Author : Saul David
Publisher : Potomac Books
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 11,30 MB
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN :
On 20 September 1943, almost 200 members of the crack 50th (Tyne Tees) and 51st (Highland) Divisions were arrested for refusing repeated orders to join unfamiliar units fighting at the blood-soaked Salerno beachhead.
Author : Keith Grint
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 42,11 MB
Release : 2021-04-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0192645404
Whenever leadership emerges within a group, there will be resistance to that leadership. Discontent may manifest in a number of ways, and action will always be determined by factors such as resource, numbers, time, space, and the legitimacy of the resistance. What, then, turns discontent into mutiny? Mutiny is often associated with the occasional mis-leadership of the masses by politically inspired hotheads, or a spontaneous and unusually romantic gesture of defiance against a uniquely overbearing military superior. In reality it is seldom either and usually has far more mundane origins, not in the absolute poverty of the subordinates but in the relative poverty of the relationships between leaders and the led in a military situation. The roots of mutiny lie in the leadership skills of a small number of leaders, and what transforms that into a constructive dialogue, or a catastrophic disaster, depends on how the leaders of both sides mobilise their supporters and their networks. Using contemporary leadership theory to cast a critical light on an array of mutinies throughout history, this book suggests we consider mutiny as a permanent possibility that is further encouraged or discouraged in some contexts. From mutinies in ancient Roman and Greek armies to those that toppled the German and Russian states and forced governments to face their own disastrous policies and changed them forever, this book covers an array of cases across land, sea, and air that still pose a threat to military establishments today. The critical theoretical line also puts into sharp relief the assumption that oftentimes people have little choice in how they respond to circumstances not of their own making. If mutineers could choose to resist what they saw as tyranny, then so can we.
Author : Angus Konstam
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 27,21 MB
Release : 2007-03-30
Category : History
ISBN : 184415517X
In September 1943, in the first weeks of the Allied campaign to liberate Italy, an Anglo-American invasion force of over 80,000 men was nearly beaten back into the sea by the German defenders in a ferocious ten-day battle at Salerno, south of Naples. This is the story of the tense, bitter struggle around the Salerno beach-head which decided the issue and changed the course of the campaign - for those ten critical days the fate of Italy hung in the balance. Using documentary records, memoirs and eyewitness accounts from all sides, Angus Konstam recreates every stage of the battle at every level as it happened, day by day, hour by hour. His painstakingly researched account offers a fresh perspective on a decisive battle that has been neglected by British and American historians in recent years, and it gives a fascinating insight into the realities of warfare in Europe 60 years ago.
Author : Colin Simmons
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 17,64 MB
Release : 2019-06-22
Category : History
ISBN : 1445229358
As with most people of his generation, Fred Britt didn't really mention the war unless he was with fellow veterans. But when Colin Simmons found 20 hours of tapes that Fred had recorded of his experiences, after he died, 'I thought it would be nice if people could hear and read about his experiences, the story of the common man. On the tapes my Grandad asks if one of his grandchildren could do something with them. I had no idea what he did during the war. By doing this I am ensuring that his name and what he went through has not been forgotten.' Fred served with them through his training in the UK, over to Africa (at the end of El Alamein), the Invasion of Pantelleria, Sicily, & Italy, including the battles of the River Sangro, and Anzio. When Victory over Europe was declared he was then dispatched to Africa to begin training for the invasion of Japan. When that was averted he was then sent to the Middle East and was involved in the Palestine War. He returned to his family in Portsmouth in 1946.
Author : G. R. Rubin
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 46,24 MB
Release : 1992-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781852850807
On 13 January 1942 hundreds of army and air force servicemen due to sail from Durban on the British troopship City of Canterbury refused to board the vessel in defiance of their commanders and of the British Military and Naval authorities in South Africa. Gerry Rubin sees this unusual and dramatic incident in the round. Besides examining the legal case itself, its precedents and its outcome, he looks at both the human factors involved and at the wider background. In so doing he deals with a little-mentioned aspect of the war but one familiar to hundreds of thousands of servicemen: the journey by troopship via the Cape to the Middle and Far East.
Author : James Holland
Publisher : Grove Press
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 47,69 MB
Release : 2023-12-12
Category : History
ISBN : 0802161057
Acclaimed WWII historian James Holland both narrates and reframes the controversial first months of the Italian Campaign and sets a new standard in the chronicling of war Following victory in Sicily, while the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops crossed into southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war. James Holland’s The Savage Storm, chronicling the dramatic opening months of the Italian Campaign in unflinching and insightful detail, is unlike any campaign history yet written. Holland has always narrated war at ground level, but here goes further by chronicling events almost entirely through the contemporary eyes of those who were there on all sides and at all levels—Allied, Axis, civilians alike. Weaving together a wealth of letters, diaries, and other documents—from the likes of American General Mark Clark, German battalion commander Georg Zellner, New Zealand lance-corporal Roger Smith, legendary war reporter Ernie Pyle, and Italian politician Filippo Caracciolo—Holland traces the battles as they were experienced across plains, over mountains, through shattered villages and cities, in intense heat and, towards the end of December 1943, frigid cold and relentless rain. Such close-up views persuade Holland to recast important aspects of the campaign, reappraising the reputation of Mark Clark himself and other senior commanders of the U.S. Fifth and British Eighth armies. Given the shortage of Allied shipping and materiel allocated to Italy because of the build-up for D-Day, more was expected of Allied troops in Italy than anywhere else, and, as accounts at the time attest, a huge price was paid by everyone for each bloodily contested mile. Putting readers vividly in the moment as events unfolded, with characters made unforgettable by their own words, The Savage Storm is a defining account of the pivotal months leading to Monte Cassino, and a landmark in the writing about war.
Author : James Heartfield
Publisher : John Hunt Publishing
Page : 566 pages
File Size : 11,61 MB
Release : 2012-09-28
Category : History
ISBN : 1780993781
The Second World War was not the 'Good War' of legend. James Heartfield explains that both Allies and Axis powers fought for the same goals - territory, markets and natural resources.
Author : Paul Chrystal
Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 19,1 MB
Release : 2023-10-30
Category : History
ISBN : 1399088092
This is the story of the 1st Air Landing Light Regiment RA and its role in the Italian campaign and at the Battle of Arnhem. It is also the story of one of its soldiers: 14283058 Gunner Eric Wright Chrystal, father of the authors. Eric joined the army in September 1942 and, after training, joined the newly formed glider-borne regiment the following year. He first saw action in Italy in 1943, where he was seriously wounded. On 17 September 1944, two years to the day since he enlisted, he and the regiment were landed by glider near to Arnhem in the Netherlands. The authors recount set their father’s experiences in context by describing the formation of the unit and the many months of training in England. Their involvement in the Italian campaign, where Eric served with E Troop, 3 Battery, is then recounted, detailing their actions at Rionero, Foggia and Campobasso, where Eric was wounded. It then moves on to describe 1st Air Landing Light Regiment’s preparation for and involvement in Operation Market (the Airborne half of Market Garden). This very detailed account of the fighting highlights the regiment’s pivotal (but often neglected) role near Arnhem bridge. Here, after nine days of intense combat, Eric was among the many captured and held until the end of the war. The inclusion of Eric’s own eyewitness testimony lends a very personal touch to this excellent account of the regiment’s experience of combat and life in the PoW camps.
Author : Clive Emsley
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 10,77 MB
Release : 2013-01-24
Category : History
ISBN : 0199653712
The first serious investigation of criminal offending by members of the British armed forces both during and immediately after the two world wars of the twentieth century.
Author : Roger Broad
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 19,92 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Draft
ISBN : 9780714657011
Compulsory military service in Britain can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon times, but it was only in the twentieth century that it became universal. Conscription occurred during both world wars with a total of eight million men in total being conscripted into the army, navy and air forces, and after the end of the Second World War compulsory service continued for another eighteen years to meet overseas commitments and under the threat of the Cold War. Conscription in Britain 1939-1963 outlines the historical record of conscription from the fyrd of the Dark Ages, through to Nelson's day and up to and including the First World War. The book goes on to concentrate on conscription during the Second World War and National Service which continued in the decades afterwards. The strategic and political considerations that governed British military recruitment in the period 1939-1963 are described and analyzed. Individual experiences in the services are examined, putting human flesh on the strategic and political skeleton. The book looks at aspects of conscription including the demands made on the services, how officers and men were selected and trained, and how discipline was imposed. The years following the Second World War are also investigated, considering the effect of twenty four years continuous conscription on the services themselves; on women's rights; on attitudes towards authority and patriotism; on race issues and on the breakout of individualism in the 1960s.
