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Penalty Strike
From a decorated officer, an extremely rare account of a World War II Soviet military unit comprised of prisoners of war. Made up of soldiers who conducted “unauthorized retreats,” former POWs deemed untrustworthy, and Gulag prisoners, the Red Army’s penal units carried out some of the most terrifying assignments on the Eastern Front, such as storming German machine-gun nests. Alexander Pyl’cyn led his penal company in the Soviets’ massive offensive in the summer of 1944, the Vistula-Oder operation into eastern Germany, and the bitter assault on Berlin in 1945. He survived the war, but 80 percent of his men did not. Alexander Pyl’cyn, drafted into the Red Army at eighteen in 1941 and wounded three times, earned the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Great Patriotic War, and the Order of the Red Star for his actions during World War II.
Penalty Strike
Extremely rare (possibly the only) book-length account of a Soviet penal unit in World War II Gritty, intense style conveys the brutality of war on the Eastern Front Composed of convicts--soldiers who conducted "unauthorized retreats," former Soviet POWs deemed untrustworthy, and Gulag prisoners--the Red Army's penal units received the most difficult, dangerous assignments, such as breaking through the enemy's defenses. So punishing was life in these units that officers in regular formations threatened to send recalcitrant troops to penal battalions. Alexander Pyl'cyn led his penal unit through the Soviets' massive offensive in the summer of 1944, the Vistula-Oder operation into eastern Germany, and the bitter assault on Berlin in 1945. He survived the war, but 80 percent of his men did not.
Over Fields of Fire
During the 1930s the Soviet Union launched a major effort to create a modern Air Force. That process required training tens of thousands of pilots. Among those pilots were larger numbers of young women, training shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. A common training program of the day involved studying in ''flying clubs'' during leisure hours, first using gliders and then training planes. Following this, the best graduates could enter military schools to become professional combat pilots or flight navigators. The author of this book passed through all of those stages and had become an experienced training pilot when the USSR entered the war.Volunteering for frontline duty, the ...
An Active Service
An Active Service' traces a young Sid Dowland from civilian life into the tough environment of the Guards Depot in the 1930's and then on to a Guards service Battalion in London and prewar Egypt. The outbreak of war found Sid taking part in the retreat to Dunkirk and then service in North Africa before volunteering for the SAS. Captured after a disastrous raid in Sardinia, he escaped from a POW camp in Italy before making it back to England. The end of the war did not signal peace as the Guards were sent into action in Palestine and subsequently to the jungles of Malaya where Sid found that his SAS experience is in great demand. Sid later told his story to Richard Dorney, himself a Guardsman...
Red Star Airacobra
Evgeniy Mariinskiy, a Soviet fighter ace and Hero of the Soviet Union, shot down 20 enemy planes in aerial combat over the Eastern Front between 1943 and 1945. He frequently engaged enemy fighters and bombers, shot down many but was himself shot down several times. This is his extraordinary story. His vivid inside view of the ruthless war in the air on the Eastern Front gives a rare insight into the reality of fighting and tactics of the Red Army Air Force. In his own words, and with a remarkable clarity of recall, Evgeniy Mariinskiy describes what combat was like in the air, face to face with a skilled, deadly and increasingly desperate enemy. The reader can follow his career from an unskil...
On the Bloody Road to Berlin
This book puts you in the front line of the titanic struggles fought in Northwest Europe and on the Eastern Front between June 1944 and May 1945. Follow the course of these campaigns through the eyes of a small number of British, American, Russian, and German soldiers. The great majority of this book consists of outstanding first-person narratives of the bitter fighting on the road to Berlin. Eyewitnesses include troops from the British infantry, tank and airborne forces, US infantry, Russian infantry, tank and artillery units, and German infantry along with the Waffen-SS. Events narrated include the taking of Pegasus Bridge, vicious fighting in Normandy, Operation Bagration, Arnhem, the Ardennes and Alsace, the massive Vistula-Oder offensive in the East, and the final battles in Vienna and Berlin. This book reminds the reader of the hardships and triumphs in the final leg of World War II.
Operation Don's Left Wing
On 1 January 1943, with German Sixth Army about to be destroyed in the Stalingrad pocket, the Stavka (Soviet High Command) launched Operation Don, a strategic offensive conducted by the Red Army’s Southern, Southwestern, and Trans-Caucasus Fronts aimed at demolishing German defenses in the southern Soviet Union and decisively turning the war’s tide. Critical to this ambitious operation was the mission assigned to the Trans-Caucasus Front—to isolate and destroy German Army Group A in the northern Caucasus region in cooperation with the Southern Front. Operation Don’s Left Wing is the first detailed study of this crucial but virtually overlooked Soviet military operation. Because of th...
World War II Snipers
"Gary Yee takes what is already a well-researched deep dive into the specifics of sniper training, employment and equipment to a new level." - American Rifleman Magazine Thousands of volumes have been published about World War II but relatively little attention has been given to the sniper. Drawing from memoirs, government documents and interviews, World War II Snipers incorporates eyewitness accounts to weave a comprehensive narrative of snipers in World War II. While certain common traits were shared among belligerents, each had its unique methodology for selecting and training snipers and, as casualties were high, their replacements. Drawn from hunters, competitive shooters, natural marks...
Battle for Belorussia
Continuing his magisterial account of the Eastern Front campaigns, the writer cited by The Atlantic as “indisputably the West's foremost expert on the subject” focuses here on the Red Army's operations from the fall of 1943 through the April 1944. David M. Glantz chronicles the Soviet Army's efforts to further exploit their post-Kursk gains and accelerate a counteroffensive that would eventually take them all the way to Berlin. The Red Army's Operation Bagration that liberated Belorussia in June 1944 sits like a colossus in the annals of World War II history. What is little noted in the history books, however, is that the Bagration offensive was not the Soviets' first attempt. Battle for...
The Silent General - Horne of the First Army
Whether or not Henry Sinclair Horne was the ‘silent’ General he might certainly, if he were still alive, lay claim to being the ‘forgotten’ General of the Western Front. His self-effacement in a profession not renowned for shrinking violets undoubtedly made its contribution to his relative anonymity - he wrote no memoirs nor kept anything more than sketchy diaries - but it is still surprising that such an important contributor to the defeat of the German army in the Great War has not until now received the attentions of a biographer. After a customary slow start in the late Victorian army, Henry Horne first made an impact during the Boer War, fortuitously as it was to turn out, under...
