True Stories: War / Combat / Elite Forces

The first-person account of a 26-year-old who fought in the war in Sierra Leone as a 12-year-old boy.

The incredible story of the greatest female spy in history, from one of Britain's most acclaimed historians - available for pre-order now In the quiet Cotswolds village of Great Rollright in 1944, a thin, and unusually elegant, housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usua...l bike ride. A devoted mother-of-three, attentive wife and friendly neighbour, Sonya Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity. However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, Sonya was heading for the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific secrets from a nuclear physicist. Secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the atomic bomb. Far from an obedient homemaker, Sonya Burton was a dedicated communist, a decorated colonel and a veteran spy who risked her life to keep the Soviet Union in the nuclear arms race. Her husband was also a Soviet agent and her children had three different fathers from lovers she'd encountered throughout her incredible career. In Mrs Burton, Ben Macintyre reveals the astonishing story behind the most important woman spy in history and the huge emotional cost that came with being a mother, a wife, and a secret agent at once.
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A revealing and frank memoir from Daniel Keighran, an unlikely candidate to receive the Victoria Cross.

The incredible true story of two idealistic young lovers who led the anti-Nazi resistance in the darkening heart of Berlin, by the author of the internationally bestselling Blitzed.

On the afternoon of 18 August 1966, a rubber plantation in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, Australian troops fought one of their bloodiest, most significant battles of the Vietnam War. The Australians had arrived at Nui Dat four months earlier to open up the province. While ou...t on patrol, Delta Company of 6RAR, originally numbering just 105 Australians and three New Zealanders, collided with Viet Cong forces numbering around 2500 troops, ahead of a planned Vietnamese ambush. Under heavy fire and short on ammunition, the Australians could only guess at the enemy's strength and number. Morning light revealed a shattered woodland, trees bleeding latex - and hundreds of dead enemy soldiers who had fallen in the numerous assaults against the small Anzac force. What was first thought by the Australians to be a significant defeat quickly turned out to be a major victory. Marking the battle's 50th anniversary, and drawing on unpublished first-hand accounts, David Cameron brings to life the events of this famous battle as it unfolded - minute by minute, hour by hour - and reveals the deeds of heroism and mateship now part of Australia's Vietnam War story. His compelling account commemorates the men who fought in the rubber plantation of Long Tan - and those who did not come home. Praise for David Cameron's The Battle for Lone Pine- 'A fine work of military and social history', Weekend Australian 'A riveting read', Daily Telegraph
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