Download Free St Valery And Its Aftermath Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online St Valery And Its Aftermath and write the review.

This WWII military history chronicles the bravery and daring of Britain’s Gordon Highlanders in Nazi occupied France. During the German offensive of May, 1940, the 51st (Highland) Division—which included the 1st and 5th Battalions Gordon Highlanders—became separated from the British Expeditionary Force. After a heroic stand at St Valery-en-Caux, the Division surrendered when fog thwarted efforts to evacuate them. Within days, scores of Gordons had escaped and were on the run through Nazi-occupied France. Many reached Britain after harrowing travails, including recapture and imprisonment often in atrocious conditions in France, Spain, or North Africa. Those imprisoned in Eastern Europe were forced to work in coal and salt mines, quarries, factories and farms. Some died through unsafe conditions or the brutality of their captors. Others escaped, on occasion fighting with distinction alongside Resistance forces. Many had to endure the brutal 1945 winter march away from the advancing Allies before their eventual liberation. This superbly researched book vividly recounts their many inspiring stories.
The gallant rearguard action which led to the capture of the 51st Highland Division at St Valéry-en-Caux (two weeks after the famous evacuation of the main British army from Dunkirk) may have burned itself into the consciousness of an older generation of Scots but has never been given the wider recognition it deserves. This new book re-examines that fateful chain of events in 1940 and reassesses some of the myths that have grown up in the intervening years. Two of the main contributors to this collection of soldiers' reminiscences, Angus Campbell from Lewis and Donald John MacDonald from South Uist, were both traditional Gaelic bards. Their work has been translated from their native language and reflects both the richness of the vocabulary they had acquired through the Gaelic oral tradition and their individual gifts as natural story-tellers born out of that tradition. These vivid accounts bring alive the chaos and horror of war and the grim deprivation of the camps and forced marches which so many endured. Yet the personal stories also resound with the spirit, humour and sense of comradeship which enabled men to fight on in desperate situations and refuse to be cowed by their captors.
2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders was posted to Singapore in 1937 with their families. When the Japanese invaded Malaya in December 1941, the Battalion fought bravely until the surrender of Singapore on 14 February 1942. Those who were not killed became POWs. Of the 1000 men involved initially, over 400 had died by their liberation in summer 1945. Despite the diverse background of the members of the Battalion, all were bound by close regimental spirit. As POWs, all suffered hard labour, starvation, brutality and tropical diseases. Rank was no protection from death. After initial incarceration in Singapore the Gordons were dispersed to work on the famous Thai-Burma railway, in the mines of Taiwan and Japan and on other slave labour projects. Conditions defy modern comprehension. Others died trapped in hell-ships torpedoed by allied submarines. The author has researched the plight of these extraordinary men, so many of whom never saw their native Scotland again. Despite the grim conditions, he captures the strong collective regimental spirit and the humour and cooperation that saved so many who would have otherwise have perished à as many did. This is an inspiring tale of courage and survival against appalling odds.
Sean Londgen has conducted numerous interviews and reveals a new perspective on life under the Nazis that has long been forgotten and replaced by the myth of Colditz and The Great Escape. Between 1939 and 1945 almost 200,000 British and Commonwealth Servicemen were held as Prisoners of War in Germany. Every Allied soldier under the rank of Sergeant was forced to work 12 hour shifts, six days a week, cutting timber, quarrying stone, carving ice from frozen rivers and clearing bombsites. It drove the soldiers to the brink, in which survival was a daily trial. Many starved to death or died from disease, others were killed in accidents or at the hands of their guards.
The United Kingdom comprises thousands of islands and for many centuries transport between the main islands and the outlying communities has required reliable shipping routes, both long and short-haul, for commerce, trade and travel. Ferries have become an essential means of transport for many outlying populations and down the years routes have continually changed and been adapted to meet the requirements of the period. This remains so today, with established ferry routes in a constant state of flux, with the dire economic circumstances of the present imposing their own financial restraints upon routes and timetables. This volume presents a snapshot of the major Offshore Ferry routes as they currently stand, with details of the routes, the ships and the amenities; added to which are the outline histories of companies and links. This volume encapsulates all these strands and should prove a useful aide to all travellers.
The role of the navy as an instrument of royal power in France, C16/C17, with a reappraisal of Richelieu's performance as Grand-Master of Navigation.
The First Crusade (1096-1099) was an extraordinary undertaking, the repercussions of which have reached down to the present day. This book re-examines the sources to provide a detailed analysis of the various social classes that participated in the expedition, and the tensions between them.
The new Templar novel from the USA Today bestselling author On the morning of October 13, 1307, every Templar knight in France is arrested by the order of King Philip IV, who then seizes all the Order's assets and set the Inquisition against them. Warned of the plot, Sir William St. Clair flees from France with the Temple's treasure, several hundred knights, and the widow Lady Jessica Randolph to seek sanctuary in Scotland. There, with his men deprived of everything they valued and held dear at home, he will lead them into battle as Templar Knights one last time in defiant support of a king who is not their own, but who has earned their trust.
While the late Anglo-Saxons rarely recorded saints' posthumous miracles, a shift occurred as monastic writers of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries started to preserve hundreds of the stories they had heard of healings, acts of vengeance, resurrections, recoveries, and other miraculous deeds effected by their local saints. Indeed, Rachel Koopmans contends, the miracle collection quickly became a defining genre of high medieval English monastic culture. Koopmans surveys more than seventy-five collections and offers a new model for understanding how miracle stories were generated, circulated, and replicated. She argues that orally exchanged narratives carried far more propagandistic power than those preserved in manuscripts; stresses the literary and memorial roles of miracle collecting; and traces changes in form and content as the focus of the collectors shifted from the stories told by religious colleagues to those told by lay visitors to their churches. Wonderful to Relate highlights the importance of the two massive collections written by Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury in the wake of the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Koopmans provides the first in-depth examination of the creation and influence of the Becket compilations, often deemed the greatest of all medieval miracle collections. In a final section, she ponders the decline of miracle collecting in the thirteenth century, which occurred with the advent of formalized canonization procedures and theological means of engaging with the miraculous.
Jack Swaab joined the veteran 51st (Highland) Infantry Division on 3 January 1943. He kept a series of diaries over the following two and a half years, recording the combination of boredom and fear that characterises active service. In mid-March 1943 he saw battle for the first time as Montgomery attacked the Mareth Line. In July that year Swaab took part in the Allied landings on Sicily, writing of the scorching humidity of the Sicilian summer. In May 1944 he records the restless time as his regiment prepared for the invasion of Normandy. In September 1944 Swaab's role changed dramatically, as he moved from commanding a troop to being a forward observation officer. His new position meant that he was working closely with the infantry in the front line. Swaab's first five months as a forward observation officer came to an abrupt end on 13 February, when he was wounded in the leg by shellfire. He was again selected for FOO duty during Operation 'Varsity', the Rhine crossing, in March 1945, and received the Military Cross.