A Sappers' War

Author: Jimmy Thomson
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1743310552
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
We make and we break. They were the forward scouts, the mine clearers, the bridge builders, and the tunnel rats. They were frequently not just on the front line, but right at the sharp end of the action. They were the legendary Aussie Sappers, the army engineers, who were literally everywhere in the fighting against the Vietcong. This special breed of soldier lived hard and played hard. They were there at the beginning of the war; they were also among the last to leave. And along the way, they fought with their mates in the infantry and in the tanks to bear the brunt of the Vietcong's revenge. To the rest of the world, Vietnam was a conflict of ideologies. On the ground it was a battle of wits and the sappers were at the forefront. This is their story.

Sappers in the Wire

Author: Keith W. Nolan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780671002541
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
An account of the costly 1971 surprise attack on Firebase Mary Ann draws on declassified documents and interviews with more than fifty veterans of the 1st Battalion of the 46th Infantry. Reprint.

A Sapper's War

Author: Jimmy Thomson
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1743319622
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
'We make and we break.' They were the forward scouts, the mine clearers, the bridge builders and the tunnel rats. They were frequently not just on the front line, but right at the sharp end of the action. They were the legendary Aussie sappers, the army engineers, who were literally everywhere in the fighting against the Vietcong. This special breed of soldier lived hard and played hard. They were there at the beginning of the war. They were also among the last to leave. And on the way, they fought alongside their mates in infantry and tanks and bore the brunt of the Vietcong's revenge. To the rest of the world, Vietnam was a conflict of ideologies. On the ground it was a battle of wits and the sappers were at the forefront. This is their story.

Subterranean Sappers

Author: Iain McHenry
Publisher: Uniform
ISBN: 9781910500101
Category : World War, 1914-1918
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The first history of a military tunnelling company published since the 1920's, Subterranean Sappers is a comprehensive survey of the 177 Tunnelling Company and the crucial role that they played during World War I. It details the entire history of the Company, from its formation on the Western Front in 1915 to the reasons for its eventual disbandment after the war. There is also a close study of the men of all ranks who made up the Company, including where they were from and what specific roles they played in tunnelling operations. Iain McHenry focuses heavily on the daily struggle the Company faced underground, due to the ever-present mine threat from the Germans, and details the tunnel systems and dugouts they constructed, with accompanying color plans. He also includes tense first-hand accounts of hand-to-hand altercations with German soldiers that occurred underground. Most important, Subterranean Sappers explains the vital role of tunneling companies in the greater scheme of the war and offers fascinating details on an understudied military tactic, which will be of interest to war historians and tourists alike.

Sapper Dorothy

Author: Dorothy Lawrence
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780857061362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Book Description
The adventures of an intrepid young woman on the Western Front It would not be quite accurate to portray Dorothy Lawrence as a bona fide soldier of the British Army. Dorothy was in fact a young woman with great aspirations to embark upon a career in journalism and she knew it would be a coup to give a female perspective of the activities of men on the front line-as it were-from within their own ranks. So she devised a scheme to bring her objectives about and its success was marked by a 10 day stint in the line at Albert in 1915 with the Royal Engineers during the opening stages of the battle of Loos. Dorothy certainly saw action-the trench she occupied lay less than 400 yards from the German front line. She was eventually discovered and the entire story of how she pulled off her subterfuge, her time in the trenches and what befell her thereafter is told in this delightful account. This is a notable account of the Great War from a woman's viewpoint. Available in soft back or hard cover with dust jacket.

Clearing the Way

Author: Mark Gasparotto
Publisher: Ardith Publishing
ISBN: 9781926582597
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
Clearing the Way: Combat Engineers in Kandahar is the story of the men and women of 23 Field Squadron, who served with the 1st Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group in Kandahar in 2006. Through the eyes of thirteen Squadron members, relive the early days of the war in Kandahar and the coming of age of a group of soldiers recorded in graphic detail. The reader experiences the large scale battles with Taliban fighters during Operation Medusa, the building of Route Summit and the construction of key Forward Operating Bases. Accompany them as they fight off insurgent attacks along 'Ambush Alley', dodge mortar fire and dispose of the many Improvised Explosive Devices that litter the landscape. These stories expose the raw bedlam, ironic moments and absurdities of war at the soldier-level. It is replete with little nuggets of wisdom and soldier-philosophy that will bring a wry and knowing grin to the face of those who have experienced combat. Clearing the Way highlights the ingenuity of our soldiers and in particular our combat engineers, regardless of the seemingly impossible demands made of them.

Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War

Author: Raghu Karnad
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393248100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
“I have not lately read a finer book than this—on any subject at all. . . . A masterpiece.” —Simon Winchester, New Statesman The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother’s house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. The years 1939–45 might be the most revered, deplored, and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family—a story of love, rebellion, loyalty, and uncertainty—and with it, the greater revelation that is India’s Second World War. Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma—unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.

Engineers of Independence

Author: Paul K. Walker
Publisher: The Minerva Group, Inc.
ISBN: 9781410201737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Book Description
This collection of documents, including many previously unpublished, details the role of the Army engineers in the American Revolution. Lacking trained military engineers, the Americans relied heavily on foreign officers, mostly from France, for sorely needed technical assistance. Native Americans joined the foreign engineer officers to plan and carry out offensive and defensive operations, direct the erection of fortifications, map vital terrain, and lay out encampments. During the war Congress created the Corps of Engineers with three companies of engineer troops as well as a separate geographer's department to assist the engineers with mapping. Both General George Washington and Major General Louis Lebéque Duportail, his third and longest serving Chief Engineer, recognized the disadvantages of relying on foreign powers to fill the Army's crucial need for engineers. America, they contended, must train its own engineers for the future. Accordingly, at the war's end, they suggested maintaining a peacetime engineering establishment and creating a military academy. However, Congress rejected the proposals, and the Corps of Engineers and its companies of sappers and miners mustered out of service. Eleven years passed before Congress authorized a new establishment, the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers.

Fourth Arm of Defense

Author: Salvatore R. Mercogliano
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780945274964
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 88

Book Description
This publication is the eighth in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. The publication focuses on the sealift and logistic operations during the war and includes a number of photographs as well as sidebars detailing specific people and ships involved in the logistic operations. This historical pictorial reference would be of interest to students, historians, members of the military, specifically the Navy, and military leaders, veterans, Vietnam War veterans, and the U.S. merchant marines.

Soldiers

Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
Each type of soldier is described and the origin of their specializations outlined.