SIX DAYS IN JUNEHow Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli WarEric HammelMilitary historian Eric Hammel becomes the first chronicler of the 1967 Six Day War to unite the story of development of Israels bold brand of military training and planning with a detailed narrative account of her breathtaking victories in Sinai, Jerusalem, The West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Unlike earlier accounts of the 1967 war, Hammels sweeping narrative describes how, from the early 1950s, the Israel De¬fense ForceZah...

GUADALCANAL: Starvation Island by Eric Hammel =- The Japanese defeats at Midway and Guadalcanal decided the outcome of the Pacific War. Guadalcanal was the classic three-dimensional campaign. On land, at sea, and in the air, fierce battles were fought with both sides stretching their supplies and equipment to the breaking point. The campaign lasted six months, involved nearly one million men, and stopped Japanese expansion in the Pacific. When the campaign began on August 7, 1942, no one on e...

GUADALCANAL: Decision at Sea, The Naval Battle of GuadalcanalNovember 1315,1942 by Eric Hammel = Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detail of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13 15, 1942, a crucial step toward Americas victory over the Japanese during World War II. = The three day air and naval action incorporated Americas most decisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this century in which American battleships directly confronted ...

Using diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts, this vivid narrative brings to life the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.The battle of Guadalcanal was the first offensive operation undertaken by the US and its allies in the Pacific War. The three months of air battles between August 20, 1942, when the first Marine air unit arrived on the island, and November 15, when the last enemy attempt to retake...

"An authoritative look at an event that has taken on a legendary status . . . [an] essential history for those wanting the truth behind the legend" ( Publishers Weekly).Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" photo is one of the best-known images of US war history—and a powerful symbol of patriotism. But the story of how the flag got there, and even the identity of the soldiers in the photo, has been muddied by history. Here, military historian Eric...

THE ROAD TO BIG WEEK: The Struggle for Daylight Air Supremacy Over Western Europe, July 1942February 1944 by Eric Hammel = The Road to Big Week begins with a thorough examination of American development of a strategic bombing doctrine from its earliest conception after World War I. Balancing the demands of the ground armys desire for air support and the visionary outlook of such early Air Corps leaders as General Billy Mitchell with the cash-strapped circumtances of the Great Depression and ...

AMBUSH VALLEYI Corps, Vietnam, 1967the Story of a Marine Infantry Battalion's Battle for SurvivalEric HammelIn the summer of 1967, the Marines in I Corps, South Vietnams northernmost military region, were doing eveything they could to lighten the pressure on the besieged Con Thien Combat Base.Still fresh after months of relatively light action around Khe Sanh, the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, was sent to the Con Thien region to secure the combat basess endangered main supply route. On Septembe...

MUNDA TRAIL: The New Georgia Campaign, JuneAugust 1943 by Eric Hammel + Munda Trail is the dramatic, harrowing story of green American soldiers encountering for the first time impenetrable swamps, solid rain forests, invisible coconut log pillboxes, tenacious snipers tied into trees, torrential tropical rains, counterattack by enemy aircraft and naval guns, and the logistical nightmare of living and moving in endless mud. A carefully planned offensive quickly degenerates into isolated small-u...

On the morning of November 20, 1943, the U.S. 2d Marine Division undertook the first modern amphibious assault against a well-defended beachhead. The objective was tiny Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll. The result was a tragedy and near defeat turned around into an epic of victory and indomitable human spirit. Although the admirals commanding the Tarawa invasion fleet had assured the Marines that Betio would be pounded to dust by a massive naval and air bombardment the largest of its kind seen to...

CARRIER CLASHThe Invasion of Guadalcanal &the Battle of the Eastern SolomonsAugust 1942Eric HammelThe Battle of the Eastern Solomons was historys third carrier clash. A collision of U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of the invasion of Guadalcanalwhose airfield the United States desperately needed and the Japanese desperately wanted backthe battle was waged at sea and over Guadalcanals besieged Marine-held Lunga Perimeter on August 24, 1942. Based upon the first half of Eric Ha...

CARRIER STRIKEThe Battle of the Santa Cruz IslandsOctober 1942By Eric HammelThe Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, a strategic naval action in the bitter Guadalcanal Campaign, was historys fourth carrier-versus-carrier naval battle. Though technically a Japanese victory, the battle proved to be the Empire of Japans last serious attempt to win the Pacific War by means of an all-out carrier confrontation. Only one other carrier battle occurred in the Pacific War, in June 1944, in the Philippine ...

The Guadalcanal-blooded 1st Marine Division’s assault on Cape Gloucester in western New Britain on December 26, 1943, was unconnected to the preceding seventeen-month slog along the nearby Solomon Islands chain. Nor did it have anything to do with the neutralization of the Japanese naval and air fortress at Rabaul, on the eastern end of New Britain. True enough, the Cape Gloucester invasion happened to strategically isolate the vast Rabaul logistics base from Japanese-held areas in nearby ...