Forgotten Voices Desert Victory

A gripping account of the first significant World War 2 Allied victory: the Western Desert Campaign

The Forgotten Voices series...show[s] a completely different side to conflicts...all the more powerful for the ordinary nature of the orators

First hand testimonies from the veterans of the heat and dust vividly conveys the physical hardships and resilient spirit of these sometimes overlooked soldiers, and this is a valuable addition to an increasingly important archive

Julian Thompson served in the Royal Marines for 34 years, retiring as Major General. He commanded 3 Commando Brigade, which carried out the initial landings in the Falklands conflict and fought most of the subsequent land battles. He is now Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies, King's College, London and is the author of Forgotten Voices of Burma and the critically acclaimed The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Burma 1942-1945.

‘Between Friday and Monday we never slept at all. Everyone’s face was one mass of sand … The guns were so hot, all the paint had gone’ Bombardier Ray Ellis 
 
Had the Allies lost in North Africa, Rommel’s Afrika Korps would have swept through the Middle East, cutting the vital supply line through the Suez Canal to Australia and India, and taking the oilfields of the Persian Gulf. Britain would have been isolated, without oil, and unable to fight. 
 
These historic battles of 1940–1943 were fought over vast distances on rugged terrain, with supply lines often stretched to breaking point. It was here that David Stirling formed the SAS to perform audacious sabotage missions, and the Long Range Desert Group collected intelligence from behind enemy lines. 
 
This is the story of the Allies’ first victory against Hitler’s army, told in the voices of the men who were there, which proved that the seemingly unstoppable Germans could be beaten.

Forgotten Voices of the Victoria Cross

Extraordinary accounts of heroism and the servicemen who earned the Victoria Cross

This profound study by Roderick Bailey goes a long way to identifying the common characteristics of the bravest of the brave ... Here is a testament to what is good about humankind against the backdrop of what can be the worst. The abiding thought with which the reader is left is one of hope; that adversity can indeed bring out the best in us. These "Forgotten Voices" are eloquent in proclaiming this enduring truth

General Sir Richard Dannatt, from the Introduction

A significant and important book ... Over the last 45 years I have read hundreds of VC books but this volume has a unique place because of the "voices" of the VCs themselves ... Highly recommended and should be read by anyone with an interest in the VC

A graduate of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities and a former Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, Roderick Bailey is a historian attached to the Imperial War Museum. He is the author of Forgotten Voices of D-Day, Forgotten Voices of the Secret War, which was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller, and the acclaimed The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle.

'It wasn't until after he was safely back in the aircraft again that I heard that he'd actually been out on the wing to try to put the fire out ... Remember that we were flying at about 90 miles an hour at a height of 13,000 feet' 
Squadron Leader RP Widdowson on Sergeant James Ward, who earned his VC in 1941 
 
The Victoria Cross, awarded to the most courageous and determined servicemen, is the highest military decoration that can be bestowed. 
 
In Forgotten Voices: Victoria Cross, first-hand accounts of soldiers, sailors and airmen describe the incredible events that earned these extraordinary men the VC in the last century. 
 
Captivating and often humbling, these stories depict exceptional acts of bravery in unimaginable situations, of men who would say they were just doing their duty. 
 
Introduction by General Sir Richard Dannatt.

Imperial War Museum

I have never seen or read anything that brings the First World War quite so vividly alive.

Does [it] count as a book of the year? It's certainly my meticulously illustrated panorama of the year.

Sampling this later photographic narrative, published ahead of next year's First World War centenary, left this reader feeling like Tommy Atkins after one of the Great Wa'’s artillery barrages: shell-shocked.

More than 500 pictures follow the conflict on multiple fronts.

This is rich, riveting and often appalling visual history.

Showing the changing nature of photography, it also shows the extreme depth of the human loss incurred.

This has an astonishing photo on the cover... And there’s no let-up in quality inside. Mark Holborn and Hilary Roberts – she is the Head Curator of Photography at the Imperial War Museum – have done a terrific job of putting together the most arresting images of the war.

[A] handsomely produced volume... Unforgettable pictures.

Wonderful… Some of the shots will be well known to you, but most will not and, as a collection, portray an image of just what those seemingly well-laid-out lines meant for those who fought there.

A Photographic Narrative

As we mark the centenary of the end of World War One, this astonishing book collects over five hundred remarkable photographs and rarely seen material of the war from the Imperial War Museum archives 
 
The Great War was the first conflict to be documented in photographs. In The Great War: A Photographic Narrative, we follow the events of the war through extraordinary photographs, from the opening photograph of the gun that fired the first shot of the war to the final photograph of an audio recording showing the arrival of silence on 11th November 1918. 
 
Imperial War Museum houses one of the greatest photographic archives of conflict in the world. This unique book is divided into five sections, each prefaced with a detailed chronology of events and a historical summary, together with detailed captions for every picture. 
 
NOTE: Few pages are intentionally left blank. 
 
‘I have never seen or read anything that brings the First World War quite so vividly alive.’ Guardian

The Great War

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Praise for The Great War

I have never seen or read anything that brings the First World War quite so vividly alive.

Does [it] count as a book of the year? It's certainly my meticulously illustrated panorama of the year.

Monumental.

I have never seen or read anything that brings the First World War quite so vividly alive.

Does [it] count as a book of the year? It's certainly my meticulously illustrated panorama of the year.

Monumental.

I have never seen or read anything that brings the First World War quite so vividly alive.

Does [it] count as a book of the year? It's certainly my meticulously illustrated panorama of the year.

Monumental.

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