Showing results for "Mark James" in Military

On September 4, 1944, Antwerp, Europe’s largest port, fell to the Second British Army and it seemed the war would soon be won. But Antwerp was of little value unless the West Scheldt Estuary linking it to the North Sea was also in Allied hands. In his greatest blunder of the war, Field Marshal Montgomery turned his back on the port, leaving the First Canadian Army to fight its way up the long coastal flank. By the time the Canadians and others serving with them reached the area, it had been transformed into a fortress manned by troops ordered to fight to the death.

This collection offers two dozen essays and sketches about one of the passions of Salter’s life, travel, a subject beloved by writers across the centuries. Over twenty years of skiing, hiking, climbing from Colorado to Japan to the Tyrol, from Austria and Switzerland to Germany and France, Salter is an engaging companion sharing his great enthusiasm and adventures.

It was the most famous bank robbery of all time, involving the legendary James-Younger gang's final shocking holdup - the infamous Northfield Raid - and the thrilling two-week chase that followed. Mark Lee Gardner, author of the critically acclaimed To Hell on a Fast Horse, takes us inside Northfield's First National Bank and outside to the streets as Jesse James and his band of outlaws square off against the heroic citizens who risked their lives to defeat America's most daring criminals.

Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.

As the global war on terror enters its second decade, the United States military is engaged with militant Islamic insurgents on multiple fronts. But the post-9/11 war against terrorists is not the first time the United States has battled such ferocious foes. The forgotten Moro War, lasting from 1902 to 1913 in the islands of the southern Philippines, was the first confrontation between American soldiers and their allies and a determined Muslim insurgency.

In researching the competition for who had the longest distance kill in military history, the majority of laymen would expect to see a Navy SEAL or a Marine heading the top of the list. A little research, however, shows the top three long-shot kills are Craig Harrison (United Kingdom), Rob Furlong (Canada), and Arron Perry (Canada). The late Chris Kyle, of American Sniper fame, is eighth on the list. There is a South African Special Forces sniper that is sixth on the list whose name is withheld as is a Norwegian Army sniper.

The end of the Cold War promised a new era of international peace. But instead, violence has proliferated across the globe, not in the form of a superpower arms race or a clash of armies, but in bitter local conflicts marked by terrorism, insurgency, and guerrilla warfare. Former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey likened the post-Cold-War world to "a jungle full of snakes". The emergence of this new, potentially never-ending struggle has forced our military to reevaluate strategies or risk losing hearts, minds, and soldiers the world over.

Today one could perhaps be forgiven for not noticing the small village of Bodelwyddan situated on the North Wales coast, but back in the year 1919, just after the war to end all wars, some 400 men of the Canadian expeditionary force stationed in the camp adjacent to the village, in 1919 the camp, and indeed Bodelwyddan, were on the front page of almost every tabloid in the country. In 1990, author Robert (Bob) Bridge and his wife, Lilian, decided to retire from their jobs and move closer to their aged parents in Abergele, another village not far from Bodelwyddan.