John Nichol

Tony Rennell

IT IS THE DESPERATE CALL FOR HELP THAT HAS ECHOED ACROSS BATTLEFIELDS THROUGH THE AGES. 'MEDIC! WE NEED A MEDIC OVER HERE! NOW!' Doctors, nurses, medics and stretcher bearers go where the bullets are thickest, through bomb alleys and mine fields, ducking mortars and rockets, wherever someone is injured and the cry for assistance goes up. Their job is the put themselves in the heart of danger - to run into battle to rescue the wounded and to risk their own lives as they try to save the dying. War at its rawest is their domain, an ugly place of shattered bodies, severed limbs and death. Theirs is the most selfless of acts. They fulfil society's vital pledge to its warriors that they will not be abandoned on the battlefield. Yet, more often than not, what they do goes unnoticed - except by those who are still alive only because of the extraordinary courage and skill of their rescuers. This is the story of those brave men - and, increasingly in this day and age, women - who go to war armed with bandages not bombs, scalpels not swords, and put saving life above taking life. Many have died in the process, the ultimate sacrifice for others to ensure that when the cry of 'Medic!' is heard, it will be answered. Regardless of the cost. From the beaches of Dunkirk to the desert towns of Afghanistan, there can be no nobler cause.

Saving Lives from Dunkirk to Afghanistan

Medic

Through the prism of Queen Victoria's last 23 days, from her final journey to Osborne House to her funeral, Tony Rennell presents a series of resonant and absorbing snapshots of a nation coping with change, balancing nostalgia with the Victorian Age and the arrival of a new order. Such was the anxiety of the government and the royal family about the prospect of the Queen's death that the news of her illness was deliberately concealed from the public for more than a week. When news of her death came, people wept in the streets from London, England, to Kingston, Jamaica, and beyond. This grief was surpassed only by fear for the future for the Queen's death seemed to signal the end of an era more significantly than even the turn of the century just a year earlier. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Death of Queen Victoria

The Last Days of Glory

Queen Victoria's death, in January 1901, was an immense shock that unsettled Britain and the Empire to a degree that now seems inconceivable. She had been Queen for 63 years; people wept in the streets, and a million onlookers lined the route of her funeral procession in London. What would the country do without her?

Last Days of Glory

"Night after night they stifled their fears and flew through flak and packs of enemy fighters to drop the bombs that would demolish the Third Reich. The airmen of the United States 8th Army Air Force, American and British Bomber Command were among the greatest heroes of the Second World War, defying Hitler in the darkest early days of the war and taking the battle to the German homeland when no one else would ... Especially vulnerable were the "tail-end Charlies"--For the Americans, which meant two things: the gunners who flew countless missions in a plexiglass bubble at the back of the bomber, and the last bomber in the formation who ended up flying through the most hell, and for the British, the rear-gunners who flew operations in a Plexiglas bubble at the back of the bomber ... [The authors] tell the astonishing and deeply moving story of the controversial last battles in the skies of Germany through the eyes of the forgotten heroes who fought them"--Publisher's description.

The Last Battles of the Bomber War, 1944-45

Tail-end Charlies

Arnhem by John Nichol and Tony Rennell is an absolutely gripping narrative packed with action and heroic tales of courage. 'Riveting ... reveals the ice-cool courage of British troops trapped in the bloody shambles of Arnhem' Daily Mail In September 1944, a mighty shock force of battle-hardened Allied troops dropped from the skies into enemy-occupied Holland in what was hoped would be the decisive final battle of World War II. Landing miles behind the German lines, their daring mission was to secure bridges across the Rhine so that ground forces could make a rapid dash into Nazi Germany. If all went well, the war could be over by Christmas. The plan went terribly wrong ... Seen through the dramatic first-hand accounts of those who were there, Arnhem is the gripping story of a bitter military defeat that became a triumph of the human spirit. It paints a vivid portrait of those in the cauldron of war, fighting for their lives, fighting for their comrades, fighting for their honour, a battle they won hands down. For fans of A Bridge Too Far, Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, and for readers of Antony Beevor's Stalingrad and Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Dunkirk.

Arnhem

In September 1944, a mighty shock force of battle hardened Allied troops dropped from the skies into enemy-occupied Holland in what was hoped would be the decisive final battle of World War II.Landing miles behind the German lines, their daring mission was to secure bridges across the Rhine so that ground forces could make a rapid dash into Nazi Germany. If all went well, the war could be over by Christmas. But what many trusted would be a simple operation turned into a brutal losing battle. Of 12,000 British airborne soldiers, 1,500 died and 6,000 were taken prisoner. The vital bridge at Arnhem they had come to capture stayed resolutely in German hands. But though this was a bitter military defeat for the Allies, beneath the humiliation was another story - of heroism and self-sacrifice, gallantry and survival, guts and determination unbroken in the face of impossible odds. In the two-thirds of a century that have passed since then, historians have endlessly analysed what went wrong and squabbled over who was to blame. Lost in the process was that other Arnhem story - the triumph of the human spirit, as seen through the dramatic first-hand accounts of those who were there, in the cauldron, fighting for their lives, fighting for their comrades, fighting for their honour, a battle they won hands down.

The Battle for Survival

Night after night, they swallowed their fears and flew long distances through packs of enemy fighters to drop the bombs that could destroy Hitler and bring about the end of the war. Tens of thousands of young men never came back, blown up or bailing out from burning aircraft to drop helplessley into enemy hands. Yet history has condemned their brave and valiant actions, denouncing them for the destruction of German cities and civilians, rather than acknowledging them for the heroes that they are. For the first time John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the story of the controversial last battles of Bomber Command through the eyes of the heroic men who fought them.

The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45

Tail-End Charlies

Barry Turner

Compelling and moving real-life accounts of the impact on family life of the return of the troops at the end of the Second World War. Summer 1945. Britain was in jubilant mood. At last, the war was over. Soon the men would be coming home. Then everything would be fine: life would get back to normal. Or would it? Six long years of war had profoundly changed family life. For years, Dad had been a khaki figure in a photograph on the wall, a crumpled letter from overseas, an occasional visitor on weekend leave. Now he was here to stay, a stranger in a group that had learned to live without him - and was not always prepared to have him back. Most homecomings were joyful, never-to-be-forgotten moments of humour and hope. Others were hard. And there was no one to deal with the tears and the trauma. It would take hope and courage for families to live and love together again.

How War Changed Family Life Forever

When Daddy Came Home

Draws on the testimony of surviving veterans to relate the experiences of American and British prisoners of war who were forced to march hundreds of miles along the Death March in the wake of the D-Day landings.

The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Europe, 1944-45

The Last Escape

Hundreds of thousands of British and American servicemen were held as POW's in camps across Nazi Germany by time of the Normandy landings in June 1944. As winter settled across Europe and the Allied advance threatened German borders, prisoners were moved away from liberating forces. The POWs were forced to march hundreds of miles in appalling conditions. Hundreds died of disease, starvation and exhaustion. Yet when the war was over those who survived found their extraordinary tale was largely ignored and forgotten. Now, John Nichol and Tony Rennell bring the survivors' amazing stories to light, telling one of the most courageous and brutal tales of the final months of the Second World War.

The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Germany 1944-1945

'Everything you expect in a tale of wartime escape and evasion is here: midnight scrambles across rooftops from the Gestapo, ticket inspectors taking one too ' many looks at forged documents, bayonets jabbed into haystacks, Resistance betrayals, burning Lancasters, evil SS officers, doomed love affairs, heroic self-sacrifice, outrageous strokes of bad or good fortune, despair and jubilation. If this were fiction, it would defy credibility, yet every word is true' Mail on Sunday 'Humanity shines through. A proficient and sensitive account of the best and worst of human behaviour. Some passages. are grim, but there are also picaresque adventures, astounding gambles, comic scrapes and even romance with French girls' Daily Telegraph

Tony Rennell

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