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.

Sub-titled 'Tales from an English Nepali, 1944-2015', as a Gurkha officer, J. P. Cross has had many unusual experiences in his long career. For example he was attached to a Japanese battalion in Indochina that was fighting for the British against the Viet Minh, and the only photograph taken of this Japanese unit finally laying down its weapons appears in this book. Later he just managed to resolve a potentially deadly dispute between an offended Gurkha and a visiting South Vietnamese trainee at the Jungle Warfare School. He also describes several seemingly supernatural experiences while serving with troops from a culture where such things are firmly believed in. Gurkhas have served with the British for almost 200 years, first with the army of the East India Company, then with the Indian Army of the Raj, and then in 1947 becoming an integral part of the British Army. This anthology of articles from The Kukri, the Gurkha regimental journals by J. P. Cross, covers much of the past 60 years of their history taking in the last days of WWII and the Indonesian Confrontation in the 1960s. He also gives an insight into the everyday life, culture and beliefs of these renowned soldiers. 'The CO knew better but, still unconvinced that the evidence we have found was correct, presumed that I have trapped the prints of some local Ibans into his company's area and, out of sheer impishness, pretended I was ethereal.' 16 pages of photos including parachuting, a wedding, lecturing, a royal visit, home and leisure activities. 224pp.

The author has written more than 30 books on maritime history and this glorious 2015 first edition from Seaforth Publishing was written when Victory was awaiting massive restoration on her hull, slowly being crushed by its own weight. This work brings to the fore the significance of her career so far, and is an eloquent testimonial to her remarkable survival. She first took to the water in May 1765, and was almost wrecked on her launch. Diplomacy conducted onboard her played a crucial role in provoking Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. In 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm set the First World War in motion at a desk made from Victory's timbers. Lavery's book also tells the story of Horatio Nelson, who was born a few weeks before his most famous ship was ordered, and whose career paralleled her in many ways. Of course he does not ignore the Battle of Trafalgar and indeed offers new insights into the campaign that led up to it. Victory was at different times a flagship, a fighting ship, a prison hospital ship, a training ship for officers and boys, a floating courtroom, a signal school in the early days of radio, tourist attraction and national icon. Lavery looks at her through many eyes including those of Queen Victoria, admirals, midshipmen and ordinary seamen, and even Beatrix Potter who visited as a girl. Victory literally collided with the modern age in 1903 when she was hit by the battleship Neptune. In 1922 she entered dry dock to become a pioneering preserved ship, and survived despite being hit by a German bomb. The book also deals with her designers, the dockyard workers who built her, and the thousands of men and boys who sailed, fought or trained on board her. Admire the beautiful oak from which she is built, the magnificent golden windows of her curved bow and dozens of beautiful colour paintings, contemporary colour photos, diagrams, maps and cartoons in this big glamorous 22.9 x 27cm 208 page tribute.

Sub-titled 'The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanstaengl Confidant of Hitler, Ally of Roosevelt', Hanstaengl was court jester, pianist and Foreign Press Chief for Hitler. He even claimed to have devised the chant of Sieg Heil. A Munich-born aristocratic eccentric, when he fell out with Hitler he fled to Britain where he was interned and transferred to America. He was the most unlikely CIA secret agent, yet he would play a central role in F.D.R's S-Project, informing on 400 leading Nazis and providing a detailed psychological profile of his once close friend, Hitler. Throughout the 1920s, "Putzi" introduced Hitler to German high society and helped to fund his projects, including the publication of Mein Kampf. In turn he became his Foreign Press Chief, but as Hitler rose to power, Putzi would recede into the background as the Führer's pianist. Eventually a falling out with Goebbels led to his defection to the Allied forces, a spurned attempt to atone for the monster he had created. Through newly declassified documents, interviews with surviving family members and original writing by Putzi himself, Peter Conradi reveals a remarkable life of conflicted loyalties in his exemplary piece of biographical writing is packed with colour and character. 352pp, paperback with fairly small print and archive photos reproduced, the book has all the elements of a gripping thriller.

'We felt an urge to document what we had witnessed. If we who had experienced it, I reasoned, did not reveal the bitter truth, people simply would not believe the extent of the Nazi's evil. I wanted to share our life, the events and our struggle to survive.' Thomas Geve was born in 1929 in Germany. From 1933 onwards, he and his family felt the full force of Nazi persecution. After years of constant danger and hardship, he and his mother were arrested and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1943. 22 months later, Thomas was liberated, and after a period of recouperation was reunited with his father in London. After completing his studies and graduating with an engineering degree, Thomas moved to Israel in July 1950, raised a family and lived peacefully in retirement. When he was liberated at the age of 15, Thomas had survived the third concentration camp where he had been separated from his mother and left to fend for himself in the men's camp of Auschwitz I at the age of 13. On his eventual release, Thomas felt compelled to capture daily life in the death camps in more than 80 profoundly moving drawings. Infamous scenarios synonymous with this dark period of history were poignantly and accurately portrayed in simplistic detail, and for years Thomas continued to raise awareness about the Holocaust. Thomas experienced illness, witnessed physical brutality and murder of many inmates, and in his illustrated diary of his life and surroundings, recounted the quotidian work routine, cruelty of the guards, and his chronic hunger. 'As the women trudged passed, they hardly bothered to lift up their heads in greeting. Dressed in rags, their hair shorn and faces worn with worry and despair, they still had sufficient energy to shuffle along the dusty roadway. I reflected that weeks ago, these same women might have strolled along the streets of Budapest clad in elegant clothes, attracting the glance of many admirers...Trying to cheer them up, we bared our shave heads, waved our blue-white caps and forced a smile.' 32 of the naïve drawings are reproduced in colour. 332pp, paperback with other illus.

The leading British historian has teamed up with a gifted Brazilian artist who uses contemporary photographs as the basis for her full-colour digital renditions of poignant early 20th century photographs. The 200 unforgettable images have been retouched with realistic skin tones, filthy uniforms, the stern faces of men at the Nuremberg Rallies, a tiny little girl survivor of the bombing of Guernica, blindfolded German prisoners after the Dieppe Raid and poignant images from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising including bloodied children in striped uniforms at Auschwitz. The 200 unforgettable images are of conflicts and revolutions, key events and leading actors of the total wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45, and the civil and colonial struggles of the interwar period and the impact of these violent happenings on the lives of ordinary men and women across each of the world's continents. Each poignant picture is paired with a short explanatory text to give more context to the image and the book proceeds in a more or less chronological sequence, hard and harrowing, every single archive photograph capturing a moment in history. It is a tribute to the men and women, some heroes, some victims, who live through these terrifying times of fascism, nationalism, populism, anti-Semitism, hatred, bigotry, racism and the politics of exclusion, division and isolation. The world is fragile and it takes less than we think to set it aflame. With superb colourisation which is a delicate and technical process and reproduced in 432 very large pages in this heavyweight tome with pagemarker, 8" x 9½".
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'The Story of AMISOM's Successful War Against Somali Insurgents 2007-2014' is the sub-title of this book which acknowledges the formation and deployment of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). Initially confined to peacekeeping within the Mogadishu enclave, it transformed into a peace-making mission. Many, including the author, predicted the mission Dead on Arrival with little chance of success, yet the fighting force took on the Somali insurgents in 2010, expelled them from Central Mogadishu in August 2011, and expanded control of territory under the Somali Government in the succeeding years to most of Somalia. The book highlights the inconsistent and sometimes disastrous US policy in the Horn of Africa and how under President George Bush it sponsored Somali factions to fight against each other, and when that flopped, egged on Ethiopia to invade Somalia in December 2006 which caused the rise of violent insurgency that spilled across borders. Young jihadists streamed into the heart of the USA to fight the invaders. The Bush administration finally supported the deployment of regional troops and this book intimately captures the stories of the men and women, their triumphs, setbacks and victories. The spotlight focuses on the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) supported by Burundi National Defence Forces (BNDF) and later the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces pivotal to the success of the mission. Their dedication, professionalism, ideological commitment, hard work and humanity turned Somalia from a wasted nation to one with hope for peace, stability and a better future for its people. The book introduces this new breed of African peace-warriors and their work across borders, resolving conflicts wherever and whenever they arise and preventing genocides before they happen. 262pp, colour photos, five maps and useful list of abbreviations and acronyms.