Author: Richard Mead
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783408936
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 573
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Book Description
Dick McCreery was commissioned into the 12th Royal Lancers in 1915 and served on The Western Front, winning the MC and surviving wounds.In 1938 he joined the staff of 1st Division under Alexander before being given command of 2 Armored Brigade. He won the DSO for his leadership during the retreat to Dunkirk Man/June 1940.In North Africa McCreery was sacked by Auchinleck, with whom he had major differences, but, while waiting for a plane home, he was spotted by Alexander who made him his Chief of Staff. He is credited by many (but not Montgomery the two did not get on) for the solution to the El Alamein victory.He was promoted to command X Corps at Salerno which he commanded during the advance to the Gothic Line. He relieved Leese as Commander 8th Army in September 1944 and it was his brilliant plan that seized the Argenta Gap and drove the Germans back across the River Po into Austria.He became British High Commissioner in Austria, C in C British Army of the Rhine and British Military Representative at the UN, retiring in 1949.Although not a public figure, McCreery was key figure in the development of armored warfare, a brilliant tactician and among the most important British fighting generals of the Second World War. This is an overdue acknowledgment of his contribution to victory.
Author: Richard Mead
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1848844654
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
"First biography of the last 8th Army Commander, McCreery's record in WW2 was outstanding at Dunkirk, North Africa and Italy. He commanded the 8th Army from September 1944 onwards, was an outstanding horseman of his era and pioneer of armoured tactics"--Publisher's description.
Author: Harvey Ferguson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806149698
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
In this biography of Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., author Harvey Ferguson tells the story of how Truscott—despite his hardscrabble beginnings, patchy education, and questionable luck— not only made the rank of army lieutenant general, earning a reputation as one of World War II’s most effective officers along the way, but was also given an honorary promotion to four-star general seven years after his retirement.
Author: Edward G. Longacre
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780811708982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A companion to his previous work, Lincoln's Cavalrymen, this volume focuses on the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia -- its leadership, the military life of its officers and men as revealed in their diaries and letters, the development of its tactics as the war evolved, and the influence of government policies on its operational abilities. All the major players and battles are involved, including Joseph E. Johnston, P. G. T Beauregard, and J. E. B. Stuart. As evidenced in his previous books, Longacre's painstakingly thorough research will make this volume as indispensable a reference as its predecessor.
Author: Brian Steel Wills
Publisher: Modern War Studies
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 514
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Book Description
This is the best biography of one of the most exciting, colorful, and controversial figures of the Civil War. A renowned cavalryman, Nathan Bedford Forrest perfected a ruthless hit-and-run guerrilla warfare that terrified Union soldiers and garnered the respect of warriors like William Sherman, who described his adversary as "that Devil, Forrest . . . the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side." Historian Bruce Catton rated Forrest "one of the authentic military geniuses of the whole war," but Brian Steel Wills covers much more than the cavalryman's incredible feats on the field of battle. He also provides the most thoughtful and complete analysis of Forrest's hardscrabble childhood in backwater Mississippi; his rise to wealth in the Memphis slave trade; his role in the infamous Fort Pillow massacre of black Union soldiers; his role as early leader and Grand Wizard of the first Ku Klux Klan; and his declining health and premature death in a reconstructing America.
Author: Simon MacDowall
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 9781855325678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The twilight of the Roman Empire saw a revolution in the way war was waged. The drilled infantryman, who had been the mainstay of Mediterranean armies since the days of the Greek hoplite, was gradually replaced by the mounted warrior. This change did not take place overnight, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries the role of the cavalryman was primarily to support the infantry. However, by the time of the 6th century, the situation had been completely reversed. Late Roman Cavalryman gives a full account of the changing experience of the mounted soldiers who defended Rome's withering western empire.
Author: Max Kuhnert
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 0850522900
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
It is a fact not generally remembered that most of the German Army of 1939-45, regarded as the most technologically advanced of its day, was horse-drawn. This is the memoir of Max Kuhnert who was a mounted cavalryman during World War II. Kuhnert, who came from Dresden, enlisted in the German Army in 1939, and was posted to a cavalry unit which, latterly, provided mounted reconnaissance troops for infantry regiments. His account tells of mobilization, the invasion of Poland, a spell in occupied Denmark, the invasion of France - during which his unit was very much in the vanguard - a return to Poland and the invasion of Russia, then retreat, wounding and return to Germany.
Author: Richard van Emden
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473821754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
Benjamin Clouting was just sixteen years old when he embarked with the British Expeditionary Force for France in August 1914. The youngest man in the 4th Dragoon Guards, he took part in the BEF's celebrated first action at Casteau on August 22nd, and, two days later, had his horse shot from under him during the famous cavalry charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards and the 9th Lancers at Audregnies. Ben served on the Western front during every major engagement of the war except Loos, was wounded twice, and in 1919 went with the Army of Occupation to Cologne. The son of a stable groom, Ben was brought up in the beautiful Sussex countryside near Lewes and from his earliest years was, as he often said himself, "crazy to be a soldier". He worked briefly as a stable boy before joining up in 1913; his training was barely completed when war broke out. The Regiment, knowing Ben to be under age, tried to stop him embarking for France, but he flatly refused to be left behind. During the next four years, he served under officers immortalized in Great War history, including Major Tom Bridges, Captain Hornby, and Lieutenant-Colonel Adrien Carton de Wiart VC.Teenage Tommy is a detailed account of a trooper's life at the front, vividly recalling, for example, the privations suffered during the retreat from Mons. and later, the desperate fighting to hold back the German onslaught at 2nd Ypres. But this is more than just a memoir about trench warfare. Ben's lively sense of humor and healthy disrespect for petty restrictions make this an entertaining as well as a moving story of life at the front.
Author: Joe Robinson
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
The Battle of the Silver Helmets was an engagement orchestrated according to the previous successes of the cavalry of Frederick the Great. It was staged so that the magnificently equipped and trained German Fourth Cavalry Division would charge into glory, sabres rattling; instead, 24 German officers, 468 men, and 843 horses were lost during the eight separate charges conducted that day. The entire right wing of the Imperial German Army consisted of only nine cavalry brigades in the Schlieffen Plan, and in the battle of 12 August 1914, two of these brigades were catastrophically beaten. This battle has not yet been explored in the English language because it took place before the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) landed in the Channel ports and well before any American involvement. British historians have also generally focused on Germany s efforts to enter Belgium through the forts at Liège, which are east of Halen. However, the Battle of the Silver Helmets so impacted century-old cavalry tradition that large-scale charges would never again be attempted on the Western Front. Thoroughly researched and hugely revelatory, The Last Great Cavalry Charge is a blow-by-blow account of the moment that the cavalry went from a prestigious, pivotal role in German Army tactics to obsolescence in the face of newly mechanised infantry. It provides essential and moving insight into the wider socio-cultural repercussions of technical military innovations in the First World War.
Author: Marcos E. Kinevan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780874042436
Category : African American soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"In 1877, John Bigelow Jr. and seventy-five other cadets graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, after which he chronicled his experiences, observations, opinions, and musings as a young Cavalry lieutenant in Texas. Sixty of the new lieutenants, including Bigelow and seventeen others who were assigned to black regiments called Buffalo Soldiers, soon departed for the frontier where they were scattered over numerous small and often ramshackle posts and camps. Their work of training soldiers, exploring and patrolling wilderness areas, protecting the mail, travelers, and settlers, chasing and sporadically clashing with unpacified Indians, and enforcing federal laws and policies was usually arduous, occasionally dangerous and seldom glorious. Yet the value of their accomplishments was immense." "In addition to providing a comprehensive view of army life in the late 1870s, including the social practices and prevailing Victorian customs, the author addresses the widespread attitudes of the times toward the Buffalo Soldiers and how these views changed when black and white soldiers fought side by side against common foes." "Also portrayed are the results of sending poorly prepared officers and men to fight in unconventional conflicts, desertion-inciting conditions and practices, and how an obsolete military justice system developed into a model of fairness far in advance of its civilian counterparts."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
