Howard Gerrard – Illustratör

The Kursk campaign was the major German offensive of 1943 and the last strategic offensive the Germans were to launch on the Eastern Front in World War II.In the summer of 1943, recoiling from defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler conducted a limited objective offensive to eliminate the Soviet Kursk salient. Operating a classic pincer attack of the kind that succeeded during the 1942 Kharkov campaign he hoped that the resulting heavy losses inflicted on the Red Army would give the Wehrmacht time to recover its strength. However, the Soviet anticipation of the attack led to extensive losses on both sides as Soviet anti-tank mines and fierce fighting pushed the Germans back, liberating the German-held Orel in the process.Focusing on the northern front of the battle with Generaloberst, Walter Model’s forces pitted against General Rokossovsky’s Central Front between 5 July and 18 August, this volume will explore both the German offensive and the Soviet counteroffensive. Using documents from both sides, extensive photographs – both contemporary and modern, maps and bird’s-eye-views this title will shed new light on this often ignored part of the battle.

The Fairbairn-Sykes Commando dagger has become iconic as the most widely recognized fighting knife in the world.The origins of the dagger can be traced to Shanghai in the 1930s where W. E. Fairbairn and US Marine officers including Sam Yeaton carried out experiments to develop what they considered the perfect knife for close combat. When Fairbairn and Sykes became instructors for the Commandos, they refined the design which would evolve into the classic Fairbairn-Sykes dagger.The dagger was first used during early Commando raids into occupied Europe but saw action in every theatre of World War II. US Rangers and Marines who had trained with the Commandos took their Fairbairn-Sykes daggers home, and this also influenced the development of American Special Forces daggers.This book explores the history of this knife that remained in use with many units after the war, and has become a symbol of Commando and special forces units throughout the world.

The naval plan behind the Normandy landings that aided the success of the Allied invasion of France.The story of Operation Neptune was, of course, more than just a tale of planning, building and logistics. It had action a-plenty and the emotive tales of bravery, ingenuity and determination by the crews of the ships involved brought credit to the naval traditions of the Allied nations.Battleships, cruisers and destroyers bombarded enemy positions; midget submarines pointed the way to the beaches; minesweepers worked secretly by night to clear lanes; landing craft of all sizes braved enemy fire and mines to deposit their loads on the beaches and naval beach parties endured shellfire and machine guns to bring order to the beaches. Royal Navy commandos and US naval engineers dealt with beach obstacles against rising tides in the face of withering enemy fire. Losses during Neptune and the days after the assault were quite heavy.In this detailed, illustrated account, Ken Ford unpacks the operation that had more casualties amongst its vessels than any other naval enterprise in World War II.

A detailed examination of Operation Husky, the US and British invasion and conquest of the Italian island of Sicily.Not only did the Sicily operation represent a watershed in tactical development of combined arms tactics, it was also an important test for future Allied joint operations. Senior British commanders left the North African theater with a jaundiced and dismissive view of the combat capabilities of the inexperienced US Army after the debacle at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in February 1943. Sicily was a demonstration that the US Army had rapidly learned its lessons and was now capable of fighting as a co-equal of the British Army.The Sicily campaign contained a measure of high drama as Patton took the reins of the Seventh US Army and bent the rules of the theater commander in a bold race to take Palermo on the northern Sicilian coast. When stiff German resistance halted Montgomery’s main assault to Messina through the mountains, Patton was posed to be the first to reach the key Sicilian port and end the campaign. This richly-illustrated volume details the highs and lows of the Sicily campaign, including the disastrous problems with early airborne assaults and the Allied failure to seal the straits of Messina, allowing the Germans to withdraw many of their best forces.

A highly illustrated account of the series of naval battles around the embattled island of Guadalcanal in late 1942.The battle for Guadalcanal that lasted from August 1942 to February 1943 was the first major American counteroffensive against the Japanese in the Pacific. The battle of Savo Island on the night of 9 August 1942, saw the Japanese inflict a severe defeat on the Allied force, driving them away from Guadalcanal and leaving the just-landed marines in a perilously exposed position.This was the start of a series of night battles that culminated in the First and Second battles of Guadalcanal, fought on the nights of 13 and 15 November. One further major naval action followed, the battle of Tassafaronga on 30 November 1942, when the US Navy once again suffered a severe defeat, but this time it was too late to alter the course of the battle as the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal in early February 1943.In this compact, engaging volume, Mark Stille examines the contrasting fortunes experienced by both sides over the intense course of naval battles around the island throughout the second half of 1942 that did so much to turn the tide in the Pacific.

A highly illustrated account of the 1942 battle of Kharkov, one of the Red Army’s largest defeats in World War II.After failing to finish off the German Army in the 1941/42 Winter Counteroffensive Stalin directed the Red Army to conduct a powerful blow in one sector of the Eastern Front in order to disrupt German plans. The sector chosen was Kharkov. Under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, the Stavka’s remaining reserves were assembled and prepared to conduct a breakthrough attack intended to encircle the German Sixth Army near Kharkov.However, Stalin was unaware that the Germans were planning their own riposte at Kharkov, known as Operation Fredericus. When Timoshenko began his offensive in May 1942, he did not realize the limitations of his own forces or the agility of the Germans to recover from setbacks, all of which contributed to one of the Red Army greatest defeats of World War II.This volume will pay particular attention to intelligence and logistics issues, as well as how this campaign served as a prelude to the battle of Stalingrad. It will also focus on the nascent development of the Red Army’s tank corps and ‘deep battle’ tactics, as well as the revival of the German Panzertruppen after Barbarossa.

The invasion and conquest of Hong Kong formed part of the staggering series of Japanese conquests across the Far East in late 1941 and early 1942.On 8th December 1941, as part of the simultaneous combined attack against Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) invaded the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia and the British colony of Hong Kong. After only 18 days of battle the defenders, a weak, undermanned brigade, were overwhelmed by a superior force of two battle-hardened IJA divisions.What defines the battle of Hong Kong was not the scale - just 14,000 defended the colony - but the intensity of this battle, fought not only by the British Army, Navy and Air Force but also Canadians, Hong Kong’s own defence force, the Indian Army and many civilians.The campaign itself is characterized by a fierce land battle, with long artillery duals and as well as fast naval actions with intense actions at the Gin Drinkers Line as well as the battle of Wong Nai Chung Gap where a handful of defenders took on an entire Japanese regiment.Less known but equally important are individual acts valour such as CSM John Robert Osborne winning a posthumous VC, throwing himself over a Japanese grenade to save fellow combatants.

An detailed examination of this bloody Pacific battle, featuring maps, artwork and archive photography.The island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll was defended by the elite troops of the Special Naval Landing Force, whose commander, Admiral Shibasaki, boasted that "the Americans could not take Tarawa with a million men in a hundred years". In a pioneering amphibious invasion, the Marines of the 2nd Division set out to prove him wrong, overcoming serious planning errors to fight a 76-hour battle of unprecedented savagery. The cost would be more than 3000 Marine casualties at the hands of a garrison of some 3700. This richly illustrated volume examines the battle in depth and the lessons learned, which would dispel forever any illusions that Americans had about the fighting quality of the Japanese.

’Never, except in the battle of Cannae, had there been so destructive a slaughter recorded in our annals.’Thus the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus recorded the battle of Adrianople, which spelled the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. Such a crushing Roman defeat by Gothic cavalry proved to the Empire, as well as to the Goths themselves, that the migratory barbarians were a force to be reckoned with.This book tells the story of the misguided Roman plans and the surprise attack of Gothic cavalry, and puts forward the most recent theories as to the true location of the battlefield.

A richly illustrated study of the origins, recruitment, training, and combat of the ashigaru, a vital element of samurai armies.The ashigaru were the foot soldiers of old Japan. Although recruited first to swell an army's numbers and paid only by loot, the samurai began to realise their worth, particularly with arquebuses and spears, until well-trained ashigaru made up a vital part of any samurai army.Drawing on previously untranslated Japanese sources, Stephen Turnbull examines the origins, recruitment, training and use in war of the ashigaru. He surveys the range of ashigaru activity, including their roles as sailors and catapult artillery men as well as the disciplined ranks of warriors that they had become.Illustrated throughout with specially commissioned artwork and previously unpublished illustrations, this book tells the story of the ashigaru for the first time.

The thwarted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada is studied here in fascinating detail, alongside battlescene maps and illustrations throughout.With the help of battle plans and bird's eye views of the action, leading historian Angus Konstam considers many of the intriguing questions surrounding the campaign, concluding with details of how the Armada's disastrous return voyage around Scotland and Ireland became one of the most tragic episodes in maritime history.In a few short days, Philip II's fleet was stopped from invading England and forced into full retreat. In this slim, illustrated volume, Konstam presents this in a new and unique way.

A compact, illustrated account of the first phase of the Yom Kippur, or Ramadan, War.At 1345hrs on 6 October 1973, Israeli spotters in the observation post atop Mount Hermon saw Syrian gunners below them removing the camouflage nets from their guns. Ten minutes later shells began to rain down on Israeli positions all along the Golan Heights – The Yom Kippur War had begun. The shock Syrian attack caught the Israelis by surprise and by the afternoon of 7 October a Syrian brigade was less than 10km from the Sea of Galilee.Simon Dunstan describes in detail how amid desperate and bitter fighting the Israeli forces managed to turn the tide on the Golan Heights.

A richly illustrated examination of the British raid on the port of St Nazaire: one of the most daring actions of World War II.The port lies at the mouth of the River Loire and in 1942, as well as a U-Boat base, contained the massive 'Normandie' dock, the only facility on the Atlantic coast large enough to accommodate the German pocket battleship Tirpitz.This book tells the story of the raid that denied the use of the dock to the Tirpitz, the sister ship of the Bismarck, and constituted a crucial victory for the British Combined Operations in the Battle of the Atlantic.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of the Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings.On their western flank, the Allied landings on D-Day combined a parachute drop by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions with an amphibious assault on “Utah” Beach by the US 4th Infantry Division. The landings came ashore in the wrong place but met weaker German resistance as a result. The heaviest fighting took place inland where the badly scattered paratroopers gradually gathered in small groups and made for their objectives.This book traces the story of D-Day on Utah beach, revealing how the infantry pushed inland and linked up with the Airborne troops in a beachhead five miles deep. Now the battle to break out and seize the key port of Cherbourg could begin.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of the Sword Beach & the British Airborne Landings. At 0016hrs on 6 June 1944 a Horsa glider ground to a halt a mere 60 yards from the Orne Canal bridge at Bénouville in Normandy. A small group of British paratroopers burst from it and stormed the bridge within minutes. The Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe had begun. Within a few hours landing craft would swarm towards Ouistreham as British 3rd Division stormed ashore at Sword Beach.The battle would then begin to break through to relieve the paratroopers. In the third of the D-Day volumes Ken Ford details the assault by British 6th Airborne Division and the British landings on Sword Beach that secured the vital left flank of the invasion.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of the Omaha Beach landings. The D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 were the largest amphibious military operation ever mounted. The greatest armada the world had ever seen was assembled to transport the Allied invasion force across the Channel and open the long-awaited second front against Hitler’s Third Reich. Of the landings on the five assault beaches, Omaha Beach was the only one ever in doubtWithin moments of the first wave landing a third of the assault troops were casualties. Yet by the end of D-Day the Atlantic Wall had been breached and the US Army’s V Corps was firmly entrenched on French soil.

A detailed study of the first major conflict of the Second World War, comparing the German Blitzkrieg offensive to the small but formidable Polish defense.The German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 began World War II in Europe, pitting the newly modernized army of Europe’s great industrial power against the much smaller Polish army and introducing the world to a new style of warfare – Blitzkrieg. Panzer divisions spearheaded the German assault with Stuka dive-bombers prowling ahead spreading terror and mayhem.This book demonstrates how the Polish army was not as backward as it is often portrayed and fielded a tank force larger than that of the contemporary US Army. Its stubborn defence did give the Germans some surprises and German casualties were relatively heavy for such a short campaign.

A highly-illustrated examination of the controversial battle for Peleliu.Equalling Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa in scale and ferocity, Peleliu has long been regarded as the Pacific War’s “forgotten battle”, and perhaps one that should never have been fought. A massive carrier-based attack some weeks before the invasion destroyed all aircraft and shipping in the area and virtually isolated the Japanese garrison. 1st Marine Division commander, General Rupertus, made extravagant claims that the capture of Peleliu would “only take three days – maybe two.” But the Japanese fought a bloody battle of attrition from prepared positions and, in a struggle of unprecedented savagery, a whole Marine Division was bled white.

Revealing what it was like to live and fight in a medium tank, this is an examination of the career of a single tanker from 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division.The focus is largely on the crew of an M4 Sherman, though light tank service is also studied. Tank operation required a well- trained and well-coordinated crew. The crew positions and roles of tank commander, gunner, driver, loader, and assistant driver are all covered in detail, together with recruitment procedure, specialist training, and the variety of specialized clothing and personal weaponry.

The Battle of the Bulge was the largest and most costly battle fought by the US Army in World War II.The Ardennes fighting was Hitler’s last gamble on the Western Front, crippling the Wehrmacht for the remainder of the war. In the first of two volumes on the Ardennes campaign Steven Zaloga details the fighting in the northern sector around St Vith and the Elsenborn Ridge. The Sixth Panzer Army, containing the bulk of German Panzer strength, was expected to achieve the breakthrough here.It was the failure around St Vith that forced the Germans to look south towards Bastogne.

An illustrated account of the battle for Cassino: probably the most bitter struggle of the entire Italian campaign.The dominating peak of Montecassino crowned by its magnificent but doomed medieval monastery was the key to the entire Gustav Line, a formidable system of defences that stretched right across the Italian peninsula. This position completely dominated the Liri valley and Route 6, the strategically vital road to Rome. Between January and May 1944 the Allies struggled amid inhospitable terrain and dreadful weather to dislodge the German paratroops that tenaciously defended the vital mountaintop.Featuring in-depth explanation alongside illustrations and full-colour maps, Ken Ford’s book details the dramatic events of the battle to break the Gustav Line.

A compact, illustrated examination of the Dieppe raid of August 1942: one of the most controversial actions of World War II.Operation ‘Jubilee’ was a frontal assault on a fortified port landing the latest equipment and armour directly on to the beach. The main force would destroy the port facilities while other smaller landings dealt with anti-aircraft and coastal batteries. The raid itself turned into a fiasco. The assault force was pinned down on the beach and three quarters of the 5,000 troops landed were lost.Featuring archive photography and full-colour maps, this book analyses the disastrous raid and examines contrasting conclusions drawn by the Allies and the Germans.

The battle around Falaise in Normandy during August 1944 saw the destruction of the German Seventh army. This book details the chain of events which led to the German retreat and the ensuing liberation of France.The British and American breakout battles had released motorised units to wage a more mobile war against the German static defensive tactics. At Falaise, the armoured units of US Third Army encircled the German Seventh Army, squeezed them into an ever-smaller cauldron of chaos and crushed them against the advancing British Second Army.The results were devastating: those troops able to escape the disaster fled, those who remained were killed or captured and vast quantities of armour and equipment were lost.

This book focuses on Field Marshal von Rundstedt and Army Group South, tasked with the capture of the Ukraine and Crimea. Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s surprise assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941, aimed at nothing less than the complete destruction of Communist Russia.Von Rundstedt’s 46 divisions and single Panzer Group faced fierce resistance from the best equipped, trained and commanded units in the Red Army, but ultimately succeeded in destroying the Soviet 6th and 12th Armies at Uman before inflicting a further 600,000 casualties at Kiev.Here, von Rundstedt’s five-month advance to Rostov is examined in detail.

A compact, illustrated account of the Japanese army's final stand in Burma.In the spring of 1944, Japanese 15th Army was shattered at Imphal and Kohima, allowing General William Slim, commander of 14th Army, to liberate Burma overland from India – a task considered impossible by the British chiefs of staff.Overcoming immense logistical problems, Slim coordinated a precisely timed attack along a 200-mile front, the longest opposed river crossing of the entire war, and an armored dash behind enemy lines that seized Meiktila, cutting Japanese supply lines. Mandalay fell and at the end of March 1945, with the battle lost, the Japanese withdrew south.Slim gave them no chance; Allied troops raced south and captured Rangoon. The Japanese army in Burma was finished.

The ferocity of the Pacific war almost defied the available military technology.In this environment the evolving use of tanks by the US Marine Corps played a significant role; at the end of the Battle of Okinawa, Major General Lemuel Shepherd wrote in his report that 'if any one supporting arm can be singled out as having contributed more than any others during the progress of the campaign, the tank would certainly be selected.'This book traces the history of the US Marine Corps tank crewman, including the significant changes in doctrine, equipment, and organization that the war brought, and his experience fighting in the Pacific theater.

By 1960, following Korea, tanks and their crews had proved themselves to be a fundamental part of the Marine Corps' combined arms team.When the Marines were ordered to Vietnam in 1965, they took their tanks with them. This book explores this decision, which created a political storm. The presence of the tanks became a lightning rod for accusations of an 'escalation' of the war. Nevertheless, the tanks not only proved their value in the anti-guerrilla campaigns, but also amid the bitter conventional fighting and extraordinary casualties at Hue City.The ability to undertake such radical change and to prevail demonstrated the versatility, courage and tenacity that are the hallmarks of the 'ordinary' Marine.

An in-depth examination of the United States' invasion of two Pacific islands, featuring a variety of illustrations throughout.The 1944 invasion of Saipan was the first two-division amphibious assault conducted by US forces in World War II. Saipan and Tinian had been under Japanese control since 1914 and, heavily colonized, they were considered virtually part of the Empire.The struggle for Saipan and Tinian was characterized by the same bitter fighting that typified the entire Central Pacific campaign. Fighting side-by-side, Army and Marine units witnessed the largest tank battle of the Pacific War, massed Japanese banzai charges, and the horror of hundreds of Japanese civilians committing suicide to avoid capture.In this book, Gordon Rottman details the capture of these vital islands that led to the collapse of Prime Minister Tojo’s government.

The Ardennes offensive in December 1944, known to history as the 'Battle of the Bulge', was the decisive campaign of the war in North-West Europe.When the attack in the north by 6th Panzer Army failed, Hitler switched the focus of the offensive to General Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army farther south. Overwhelming the green US 106th Division, German Panzers flooded towards the River Meuse.Barring their way was the crossroads town of Bastogne, reinforced at the last minute by the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne, the ‘Screaming Eagles'. The stage was set for one of the epic struggles of the war – the battle for Bastogne.