After 50 years in RAF uniform, here is the story of Tom Eeles, a true gent (as most pilots are). Having entered RAF College Cranwell in 1960, Tom Eeles began flying training in January 1962 on the Jet Provost and gained his RAF wings on 30th July 1963. This was followed by advanced flying training in the Gnat T1 and his first posting was to No 16 Squadron flying the Canberra B(I) 8. Its role as a light bomber squadron was primarily nuclear strike, with a secondary role of conventional ground attack by day and night. 16 Squadron was deployed to Kuantan, about halfway up the east coast of Malaya, tasked with providing long range day and night divebombing and strafing with 1000lb bombs and 20mm cannon on airfields on Java. In July 1966 and on loan to the Senior Service, Tom reported to RNAS Lossiemouth for a swept wing conversion course on the Hunter before starting the Buccaneer Operational Flying Course. Posted to 801 NAS, HMS Victorious in the Far East, in 1969 Tom joined 736 Naval Air Squadron responsible for training courses of RAF aircrew. In July 1972 he moved to 12 Squadron based at RAF Honington whose task was to provide a maritime strike/attack capability, and a nuclear strike capability. 1975 saw a move to 79 Squadron flying the Hunter and after a spell at the RAF Staff College, Tom became Staff Officer responsible for all aspects of fast jet advanced flying training on the Hawk at Valley, and multi engine advanced flying training at Finningley. In 1983 he was selected to command 237 OCU and commanded the Examining Wing at the Central Flying School and retired in 1997 but became a full time reservist until November 2004. He continued to fly with 5AEF until September 2010. And still has 'a passion for flying after all these years.' 'I also dabbled in air defence and had a long association with flying training in all its variety, ranging from operational conversion right down to elementary teaching.' From the serious to the hilarious here are the tours, the jinx, the technology, the camaraderie and the shared passion for the freedom of the skies. Tom has totalled over 8,000 hours flying! 147 page well illustrated paperback.

This fascinating and nostalgic book is based on the letters of six prolific correspondents in the war years. Three of them were famous members of the London scene: Noel Coward, Cecil Beaton and Freya Stark, while the other three were ordinary servicemen: First Officer Tommy Davies, medical student Donald Macdonald, and the author's father, Jack Knott, who was called up to the Royal Air Force. The book partly chronicles the author's search for his elusive father's identity. Freya Stark, fluent in at least seven languages, was an acclaimed travel writer on the outbreak of war. An eccentric who had already travelled round the Lebanon, she was appointed as the Ministry of Information's "South Arab expert" and dispatched to Egypt. Tommy Davies had served on 20 different ships by the time war broke out and wrote constantly and lovingly to his wife Dorrie. His ship the Atlantis was transformed into a hospital vessel and set sail for the eastern Mediterranean. Noel Coward was a well-known entertainer who immediately set off on a tour of the European capitals, but meanwhile he had also been recruited as an agent reporting back on the morale he found among his audiences, and this led to his being constantly tailed round by suspicious local counter-espionage operatives. Cecil Beaton was a celebrated society photographer, initially assigned to an air-raid precautions role but soon dispatched with his camera to Cairo. Donald Macdonald also headed for Cairo on graduation as a doctor. Jack Knott was in Egypt too, and like all three famous writers passed through Habbaniya RAF base in Iraq. A superbly told account of six lives sharing similar experiences from very different perspectives. 15.2 x 23.6cm, 254pp, black and white photos.

Named Redlegs after the red stripes on their trousers, this volume in the popular G.I. series illustrates a much-neglected aspect of American military history - the U.S. Army artillerymen. Artillery was a vital arm and proved its worth in diverse theatres of war; artillerymen served as part of mobile columns, in sieges and blockades, and as garrisons in remote frontier forts. The photographs, most of them rarely seen in other sources, range from the Civil War and the campaigns against the American Indians, through to the Spanish-American War, and descriptive captions detail uniforms and equipment and the ordnance used over the years. On page nine there is a huge coloured image of a Light Artillery Sargeant in 1861 in dress uniform, holding the M1840 Light Artillery Saber and looking especially handsome and smart. There are dress caps, decorative shoulder straps, plumed hats with scarlet worsted cords ending in tassels and a crossed cannon insignia, lined capes, heavily braided dress uniform and portraits of important officers to powerful 24-pounder siege guns and campaign hats with acorn tips. Over 100 rare archive photos, 72 page extra large softback.

Recruited into the 14th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles on the outbreak of war in 1914, Jim Maultsaid, a self-taught artist living in Donegal, saw combat on the front line before being wounded on the Somme. Jim recorded his war experiences through sketches and notes in his "little black book", and many of the striking pictures of warfare reproduced here form a graphic impression even more immediate than a photo. Jim's granddaughter has now edited selections from his notebooks and this first volume takes him up to Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval in Spring 1916. Jim's irrepressible good humour is astonishing and catching, even when he is describing with appropriate reverence the deaths of comrades. His training starts with a route march of six miles. Jim fires his first shots two months later, and on 26 February 1915 gets his complete kit weighing 80 lbs, just in time for a route march of 26 miles. Exactly a year after enlisting, following an inspection by the King, the battalion embarks on a transport for France. Marching through Amiens and Beauval they are already deep in mud and soon "In the far distance we heard Boom! Boom! Guns! Big stuff, too. Yes! Getting there now." Jim's sketch of the front line, punctuated by pinpricks of fire and shells, is unforgettable. He narrowly avoids a bullet when he looks over the trench and does not make that mistake twice. On Sunday the sound of hymn singing floats across from the other side. Jim volunteers for bombing patrol and crawls forward on his stomach to within 20 yards of a German sentry post. He reflects that his youthful enjoyment of stories like Buffalo Bill were now a reality. Rats in the trenches are lured by cheese and then bayonetted. At the Somme conditions are pitiless and Jim's sketches of the Night Patrol convey fear and violence. "Rain - mud - snow and filth." A major attack leaves Jim's friend Billy dead, and he pays tribute. When Sir Douglas Haig himself passes by and asks to see Jim's boys doing bombing practice, they all throw a bull's eye. 17.8 x 25.4cm, 198pp, lively drawings on most pages.

Auxiliary Nurse Vera Brittain serving with the Red Cross in France remembered being 'completely unaware that...the Representation of the People Bill, which gave votes to women over the age of 30, had been passed by the House of Lords.' For Vera, 'the spectacular pageant of the Woman's Movement' had 'crept to its quiet, unadvertised triumph in the deepest night of wartime depression'. The struggle for women's parliamentary enfranchisement had been long and bitter, and those known as the 'Suffragettes' had fought for the vote through militant and at times violent campaigns, imprisoned, undertaken hunger and thirst strikes and suffered the torture of forcible feeding. Non militant suffragists had used legal and passive resistance in a movement that was not premeditated or controllable, 'it just happened'. Now we join Dr Vivien Newman, arm in arm, with some of the most formidable women who turned their considerable skills, honed over 50 years of active campaigning, to both support the war and the pursuit of peace. An explanation of the acronyms includes the Actress' Franchise League, Conchies, East London Federation, International Women's Suffrage Alliance, Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage, National Vigilance Association, Passmore Edwards Settlement, Queen Mary's Auxiliary Army Corps, Society for Overseas Settlement of British Women, Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service, The Tax Resistance League, The Women's Volunteers Reserve and many more. 158pp, archive photos.

Operation OVERLORD in June 1944 was the greatest seaborne invasion and indeed the greatest military endeavour of all time. Although eventually a brilliant victory and duly celebrated as a triumph of intelligence, planning, combined operations and international co-operation, the D Day Landings came close to being the greatest military history disaster. From the parachutists and glider pilots landed behind enemy lines to the sappers, gunners, tank crews, signals, infantry, chaplains and surgeons, and a vast armada of ships and landing craft that brought them to the congested beaches, each has their own story of excitement, elation, horror and heroism. A unique collection of letters and accounts from all ranks and regiments, this book champions the ordinary men who made it possible. As Bill Deedes points out in his Foreword, it was the 'ordinary man' who turned this great undertaking into a reality. This now classic reprinted book reflects this. We hear the experiences of RAF pilots who dropped the parachutists and towed the gliders; of sailors in the Royal Navy who had to negotiate minefields and other obstacles; and of a wide spectrum of soldiers who came face to face with the enemy who all provided vital support. Hostile fire does not distinguish between those roles more than it does between high and junior rank. We are privileged to share these individuals' experiences and emotions at such a defining moment both in their lives and in the history of the world. Each section is introduced by clear explanation of the action concerned and enhanced by maps and photographs. Facsimile reprint of the 1980 original in large softback.

An idyllic English village on the isle of Purbeck in Dorset, Tyneham and the whole of the surrounding valley was evacuated at short notice towards the end of 1943 to form a long-distance gunnery range. The derelict houses can still be visited and form a monument to the sacrifice made by the local people. Notice of eviction was posted on 16 November, and the evacuation was completed a month later, removing 255 villagers from their houses, some of whom did not survive the shock and the winter hardship. The evacuation took place under cover of official secrecy and those responsible, including the head of local civil defence, Mrs Evelyn Bond, found it a harrowing experience. Churchill pledged that the villagers would return, but in 1947 Attlee's government retained it as one of seven "contentious areas" where no reconciliation of civilian and military interests was found possible. The area's MP Lord Hinchingbrooke led the protests, assisted by celebrities such as Brains Trust veteran CEM Joad, but to no avail. The author charts the continuing protests revived in the 1960s by Rodney Legg and the Tyneham Action Group. This massive book puts the fate of Tyneham and the Lulworth ranges in the context of the society and politics of the era, starting with the use of the area as a tank firing range in the 1920s. The author sees Tyneham as the focus for different kinds of English patriotism, with protesters including demobilised combatants, Tory grandees and bohemians embracing a back-to-nature lifestyle. In the 1930s the poet, visionary and rural campaigner Rolf Gardiner set up an influential arts centre at Springhead. Gardiner had travelled extensively in Germany and admired some aspects of the Hitler youth movement, leading the author to ask "No such thing as a Dorset Nazi party?" This book was controversial on its first release in 1995, and it makes an interesting read. 15.6 x 23.3 cm, 650 pages, softback, photos, A reissue of Patrick Wright's 1995 classic.

This second volume of Sergeant Jim Maultsaid's expressive pictorial diaries of the Great War starts with preparations in the woods of Thiepval. "Pass the cruel barbs through and around in loops. We are out wiring, in the dead of night. Zip! Zip! Rat-a-tat! A bullet strikes metal and soars away." Boxing competitions and the 100-yard dash keep morale up. Then on 1st July at 6 am, a day which will see the end of the 14th Rifles, "the air is rent with a tornado of gunfire". The Ulster Boys "stumbled in amongst the wreckage of bodies, wooden beams and revetments" to clear the dug-outs, where Jim accounts for several Germans. "War! Hellish war!" Kid Lewis, "a great little hero", is lost. "The slopes of Thiepval run red with the blood of Ulstermen." Then "Like a thousand-ton hammer, it strikes me". On the first day of the Battle of the Somme Jim is seriously wounded and invalided out. Two unknown boys bandage the wound, Sergeant Tommy Murphy offers a mug of tea and Jim drags himself to the Red Cross station, losing blood and in terrible pain. After hospital in Suffolk Jim is sent to Cambridge for officer training. He then finds himself leading a detachment of the Chinese Labour Corps, a little-known supporting force that did manual labour to free up fighting men for the front line. The work was often difficult and dangerous and Jim pays generous tribute to his men, accompanied as always by vivid drawings. When a detachment is laying railway sleepers close to a main line, an express unexpectedly thundering through leads some workers to drop their sleepers on the track with terrifying results and loss of life. The final push by the Germans, surrounded as they were by petrol and oil dumps, was a terrifying slaughter. 17.8 x 25.4cm, 249pp, drawings on most pages.

On the outbreak of war in 1914 there were two main suffrage movements in Britain, the women's social and political union (WSPU), a direct action campaigning group led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, and an older organisation, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, a largely pacifist organisation led by Millicent Fawcett. The Pankhursts struck a deal with the government which freed imprisoned suffragettes, receiving £2000 for their cause in return for encouraging women to take men's jobs to enable them to enlist. The move was controversial, but the Pankhursts rightly believed that support for the war effort would make it more likely in the future that women would get the vote. During WWI an estimated two million women entered the workplace, employed as taxi drivers, chimney sweeps, farm labourers, factory workers, mechanics, postwomen, barbers, railway employees and thousands of other jobs. Women were paid less than men for the same work and employers often wanted to keep them on after the war. Married women whose husbands were fighting received a separation allowance so long as they remained faithful. This informative book covers the main organisations overseeing women's work and lists those 241 nurses who lost their lives, with brief biographical details. Munitions was dangerous work, and an estimated 400 women lost their lives in explosions, eleven of which are described here, from Heckmondwike in 1914 to Chilwell in 1918. The work of the WAACs, Women's British Legion and other organisations is described, with a chapter on some remarkable women's achievements in the war including Dorothy Lawrence, who disguised herself and enlisted as a sapper, Edith Cavell, shot by the Germans for helping prisoners to escape, and Violet Constance Jessop, who survived the sinking of both the Titanic and the Britannia. 144pp, paperback, photos.

Depicting the grim realities of the four year struggle for the Ypres salient, this powerful collection showcases work of the contemporary combat artists and illustrators from the Great War era. Included here are the works of serious artists, propagandists, illustrators and humourists, and the result is a stunning and vivid graphic record of life and death as reported to contemporary audiences when events were still unfolding. They provided a highly accurate visual record of the fleeting moments which the bulky cameras could not reproduce and a contemporary record of hand-to-hand fighting, trench raids, aerial dogfights, sea battles, desperate last stands, night actions and cavalry charges. Images show Irish fusiliers attacking with the bayonet, they go into prayer before action and a crowded railway platform with a wounded soldier and stretcher bearers in a Bruce Bairnsfather drawing has the caption 'The unquenchable cheerfulness of the British soldier.' 128 large pages, 24 x 18.5cm, paperback. Hundreds of illus.