Military Disasters

The year was 1922: World War I had just come to a close, the Ottoman Empire was in decline, and Asa Jennings, a YMCA worker from upstate New York, had just arrived in the quiet coastal city of Smyrna to teach sports to boys. Several hundred miles to the east in Turkey's interior, tensions between Greeks and Turks had boiled over into deadly violence. Mustapha Kemal, now known as Ataturk, and his Muslim army soon advanced into Smyrna, a Christian city, where a half a million terrified Greek and Armenian refugees had fled in a desperate attempt to escape his troops.

Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set out in a convoy of 19 ships sailing for Canada. On board were 90 CORB children, chaperones, and crew, along with paying passengers. When the war ships escorting the Benares to safe waters peeled off, a German submarine attacked and torpedoed the Benares.

Former US Navy Top Gun Kevin Sullivan, captain of the ill-fated Perth-bound QF72, breaks his silence to give a gripping account of how a rogue computer went 'psycho', causing the Airbus A330 he was piloting to pitch down, nose first, towards the Indian Ocean—twice. Unlike other well-publicised near air disasters, the plane carrying 315 passengers and crew was out of control, a g-force of –8 propelling anyone and anything untethered through the cabin roof. It took the extraordinary skill and presence of mind of the veteran Top Gun to wrestle back control of the plane.

What do elite members of the military, first responders in the disaster zone, and high-performing leaders in fast-paced, high-pressure, modern day organizations have in common? The ability to have clarity of mind and purpose when surrounded by chaos. To operate at peak performance under risk. To be able to see clearly when others are blinded by fear, and act when others are paralyzed. To craft plans even with incomplete information, then execute those plans decisively...

Sailing across the Pacific, the battle-scarred heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis had just delivered a secret cargo that would trigger the end of World War II. Heading westward, she was sunk by a Japanese submarine. In 12 minutes, some 300 men went down with her. More than 900 other spent four horrific days and five nights in the ocean with no water to drink, savaged by a pitiless sun and swarms of sharks. Incredibly, no one knew they were there until a navy patrol plane accidentally discovered them. In the end, only 316 crewmen survived. How could this have happened - and why?

An astonishing civil rights story from Newbery Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin. On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution.

With 2018 marking the 100th anniversary of the worst disease outbreak in modern history, the story of the Spanish flu is more relevant today than ever. This dramatic narrative, told through the stories and voices of the people caught in the deadly maelstrom, explores how this vast, global epidemic was intertwined with the horrors of World War I - and how it could happen again. Complete with modern research and firsthand reports by medical professionals and survivors, this audiobook provides captivating insight into a catastrophe that transformed America in the early 20th century.

Following the Weavers Enclave Grand Exchange, Feng Yu and his party had decided to venture to the mysterious and renowned Five Element Mirage Zone in hopes of quickly improving their strength to the next level. Of course, their fame from their endeavors had garnered the interest of a few powerful forces and rogue assassin groups, each moving with their own intentions. With their overwhelming power, you would think their quest to be a simple one, but little did they know, the secret of the special zone would lead to an unexpected change and the start of a disaster.

Martin and Annelise Anderson drew upon their access to more than eight million classified documents housed within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. What emerges from this treasure trove of material is evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered eliminating nuclear weapons his paramount objective, and that he was the principal architect of the policies that brought the Soviets to the nuclear-arms negotiating table.

The gripping story of a chemical weapons catastrophe, the cover-up, and how one American Army doctor’s discovery led to the development of the first drug to combat cancer, known today as chemotherapy.

The British Navy's disastrous attempt to pass through the Dardanelles to Constantinople was a turning point in the history of World War I. Acclaimed naval military expert Dan van der Vat argues that the disaster at the Dardanelles prolonged the war by two years, led to the Russian Revolution, forced Britain to the brink of starvation, and contributed to the destabilization of the Middle East.

Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details of Clausen's investigation and is a damning account of massive intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful day.

In World War II, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were killed across the world, whether in Japanese jungles, North African deserts, or European beaches. Given that backdrop and the sheer magnitude of the war, people understandably became desensitized to incidents and tragedies that cost hundreds of lives. This was undoubtedly the case with the notorious Port Chicago disaster, a munitions explosion in July 1944 that killed over 300 people and injured over 300 more, many of them navy sailors.

A riveting account of the greatest small-boat rescue in American history.

In this hilarious and helpful handbook, best-selling author Ian Kerner introduces us to the DSI team, a top-secret unit within the FBI (that's the Federal Bureau of Intimacy) whose sole mission is to investigate dating dilemmas and equip you with the skills you need so you're never again a dating victim.

In Charlie Mike, Joe Klein tells the dramatic story of Eric Greitens and Jake Wood, larger-than-life war heroes who come home and use their military discipline and values to help others. This is a story that hasn't been told before, one of the most hopeful to emerge from Iraq and Afghanistan - a saga of lives saved, not wasted.

A comienzos del siglo III a. de C., el Mediterráneo era testigo de la existencia de dos extraordinarias potencias: Cartago y Roma. Tras la espectacular expansión del segundo y su victoria en la primera guerra púnica, surgió la definitiva rivalidad entre ambos, la cual estalló militarmente otra vez en el 218 a. de C, cuando una de las figuras militares más importantes de todos los tiempos, el gran Aníbal, cruza los Alpes y ataca a Roma desde su propio territorio.

His mission was top secret: deliver mysterious components of some superweapon that would end this awful war to the island of Tinian, then return to the fleet to prepare for the invasion of Japan. Little did Captain Charles McVay III know that he would survive his ship's sinking, shark attacks, starvation, and five days adrift in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued. Discover this untold story of Captain McVay and his amazing men of courage: the crew of the USS Indianapolis.

It begins as a school trip to London. But with a sudden tidal surge and a dramatic thunderstorm that hurls rainwater down on the capital, it suddenly becomes something totally different: the site of a major disaster as the Thames Barrier is breached and London is flooded. With streets underwater, communications down, rats pouring up out of the sewers, and thousands of people in a state of panic, survival becomes a very key issue for Ben and his mates.

In the best-selling tradition of Indianapolis and In Harm’s Way comes a “captivating...gripping” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) account of the USS Plunkett - a US Navy destroyer that sustained the most harrowing attack on any Navy ship by the Germans during World War II, later made famous by John Ford and Herman Wouk.