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27 April 1944. Exercise Tiger. German E-boats intercept rehearsals for the D-Day landings...On a dark night in 1944, a beautiful stretch of the Devon coast became the scene of desperate horror. Tales began to leak out of night-time explosions and seaborne activity. This was practice for Exercise Tiger, the main rehearsal for the Utah Beach landings.This fiasco, in which nearly 1,000 soldiers died, was buried by officials until it was almost forgotten. That is, until Ken Small discovered the story, and decided to dedicate the rest of his life to honouring the brave young men who perished in the disastrous exercise. Pulling a Sherman tank from the seabed, Ken created a memorial to those who died and started to share their story, and his, with the world.This updated edition of a bestselling classic is a gripping tale of wartime disaster and rescue in the words of the soldiers who were there, and of one man's curiosity that turned into a fight to ensure that they would never be forgotten.

A comprehensive, photo-filled account of the six-week-long Battle of the Bulge, when panzers slipped through the forest and took the Allies by surprise. In December 1944, just as World War II appeared to be winding down, Hitler shocked the world with a powerful German counteroffensive that cracked the center of the American front. The attack came through the Ardennes, the hilly and forested area in eastern Belgium and Luxembourg that the Allies had considered a “quiet” sector. Instead, for the second time in the war, the Germans used it as a stealthy avenue of approach for their panzers. Much of US First Army was overrun, and thousands of prisoners were taken as the Germans forged a fifty-mile “bulge” into the Allied front. But in one small town, Bastogne, American paratroopers, together with remnants of tank units, offered dogged resistance. Meanwhile, the rest of Eisenhower's “broad front” strategy came to a halt as Patton, from the south, and Hodges, from the north, converged on the enemy incursion. Yet it would take an epic, six-week-long winter battle, the bloodiest in the history of the US Army, before the Germans were finally pushed back. Christer Bergström has interviewed veterans, gone through huge amounts of archive material, and performed on-the-spot research in the area. The result is a large amount of previously unpublished material and new findings, including reevaluations of tank and personnel casualties and the most accurate picture yet of what really transpired from the perspectives of both sides. With nearly four hundred photos, numerous maps, and thirty-two superb color profiles of combat vehicles and aircraft, it provides perhaps the most comprehensive look at the battle yet published.

December 1944, precis i slutet av andra världskriget, chockade Hitler en hel värld med en mäktig tysk motoffensiv på västfronten. För andra gången i kriget blev de allierade helt överrumplade av att anfallet kom genom Ardennerna - det kuperade skogsområdet i östra Belgien och Luxemburg. De trodde fortfarande att det inte gick att föra fram en stor armé där, men blev snabbt varse hur fel de haft. Till synes oövervinneliga rullade stora tyska stridsvagnskolonner västerut. Den allra senaste tyska vapenteknologin koncentrerades till denna offensiv - väldiga Königstiger-stridsvagnar, en revolutionerande ny automatkarbin, flygande bomber och toppmoderna jetflygplan. Tyskarna satte till och med in eldrivna miniubåtar till stöd för Ardenneroffensiven! Halva amerikanska 1. armén kastades över ända och tusentals soldater togs tillfånga. Men i en liten stad, Bastogne, bet sig amerikanska fallskärmsjägare fast. Under tiden skyndade den hårdföre general Pattons armé till undsättning. Ändå krävdes det ett sex veckor långt, blodigt vinterslag - det mest förlustrika i den amerikanska arméns historia - innan tyskarna hade pressats tillbaka. Christer Bergström har intervjuat krigsveteraner, gått igenom stora mängder akrivmaterial samt rest och forskat i området. Resultatet är en stor mängd tidigare opublicerat material och nya rön som presenteras i denna genomgripande skildring av det dramatiska Ardennerslaget vintern 1944/1945. Ardennerslaget beskrivs ofta från den amerikanska utgångspunkten. Här ges båda sidors perspektiv lika stort utrymme. Inte minst lyfts veteranernas egna berättelser fram, vilket ger en mänsklig dimension åt detta blodiga slag. Boken är försedd med nära 400 illustrationer, inklusive ett stort antal aldrig tidigare publicerade fotografier, ett stort antal kartor av Samuel Svärd och 32 förstklassiga färgprofiler av stridsfordon och flygplan av den världskände profilartisten Claes Sundin. Christer Bergström, f. 1958, har ett 20-tal böcker om andra världskriget, flertalet utgivna på den internationella marknaden, bakom sig.

The 82nd Airborne Division spent more time in combat than any other American airborne unit of World War II, and its fierce battlefield tenacity earned it the reputation of one of the finest divisions in the world. Yet no comprehensive history of the 82nd during World War II exists today. The Sword of St. Michaelcorrects this significant gap in the literature, offering a lively narrative and thoroughly researched history of the famous division.Author Guy LoFaro, himself a distinguished officer of the division, interweaves the voices of soldiers at both ends of the chain of command, from Eisenhower to the lowest private. Making extensive use of primary sources, LoFaro offers a work of insightful analysis, situating the division's exploits in a strategic and operational context.