested all Russians, and the Soviet Vassily Sokolovsky, who motored around Berlin in a luxury, American-made LaSalle sedan. Worldly and urbane, Sokolovsky sparkled with jokes, witty aphorisms, and folksy Russian proverbs and peppered his speech with quotes from the novels of Jane Austen. Checkmate in Berlin will recount the first battle of the Cold War as we’ve never seen it. An exhilarating tale of intense rivalry and raw power, it is above all a story of flawed individuals who were determined to win. Just as The Third Man shed light on the Viennese underworld though the character of Harry Lime, so Checkmate in Berlin will reveal the theatre of Cold War Germany through the prism of the actors on the ground. It is a story of unprecedented drama, and one that had a profound, and often underestimated effect on the shaping of our modern world.

The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World

Checkmate in Berlin

Vividly recreates England's first encounter with Japan, an exotic country that had been inaccessible to foreigners for years, which was brought about when a stranded English mariner named William Adams assimilated himself into Japanese culture and profoundly impacted the Shogun's decision to open his country to the world. Reprint.

The Englishman who Opened Japan

Samurai William

More addictive and mind-blowing true tales from history, told by Giles Milton—one of today’s most entertaining and accessible yet always intelligent and illuminating historians In When Churchill Slaughtered Sheep and Stalin Robbed a Bank, the second installment in his outrageously entertaining series, History’s Unknown Chapters, Giles Milton shows his customary historical flair as he delves into the little-known stories from history, like when Stalin was actually assassinated with poison by one of his inner circle; the Russian scientist, dubbed the “Red Frankenstein,” who attempted to produce a human-ape hybrid through ethically dubious means; the family who survived thirty-eight days at sea with almost no water or supplies after their ship was destroyed by a killer whale; or the plot that served as a template for 9/11 in which four Algerian terrorists attempted to hijack a plane and fly it into the Eiffel Tower.

History's Unknown Chapters

When Churchill Slaughtered Sheep and Stalin Robbed a Bank

A ground-breaking account of the first 24 hours of the D-Day invasion told by a symphony of incredible accounts of unknown and unheralded members of the Allied – and Axis – forces. Seventy-five years have passed since D-Day, the greatest seaborne invasion in history. The outcome of the Second World War hung in the balance on that chill June morning. If Allied forces succeeded in gaining a foothold in northern France, the road to victory would be open. But if the Allies could be driven back into the sea, the invasion would be stalled for years, perhaps forever. An epic battle that involved 156,000 men, 7,000 ships and 20,000 armoured vehicles, the desperate struggle that unfolded on 6 June 1944 was, above all, a story of individual heroics – of men who were driven to keep fighting until the German defences were smashed and the precarious beachheads secured. This authentic human story – Allied, German, French – has never fully been told. Giles Milton’s bold new history narrates the day’s events through the tales of survivors from all sides: the teenage Allied conscript, the crack German defender, the French resistance fighter. From the military architects at Supreme Headquarters to the young schoolboy in the Wehrmacht’s bunkers, Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die lays bare the absolute terror of those trapped in the front line of Operation Overlord. It also gives voice to those who have hitherto remained unheard – the French butcher’s daughter, the Panzer Commander’s wife, the chauffeur to the General Staff. This vast canvas of human bravado reveals ‘the longest day’ as never before – less as a masterpiece of strategic planning than a day on which thousands of scared young men found themselves staring death in the face. It is drawn in its entirety from the raw, unvarnished experiences of those who were there.

How the Allies Won on D-Day

Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die

The true story of white European slaves in 18th century Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco draws from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them.

The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves

White Gold

'Giles Milton is a man who can take an event from history and make it come alive . . . an inspiration for those of us who believe that history can be exciting and entertaining' Matthew Redhead, The Times Did you know that Hitler took cocaine? That Stalin robbed a bank? That Charlie Chaplin's corpse was filched and held to ransom? Giles Milton is a master of historical narrative: in his characteristically engaging prose, Fascinating Footnotes From History details one hundred of the quirkiest historical nuggets; eye-stretching stories that read like fiction but are one hundred per cent fact. There is Hiroo Onoda, the lone Japanese soldier still fighting the Second World War in 1974; Agatha Christie, who mysteriously disappeared for eleven days in 1926; and Werner Franz, a cabin boy on the Hindenburg who lived to tell the tale when it was engulfed in flames in 1937. Fascinating Footnotes From History also answers who ate the last dodo, who really killed Rasputin and why Sergeant Stubby had four legs. Peopled with a gallery of spies, rogues, cannibals, adventurers and slaves, and spanning twenty centuries and six continents, Giles Milton's impeccably researched footnotes shed light on some of the most infamous stories and most flamboyant and colourful characters (and animals) from history. (Previoulsy published in four individual epub volumes: When Hitler Took Cocaine, When Stalin Robbed a Bank, When Lenin Lost His Brain and When Churchill Slaughtered Sheep.)

Fascinating Footnotes from History

Fascinating Footnotes From History

From internationally bestselling historian Giles Milton comes the remarkable true story of the Allies' secret mission to wartime Moscow.

In the summer of 1941, as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin's forces faced a catastrophic defeat which would make the Allies' liberation of Europe virtually impossible. To avert this disaster, Britain and America mobilized an elite team of remarkable diplomats with the mission of keeping the Red Army in the war.

Into the heart of Stalin's Moscow Roosevelt sent Averell Harriman, the fourth richest man in America and his brilliant young daughter Kathy. Churchill dispatched the reckless but inventive bon vivant Archie Clark Kerr - and occasionally himself - to negotiate with the Kremlin's wiliest operators. Together, this improbable group grappled with the ingenious, mercurial Stalin to make victory possible. But they also discovered that the Soviet dictator had a terrifying masterplan for the post-war world.

Based on astonishing unpublished diaries, letters and secret reports, The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the most unlikely coalition in history.

The Impossible Alliance that Won the War

The Stalin Affair

The Soldiers' Story

D-Day

Wie der Traum einer Vielvölkerstadt in Flammen aufging

Das Inferno von Smyrna

Smyrna, 1922

Paradise lost

Six gentlemen, one goal - the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top secret organisation was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was to prove every bit as extraordinary as the six gentlemen who directed it. Winston Churchill selected them because they were wildly creative and thoroughly ungentlemanly. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favourite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another member of the team, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing. He was hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men - along with three others - formed a secret inner circle that planned the most audacious sabotage attacks of the Second World War. Winston Churchill called it his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. The six 'ministers', aided by a group of formidable ladies, were so effective that they single-handedly changed the course of the war. Told with Giles Milton's trademark verve and eye for detail, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is thoroughly researched and based on hitherto unknown archival material. It is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do and is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.

Churchill's Mavericks - Plotting Hitler's Defeat

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

'To write a book that makes the reader sit in a trance, lost in his passionate desire to pack a suitcase and go to the fabulous place - that, in the end, is something one would give a sack of nutmeg for' Philip Hensher, The Spectator In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission - to persuade the islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe. This infuriated the Dutch, who were determined to control the world's nutmeg supply. For five years Courthope and his band of thirty men were besieged by a force one hundred times greater - and his heroism set in motion the events that led to the founding of the greatest city on earth. A beautifully told adventure story and a fascinating depiction of exploration in the seventeenth century, NATHANIEL'S NUTMEG sheds a remarkable light on history

How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History

הערות שוליים מרתקות מן ההיסטוריה

A Novel of History, Dark Intrigue, and Cheese

Edward Trencom's Nose

Veidram kui väljamõeldis

A historical account of England's relations with the Native American tribes of North America examines the fate of one hundred English colonists who arrived in the new world in 1587 and then disappeared into the wilderness.

The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America

Big Chief Elizabeth

In this marvellous collection of fascinating footnotes, Giles Milton delves into the little-known stories from history. Covering everything from adventure, war, murder and slavery to espionage, including the stories of the man who stole the Mona Lisa, the double life of Dr Aribert Heim, the man who never died and the cabin boy on the Hindenburg, these tales deserve to be told.

Giles Milton

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