Tales of Three Campaigns by Cyprian Bridge Brereton

$40.00 NZD

Category: Military

Description: In 1926, Colonel Brereton who had taken the 12th (Nelson) Company of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion into the Great War in the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, wrote the well-received first edition of this title. The three campaigns alluded to, were the Battle of the Su ez Canal on 3 February 1915; Gallipoli as it related to the Landing at Anzac, and the Second Battle of Krithia at Cape Helles (where the author received a serious head wound); and the Western Front, including First Somme in September 1916 and two periods in the line in the Northern Zone, in and about ArmentiÞres. Although it was only 24 hours or so in duration, the rarely-written-about Battle of the Suez Canal was of signal historic importance. No one was better able to write about New ZealandÆs role in it, than Brereton. All four battalions of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade were called upon to reinforce the canal defences, when the very real threat of a Turkish attack developed. Only a minor element of them became involved - two platoons of 12th Company, commanded at first-hand by Major Brereton; 100 all ranks. Solely by their musketry skill, they helped deter a brigadesize assault over the narrowest point of the canal. We read his front-line account of their baptism of fire, and his later shrewd analysis of how the Turks should clearly have won, had they conformed to their German-authored plan. Colonel Brereton strongly identified with his soldiery; his concern clearly was with them rather than upwards towards his seniors, and the prospects of personal advancement. He describes the relevant skills brought by them from their rural pursuits. Personally cool under fire, he writes in an attractive, flowing style, quite lacking in military jargon, and with occasional dry humour, to which the reader will warm. This is whether discussing battle, desert training in Egypt, troopship journeys, inter-action with French civilians or the multiplicity of other incidents experienced in over four years of active service, at a responsible, but not too-elevated level. This second edition, edited by John H. Gray, CBE, an acknowledged authority on New Zealand in the Great War through his previous publications, and formerly a senior officer of the Territorial Force, has much more to offer than the original book. He has greatly benefited from the key assistance of Mrs Annie Coster, grand-daughter of the author, who as a child knew him well. She has entrusted to the editor, the ColonelÆs 270-page unpublished autobiography finalised in the 1950s. No longer influenced by the discretion necessarily imposed in 1926 when widows and children and former servicemen were still living, Brereton frankly recorded in it incidents of historic importance, that now demand exposure to the light of day in this centenary year of the warÆs commencement. Many verbatim Brereton extracts now illuminate the earlier, unaltered text, to which editorial comment and many illustrations and maps have also been added, to greatly widen its scope. Mrs Coster has also written an additional chapter to the Second Edition, of family and human interest, which she entitles The Fourth Campaign. All this new material now introduces Brereton the man of letters and distinguished Nelson regional identity, additionally to Brereton the man of action; thus much enlarging the character of the work. We read of his early life in a pioneer family in the Motueka River Valley. How he had to withdraw from Nelson College at aged 14 to manage his motherÆs 600 acre farm for the next eight years, when his father and older brother drowned in Tasman Bay - lost without trace. Of his career change as a dentist in Westport, the while continuing his military training in the Volunteers. Of his own post-war farming, cut short by the effects of his war wounds, and his later twenty-two-year career as Curator of the Nelson Museum. This Second Edition presents Cyp Brereton in the round, as the First Edition was never intended to do, while also fleshing out its military history significantly. Tales of Three Campaigns (Second Edition) will be of national appeal, but will have especial interest to people in the Nelson and Tasman region, and also in Canterbury, to which the 12th Company was integral in the time of war. ...Show more

The Guinea Pig Club by E. R. Mayhew

$40.00 NZD

Category: Military

• Authoritative account of New Zealand plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe and his pioneering work in the Second World War • Celebrates the legendary Guinea Pig Club he formed • Inspiring, moving story with new foreword by Prince Harry  “Mayhew is to be commended on an outstandi ng addition to expanding our knowledge …” Airforce Magazine Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War. The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having the New Zealand surgeon Archibald McIndoe operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. McIndoe set up a revolutionary treatment regime for survivors of plane crashes. He secured his group of patients — dubbed the Guinea Pig Club — an honoured place in society as heroes of the air war. For the first time official records have been used to explore this remarkable relationship between the Guinea Pig Club, the RAF and the Home Front. This New Zealand/UK/Canada co-edition includes new material on McIndoe’s origins and a foreword by HRH Prince Harry, and links to a major new film Dr Emily Mayhew is a military medical historian specialising in the study of severe casualty. She is the historian in residence in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London and a research fellow in the Division of Surgery. She is the author of several other books. ...Show more

Experience of a Lifetime: People, Personalities and Leaders in the First World War by David Littlewood

$39.99 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: Near Fine

The First World War is widely conceived as a pointless conflict that destroyed a generation. Petty squabbles between emperors pushed naive young men into a nightmare of mud and blood that killed millions and left scarred and embittered survivors.However, the ongoing reinterpretation of the First World W ar reveals that matters were rather more nuanced and complex. Hardship and death were all too common, but there were positive experiences, too. Vast numbers of people, for example, travelled to new parts of the world and encountered new cultures, inspiring a sense of wonder and respect. Military tactics were improved, and great military commanders of the inter-war and Second World War periods came to prominence during the First World War. The conflict also had a formative influence on politicians, writers, artists, union leaders, businessmen and some ethnic minorities, who used their participation to press for equal rights and full citizenship. This book's 16 chapters, written by a range of leading New Zealand and international historians, explains how. ...Show more

Partisan: The Incredible True Story of a New Zealand Soldier Behind Enemy Lines by James Caffin

$25.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: near fine

The gripping story of a New Zealand solider who escaped the clutches of a prisoner-of-war camp to join the Yugoslav freedom fighters during the Second World War After a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in occupied Yugoslavia, John Denvir reached the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, where he join ed a partisan band as a machine-gunner. Believed shot and killed by New Zealand forces and his family in New Zealand, from January 1942 until the end of 1943, Denvir led brave and heroic attacks on German and Italian soldiers from behind enemy lines. He was wounded four times, received the Soviet Medal for Valour and was eventually appointed brigade commander. When 'Corporal Frank' was demobilised he returned to New Zealand and became a taxi driver in the small South Island town of Temuka. Originally published in 1945 and out of print for many years, this is his remarkable true story. ...Show more

Battle of Britain - The Pilots and Planes That Made History by Simon Pearson; Ed Gorman

$38.00 NZD

Category: Military

In Battle of Britain: The Pilots and the Planes That Made History, Ed Gorman and Simon Pearson paint a vivid picture of the men and their machines as the battle for air superiority over Britain is played out across the skies of Europe, from western Ireland to the German capital. They tell remarkable st ories involving hitherto unknown airmen from across the world who flew aircraft, including some that will be new to many readers: the New Zealander who "borrowed" a seaplane from the Royal Navy to set up a freelance air-sea rescue service that saved the lives of dozens of British and German pilots; the Swiss baron who destroyed nine British fighters in a day; the vainglorious Dane whose RAF squadron was wiped out trying to disrupt Nazi invasion plans; and the German bomber pilot who fought the last battle involving foreign troops on British soil since Culloden - before repairing to a pub in Kent for a pint with soldiers from the Irish Rifle, who had taken him prisoner. Illustrated with contemporary photographs of the pilots and their aircraft, these are enthralling stories from both sides of a conflict that shaped the modern world, full of courage, endeavour and above all, humanity. ...Show more

ANZAC Day Origins

$69.99 NZD

Category: Military

The Home Front: The Impact of the Great War on Everyday New Zealanders, 1914-19 by Steven Loveridge; James Watson

$60.00 NZD

Category: Military

The Great War is now typically regarded as senseless and futile, but most New Zealanders at the time considered it to be a war to preserve security and freedoms, to punish an aggressive enemy and to win a better world. Yet the war years proved a tumultuous time, and bitterness and animosities ran alongs ide idealism and sacrifice. Families were broken up as soldiers departed. Civil liberties were curtailed as the government wielded unprecedented powers. Divisive issues, economic volatility and a rising death toll all threatened resolve. Finally, in the last weeks of the war, a devastating influenza pandemic arrived in New Zealand and extracted a deadly toll. ...Show more

Fearless: The Extraordinary Untold Story of New Zealand's Great War Airmen by Adam Claasen

$60.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: very good

More than 1000 New Zealanders served in the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force. Several, including Sir Keith Park, later became senior air commanders of the Second World War. Among them were leading air aces, including Keith Caldwell, Ronald Bannerman and the famous ten nis player Anthony Wilding. A special type of New Zealander who craved risk and adventure, and who loved speed and engines, they went up in tiny, fragile aircraft to face enormous danger. If they survived their training -- and many did not -- then they had to survive encountering the German air aces. Historian Adam Claasen tells their fascinating and little-known story, and explains how their courage enabled military aviation to develop. ...Show more

Sniping Rifles on the Eastern Front 1939-45 by Martin Pegler; Alan Gilliland (Illustrator); Johnny Shumate (Illustrator)

$35.00 NZD

Category: Military | Series: Weapon Ser.

The Soviet Union had developed a significant sniping force by 1939, but the extraordinary skill and cunning displayed by Finnish snipers during the Winter War forced the Soviets to innovate. On the other side, German sniping suffered from a lack of standardization of weapons and a lack of marksmen deplo yed at the start of the Great Patriotic War (1941-45). There were few heroes in the conflict, but on both sides, the snipers were idolized - especially on the Soviet side, gaining almost mythical status.As well as traditional bolt-action weapons, both sides used several types of semi-automatic rifle, such as the SVT-38 and the Gew 41. Offering greater firepower at the expense of long-range accuracy, such weapons would be profoundly influential in the postwar world. Fully illustrated, this absorbing study investigates the development of sniping weapons and techniques on World War II's Eastern Front. ...Show more

Victory in Europe - From d-Day to the Destruction of the Third Reich 1944-45 by Julian Thompson

$45.00 NZD

Category: Military

Published to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe grippingly recounts the storming and taking of Hitler's "Fortress Europe" by the Allies during the final eleven months of the Second World War. History comes to life in this compelling account of the final 11 months of World War I I, written by a leading military historian. From the long-awaited opening of the second front in the West on D-Day, 6 June 1944, to the final surrender of Germany on 8 May 1945, the Allied armies in northwest Europe under the supreme command of Eisenhower fought a grueling series of battles against Axis forces desperate to defend their homeland from destruction. Victory in Europe follows the relentless progress of the epic war in the European Theatre of Operations, and focuses on the world-famous engagements such as Operation Market-Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, the Bridge at Remagen, the bombing of Dresden and other German cities, the discovery of the concentration camps, the US linkup with the Red Army on the Elbe, the fall of Berlin, the German surrender, and VE Day itself. Military buffs can examine images including maps, diaries, letters, sketches, secret memos and reports, and posters, from the Imperial War Museum and other collections in Northern Europe and America. ...Show more

Fire and Fury - The Allied Bombing of Germany and Japan by Randall Hansen

$33.00 NZD

Category: Military

During World War II, Allied bombing obliterated every major German and Japanese city, killing approximately 400,000 Germans and 330,00 Japanese, the vast majority civilians. Fully 83,000 British, Commonwealth, and American airmen lost their lives, as well. A large number of these raids occurred when All ied victory was assured. Fire and Fury asks why. Based on extensive archival sources, interviews with bombing survivors, airmen, and published first-hand accounts, the book looks at the bombing campaign from an avowedly human perspective - Allied, German and Japanese. It recreates the experience of living through the death of a city. It presents the complex personalities of the senior airmen, and explores why bombing campaigns that seem so excessive seventy-five years later seemed reasonable, to many, at the time. Fire and Fury explains why those campaigns became so murderous so late in the war. And it asks, with the full benefits of time's passing, whether it was all worth it. ...Show more

When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann

$38.00 NZD

Category: Military

In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father's past: years spent hiding in plain sight in wartorn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.  In 1941, the first Neumann family member was ta ken by the Nazis, arrested in German-occupied Czechoslovakia for bathing in a stretch of river forbidden to Jews. He was transported to Auschwitz. Eighteen days later his prisoner number was entered into the morgue book. Of thirty-four Neumann family members, twenty-five were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who, to escape the German death net, travelled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo's eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn't bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened.  When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries and other memorabilia. Ten years later Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.  When Time Stopped is an unputdownable detective story and an epic family memoir, spanning nearly ninety years and crossing oceans. Neumann brings each relative to vivid life. In uncovering her father's story after all these years, she discovers nuance and depth to her own history and liberates poignant and thought-provoking truths about the threads of humanity that connect us all. ...Show more