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Opening with the desperate scene of the brutally cold, wind-swept POW camp at Wittenburg in December 1914, where 16,000 prisoners were dying in from exposure and malnutrition, Behind the Wire weaves together official reports and first-hand accounts to reveal the immense challenges faced by all belligerent nations in housing their prisoners of war, and how the men behind the wire did all they could to survive and one day return home.

Covering traumatic capture on the battlefield, internment in POW camps, escape attempts, punishments, day-to-day boredom and meagre rations, Jackson is a gripping, comprehensive history of the remarkable experiences of POWs in the First World War.

Behind the Wire is available as a PDF or eBook on the Osprey site or on Amazon Kindle and iTunes.

 

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Studying the evolution of airborne forces over one of the bloodiest eras in world history, Assault from the Sky looks at the planners, the generals, aircraft, gliders, weapons and the men who created a revolution in modern warfare.

Airborne raids caught popular imagination early in the Second World War, when the elite German forces carried out deadly operations deep behind enemy lines. Able to seize and hold objectives before the enemy has time to react, paratrooper assaults were seen as fast, dynamic and potentially devastating. However, they are also unpredictable. Requiring complete surprise, tactical flexibility and a lot of luck to succeed, a daring airborne raid can soon turn into a disaster, as the Allies discovered in Operation Market Garden.

The book captures these early developments, with chapters on German, British, American and Japanese airborne in World War II, and continues the story into later decades, with chapters on the Americans in Vietnam, and airborne forces in the Congo, Far East and Middle East in the 50s and 60s.

You can read an extract from Assault from the Sky, detailing Kurt Student's gamble on Crete, on our blog.

Assault from the Sky is available as a PDF or eBook on the Osprey site or on Amazon Kindle and iTunes.