Merseyside was hammered during the war, being a major port and distribution centre, and this fascinating book uses a technique of blending old photos from the blitz with modern ones from the same angle showing the streets and locations in a then-and-now depiction of how things have changed. It was not until mid-1940 that bombs began to fall with regularity on Merseyside, by which time many of the children who had been evacuated had returned home again. Starting in early July the Luftwaffe pounded the area, and in September there was a raid somewhere on Merseyside for 26 out of 30 nights. On 28 November 250 people lost their lives in Liverpool alone. The pictorial records are arranged chronologically, though some are difficult to date, starting with a photo of Liverpool's famous Town Hall with sandbags piled high across the frontage. Children and adults are pictured congregating round a blown-out window in Wallasey, probably because at the time it was a novel sight. Dockland suffered particularly, and incendiary bombs one October night hit a railway siding at Speke, a match factory at Garston and two warehouses. On 25 April 1941 the Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid a visit to Birkenhead, Wallasey and Liverpool, captured on newsreel footage. In August 1941 the country's many fire brigades were nationalised, leading to a more co-ordinated response, and emergency water supplies were widely established. The final chapter of the book features signs of the blitz that can still be seen nowadays, including a faint Emergency Water Supply notice below a fascinating modern advertisement for "Reptile live foods at only £1.50 a tub". 175pp, softback, glossary, colour photos on every page.

Sub-titled 'The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France.' Here for the first time is the astounding story of the greatest clandestine organisation and of two heroic brothers whose ordeals during and after the war challenged accepted myths of wartime resistance in occupied France. As far as the public knew, SOE did not exist, but in July 1940 during the darkest days, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created a top-secret operation to 'set Europe ablaze.' Special Operations Executive would not only change the course of the war but the nature of combat itself. Parachuting behind enemy lines and hiding in plain sight, the agents infiltrated Nazi-occupied territory to recruit and arm local French résistants. The Starr brothers stood out to become legendary figures to the guerrillas, assassins and saboteurs they led. Both brothers were sent across the channel to organise resistance to the Nazis. George commanded networks of resistance fighters in Southwest France, cutting German communications and delaying the arrival of Nazi tanks to Normandy after D-day by 17 days. Younger brother John laid the groundwork for the Resistance in Burgundy until he was captured, tortured and imprisoned by the Nazis. Feats of boldness and bravado were many, but appalling scandals including George's supposed torture and execution of prisoners, and John's alleged collaboration with his German captors, overshadowed them all. At the end of the war Britain, France and the US awarded the Starr brothers medals for heroism, yet their battle honours did little to allay post-war allegations against them. On their return to Britain, military authorities accused one brother of heinous war crimes and the other of treason. The book is written with complete access to only recently declassified documents alongside interviews with surviving wartime Resistance fighters. It is a dramatic tale of spies, sabotage and daring with list of characters and their codenames, men and women infiltrating, arriving by parachute, submarine, sailboat and Westland Lysander light aircraft that landed on occupied soil at great risk. The typical SOE team consisted of an organiser, a radio operator (W/T for wireless telegrapher), and a courier. Wireless telegraphers tapped out letters in Morse code to maintain links with London, while couriers carried messages on bicycles, buses, trains and cars from organisers to field agents. Couriers were often women, whom the Germans scrutinised less than military-age men. The Starr brothers could rely on only a handful of men and women whose patriotism and stubbornness made them risk savage torture, execution, or slow, humiliating and anonymous death in concentration camps. The occupation set Frenchman against Frenchman. British agents like the Starr brothers learned how to kill; training skills could not teach them whom to trust. 322pp, 16 pages of photos.

What does it mean to be a knight in shining armour? This book, curated by the former senior curator at the Royal Armouries, describes how knights evolved between 1200 AD and 1500 AD in English and European history. The chapters will look at knights' organisations, training, armour and weapons as well as their campaigns and battles. Learn how early knights were fighting men but the concept of 'chivalric knights' emerged in the 12th century when they were denoted for their horsemanship, their respect for women, and their protection of the church and the weak. Discover how Lords had their familia ('family') of paid household knights which meant they were available at short notice and were useful for those in conquered or turbulent regions such as the Marches on the borders with Wales or Scotland. Looking at the 14th century, understand that knights and squires served in several different contexts, whether they were household knights, feudal troops, volunteers or mercenary-style paid fighting men. The cultural importance of chivalric knights is also explored in the book's chapter such as the sub-Roman Arthurian tales with the medieval knight who was a brave and bold adventurer seeking the Holy Grail that only the purest would attain. Another section looks at the politics of knights including the Wars of the Roses in which there was a revival of the 'Commissions of Array', a summons of town and county militias which required men to be 'well and defencibly arrayed'. The book includes fantastic images, such as a rendering of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell from between 1335 and 1345 in which he receives his lance and helm from his wife while his daughter-in-law holds his shield. There is a diagram of a knight from around 1210 which shows his iron scale armour, conical helmet, iron prick spurs and an array of swords. The book includes stunning pictures of artwork depicting battles including the battle of Agincourt (as imagined in 15th century) and another 15th century illustration shows John II of France captured by English soldiers during the battle of Poitiers in 1356. 7.6" x 7.9", colour images, 194pp.

Images include mules and donkeys, one of whom survived a 14oz time fuse which was pulled from his head, and Ragtime, a grey Arab horse displaying his service medals on his brow band. A Canadian staff officer bids farewell to his horse after being demobbed, soldiers risk their lives to free horses or winch them via a sling on the Italian front in the Alps, July 1915, and a poster for Our Dumb Friends League encourages kindness to animals. A regiment of healing horses at Elstree were responsible for the supply of tetanus serum and horses were rehabilitated by listening to gramophone records and trained to wear gasmasks. A kangaroo used as a mascot for Australian troops; the strength and power of the British Empire symbolised by a pride of lions in a recruitment poster of 1915; a ferocious cat used in a recruitment poster for the US Tanks Corps 1917 and the real life-saving cat Pitoutchi who became the mascot of a big-gun crew on the Western Front. Used as symbols and propaganda as political animals, here are daring rescues of canaries in France, a pet thrush, a tame blackbird, and of course dogs who went into the trenches with their masters and afterwards accompanied battalions when it went into billets behind the line. Rin-Tin-Tin was the rescued wartime pup turned world-famous dog film star and also pictured is the Red Baron with his crew and beloved dog Moritz. Here is Lassie at Crufts framed with a life belt and pictured with the sailor whom she miraculously revived. Dogs of the French Canine Corps wore special harnesses for transporting ammunition or were used for pulling the wheelchairs of wounded soldiers. See a rare picture of a terraced colony of dug-outs for French ambulance dogs and famous mascots like Peggy the bulldog on HMS Iron Duke. Dogs have helped substantially in the winning of the war as mascots, sentinels, despatch carriers, and Red Cross dogs have played their parts bravely to the finish. There was a British War Dog School at Shoeburyness in Essex which used gentle ways and encouragement rather than punishment for undesirable behaviour and the dogs were trained to overcome obstacles such as fences and streams and to dash fearlessly through a line of attacking infantry or clouds of smoke and gas. Through unrivalled access to rarely seen illustrated wartime magazines, books and postcards including the Illustrated London News Archive. 160pp in large softback, over 100 illus. reproduced to the best possible quality given their age, plus artworks.

Arras, Vimy, Messines, Passchendaele and Cambrai Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives. The huge pressure forced upon the German armies by the Anglo-French Somme offensive that dominated the second half of 1916 left the outnumbered German forces little choice but to reduce the length of the Western Front. This was achieved by constructing a line of defences some 30 miles behind the front line - the Hindenburg or Siegfried Line - and on 9 February 1917 German troops began the withdrawal, completing the retreat two months later. The terrain they left, into which the allied troops had to advance, was utterly devastated, littered with booby traps and ambushes, so the advance was painstaking and slow. The thinking of the Allied commanders was that the policy of attrition had led to the German retreat and so it would work again, but the new line was much better constructed and defended. Thus, that July began one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. Nine months later, at the cost of over half a million lives which included battles whose names even today are bywords for futile bloody slaughter - Arras, Cambrai, Messines and particularly Passchendaele - the line was broken. In his introduction historian Bob Carruthers relates the assault, but the 130 plus b/w photos that follow say more than words ever could. A truly compelling selection, it lays bare the startling, appalling conditions experienced by the troops on both sides and the staggering bravery of allied troops in assault after assault on the phenomenally well-defended German positions. There are some lighter moments - troops receiving food parcels and presents from home, grateful locals providing food and wine - and activities during lulls in the fighting, such as cleaning weapons, eating or just grabbing a bit of sleep. The ever-present, often waist-deep mud, rendering a terrible slaughter almost comically impossible conveys war's futility more than words ever could. 128pp softback.

With tremendous speed the Islamic State has moved from the margins to the centre of life in the Middle East. Despite recent setbacks its ability to conquer and retain huge swathes of territory has demonstrated its skilful tactical manoeuvring, ambition and staying power, yet we still know too little about ISIS, particularly about its deeper ideology. In this book Wasserstein offers a penetrating analysis of the movement and looks closely at the 1,000 year old form of Islamic apocalyptic messianism the group draws upon today. He shows how ISIS is not only a military and political movement but also and primarily a religious one with a coherent world view, a patent strategy, and a clear goal - the recreation of a medieval caliphate. Connecting the group's day-to-day activities and the writings and sayings of its leaders with the medieval Islamic past, Wasserstein provides an unprecedented perspective on the origins and aspirations of the Islamic State. His chapters cover women, children, Christians and Jews and he does much to stimulate concern and illuminate what we Westerners do not yet know. His book demonstrates two interlinked elements, one the Western involvement with the world of Islam which stretches from the beginnings of Islam to ongoing adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. The term 'crusader' as a label for Westerners, some of whom are Christians, reduces our understanding of that involvement to one of hostility and destructiveness, mutual ignorance and irreconcilable faith claims, power relations and intolerance and suspicion. The truth is that the connection has been far more complicated and messy ever since the birth of Islam. The subject of this book is a moving target. 266pp, and map of areas under Islamic State control.

One of the most notorious and yet mysterious events of WWII was the "Blut Gegen Waren" Blood for Trucks (Goods) plot of 1944, an ultimately unsuccessful scheme hatched between SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann and the group of Hungarian Zionists known as "Va'ada", led by young Jewish businessmen Joel Brand and Rezso Katzner. While Hungary remained part of the Axis it was relatively safe for Jews and Brand and his group organised safety for some 700,000 European Jews there. However, in the Spring of 1944 as the tide was turning against Hitler, Germany invaded Hungary to prevent it deserting the Axis and Adolf Eichmann led a special SS unit to Budapest to begin the transport of thousands of Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in southern Poland in cattle trains. The majority were gassed, then incinerated. But just as the trains were about to start, Brand and Katzner asked the SS to negotiate, a previously unthinkable scenario. Even more surprisingly, Eichmann made an astonishing offer - "a million Jews for 10,000 trucks". The trucks to be supplied by the Allies would be used solely on the Eastern front, a clear indication of how he saw events unfolding and that the non-Soviet Allies would see the post-war advantage of this. So Brand flew to Istanbul but was arrested by British police and interrogated in Cairo. Their story of the barter provoked utter incredulity, confusion and dismay amongst the highest echelons in London and Washington. And even if it were true, how, on the eve of the D-Day landings, could the Allies cope with the release of almost a million Jewish refugees? Both were arrested as German spies and immediately Eichmann and his henchmen began their murderous business, sending 12,000 men, women and children a day to their terrible fate. But was Eichmann's offer made in good faith? What was his real motivation? Hale explores Eichmann's plot and unveils murderous deceit on an unimaginable scale, and particularly how he manipulated Brand and Katzner, decent men but completely out of their depth here. Hale presents a new account of the ?Brand Mission? based on evidence in the national archives of Germany, Hungary, Britain and the United States and takes the reader through the myriad connections which makes this story so compelling and an impressive addition to Holocaust literature. 448pp, photos.

Sub-titled 'The Garb of the Merchant Seafarer', throughout history, Britain's merchant seafarers have formed a mighty force. They have expanded throughout the 19th century and reached their peak in the 1960s. Though seemingly one body, it comprised many individual companies, each with its own traditions and identity. However, the rapid diminution of the British-flagged fleet in recent years has all but extinguished this structure, and those who had intimate experience of it are now aging and their memories fading. This special book is a celebration of the British and Commonwealth merchant seafarer and it chronicles the characteristics that give the industry both corporate identity and an element of individuality. It features original colour artwork depicting uniforms, medals and badges including female dress of the White Star stewardess, Cunard or Orient Line nurses or swimming instructresses, pictures of actual captains like Captain Woolcott from the White Star Line displaying medals of the First World War including a DSO and Reefer jackets with different styles of lace as used by the Union Line in the 1890s, Houlder Brothers in 1900, Federal in the same year or Aberdeen & Commonwealth in 1960. There are badge designs, epaulettes, caps, and no less than 298 badges, from the Trinity House Petty Officer to the White Star Porter, Southampton Pilots to Solent Aggregates, British Africa SN Company to CT Bowring. The book is enhanced by a detailed history and compendium of shipping companies, museums and preserved material, female crew members, contemporary posters but best of all are the colour images in this outsize softback, 120pp.

Originally published as a classified Battle Summary, Hitler's Ghost Ships is a unique record written by naval officers during World War II, and soon after 1945. Stamped restricted as classified texts and held at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, South West England. These historical accounts also contain naval maps, plans and first-hand accounts. During WWII, it was the technique of the German naval forces to use the element of disguise. This book will dive into that history with the use of original battle summaries compiled by the Royal Navy about the Battle of the River Plate and the destruction of the Graf Spee in 1939, the operation against disguised enemy raiders between 1940 and 1941, and the Battle of North Cape and the sinking of the Scharnhorst in 1943. The reader will be introduced to the Admiral Graf Spee, a ship of 100,000 tons which carried a main armament of six 11" guns in triple turrets and a secondary armament of eight 5.9" guns. She was captained by Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdof who was an officer of the old Imperial Navy who had fought in Jutland. There are fascinating insights into priorities of German High Command, namely that they attached more importance to preserving the warship Scharnhorst and keeping it intact than inflicting damage on the enemy's convoy. The reader will also discover that auxiliary cruisers would support the major German warships. This was exemplified by a history of German merchant ships which externally looked normal but were loaded with heavy armaments but, while using this camouflage, would approach ally vessels and reveal their identity, sinking one British cruiser, one armed merchant cruiser and 618,108 tons of merchant shipping. The brilliance of including battle summaries is thorough appendices offering context for readers. There are also detailed maps of the different battlegrounds and ship routes, including a diagram of torpedo attacks on the Scharnhorst between 1849 and 1900, a detailed depiction of the first phase of the Battle of the River Plate between 6.14 am and 7.40 am on 13 December 1939, and a map of action between HMS Cornwall and a German raider between 7th and 8th May 1941. Paperback, illus, 216pp.

Sub-titled 'A History of Those Who Rose to the Occasion and Those Who Didn't' written by a former officer in the Irish Guards. The book includes familiar battlefield heroes like Audie Murphy or 'H' Jones together with less well-known characters like Corporal Graham 'the bravest man at Waterloo', and the young Erwin Rommel decades before he became famous as the 'Desert Fox.' Those bucking the odds have to include Douglas Bader, Britain's flamboyant aircraft ace flying with his artificial legs, George Washington daringly crossing the Delaware, and John Paul Jones challenging the might of the Royal Navy. Joan of Arc was certainly one of those who had the courage of their convictions, while Sergeant York had to overcome his pacifist views in World War One France. There have been few better examples of the constant thread of valour than Joshua Chamberlain, the saviour of the Union position at Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg, Michael Wittmann, the ultimate tank ace, or Albert Jacka, the Australian who many feel deserved not just one but three Victoria Crosses. O'Brien also pays homage to the brilliant codebreakers Alan Turing and Captain Reginald Hall RN, photographic experts such as Constance Babington Smith, and medical pioneers like Napoleon's great surgeon Baron Larrey or 'Weary' Dunlop, Australia's hero of the Kwai railway. All had an influence on warfare as great as any warrior. And those who didn't rise to the occasion? Many were too confident by half like Saddam Hussein who was to lead his country to ruin, the corpulent and boastful Hermann Goering, wrecking the plans of others at Dunkirk and Stalingrad, or even the inexperienced Jack Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Other simply display fatal inattention like France's Constable Charles D'Albret at Agincourt, or General Ledlie at the Battle of the Crater. Flaws and obsessions can wreck the reputations of otherwise great men - Douglas MacArthur in Korea, Napoleon in Russia, Montgomery and Patton, due to their jealous feuding, and even Mark Antony who risked everything for such a non-military notion as love. Worst of all in warfare must be treachery and rank disobedience - Mark Clark vaingloriously capturing Rome instead of trapping the Germans, Lord Sackville refusing to charge at Minden, Mountbatten persisting with his disastrous raid at Dieppe, and Benedict Arnold changing sides to try to hand over West Point, becoming America's symbol of the ultimate traitor. And finally a streak of cruelty with unfeeling generals at the Easter Rising, Amritsar and My Lai. The ultimate judgement for those who received lavish praise or quite the opposite must be left to the reader. 288pp, well illustrated.