Great Britain World War

The fighting in North Africa during World War II is commonly overlooked, aside from the famous battle at El Alamein that pitted the British under General Bernard Montgomery against the legendary 'Desert Fox', Erwin Rommel. But while the Second Battle of El Alamein would be the pivotal action in North Africa, the conflict in North Africa began all the way back in the summer of 1940 when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared Italy’s entrance into the war.

The British losses in ships and men during the Battle of Jutland started a controversy that some continue even up to today over the culpability of Admiral Jellicoe, who commanded the British fleets. In this book published shortly after the war collates accounts from both sides of the conflict and narrates the battle for the first time using knowledge previously unknown and only guessed at.

At the beginning of 1941, it was unclear whether the Allies would be able to remain in the war for much longer. The potential of a German invasion of Britain loomed. The Battle of Britain, fought throughout the summer and early autumn of 1940, was unquestionably epic in scope. The largest air campaign in history at the time, the vaunted Nazi Luftwaffe sought to smash the Royal Air Force, but thankfully, the RAF stood toe to toe with the Luftwaffe and ensured Hitler’s planned invasion was permanently put on hold.

The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight - the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M. Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War II, in spite of his own history inside this movement. He was also truly eccentric - a thrice-married jazz aficionado who kept a menagerie of exotic pets - and almost totally unqualified for espionage. Yet he had a gift for turning practically anyone into a fearless secret agent.

The fighting in North Africa during World War II is commonly overlooked, aside from the famous battle at El Alamein that pitted the British under General Bernard Montgomery against the legendary "Desert Fox", Erwin Rommel. But while the Second Battle of El Alamein would be the pivotal action in North Africa, the conflict in North Africa began all the way back in the summer of 1940, when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared Italy’s entrance into the war, seeing an opportunity for Italy to enlarge its colonial holdings in Africa by seizing portions of the British Empire.

Iran and Iraq served as the first WWII theater in which the US, the UK, and the USSR fought alongside each other. Historian Ashley Jackson charts the intense Allied military activity in Iran and Iraq and reveals how deeply the war impacted common people's lives. He also provides revelations about the true nature of Anglo-American relations in the region, the beginnings of the Cold War, and the continuing corrosive legacy of Western influence in these lands.

In 1906, the RMS Lusitania was at the forefront of transatlantic shipping. Briefly the largest ship in the world, the designers and engineers who built the Lusitania aimed for her to represent the height of luxury for passengers while also being the harbinger of a new technological age, replete with revolutionary engines that would allow the gigantic ship to move at speeds that would have been considered impossible just years earlier.

Discover how Hilter’s forces impacted the people of Great Britain in this edition. If you were to step back in time to London, 1940, despite the fact you’d still be able to pick out the great familiar landmarks such as Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, wonderful green parks and open spaces, you’d also find a city, and for that matter an entire nation, under siege.

In A Genius for Deception, Nicholas Rankin offers a lively and comprehensive history of how Britain bluffed, tricked, and spied its way to victory in two world wars. As Rankin shows, a coherent program of strategic deception emerged in World War I, resting on the pillars of camouflage, propaganda, secret intelligence, and special forces. All forms of deception found an avid sponsor in Winston Churchill, who carried his enthusiasm for deceiving the enemy into World War II.

As award-winning biographer and science writer Graham Farmelo describes in Churchill's Bomb, the British set out to investigate the possibility of building nuclear weapons before their American colleagues. But when scientists in Britain first discovered a way to build an atomic bomb, Prime Minister Winston Churchill did not make the most of his country's lead and was slow to realize the bomb's strategic implications.

The eminent historian John Keegan charts Churchill's career, following his steadfast leadership during the catastrophic events of World War II while England was dangerously poised on the brink of collapse. With wonderful eloquence, Keegan illuminates Churchill's incredible strength during this crucial moment in history and his unshakable belief that democracy would always prevail.

On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aeroplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions. He gazed up in envy at this massive demonstration of paratroop power.

During the summer of 1940, Hitler's Germany appeared unstoppable. The Nazis were masters of mainland Europe, in alliance with Stalin's Russia, and only the English Channel prevented an immediate invasion. Britain stood alone. Operation Sealion examines just how realistic the German threat of invasion was. The author studies the plans, the available capability and resources, and the Germans' record in Norway and, later, Crete. The author weighs these against the state of Britain's defenses and the relative strengths of the land, air, and naval forces.

After the fall of France in the mid-1940s, Adolf Hitler faced a British Empire that refused to negotiate for peace. With total war looming, he ordered the Abwehr, Germany's defense and intelligence organization, to carry out Operation Lena - a program to place information-gathering spies within Britain. Quickly, a network of secret agents spread within the United Kingdom and across the British Empire. The stunning truth, though, was that every last one of these German spies had been captured and turned by the British.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British institution, and its story during the Second World War is also our story. This was a period of remarkable voices: Churchill’s speeches, de Gaulle’s broadcasts from exile, Richard Dimbleby and Vera Lynn. Radio offered an incomparable tool for propaganda while at the same time eyewitness testimonies gave a voice to everyone, securing the BBC’s reputation as a purveyor of truth.

In 1941, the United Kingdom faced its darkest hour: It stood alone against the Germans, who had chased British forces out of France, Norway, and Greece. All it had left were desperate measures - commando raids, intelligence coups, feats of derring-do. Any such "novel enterprise", wrote Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence, required "an officer with drive and imagination of the highest order". He found one in Commander Ian Fleming.

As a young civil servant, Caroline Slocock became the first ever female private secretary to any British Prime Minister and was at Margaret Thatcher's side for the final 18 months of her premiership. A left-wing feminist, Slocock was no natural ally, and yet she became fascinated by the woman behind the Iron Lady façade and by how she dealt with a world dominated by men. As events inexorably led to Margaret Thatcher's downfall, Slocock observed the vulnerabilities and contradictions of the woman considered by many to be the ultimate anti-feminist.

FNH Audio presents a complete and unabridged audio book of a book published in 1917 at the height of the First World War. The author, Jeffery Farnol, is better known for his works of romantic fiction, but in this departure, Jeffery recites the events observations and anecdotes of his tour of Great Britain's war effort.

Early in the war, the Ottomans knew the Dardanelles strait would most certainly be attacked and had prepared significant defenses. The plan drafted by the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was meant to destroy Ottoman defenses along the Dardanelles. However, Allied forces comprised of British, Irish, Australian, and New Zealand troops were unable to penetrate the Ottoman defenses, advancing only about 100 meters from the shores. The Ottomans, led by German General Liman von Sanders, further reinforced their positions.

Drawing upon evidence from archives across the world, Veiled Warriors offers a compelling account of nurses' wartime experiences and a clear appraisal of their work and its contribution to the allied cause between 1914 and 1918, on both the Western and the Eastern Fronts. Nurses believed they were involved in a multi-layered battle. Primarily, they were fighting for the lives of their patients on the "second battlefield" of casualty clearing stations, transports, and military hospitals.