Pen & Sword Books

Examines Fritz Schubert's brutal actions and atrocities across occupied Crete and Macedonia during WWII.Hitler's Hunting Squad in Southern Europe traces the violent path of Fritz Schubert and his Greek 'hunting squad' across occupied Crete and Macedonia, offering a complete translation of Thanasis Fotiou’s comprehensive study on the German Lieutenant during World War II.The author's research reveals previously unknown aspects of Schubert's life and his actions as an officer, including the murder and torture of civilians, and the looting and burning of homes.Fritz Schubert, born in 1897, joined the German Forces in 1914 and concluded his service in Turkey, where he settled and married. By 1934, he had joined the National Socialist Party, influenced by Nazi ideology and propaganda. Fluent in several languages, he trained at the School of Interpreters under the reserve army's administration, attaining the rank of Unteroffizier. Hitler intended for Crete to play a significant role in the Middle East and Egypt due to its strategic oil reserves.In 1947, a special commissioner's report on Schubert's hunting squad stated, 'They murdered, they tortured in the most brutal ways numerous civilians, they looted and burned many homes. Generally, the arrival of Schubert's gang signaled unrelenting plunder, marked by tears, pain, and bloodshed.'

Compiles firsthand accounts of Polish resistance, exile, and wartime struggles during WWII.Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939 and the two autocracies proved utterly ruthless in their efforts to subjugate the Polish people. The resultant loss of life was almost unimaginable in scale but Poles from all walks of life refused to submit, either at home or abroad. Germany turned on its Soviet ally in June 1941, with Britain, the USA and the USSR eventually becoming partners in the war against Hitler. At various meetings and conferences, the ‘Big Three’ agreed post-war Poland would fall into the Soviet sphere of influence and Poles fighting for a free and independent country found themselves cut adrift. They had a stark choice after VE Day: live in Poland dominated by Stalin’s puppets or face a life in exile.Betrayal of Poland is the first major English-language compendium of Polish first-hand accounts from the Second World War. Two of the witnesses flew over the Third Reich and faced the deadly threat of night fighters and flak. One fought at Hill 262 in Normandy, joining the effort to close the Falaise Gap, while another was parachuted into the Arnhem campaign. Two saw the horrors of Auschwitz: one from behind the wire and the other outside it. Others detailed the hell of being deported into Stalin’s Soviet Union and their daily struggle to survive. Departing the USSR and joining what became the Polish II Corps, many went onto to fight at Monte Cassino. Finally, several witnesses recalled life under German Occupation and how they joined the Warsaw Uprising — the unequal and ultimately doomed battle against some of Hitler’s most-murderous units.Backed by comprehensive appendices and several never-seen-before photographs, this work is a must-have for anyone interested in Polish history or the Second World War.

Based on Captain John Orr's previously unseen campaign diary and personal documents, this is the first biography of the man who would become Superintendent of the Scottish Naval & Military Academy (SNMA). We follow John during his eighteen months in Portugal and Spain informed by his first-hand accounts of the Battle of Salamanca, the siege of Burgos and fighting in the Pyrenees. Later he fought at Quatre Bras and was wounded at Waterloo. He was retired on full pension in 1821.Ten years later, aged 41, resigning himself that he would no longer be commissioned into a regiment, he enrolled as a captain in the Edinburgh Militia. Almost immediately he was asked to become the Superintendent of the Scottish Naval & Military Academy which was situated in Edinburgh. It had been established six years earlier and was struggling after the Directors had made a number of bad decisions.John’s appointment stabilised the SNMA and the enrolment started to grow. He had enthusiasm for his job and managed to mix discipline with affection for the boys. In 1832 the Duke of Wellington became President. By the mid-1840s it had become a successful military college. It sent over a thousand young men into the services, including over a hundred who fought in the Crimean War. Nearly every British army regiment had at least one officer who had studied at the SNMA.Through John's letters, the history of the Academy is interwoven with a description of the Orr family. John died in 1879, aged 89 years old. He was the last surviving member of the Black Watch who had fought at Waterloo.The book is brought to life with paintings and photographs of John, his family, his uniform and pages from his Peninsular War diary. It is an intimate portrait of a soldier who served his country on and off the battle field.

Analyzes nine wartime and postwar defections, highlighting motivations, risks, and counter-intelligence significance.A well-informed defector is the most dangerous counter-intelligence commodity because it takes a spy to catch a spy. Very occasionally, an agent, especially a mole or an intelligence professional, will make a mistake and incriminate themselves, but usually it is a denunciation, a tip, or a vague clue from a defector that will provide the vital information required to expose the source of a leak.Relying on recently-declassified intelligence files and interviews with defectors, their handlers, their families, and their victims, Nigel West has analyzed nine examples of wartime and postwar defections to shed new light on the phenomenon.Defectors are notoriously difficult to handle, and resettle, because of the range of genuine or invented motives that led them to take such drastic action. Some will provide a noble political motive, seeking to impress their host, while others may be driven by less worthy compulsions — perhaps greed, revenge, career disappointment, envy, anger, or nothing more complicated that a desire to start a life afresh with a different partner.Defectors are the stock-in-trade for all counter-intelligence specialists who seek the background and context of corridor gossip and water-cooler chat cannot be substituted by any amount of technical surveillance, overhead reconnaissance or hard to-interpret intercepted communications. This is the essence of Human Intelligence, and goes to the heart of loyalty, trust, betrayal and deception — the very DNA of espionage.These nine examples of switching sides all involve intelligence professionals who followed the example of Erich Vermehren. Because of his religious convictions, Vermehren felt compelled to desert the Abwehr in January 1944, even though this meant the arrest of his parents and siblings who were consigned to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. West traced Vermehren, then living under an alias in Switzerland, to hear his story first-hand. He then interviewed the British MI6 officer who had engineered the covert exfiltration from Istanbul of both the German and his wife.Sometimes a defection may be the result of a period of cultivation, as happened with Vladimir Petrov, who was gently persuaded over many months by his Polish dentist to abandon his clandestine role as rezident in Canberra for a chicken farm. The intermediary, Dr Michael Bialoguski, admitted to the author that right up to the moment of his defection, he and his Australian Security Intelligence organization colleagues were not entirely sure of Petrov’s true status.Once resettled, a defector’s life has daily challenges, as was explained by Yuri Rastvorov’s widow, herself a CIA counter-intelligence officer, who recalled the day she had to tell their two daughters that their father was not a Czech tennis coach, but an NKVD defector who had been based in Tokyo.

Chronicles the courageous escapes of Norwegians fleeing Nazi occupation in 1940, weaving their stories into a comprehensive saga of resistance and vengeance.When the full might of Nazi Germany descended without warning upon neutral Norway in April 1940, many brave Norwegians wanted to escape to Britain to join the fight against the occupation of their country. The most natural route to freedom was to take to the cruel North Sea in small boats, following in the ancient traditions of their Viking ancestors. Facing perils of betrayal by collaborators and pursuit by the Gestapo, these brave Norwegians were in flight, but they were absolutely determined to return as avengers of Nazi oppression.For the first time, the stories of these remarkable escapes have been woven together into a single comprehensive Viking saga, set in the social and military context of the Nazi occupation. Extensive research has revealed many new boats and dramatic escapes, with at least 360 boats carrying over 4,000 fugitives now known to have crossed to the Allies. The onward progress of the avenging escapers is followed into the renowned Kompani Linge commandos, the famous Shetland Bus and the other free forces. Attempts by German intelligence to infiltrate spies are revealed — and how most of them were caught and turned into double agents.Hitler had dreams of turning Norway into a semi— autonomous Aryan utopia, but he was to be confounded by the obstinate defiance of the Norwegian people, and by the free Vikings who returned to wage war against him.

This book takes a comprehensive look at dragons, our most popular and beloved mythological creature, from a cultural and historical perspective. From Chinese Imperial dragons to the worms and wyverns of English folklore, dragons appear in myths and legends around the world and throughout history.Follow the evolution of the dragon from creation myths through to Medieval and Viking dragons and on to our present-day love of this mythological beast. Across the globe, dragons appear in almost every culture but their appearance, stories and meaning differ. We will take a tour through time and look more closely at the myths, tales and legends of different cultures.Throughout society and culture, dragons have played various roles alongside humans — as creators, enemies, treasure hoarders, and allies. They are part and parcel of the rich mythology and legends that are the backbone of any culture. They live in our imagination and our psyche. And while they have a long history of focusing in literature, they now also appear on our screens from treasure-hoarding dragons to cute, adorable creatures.Packed with tales from around the world and illustrations and images of dragons through time, this is an essential guide for dragon lovers everywhere.

Explores the interwar movements to restore Europe's deposed royal houses, examining their political significance and influence on global power dynamics.Among the great hidden narratives of twentieth-century history are the movements in Europe which, between the two world wars, aimed to restore the royal and imperial houses forced out of power in 1918 (or, in Portugal’s case, eight years earlier). These efforts acquired media coverage and, often, strategic importance far greater than would be now supposed from the cursory, often dismissive, treatment which they have received from most historians since.Campaigns to reinstate such dynasties as the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Wittelsbachs, the Braganças, and even France’s House of Orléans, were taken seriously at the highest governmental and journalistic levels in London and Paris, not to mention the Holy See. Upon the whole phenomenon, this book seeks to shed light. It discusses both the phenomenon’s ‘soft power’ manifestations (the designs of newspaper tycoon Lord Rothermere upon the Hungarian throne for his son, for instance) and the phenomenon’s ‘hard power’ manifestations, among which probably the most dramatic were the successful monarchical campaigns in Albania and Greece.With a cast that includes not only the monarchist candidates themselves but Churchill, Lloyd George, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, this is a drama that embraces a continent and forces thorough reappraisals of events which we thought we knew. No one can read it without acquiring a firmer grasp of political power's very nature and the sheer narrowness of the gap between victory and defeat.

Sir Simonds D’Ewes, a seventeenth-century gentleman bred in Dorset, but ultimately shaped by a deep and lasting love for Suffolk, was not destined for greatness. Nor did he have greatness thrust upon him in his short lifetime.Yet this was hardly the point. Son to a respectable family, D’Ewes rose through local, legal and political ranks to become a first-hand witness to a succession of monumental events in England. As MP for Sudbury from 1640, he was one of those who saw with agonising immediacy — from the benches of Westminster — the rapid decline of the political situation in the mid-1600s. Simonds held his breath along with the rest when Charles I forcibly entered the Commons in 1642, and he was there to survey the stunning rise of Oliver Cromwell through the 1640s. When civil war arrived, D’Ewes observed the battle lines being drawn before his very eyes.A 17th Century Knight has two aims. Firstly, it seeks to chart the life of Simonds D’Ewes himself: the husband, father, friend, antiquary, devout Protestant — even widower. His was an affecting story of personal loss, professional and recreational gain, and complex familial relationships that is deserving of study.Secondly, it endeavours to weave a fresh narrative of the tempestuous first half of the 1600s, including the English Civil War, using D’Ewes’s experiences and wealth of written material as a focal point.As this book shows, there is still much to be uncovered about a period in history that we think we all know.

From 1942 until the end of the war in Europe, the aircraft of RAF Bomber Command and the United States’ 8th and 15th Air Forces maintained a twenty-four hour, ‘round-the-clock’ bombing offensive against the Third Reich. However, aircraft and crew casualties were heavy as bomber after bomber succumbed to the Germans’ flak and fighter defences.For those not killed outright by the onslaught, only baling out — almost inevitably over hostile enemy territory — could offer a hope of survival. For those faced with such sudden leaps into the dangerous unknown over Germany and Occupied Europe, a few were able to evade capture. For the rest, and particularly the injured, capture was immediate and imprisonment inevitable. Once incarcerated in one of Hitler’s infamous prisoner of war camps, escape became a constant preoccupation for many. The ultimate aim of these men was to complete a ‘Home Run’ — to escape the Third Reich and reach the safety of Britain or other safe Allied territory.In this revealing narrative, the renowned aviation historian Martin Bowman draws on many first-hand accounts, some never told before, to describe the furious air battles that led to the capture of many shot-down airmen, as well as the subsequent personal campaigns they fought to regain their freedom.Fascinating for its gripping and factual re-creation of the bomber-fighter/flak encounters, the confrontations in captivity between PoWs and Stalag guards, Escape from Hitler’s Reich provides a real insight into the war as those who ‘fell from formation’ saw it.

The Real D H Lawrence is something of a misnomer — for who can ever truly know the real Lawrence? Lawrence himself spent a lifetime roaming the depths of his imagination trying to communicate the essence of who he really was — a quest that ultimately gifted the world twelve full-length novels, eight plays, over eight-hundred poems, enough paintings to form an exhibition, travel essays, novellas and short story collections: and a vast catalogue of non-fiction ranging from topics as diverse as European history to psychoanalysis.In this expertly researched exploration of Lawrence, Caroline Roope offers a captivating re-telling of the enigmatic author’s life, from his humble beginnings in the coal mining districts of Nottinghamshire to his final struggle with censorship and his battle to stay alive. Drawing on Lawrence’s published works, as well as his vast personal correspondence, The Real D. H. Lawrence offers a fresh insight into Lawrence’s creative process; and his stubborn refusal to live anything less than a life that was right for him, in a world he believed had gone terribly wrong.

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) was born the son of a moderately poor acting family at a time when the stage carried enormous social stigma. Yet in his own lifetime he achieved celebrity across Europe, rubbing shoulders with numerous of the eighteenth century’s greatest men and women, from Frederick the Great to Catherine the Great, from Voltaire to Albrecht von Haller, from Pope Benedict XIV to Pope Clement XIII. It was a fame that had little to do with his romantic exploits. This was to come later, following upon the posthumous publication of his magnificent History of My Life. An adventurer and a man of learning, his was an extraordinary career whose story was intertwined with the story of eighteenth-century Europe.Casanova’s Life and Times, the first book of this two-volume project, concentrates on what it was like to live in the eighteenth century. This second book, Casanova & Enlightenment, now turns to Casanova’s intellectual development within the context of the Enlightenment, proposing a re-evaluation of his status as a philosopher.

Investigates the complex lives of famous Vikings, examining their spirituality, ambitions, and legendary adventures beyond mere conquest.Vikings. One of history’s most recognizable archetypes. These hardy warriors enjoyed fighting and conquering, but there was much more to the culture than physical might.A deep sense of spirituality and purpose permeated the Norse societies that dreamed beyond their borders. And Norse history is a tapestry of adventurers, kings, wayfarers, queens and conquerors who etched their names into legend.Norse Fighting Heroes tells the stories of some of the most (in)famous Vikings in history. From the wanderlust of Bjorn Ironside to the boundless ambition of Harald Hardrada, the lives of these people were anything but black and white. Get to the heart of their wants, loves, fears, reasons for living and dying.

For most people, the story of the Jacobites perished on a bitter April day in 1746 when their hopes of restoring the exiled Stuart monarchy at the battle of Culloden were crushed. Beyond this military defeat, which marked the end of the ’45 rebellion, there were surviving embers who kept alive the cause for some time. For some years, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and his exiled supporters plotted with European powers to restore his banished house and regain the British throne, but there was never again a military attempt to oust the Hanoverians who displaced his lineage.In Europe, Jacobite networks flourished in France, but also in Scandinavia and were influential in spreading Masonic ideas in the areas they operated. Exiles joined the military as far afield as Spain and even Russia, while others formerly loyal to the cause found themselves in the New World, either banished by the British state or willing emigrants hoping for a better life. Ironically, most of the latter supported the British Empire and faced further hardship in the aftermath of the American War of Independence, finding themselves as losers in two major historic upheavals.Jacobitism arose again as a romantic ideal in the 19th century, surprisingly revived by the Hanoverian royal family, which had displaced the Stuarts. The cult of Highland Scotland was spearheaded by Queen Victoria, who saw herself as the embodiment and successor of the Jacobites. Towards the end of her reign, political Jacobitism became a fringe element in British politics energized Scottish nationalism and became an element in that country’s artistic renaissance.The question of what Jacobitism means to different people in different ages is not an easily answered question. Even in its early days, the movement was not simply a political monarchist group devoted to restoration of a shattered dynasty. Its adherents and some of its detractors recognized some mysterious attraction in its ideals and its symbolism. Which other British royal cult survived so long and inspired a succession of Pretenders devoted to the doomed romance of a long-vanished line of monarchs?

The Roman Empire (long since ruled from Constantinople) was in a perilous and tumultuous position in the early eighth century. Surrounded by expansionist enemies, most notably the Muslim Arab Umayyad Caliphate but also the Khazars, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and Lombards, it was also riven by religious controversy and internal political instability. When a plot brought Leo III to the throne in 717, he was the fourth Emperor since Justinian II’s assassination six years earlier. Within weeks of his accession he was faced with the year-long siege of his capital by the Arabs. The siege was eventually broken (with the help of the secret weapon, Greek fire) but was only the first of many crises Leo faced in his twenty-four-year reign.His tenure saw a number of rebellions, and Peter Crawford considers how Leo dealt with these (and the extent to which his own policies caused them). Space is given to the great religious development of his reign, the initiation of Iconoclasm, its impact on the empire and its tainting of the reputation of Leo and much of his dynasty. He also considers various aspects of Leo’s administration: coinage, provincial infrastructure, civil law and foreign policy. This is a thorough and fascinating reassessment of a ruler who brought the Empire from the brink of extinction and maintained it through a time of real crisis.

Explores the crucial role of motorcycles in the Nazi war machine, enhancing mobility and tactical effectiveness during WWII.The success of fast-moving Blitzkrieg tactics by the Nazi war machine depended on high mobility. With their on— and off-road capabilities, motorcycles became an important component of the Nazi war machine’s arsenal making a particularly significant impact in French and Russian campaigns.The motorcycles were used in a variety of roles including patrolling, intelligence gathering, and police duties in occupied Europe. Motorcyclists could be found in every unit of an infantry and Panzer division including headquarters which had a motorcycle messenger platoon. Their versatility also enabled them to survey enemy positions until coming under fire before reporting back with vital intelligence relating to enemy locations and strengths.The German industry produced wide range of motor-bikes for military use. By 1938 some 200,000 motorcycles were produced in Germany and occupied territories. The principal makes included BMW, DKW, NSU, Triumph, Victoria, and Zundapp. Sidecar combinations, often mounted with an MG34/42 machine gun, also made the bike a very effective weapon.By describing in words and contemporary images the role of the German motorcycle and motorcyclists during the Second World War, this Images of War book fills an overlooked gap in coverage of Nazi military capability. It emphasizes that the German military perfected the use of motorcycles and employed them more widely than any other army.

England today is a rich, complex mix of identities, cultures, and heritages. However, in the decades after Roman Britain collapsed in the fifth century, the cultures of the Angles and of the Saxons, with significant degrees of homogeneity, spread rapidly westwards across much of eastern, southern and central England.Then it stopped. Or was stopped. For the area then still beyond Anglo-Saxon reach is characterized by a network of military and economic links across the island. Perhaps significantly, this includes parts of Britain traditionally associated with King Arthur. Later, the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural kingdom of Mercia, in alliance with British kingdoms in Wales, spread from the Midlands across England under the mysterious King Penda, dominating the earlier Anglo-Saxon kingdoms with its wealth and military power. The region that gave birth to Mercia is also a region that was a most likely base for the elusive figure of King Arthur.The authors use historical and archaeological evidence, much of it new, to explore the link between Arthur’s kingdom and the rise of Penda’s Mercia. They seek to locate lost Arthurian battlefields and understand what happened there, with exciting, new results. This is the story of one region, two kings and two centuries that changed England forever.

No stranger to operating in conflict-torn countries, Richard Villar, a former SAS Medical Officer and current war surgeon, volunteered to provide medical support in Central Gaza during the 2024 invasion. In Gaza Medic, he offers a gripping and harrowing first-hand account of his experiences working in the war zone, where he faced his most daunting challenges yet.After traveling overland from Cairo across the Sinai Peninsula, Villar found himself working in a 200-bed hospital overrun with 700 patients, including many women and children. Conditions were dire and there was nowhere safe in Gaza. The hospital was under constant threat from drones, missiles, naval shells, and machine gun fire, making it one of the most perilous environments imaginable. Despite these dangers, he and fellow medics performed complex surgeries on victims of bombings. Medicines were limited, equipment minimal, and basic necessities such as clean water and sufficient food were luxuries.Villar’s moving account transcends the politics of war to focus on the raw, often brutal, realities faced by medical professionals in conflict zones. Each day brought more mass casualties, with a healthcare system on the brink of collapse and the population facing decimation.Gaza Medic is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the true impact of the Israel/Palestine conflict on individuals and communities. Villar’s narrative is a vivid reminder that courage can be found when there is chaos all around.

When Hitler was striving for recognition and relevance in the political turmoil of the early Weimar years in Germany he gave little thought to the world on the other side of the Atlantic other than to nurture a constant nagging resentment over President Wilson’s role in the post-war evisceration of Germany at Versailles in 1919. It was the United States, however, that had bankrolled the German economy to substantially boost industrial production and employment in the 1920s and the evidence of American wealth and economic power was hard to ignore.Even when the Nazis took over in Germany after the elections of March 1933, Hitler’s narrow vision was still concentrated on consolidating his power base in Germany itself and quickly thereafter expanded to take in the countries of Eastern Europe. What impressions he had of American culture and society were encapsulated in the trivialities and stereotypes of Hollywood movies depicting the ‘wild west’ or the deprivations of the Great Depression.Despite its economic power, nothing in Hitler’s world view envisaged the United States as a potential player in European politics, but the Germans intelligence services that he inherited were not so easily convinced. They had been aware of American power and influence since before the First World War and for them, spying on the United States was nothing more than a continuation of their efforts to prevent that country thwarting German ambitions.There had been spectacular successes in the past, such as the espionage attack that had wreaked massive destruction in the Black Tom Island explosion on 30 July 1916. But overall, the German agencies had gone to great lengths and considerable expense without achieving their ambitions and failed to prevent American participation in the war. With another war in prospect, the Germans once again made plans to influence American policy and do what they could to keep their forces out of European affairs.Spying for Hitler traces the history of German espionage in the United States and describes, in detail, the personnel involved and operations they conducted all through the 1930s and early 1940s. It examines the training of German agents and the espionage techniques they employed.The way in which the FBI reacted to the threat, in particular, from the Griebl-Lonkowski spy ring, shows how Hoover’s ‘Feds’ were initially slow to appreciate the danger, but soon learned the lessons. This was later to put them on a sounder footing to counter further attempts to infiltrate agents into the United States. This was most spectacularly displayed in Operation Pastorius, when saboteurs were landed on the American East Coast from U-boats.This book also examines the way in which the Germans used ‘sleeper’ agents and also describes how the FBI successfully ‘turned’ German agents to feed disinformation to Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. It describes how espionage missions played out and the fate of those involves.

At the age of twelve, on hearing that Sir Ross Smith had broken the England-Australia aero record in a Vickers Vimy, Roly Alderson decided that he wanted to fly. Denied a secondary education, orphan Roly was an accomplished engineer by the time he arrived at Cambridge in his home-built car. He left with a degree, a racing Bentley and a pilot’s licence.Alderson had already logged several hundred hours when recruited by Imperial Airways in 1933. His skills were quickly recognized, and he was selected to fly Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy and Governor General of India, on his farewell tour of India. Alderson’s Holy Grail, nevertheless, was to ‘fly boats’, and it was not long before Roly had joined these venerated ranks on the new route to South Africa.while serving as a Captain on Imperial Airways’ prestigious New York-Bermuda service, Alderson reported a number of serious concerns regarding carburettor icing on his Short Empire flying boat Cavalier. His prescience was ignored, and on 21 January 1939, a day after penning a final warning, Cavalier was forced down into the empty wastes of the Atlantic. Due to Alderson’s consummate airmanship and the bravery of heroine passenger Edna Watson, ten of the thirteen souls on board survived. Their miraculous rescue by the tanker Esso Baytown, part of a huge international search and rescue effort, after eleven gruelling hours in cold shark-infested waters, dominated the world’s headlines.Alderson returned to duty on the long-distance flying boat routes to Singapore and Durban, but, following the German invasion of France in 1940, he was transferred to the treacherous West Africa run. After a brush with a U-boat off Sierra Leone, he was tasked with ferrying General de Gaulle back to the UK from Nigeria. After avoiding a suspected poisoning attempt at Freetown and Luftwaffe interception over the Bay of Biscay, the General personally thanked Alderson for his safe return.Later, in 1940 the British Government bought three huge Boeing flying boats to maintain the wartime transatlantic link, and Alderson was promoted to the roster for these. The hours in these behemoths were prodigious, routing via Portugal, West Africa, and Brazil, with the fear of enemy attack a constant and very real threat. Only V.I.P.s and vital mail were carried, although Alderson did once deliver President Roosevelt’s personal gift to Winston Churchill: a critical supply of Havana cigars!Adventure abounds in this remarkable story of a flying boat pilot and captain in both war and peace: racing Bentleys, landing on beaches, black-tie dinner with the Luftwaffe, landing on the Nile, flying across India, and espionage and intrigue in Lisbon.

Walking holidays have become more popular, and it certainly looks like they’re here to stay. In 2022 Mintel found that walking is the UK’s most popular active holiday, while in June 2023, the New York Times ran a headline that claimed 2023 as the year of the walk. Whether it’s setting off on a long walk or going walking for the day, it doesn’t get much better than doing it in Italy. Italy has it all: mountains, hilltop towns, medieval squares, olive groves, vineyards, Renaissance art, routes which speak the stories of people and places.This is a book about walking that’s not necessarily for walkers. It’s for those who love walking and go regularly but it’s also aimed at beginners, those of us who enjoy a walk followed by lunch or dinner in a medieval square and a night at a cosy B&B. Maybe you’ll never actually go on any of the walks. This is also the book for you. It’s full of the history and stories of routes and places, so you can go on your own journey from the comfort of your living room. It gives you all the relevant links you’ll need such as up-to-date maps, detailed routes, GPS navigation, updates, further reading, and advice on the walking itself. Start reading, start dreaming and maybe you too could be walking through Italy soon.