6 June 1944: the day Allied forces crossed the Channel and began fighting their way into Nazi-occupied Northwest Europe. Initiated by airborne units and covered by air and naval bombardment, the Normandy landings were the most ambitious combined airborne and amphibious assault ever attempted. Their success marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.Drawing on thousands of hours of eyewitness testimony recorded by the Imperial War Museum, Forgotten Voices ...

'The Gestapo kept me three days in this interrogation house. They especially wanted to know what I did after my escape, and precise things on the organisation of the SOE. And just for fun I suspect, because I had really not much to tell them, they pulled one of my toenails out...' - Robert Sheppard, SOE agentThe Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British organisation created early in World War 2 to encourage resistance and carry out sabotage behind enemy lines...

A remarkable true story about saving life in wartime, not taking it'War is often described in terms of blood and treasure – The Lifesavers tells the story of the people who saw blood as treasure. A fascinating look behind the scenes in the efforts and innovations made to keep men alive.' Al Murray, host of We Have Ways of Making You Talk'A story destined to be told. A fascinating history of blood for the front line...

Drawing on long-classified documents, Target: Italy is the official history of the war waged by Britain's Special Operations Executive on Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy. It is the first full account of SOE's clandestine efforts to strike at Italy and sever its alliance with Nazi Germany, uncovering missions as remarkable as a plot to assassinate Mussolini and plans to arm the Mafia.It is also the first in-depth history of SOE's attempts at causing trouble inside an enemy...

In 1943, small teams of elite British soldiers began parachuting into the mountains of Axis-occupied Albania. They were members of Britain's Special Operations Executive, and their task was to find and arm bands of local guerillas and harass the Axis as best they could. None had been to Albania before, or knew what awaited them.Trying to survive in extreme conditions and formidable terrain, these young Britons lived in constant danger of capture and death, and were plagued by illne...

The Victoria Cross is one of the worlds most famous medals. It was introduced by Queen Victoria in 1856 for most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy, and has been awarded only 1,358 times.Exploring the actions and events that lead to the VC being awarded, Forgotten Voices of the Victoria Cross is full of heroic tales, drama and action from the last century. Some test...

A remarkable true story about saving life in wartime, not taking itThe Lifesavers were a little-known band of men and women at the forefront of groundbreaking battlefield care in the Second World War.As part of a new and pioneering service, unconventional and iconoclastic, they pushed and pulled blood from hundreds of thousands of donors into the veins of battle casualties all over the world. Deploying expert teams – officially the smallest units i...

Horatio Nelson is one of the most inspiring and perplexing characters in British history. He carried inside him a mixture of sheer professionalism and genius, and of vanity and courage. He also carried a dedication to sacrifice despite his human weaknesses.Just as the Battle of the Nile had occurred at a moment when the nation’s spirits were at a low — as it faced the new Napoleonic Europe and the threat to India — so Trafalgar put fresh heart into a Britain that was confronted by ...

'Between Friday and Monday we never slept at all. Everyone's face was one mass of sand . The guns were so hot, all the paint had gone' Bombardier Ray EllisHad the Allies lost in North Africa, Rommel's Afrika Korps would have swept through the Middle East, cutting the vital supply line through the Suez Canal to Australia and India, and taking the oilfields of the Persian Gulf. Britain would have been isolated, without oil, and unable to fight.These historic ...

Drawing material from the Imperial War Museum's extensive aural archive, Joshua Levine brings together voices from both sides of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain to give us a unique, complete and compelling picture of this turbulent time.In June 1940, British citizens prepared for an imminent German onslaught. Hitler's troops had overrun Holland, Belgium and France in quick succession, and the British people anticipated an invasion would soon be upon them. From July to October, ...

In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing WWI veterans and interviewing them at length in order to record the experiences of ordinary individuals in war. The IWM aural archive has become the most important archive of its kind in the world. Authors have occasionally been granted access to the vaults, but digesting the thousands of hours of footage is a monumental task.Now, forty years on, t...

The #1 New York Times –bestselling author of Day of Infamy details how WWII radio operators kept watch behind Japanese lines during the Solomon Islands campaign."A rich haul of stories, involving hairbreadth escapes and rescues, cool heroism and exotic adventure." — The New York TimesThe Solomon Islands was where the Allied war...