Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall


Book Description

Refreshingly different perspective on the momentous events of D-Day.




Hobart's 79th Armoured Division at War


Book Description

This WWII history chronicles the remarkable career of a brilliant British Army commander and the innovative armored vehicles he created. Joining the Royal Tank Corps in 1923, Major-General Percy Hobart quickly established himself as one of the foremost thinkers on armored warfare. By 1938 he was GOC Mobile Division, later 7th Armored Division, in Egypt. He was also known for not suffering fools—a tendency that got him briefly relieved of his command. But during World War II, Winston Churchill called Hobart back to Army service with orders to train the now-legendary 11th Armored Division. He was then tasked with designing specialist armored fighting vehicles capable of breeching the Atlantic Wall. Known as Hobart's Funnies, these unique vehicles included mine-clearing tanks, bridge-carrying tanks, flamethrowers, swimming tanks and amphibious assault vehicles. Operated by Hobart’s 79th Armored Division, they played a major part in the D-Day landings and the subsequent European campaigns. Hobart's skills played a significant part in the final Allied victory, and the specialized funnies he introduced to modern warfare have since been adopted by all armies all over the world. Drawing on official records and personal recollections, historian Richard Doherty tells the incredible story of Percy Hobart and his 79th Armored Division.




IKUWA6. Shared Heritage: Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress for Underwater Archaeology


Book Description

Celebrating the theme ‘Shared heritage’, this volume presents the peer-reviewed proceedings from IKUWA6 (the 6th International Congress for Underwater Archaeology, Fremantle 2016). Papers offer a stimulating diversity of themes and niche topics of value to maritime archaeology practitioners, researchers, students, museum professionals and more.




Churchill's Secret Weapons


Book Description

In the dark days when Britain stood alone, Prime Minister Churchill realised that, to win the war against an enemy superior in strength, science had to be harnessed to devise new weapons. Three men had Churchill's confidence; Lord Cherwell (the Prof), his brilliant main scientific adviser; Millis Jefferis who ran MDI (The Toy Factory); and an irascible and eccentric Major General Percy Hobart. Despite being Monty's brother-in-law and a talented tank expert, Hobart had been banished to the Home Guard. Churchill rescued him and tasked him to form, equip and train a secret armored division which went on to storm the Normandy Beaches. Hobart was the mastermind behind an extraordinary collection of tank-based secret weapons (known as Hobart's Funnies) which supported every British and Canadian army and many US divisions for the rest of the War.




Iron Fist: Classic Armoured Warfare


Book Description

The greatest tank battles of history from the Great War to the Gulf, examined by one of Britain's bestselling military writers. The story of the evolution of armoured warfare in the 20th century, which has seen tanks and other armoured vehicles develop from lumbering, primitive and vulnerable Goliaths to the immensely potent and manoeuvrable agents of lightning battlefield success. This is a collection of the greatest moments of armoured history from the conception of the tank as a means to break the stalemate of the Western Front to Blitzkreig, the great tank battles of the Second World War and the 'mother of all battles' in the Gulf in 1991.




Fallen Sentinel


Book Description

Against the backdrop of the sweeping conquest of Western Europe by Hitler's mighty Panzer Divisions in WWII, Australia produced 66 cruiser tanks - the Sentinel tank - but none ever took the field of battle. The story of Australian tanks in WWII portrays governments under pressure and bureaucratic bungles that saw opportunities lost and precious resources squandered when the nation was under greatest threat. This careful dissection of government process in the crucible of war is a rare gem in an age when most wartime histories focus on the front-line soldier.




Story of the 79th Armoured Division October 1942 - June 1945


Book Description

Story of the 79th Armoured Division from October 1942 to June 1945 - Hamburg: BAOR. 1945. Hobart's "funnies" (DD tanks, Crabs, Crocodiles, Kangeroos, Arks, Buffaloes &c., Normandy to Germany.




Desert Rats at War


Book Description

70 years ago, on 7 June 1944, the British 7th Armored Division landed in Normandy, halfway through a wartime journey that had started in north Africa. Formed on 16 February 1940, it adopted the Jerboa as its divisional signÑand while many units that fought in the desert call themselves by the name, 7th Armoured Division are the original ÔDesert RatsÕ. The division helped destroy the Italian Tenth Army at Beda Fomm on 7 February 1941, defeat the Desert?FoxÑRommelÑat El Alamein in October 1942, and drive Axis forces out of North?Africa. After the desert, 7th Armored Division landed at Salerno on 15 September 1943, in time to help repulse concerted German counterattacks, beforeÑas part of U.S. Fifth ArmyÕs British X CorpsÑit took Naples and crossed the Volturno. Pulled out of Italy, it reached England in January 1944 where it prepared to enter the Northwestern European theater at Gold Beach from 7 June, equipped with the new Cromwell and the Sherman Firefly. The division had difficulties in Normandy, particularly at Villers-Bocage, and suffered the ignominy of having its GOCÑGeorge ErskineÑand a number of officers sacked and moved to other positions. Erskine was replaced by Gerald Lloyd Verney on 4 August 1944. He helped reinstill confidence and discipline to the division which took part in the Allied liberation of France and Belgium, entering Ghent in September. Verney was, in turn, replaced by Lewis Lyne in November 1944 and Lyne led the division on their final advance through Holland and into Germany. The Desert Rats ended the war with the liberation of Hamburg on 3 May 1945 after one of the most remarkable military journeys in history and was chosen to take part in the Allied victory parade held in Berlin on 21 July 1945. Winston Churchill recognized the achievements of the division when he spoke at the opening of a soldiersÕ club in Berlin: ÔDear Desert Rats! May your glory ever shine! May your laurels never fade! May the memory of this glorious pilgrimage of war which you have made from Alamein, via the Baltic to Berlin never die!Õ Desert Rats at War is an evocation of what it was like to serve with the division, in the African desert and Europe, from the first encounters by the Mobile Force in 1940 to Berlin in 1945. Full of eyewitness accounts and private photos, Desert Rats at War has been completely revised and updated, with additional text, maps and photographs.




Colossal Cracks


Book Description

The Allied campaign for Northwest Europe as seen from a British and Canadian perspective A reinterpretation of the British Army's conduct in the crucial 1944-45 Northwest Europe campaign, this work examines the "Colossal Cracks" operational technique employed by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group. Rooted in concerns about morale and casualties, "Colossal Cracks" was a cautious, firepower-laden approach that involved the concentration of massive force at points of German weakness. Hart argues that Montgomery and his two senior subordinates handled this formation more effectively than some scholars have suggested and that "Colossal Cracks" represented the most appropriate weapon the British Army could develop under the circumstances.