Frontline Books

I Served With Hitler in the Trenches

In the Field, 1914–1918 Hans von Mend

$34.95 • Hardback • 192 pages 6.1x9.1 • 16 black and white illustrations • April 2022 BIO008000 • 978-1-39-901001-6

This remarkable book details the shared experiences of Hans von Mend and his comrade in arms, Adolf Hitler, throughout almost the whole of the First World War. Together, they marched out to the front, and to Flanders, where the regiment was involved in the struggle for Wytschaete, where few men survived unscathed. Hitler was one of those, being promoted to lance-corporal and assigned to the position of regimental runner. Mend wrote of Hitler’s conversations during quieter periods in the trenches, of how the future Führer spoke of his favorite topics, including art and painting. Mend claims that he ‘listened to him willingly and was amazed how he knew about this field … He could explain, like a professor, about German history of art.’ But, intriguingly, according to Mend, Hitler’s political views, which he was never shy in expounding, made enemies of some of his fellow soldiers.

Martin Bormann

Hitler’s Executioner Volker Koop

$28.95 • Paperback 248 pages • 6.1x9.1 January 2022 • HIS027100 978-1-52-679751-3

Martin Ludwig Bormann became one of the most powerful and most feared men in the Third Reich. An obsessive bureaucrat, it was Bormann who helped steer Hitler’s apparatus of terror so effectively that he became the clandestine ruler of Nazi Germany. Feared by ministers, Gauleiters, civil servants, judges and generals alike, Bormann identified strongly with Hitler’s ideas on racial politics, destruction of the Jews and forced labour and made himself indispensable as the Führer’s executioner. In January 1945, with the Third Reich collapsing, Bormann returned to the Führerbunker with Hitler. Following Hitler’s suicide on 30 April, Bormann was named as Party Minister, thus officially confirming his rise to the top of the Party. Late the following day he fled from the bunker in an attempt to escape the encircling Red Army; his fate remaining a mystery for many years. In October 1946 he was found guilty in absentia by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and sentenced to death.

The SAS ‘Deniables’

Special Forces Operations, Denied by the Authorities, from Vietnam to the War on Terror Tony May

$42.95 • Hardback • 320 pages • 6.1x9.2 Central Plate Section • April 2022 • HIS027180 978-1-39-909630-0

With their names changed for security and personal safety reasons, this is a dramatized story of events that actually happened involving a small band of Australian Special Air Service trained specialists involved in covert intelligence activities who were co-opted into the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) repertoire of Plausibly Deniable assets deployed worldwide into the shadows of political indulgence in locations where Australian forces should not be seen or heard. This astounding exposé opens the closed door behind which governments operate.

The Death Railway

The Personal Account of Lieutenant Colonel Kappe on the Thai-Burma Railroad Charles Kappe

$39.95 • Hardback • 256 pages • 6.1x9.1 32 black and white illustrations • April 2022 HIS027100 • 978-1-39-901777-0

They had faced the indignity of surrender and the squalor of Changi prison, so the spirits of the British and American troops lifted when they were told that they would be transferred to another healthier location where conditions would be more benign and food far more abundant. A total of 7,000 men were to be moved, the men being told that they would not be compelled to work. From the outset, the prisoners realized that none of the promises the Japanese had made would be fulfilled.

Medical Officers on the Infamous Burma Railway

Accounts of Life, Death and War Crimes by Those Who Were There With F-Force John Grehan

$49.95 • Hardback • 224 pages • 6.1x9.1 20 mono illustrations • March 2022 HIS027100 • 978-1-39-909562-4

In 1944, a compilation of medical reports from the main prisoner of war work camps along the infamous Thailand-Burma railway was submitted to General Arimura Tsunemichi, commander of the Japanese Prisoner of War Administration. The prisoners received only one reply – that all copies of the documents must be destroyed. As one officer later recalled, ‘Of course, this was not done’ and copies of these reports survived, stored away in dusty files, for future generations to learn the truth.

The Hitler Assassination Attempts

The Plots, Places and People that Almost Changed History John Grehan

$34.95 • Hardback • 296 pages • 6.1x9.1 32 black and white illustrations • May 2022 HIS027100 • 978-1-39-901890-6

Throughout his political life, Adolf Hitler was the subject of numerous assassination plots, some of which were attempted, all of which failed. While a few of these have become well known, particularly the bomb explosions at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in 1939 and the Stauffenberg Valkyrie attempt carried out at the Wolfsschanze on 20 July 1944, many others have received far less attention – until now. In this book, John Grehan has examined the known planned or proposed assassination attempts on Hitler, from Chicago to London and from Sweden to the Ukraine – some of which have not previously been presented to the general public by historians. All manner of methods were proposed by those willing to bring Hitler’s life to a premature and sticky end and Hitler was well aware of the danger which lurked potentially around every corner of every road, railway track, every building and even every individual. As a result, an immense, multi-layered security apparatus surrounded the Führer day and night. Despite this, and knowing the risks they faced, many people sought to kill the German leader, and some very nearly did. Yet Hitler survived, often by just a minute or a millimetre, to die ultimately of his own hand.

The Battle of Tinian

The Capture of the Atomic Bomb Island, July-August 1944 John Grehan Alexander Nicoll

Images of War • $24.95 • Paperback 224 pages • 7.4x9.6 • 150+ archive images May 2022 • HIS027100 • 978-1-39-908527-4

The dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and of a second nuclear device on Nagasaki three days later, is known throughout the world. But what is often forgotten is that these missions were only possible following the savage battles to seize the Northern Mariana Islands – which, crucially, were within the B-29’s operational range of Japan. With the capture of these islands, the defeat of Hirohito’s Imperial Japan became a certainty as for the first time in the war land-based heavy bombers could fly all the way to Tokyo and back. The sparsely-populated island of Tinian was turned into the biggest air base in the world. With six runways, four of which were built for the huge Superfortresses, it was from there that atomic destruction of Japan began. But, before all this, had been the battle for the island – the preliminary naval bombardment, the aerial strikes and the amphibious assault. The story of that battle is told here, in the words and images of the men who took part in that memorable, and ultimately epoch-changing, campaign. Few stories encapsulate human endeavor, achievement, sacrifice, and failure in quite such stark contrasts as the taking of the island of Tinian, once the centre of USAAF operations in the Pacific and now just a little-visited speck in the largest ocean in the world.

Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hirohito and Hitler

What Might Have Happened if the A-Bomb Had Been Ready Early Jim Mangi

$42.95 • Hardback • 272 pages • 6.1x9.1 32 mono illustrations • March 2022 FIC040000 • 978-1-39-909315-6

Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hirohito and Hitler: What Might Have Happened if the A-Bomb Had Been Ready Early is a highly accurate, thoroughly researched, alternative history presenting a narrative of events exploring what might have happened if the atom bomb had been available somewhat earlier than it really was. What if the atomic bomb had been ready for deployment in, say, February 1945? Had the atomic bomb been ready sooner, how would this have affected the war in Europe, and in particular Germany’s surrender? What would the impact have been in the war in the Pacific against Imperial Japan, and how would the Soviets have reacted? And what would the following Cold War have looked like? These are all questions and scenarios that the author rigorously examines. Solidly based on real people and actual events, in this book James Mangi describes the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb getting an earlier start after President Roosevelt appointed an energetic scientist, Walter Mendenhall, to study the feasibility of the bomb, instead of the more traditional bureaucrat, Lyman Briggs, he actually chose. This scenario, he reveals, might well have produced a war-ending atomic bomb earlier.

Defending Heaven

China’s Mongol Wars, 1209-1370 James Waterson

$29.95 • Paperback 272 pages • 6.1x9.1 16 pages of plates May 2022 • HIS027000 • 978-1-39-908325-6

Defending Heaven brings together, for the first time in one volume, a complete history of the Jin, Song and Ming dynasties’ wars fought against the Mongols. Lasting nearly two centuries, these wars, fought to defend Chinese civilisation against a brutal and unrelenting foe, pitted personal heroics against the inexorable Mongol war machine and involved every part of the Chinese state. Setting the Mongol war in the wider context of Chinas ancient and almost perpetual conflict with the northern nomads, this book sheds light on the evolution of China’s military society and the management, command and control of the army by the Chinese state.

Destructive and Formidable

British Infantry Firepower, 1642–1765 David Blackmore

$29.95 • Paperback • 224 pages • 6.1x9.1 14 line diagrams • April 2022 • HIS037010 978-1-39-901450-2

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British Army’s victories over the French were largely credited to its infantry’s particularly effective and deadly firepower. For the first time, David Blackmore has gone back to original drill manuals and other contemporary sources to discover the reasons behind this.

The Great Waterloo Controversy

The Story of the 52nd Foot at History’s Greatest Battle Gareth Glover

$26.95 • Paperback • 232 pages • 6.1x9.1 January 2022 • HIS027200 978-1-52-679750-6

As the Battle of Waterloo reached its momentous climax, Napoleon’s Imperial Guard marched towards the Duke of Wellington’s thinning red line. The Imperial Guard had never tasted defeat and nothing, it seemed, could stop it smashing through the British ranks. But it was the Imperial Guard that was sent reeling back in disorder. The controversy of which corps deserved the credit for defeating the Imperial Guard has continued down the decades and has rightly become a highly contentious subject over which much ink has been spilled.

Voices from the Past

Waterloo 1815 John Grehan

$34.95 • Paperback 368 pages • 6.1x9.1 16 pages of b/w plates • March 2022 HIS027200 • 978-1-39-909207-4

Composed of more than 300 eyewitness accounts, official documents, parliamentary debates and newspaper reports, Voices From the Past tells the story of Napoleons last battles as they were experienced and reported by the men and women involved. Heroic cavalry charges, devastating artillery bombardments, terrible injuries, heart-breaking encounters, and amusing anecdotes, written by aristocratic officers and humble privates alike, fill the pages of this ambitious publication. Many of these reports have not been reproduced for almost 200 years.

With Winston Churchill at the Front

Winston in the Trenches 1916 Andrew Dewar Gibb

$29.95 • Paperback • 240 pages • 6.1x9.2 color and b&w plates • December 2021 BIO008000 • 978-1-39-908234-1

On 5 January 1916, Churchill took up his new post with the 6th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. The battalions adjutant was Captain Alexander Dewar Gibb who formed a close relationship with Churchill that lasted far beyond their few weeks together in the war. Dewar Gibb subsequently wrote an account of his and Churchill’s time together in the trenches. Packed with amusing anecdotes and fascinating detail, Gibb’s story shows an entirely different side to Churchill’s character from the forceful public figure normally presented to the world.

Over the Top

Alternate Histories of the First World War Spencer Jones Peter Tsouras

$26.95 • Paperback • 240 pages • 6.1x9.2 16 pages of b/w plates • January 2022 FIC040000 • 978-1-39-909206-7 Spencer Jones lives in Alexandria, VA

This thought-provoking book explores ten alternate scenarios in which the course of the First World War is changed forever. How would the war have changed had the Germans not attacked France but turned their main thrust against Russia; had the Greeks joined the allies at Gallipoli; or had the British severed the communications of the Ottoman Empire at Alexandretta? What if there was a more decisive outcome at Jutland; or if the Americans intervened in 1915, rather 1917? Expertly written by leading military historians, this is a compelling and credible look at what might have been.

Winston Churchill and the Art of Leadership

How Winston Changed the World William Nester

$28.95 • Paperback • 288 pages 6.1x9.1 • January 2022 • BIO008000 978-1-52-679769-8 William Nester lives in New York

Many indeed, are the biographies of Winston Churchill, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. But what was that influence and how did he use it in the furtherance of his and his country’s ambitions? For the first time, Professor William Nestor has delved into the life and actions of Churchill to examine just how skillfully he manipulated events to place him in positions of power. The House of Commons was Churchill’s political temple where he exalted in the speeches and harangues on the floor and the backroom horse-trading and comraderie. This is the first book that explores how Churchill understood and asserted the art of power, mostly through hundreds of his own insights expressed through his speeches and writings.

In the Hell of the Eastern Front

The Fate of a Young Soldier During the Fighting in Russia in WW2 Arno Sauer

$26.95 • Paperback • 192 pages • 6.1x9.1 March 2022 • HIS027100 978-1-52-679770-4

On 22 June 1941, German forces launched Operation Barbarossa – Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Instead of the swift knock-out blow that the Germans had anticipated, the war against the Soviets ground on relentlessly for almost four years. It was into this bloody theater of war that Fritz Sauer was sent. As well as his best friend being killed by a sniper, Fritz recalled events such as recovering the body of a fallen colleague from No Man’s Land, the terrifying experience of facing a Red Army infantry attack, Soviet tank assaults, and the moment when a group of comrades in a neighbouring crater were hit by a shell. He became a casualty himself when he was badly wounded in the legs during a counterattack. Based on Fritz’s own recollections and narrative, this account of a young soldier’s experiences in the Second World War was brought together by his son. It is a moving and graphic description of one man’s involvement in the largest military confrontation in history – the Hell that was the Eastern Front.

Hitler’s Attack U-Boats

The Kriegsmarine’s Submarine Strike Force Jak P. Mallmann Showell

$26.95 • Paperback • 232 pages 6.1x9.1 • April 2022 • HIS027100 978-1-52-679766-7

The success of German submarines during the First World War in almost cutting off Britain’s vital imports had not been forgotten by Adolf Hitler and when, in March 1935, he repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, Britain, magnanimously, signed up to an Anglo-German Naval Agreement. This allowed the Germans to build their submarine strength up to one third of the British Royal Navy’s tonnage. When war broke out in 1939, German U-boats went quickly into action, but with only four years of production and development, the main armament of these submarines was considerably weaker than equivalent boats in other navies. In this book by the renowned Kriegsmarine historian Jak Mallmann Showell, these U-boats are explored at length. This includes details of their armament, capabilities, crew facilities, and just what it was like to operate such a vessel, and of course the story of their development and operational history.

Luftwaffe X-Planes

German Experimental Aircraft of World War II Manfred Griehl

$17.95 • Paperback • 80 pages 6.7x9.3 • December 2021 • HIS027140 978-1-39-901825-8

Despite the Allied authorities ban on research, countless aircraft were designed and tested by the Luftwaffe and German manufacturers before World War II. The research took place at secret evaluation sites in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and the USSR. After the outbreak of the war this work continued. Many projects remained on the drawing board or at prototype stage because either they were deemed unsuitable or, as is the case with most of those in this selection, the developers simply ran out of time and the projects never went into production. Renowned aviation expert Manfred Griehl has painstakingly assembled a valuable selection of images which shows the remarkable range of projects dreamed up by the German designers. Had these innovative projects ever been realized the course of the World War II could have been dramatically different. Luftwaffe X-Planes is a definitive, revelatory guide to the remarkable range of secret planes that the Third Reich failed to complete.

SOE in Czechoslovakia

The Special Operations Executive’s Czech Section in WW2

An Official History

$39.95 • Hardback • 224 pages • 6.1x9.1 8 page plate section • May 2022 • HIS027100 978-1-39-908275-4

The majority of the successful SOE operations in Europe took place in countries occupied by the Germans after the outbreak of war in 1939, Hitler’s forces being regarded as foreign invaders. In Czechoslovakia it was different. The country, which had large numbers of ethnic Germans living within its borders, had been occupied since 1938, allowing the Germans to establish a strong hold on the country which limited the opportunities for subversive action by resistance movements. This is the first full, official account of SOE in Czechoslovakia, compiled by SOE headquarters staff.

Donitz, U-Boats, Convoys

The British Version of His Memoirs from the Admiralty’s Secret Anti-Submarine Reports Jak P. Mallmann Showell

$29.95 • Paperback • 288 pages • 6.1x9.1 32 black and white illustrations • March 2022 HIS027150 • 978-1-39-908532-8

The memoirs of Admiral Karl Dnitz, Ten Years and Twenty Days, are a fascinating first-hand account of the Battle of the Atlantic as seen from the headquarters of the U-boat fleet. Now, for the first time noted naval historian Jak P. Mallmann Showell has combined Dnitz’s memoirs in a parallel text with the British Admiralty’s secret Monthly Anti-Submarine Reports to produce a unique view of the U-boat war as it was perceived at the time by both sides. Michael Kluger Richard Evans

Roosevelt & Churchill The Atlantic Charter

A Risky Meeting at Sea that Saved Democracy

$32.95 • Paperback • 248 pages • 6.1x9.1 March 2022 • HIS027100 • 978-1-52-679783-4

Off the coast of Newfoundland, aboard the USS Augusta, there began a meeting which could be seen as one of immense profit for the future of mankind. It was a meeting that allowed FDR and Churchill to get to know each other, and also produced a document, strangely never signed, called The Atlantic Charter – an eight point agreement designed to act as a guide for how the world’s nations should behave towards each other in the post-war years. Many of the principles laid out in this document are incorporated into the Charter of the United Nations.

Men of the Battle of Britain

A Biographical Directory of the Few Kenneth G. Wynn HRH The Prince of Wales

$79.95 • Paperback • 616 pages • 9.6x11.4 120 black and white illustrations January 2022 • BIO034000 978-1-39-901465-6

Since it was first published in 1989, Men of the Battle of Britain has become a standard reference book for academics and researchers interested in the Battle of Britain. It records the service details of the airmen who took part in the Battle of Britain in considerable detail. Where known, postings and their dates are included, as well as promotions, decorations, and successes claimed flying against the enemy. There is also much personal detail, often including dates and places of birth, civilian occupations, dates of death, and place of burial or, for those with no known grave, place of commemoration.

Long Range Desert Group

Reconnaissance and Raiding Behind Enemy

Lines W.B. Kennedy Shaw

$29.95 • Paperback • 272 pages • 6.1x9.1 32 black and white illustrations • January 2022 HIS027100 • 978-1-39-909205-0

During the two-and-a-half years fighting in the Western Desert of North Africa, the Long Range Desert Group was engaged in daring exploits and reconnaissance far behind the enemy’s lines. The LRDG would raid important airfields or attack Axis lines of communication along the Mediterranean coast, and then vanish back into the desert, to reappear hundreds of miles away. With its brilliant description of the harsh beauty of the desert, and its exiting chronicle of the LRDG activities, this book is as fascinating today as it was when was first published in 1945. Lessons in Imperial Rule

Instructions for British Infantrymen on the Indian Frontier

Andrew Skeen Robert Johnson

$24.95 • Paperback • 208 pages • 6.1x9.2 December 2021 • HIS027060 978-1-39-901383-3

During the first half of the twentieth century, the mountainous North West Frontier represented one of the British Empire’s most strategically important borders. For thousands of inexperienced British and Indian troops facing a local resistance the methods and lessons of their predecessors were vital for their survival. General Sir Andrew Skeen’s unofficial but authoritative textbook was written with these junior officers in mind. His work provided them with pragmatic and practical information on hill warfare in an accessible fashion.