From best-selling author of Tail-End Charlie and Tornado Down comes this powerful and deeply moving account of Bomber Command’s 1944 Nuremberg Raid – the RAF’s bloodiest night of the Second World War

In March 1944-as part of Bomber Command's 'Battle of Berlin' to decimate Hitler's capital city-the RAF attacked the spiritual home of the Nazi Party, Nuremberg.The raid that began on the evening of 30 March 1944 was a run-of-the-mill operation for the by then 'Thousand-Bomber' raids the RAF and United States Air Force were undertaking every week-as would be seen with Dresden's destruction in late 1944. What makes this operation so significant was that it would be the costliest in terms of aircraft losses that RAF Bomber Command suffered in a single night attack during the whole of the Second World War.The average attrition rate of a night raid was twenty planes, but, during this raid the British lost 96 Lancaster, and Halifax, bombers shot down and a further 10 written-off after landing, making a total of 106 aircraft lost (nearly 700 men killed or missing) and resulted in one pilot being awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. In addition, Nuremberg suffered comparatively light damage and the raid has since come to be seen by historians as a comparative failure.This new book would tell the human story of this disaster. John will look into the archives to research official reports on what went wrong with the operation, and how the RAF reacted to it. He will also look at the air crews debriefing notes as to their first-hand accounts of the disaster and why they feel it was ill-timed and the Germans were waiting for them. But, the main crux of the book is the human angle and Nichol brings his insightful and empathetic skills to bear with interviews of the very last survivors of this raid (who are all in their late 80s and 90s) to finally tell the true story of this most terrible night in Bomber Command's history.

A gripping account of the disastrous 10,000 bomber raid on Hitler's lair, told for the first and final time. Based on interviews with surviving veterans.

This book presents the latest work in the field of complementation studies. Leading scholars and upcoming researchers in the area approach complementation from various perspectives and different frameworks, such as Cognitive Grammar and construction grammars, to offer a broad survey of the field and provide thought-provoking reading.

Night after night, they swallowed their fears and flew long distances through packs of enemy fighters to drop the bombs that could destroy Hitler and bring about the end of the war. Tens of thousands of young men never came back, blown up or bailing out from burning aircraft to drop helplessley into enemy hands. Yet history has condemned their brave and valiant actions, denouncing them for the destruction of German cities and civilians, rather than acknowledging them for the heroes that they are. For the first time John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the story of the controversial last battles of Bomber Command through the eyes of the heroic men who fought them.

Throughout the Second World War, thousands found themselves cut off behind the lines in Nazi-occupied Europe — soldiers were left stranded on beaches after the chaotic evacuation of Dunkirk, airmen flying operations against the Germans were blasted out of the sky by flak and fighters. They were alone and on the run in enemy territory with just one goal — to get back to Britain and to safety. Some made solitary treks through hundreds of miles of enemy territory, others attempted precarious sea crossings in stolen boats. Many placed their lives in the hands of brave civilians who risked the wrath of a brutal regime if they dared to offer assistance. Life for the evaders hung in the balance and if they were to survive they had to rely on guile and sheer luck.John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the dramatic story of the heroes who made it home . . . and those who did not.

Their job is to put themselves in the heart of danger - to run into battle to rescue the wounded and to risk their own lives to try and save the dying. Doctors, nurses, medics and stretcher bearers go where the bullets are thickest, through bomb alleys and mine fields, ducking mortars and rockets, wherever someone is hit and the shout goes up - 'Medic! We need a medic over here!' War at its rawest is their domain, an ugly place of shattered bodies, severed limbs, broken heads and death. This is the story of those brave men - and, increasingly in this day and age, women - who go to war armed with bandages not bombs, scalpels not swords, and put saving life above taking life. Many have died in the process, the ultimate sacrifice for others. But wherever the cry of 'Medic!' is heard, it will be answered. From the beaches of Dunkirk to the desert towns of Afghanistan, there can be no nobler cause.

The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

This award-winning classic of WWII military history chronicles the Royal Air Force’s bombing campaign against Germany. RAF Bomber Command’s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. The struggle began meekly in 1939 with only a few aircraft—Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons—flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, blazing whole German cities in a single night. In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the UK, famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize

A Washington Post Notable Book In March 1941, after a year of devastating U-boat attacks, the British War Cabinet turned to an intensely private, bohemian physicist named Patrick Blackett to turn the tide of the naval campaign. Though he is little remembered today, Blackett did as much as anyone to defeat Nazi Germany, by revolutionizing the Allied anti-submarine effort through the disciplined, systematic implementation of simple mathematics and probability theory. This is the story of how British and American civilian intellectuals helped change the nature of twentieth-century warfare, by convincing disbelieving military brass to trust the new field of operational research.