The heroic, real-life personal account of Chris Ryan's most famous mission, The One That Got Away, is now reworked for a new generation.Some authors just write about it. Chris Ryan has been there, done it — and here is the gripping real-life tale…During the Gulf War in 1991, Chris Ryan became separated from the other members of the SAS patrol, Bravo Two Zero. Alone, he beat off an Iraqi attack and set out for Syria. Over the next seven days he walked almost 200 miles, his life constantly in danger.Of the eight SAS members involved in this famous mission, only one escaped capture. This is his story…

Here is a remarkable true story of forgiveness—a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. A classic war autobiography, The Railway Man is a powerful tale of survival and of the human capacity to understand even those who have done us unthinkable harm.

In December 1937, in what was then the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (Nanjing) and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured, and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity—one of the worst in world history—continues to be denied by the Japanese government.Based on extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents in four different languages (many never before published), Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, has written what will surely be the definitive, English-language history of this horrifying episode—one that the Japanese have tried for years to erase from public consciousness.The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers who performed it; of the Chinese civilians who endured it; and finally of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. It was Chang who discovered the diaries of the German leader of this rescue effort, John Rabe, whom she calls the “Oskar Schindler of China.” A loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler but far from the terror planned in his Nazi-controlled homeland, he worked tirelessly to save the innocent from slaughter.But this book does more than just narrate details of an orgy of violence; it attempts to analyze the degree to which the Japanese imperial government and its militaristic culture fostered in the Japanese soldier a total disregard for human life.Finally, it tells one more shocking story: Despite the fact that the death toll at Nanking exceeded the immediate deaths from the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (and even the total wartime casualty count of entire European countries), the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to court the loyalty of Japan and stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterized this conspiracy of silence, which persists to this day, as “a second rape.”Contains a table! Best viewed with CoolReader.

On the eve of the first Chechen war, Mikail Eldin was a young and naïve arts journalist. By the end of the second war, he had become a battle-hardened war reporter and mountain partisan who had endured torture and imprisonment in a concentration camp. His compelling memoir traces the unfolding of the conflict from day one, with vivid scenes right from the heart of the war. The Sky Wept Fire presents a unique glimpse into the lives of the Chechen resistance, providing testimony of great historical value. Yet it is not merely the story of the battle for Chechnya: this is the story of the battle within the heart, the struggle to conquer fear, hold on to faith and preserve one’s humanity.

Eldin was fated to witness key events in Chechnya’s history: from the first day of the attack on Grozny, and the full-scale Russian invasion that followed it, to the siege of Grozny five years later that razed the city to the ground and has been compared to the destruction of Dresden. Resurrecting these memories with a poet’s eye, Eldin observes the sights, the sounds and smells of war. Having fled Grozny along with droves of refugees, he joins the defending army, yet he always considers his role as that of journalist and witness. Shortly after joining the Chechen resistance, Eldin is captured in the mountains. He undergoes barbaric torture as his captors attempt to break his will. They fail to make him talk, and he is eventually transferred to a concentration camp. There a new struggle awaits him: the battle to overcome his own suicidal thoughts and ensuing insanity.

A true-life Catch-22 set in the deeply dysfunctional countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents.Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent--she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job.When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.

What is it like to kill? What is it like to be under fire? How do you know what’s right? What can you never forget?In The Things They Cannot Say, award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks these difficult questions of eleven soldiers and marines, who—by sharing the truth about their wars—display a rare courage that transcends battlefield heroics.For each of these men, many of whom Sites first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth means something different. One struggles to recover from a head injury he believes has stolen his ability to love; another attempts to make amends for the killing of an innocent man; yet another finds respect for the enemy fighter who tried to kill him. Sites also shares the unsettling narrative of his own failures during war—including his complicity in a murder—and the redemptive powers of storytelling that saved him from a self-destructive downward spiral.

RAF Flight lieutenants John Peters and John Nichol were shot down over enemy territory on their first airbourne mission of the Gulf War. Their capture in the desert, half a mile from their blazing Tornado bomber, began a nightmare seven-week ordeal of torture and interrogation which brought both men close to death.In Tornado Down, John Peters and John Nichol tell the incredible story of their part in the war against Saddam Hussien’s regime. It is a brave and shocking and totally honest story: a story about war and its effects on the hearts and minds of men.

The Russo-Japanese War grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea. Harry Collingwood (William Joseph Cosens Lancaster (M: 1851 May 28 — 1922 Jun 10)) provides a personal narrative of this conflict, that served as a prelude for the following two World Wars of the Twentieth Century.

Action-packed and breathtakingly authentic, Viper Pilot is the electrifying memoir of one of the most decorated F-16 pilots in American history: U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dan Hampton, who served for twenty years, flying missions in the Iraq War, the Kosovo conflict, and the first Gulf War.Both a rare look into the elite world of fighter pilots and a thrilling first-person account of contemporary air combat, Viper Pilot soars—a true story of courage, skill, and commitment that will thrill U.S. Special Forces buffs, aviation and military history aficionados, and fans of the novels of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown.

It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943…April 1982. Argentine forces had invaded the Falkland Islands. Britain needed an answer. And fast.The idea was simple: to destroy the vital landing strip at Port Stanley. The reality was more complicated. The only aircraft that could possibly do the job was three months from being scrapped, and the distance it had to travel was four thousand miles beyond its maximum range. It would take fifteen Victor tankers and seventeen separate in-flight refuellings to get one Avro Vulcan B2 over the target, and give its crew any chance of coming back alive.Yet less than a month later, a formation of elderly British jets launched from a remote island airbase to carry out the longest-range air attack in history. At its head was a single aircraft, six men, and twenty-one thousand-pound bombs, facing the hornet’s nest of modern weaponry defending the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands. There would be no second chances…‘Exciting and breathtakingly pacy… This is exactly how modern history should be written.’Andy McNab‘Gripping, endlessly fascinating detail. I read the book in one sitting: it is an utterly compelling war story, brilliantly written.’Simon Winchester‘A masterwork of narrative history. Brilliantly described, the story of an impossible British mission is a compelling one; it’s telling long overdue.’Clive Cussler

In War, Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat—the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.

“Imagine George Costanza from Seinfeld being sent off to cover the Iraq War… Hilarious.”

(Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times).

Chris Ayres is a small-town boy, a hypochondriac, and a neat freak with an anxiety disorder. Not exactly the picture of a war correspondent. But when his boss asks him if he would like to go to Iraq, he doesn’t have the guts to say no. After signing a one million dollar life-insurance policy, studying a tutorial on repairing severed limbs, and spending twenty thousand dollars on camping gear (only to find out that his bright yellow tent makes him a sitting duck), Ayres is embedded with a battalion of gung ho Marines who either shun him or threaten him when he files an unfavorable story. As time goes on, though, he begins to understand them (and his inexplicably enthusiastic fellow war reporters) more and more: Each night of terrifying combat brings, in the morning, something more visceral than he has ever experienced—the thrill of having won a fight for survival.

In the tradition of MASH, Catch-22, and other classics in which irreverence springs from life in extremis, War Reporting for Cowards tells the story of Iraq in a way that is extraordinarily honest, heartfelt, and bitterly hilarious.

Cases of sexual violence against men have been documented in a great number of conflicts and wars, both ancient and contemporary. Despite this growing empirical evidence, there is still a dearth of analyses on this type of violence, which stands in stark contrast with the abundant literature dealing with sexual violence against women.Based on a fieldwork conducted primarily in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, this book proposes to look at wartime sexual violence against men as a performative gendered act that, stemming from the same logic underpinning sexual violence against women, (re-)affirms a gendered social hierarchy.The book explores patterns of wartime sexual violence against men, and presents survivors’, but also perpetrators’ stories. The book proceeds to analysing the context in which this type of violence can be understood, narrated, but also addressed, either through support programs for survivors, or through legal means.

Книга «ZOV» 33-летнего Павла Филатьева — участника «спецоперации». Он родом из Волгограда, с начала боев в Украине. После он вернулся домой и написал честный рассказ о том, что происходило на поле боя.В 2010-х годах он служил в Чечне, потом уволился. Но стабильную работу найти не смог и вернулся в армию в августе прошлого года.В Украине он участвовал в боях в составе 56-го десантно-штурмового полка. Его подразделение штурмовало Херсон, Филатьев получил травмы и был отправлен домой на лечение. На фронт он не вернулся.В своей книге «ZOV» он рассказал, каким было обеспечение армии, как относились солдаты к «спецоперации» и о бессмысленных смертях.

«"Акацуки" перед Порт-Артуром». Под таким заглавием в Германии появилась небольшая книжка, содержащая в себе заметки из дневника японского морского офицера Нирутака о деятельном участии находившегося под его командой эскадренного миноносца "Акацуки" в боях под Порт-Артуром. Заметки эти очень интересны. Между прочим, любопытны в и их весьма своеобразное освещение многих подробностей этих боев и явно неприязненное отношение автора к европейцам вообще и к русским в частности, характерное чисто японское бахвальство, а также замечания об адмирале Того. Мы даем здесь полный перевод этого любопытного издания. Прим. ред. “Нового Журнала Литературы, Искусства и Иауки". 1905 г.

Книга В. И. Ютова — сборник воспоминаний, очерков, интервью людей, прошедших горнила “малой” войны в Афганистане в составе разведывательно-диверсионных подразделений “Каскад” и “Омега” — элите отечественного СПЕЦНАЗА.

В марте 1944 года дороги Правобережной Украины превратились в утонувшие в грязи «направления». Однако фронт все равно безостановочно катился на запад. Обходами и охватами Т-34 с 76-мм орудиями вынуждали отступать превосходящие их технически батальоны «Тигров» и «Пантер». Финальным аккордом стало окружение 1-й танковой армии генерала Хубе под Каменец-Подольском. Численность попавших в окружение немецких войск составила около 200 тысяч человек. Тем не менее армия Хубе став «блуждающим «котлом» и «катящимся «ежом» упорно пробивала путь из окружения…Кто принял роковое решение бросить за Днестр танковую армию Катукова? Почему из Нормандии незадолго до «Дня Д» сняли целый эсэсовский корпус с 300 танками? Чьи идеи позволили армии Хубе избежать повторения Сталинграда? Как пала «крепость» Тарнополь? Наконец, почему фюрер отстранил от командования генерал-фельдмаршала Манштейна прямо в разгар сражения? Новая книга ведущего военного историка на основе архивных документов обеих сторон отвечает на эти вопросы, впервые во всех подробностях восстанавливая ход одной из самых крупных и вместе с тем мало известных наступательных операций Красной Армии, жесткого противостояния Жукова и Манштейна — Проскуровско-Черновицкой операции марта-апреля 1944 года.

После того, как в пламени Приграничного и Смоленского сражений июня и июля 1941 г. исчезли созданные в предвоенные годы танки и самолеты, Красной Армии предстояло пройти пять кругов ада под ударами танковых клиньев вермахта. Операции на окружение невиданных в истории войн масштабов следовали одна за другой, и, казалось, ничто не может остановить наступление гитлеровской армии на Москву. Но уже в ноябре 1941 г. последовали контрнаступления советских войск под Ростовом и Тихвином, и словно по мановению волшебной палочки военная машина Третьего Рейха со скрипом остановилась в нескольких десятках километров от башен Кремля. Спасал ли Г.К. Жуков Ленинград? Кто виноват в окружении Юго-Западного фронта под Киевом? Кто и как сумел восстановить рухнувший после вяземского «котла» фронт под Москвой в октябре 1941 г.? «Генерал Грязь», «генерал Мороз» или генералы Красной Армии остановили вермахт у ворот Москвы? На все эти вопросы можно найти ответ в новой книге Алексея Исаева.

Книга бывшего сотрудника внешней разведки полковника КГБ Владимира Пещерского воссоздает подробную историю уникальной разведывательной сети, созданной на территории европейских государств советской военной разведкой в годы Второй мировой войны и получившей название «Красная капелла». В книге рассказывается о ключевых этапах создания разведсети, перечисляются организаторы нелегальных резидентур и многочисленные агенты, которые передавали советской разведке бесценную информацию о планах гитлеровской армии, показывается влияние разведданных на политические решения, принимаемые воюющими государствами. ***«Красной капеллой» их назвало гестапо. Уникальная разведывательная сеть, организованная советской разведкой в Европе, стала олицетворением противостояния гитлеровскому владычеству.Первым добровольным советским агентом стал барон фон Поссанер, который в 1931 году подал на Гитлера в суд за обман нацистской партии и немецкого народа.В ближайшем окружении Гитлера находился еще один советский агент — бывший сподвижник и близкий друг фюрера капитан Стеннес, который считал, что тот предал идеалы нацизма.Руководитель швейцарской «красной тройки», выдающийся разведчик Шандор Радо, организовал издательство «Геопресс», ставшее прикрытием резидентуры военной разведки.В начале войны служащий имперского министерства авиации Шульце-Бойзен сообщил советской разведке о местонахождении ставки Гитлера.Аллен Даллес считал, что «Красная капелла» первоначально имела антинацистскую окраску, но затем превратилась в «организацию по снабжению информацией Красной Армии».Владимир Пещерский — бывший сотрудник советской внешней разведки. Его книга — фундаментальное исследование деятельности самой эффективной нелегальной резидентуры XX века, внесшей неоценимый вклад в победу над гитлеровской Германией.