Military History Africa

Using first-hand accounts from pilots and other aircrew, Tom Cleaver describes how the USAAF units that landed in Morocco were forced to learn their own lessons in combat with veteran Luftwaffe units, and how the experience gained in the skies over North Africa and Sicily was invaluable in developing the air forces that would dominate the skies over Europe in the latter years of the war.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with each other not just in the bloody trenches - but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history.

Col. Mike Hoare tells how his force of mercenaries, 5 Commando, put down a Comunist-backed rebel uprising in the Congo. As they restored law and order, town by town, he and his men freed 1800 nuns and priests. His men also learned what it means to be real soldiers.

For fans of Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Kagan, and Barry Strauss comes a rich, sweeping account of the most imitated---and vicious---battle in history.

In October 1941, the British Admiralty based a surface strike force in Malta to attack Axis sea lanes between Italy and Africa. Aided by Ultra intelligence, submarines, and bombers based in Malta, this force dominated the Central Mediterranean. From the end of October through the middle of December 1941, less than a third of the supplies shipped from Italian ports arrived in Libya. Shortages of ammunition and fuel finally compelled the Afrika Korps to retreat 400 miles. Then, in the space of 30 hours, this all changed.

On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of Arab and German terrorists who demanded the release of 53 terrorists. The plane was forced to divert to Entebbe in Uganda - ruled by the murderous despot Idi Amin, who had no interest in intervening. Days later, Israeli commandos disguised as Ugandan soldiers assaulted the airport terminal, killed all the terrorists, and rescued all the hostages but three who were killed in the crossfire. The assault force suffered just one fatality.

In November 1942, as a part of Operation Torch, 33,000 American soldiers sailed undetected across the Atlantic and stormed the beaches of French Morocco. Seventy-four hours later, the Americans controlled the country and one of the most valuable wartime ports: Casablanca. In the years preceding, Casablanca had evolved from an exotic travel destination to a key military target after France's surrender to Germany. Jewish refugees from Europe poured in, hoping to obtain visas and passage to the United States and beyond.

Robert Forczyk covers the development of armored warfare in North Africa from the earliest Anglo-Italian engagements in 1940 to the British victory over the German Afrikakorps in Operation Crusader in 1941. The war in the North African desert was pure mechanized warfare, and in many respects the most technologically advanced theatre of World War II. It was also the only theatre where for three years British and Commonwealth, and later United States, troops were in constant contact with Axis forces.

These are the combat experiences of the first Marine to command a special operations task force, recounted against a backdrop of his journey from raw Second Lieutenant to seasoned Colonel and Task Force Commander; from leading Marines through the streets of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul to directing multi-national special operations forces in a dauntingly complex fight against a formidable foe.

The struggle for North Africa was unlike any other campaign of World War II. The desert proved a real test of generalship, pitting Germany's Erwin Rommel against Britain's Bernard Montgomery and America's George Patton. Here, from award-winning military historian Stephen W. Sears, is the dramatic story of the generals, politicians, and soldiers who changed the course of the war.

In 1993 Lieutenant James Lechner, a member of the 3rd Ranger Battalion, was selected for a top secret special operations task force being sent to Mogadishu, Somalia, to capture the insurgent leader Mohamed Farah Aideed. In early October, after weeks on the ground and conducting a number of raids in the city, the Task Force is called upon to conduct a daylight mission into the heart of Aideed’s territory. During the raid, following the initial dangerous fast rope insertion and subsequent capture of a group of Aideed’s lieutenants, one of the Task Force Black Hawk helicopters is shot down.

Once a Hussar is a vivid account of the wartime experiences of Ray Ellis, a gunner who in later life recorded this well-written, candid, and perceptive memoir of the conflict he knew as a young man seventy years ago. His story is an honest and moving memoir that relays graphic eyewitness accounts of the horrors of warfare, but it also reveals the surprising triumphs of the human spirit in times of great hardship. Ellis's self-deprecating humor skillfully counters the harsh realities related in a personal recollection of a war that claimed so many young lives.

Go with Mike on foot accros Basutoland; by motorbike from Cape Town to Cairo; to sea in a 36-foot ketch; into the Kalahari desert - and more. In the final chapter he describes how he and his wife move to an Edenic island in the Okovanga delta, and the terrible and wonderful events that took place there.

The Mahdist War took place at the end of the 19th century between Sudanese rebels and their Egyptian colonizers. A religious leader claiming to be the Islamic Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, raised an army and led a movement to guide not only Sudanese Muslims, but Muslims worldwide. He and the Mahdists envisioned a future in which they would live by the teachings of the Qur’an. However, larger global forces, especially those of global imperialism, would stand in their way. From the Mahdist grassroots movement to independence to reconquest, this is the story of the Mahdist War.

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America faced a crisis. The new nation was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly, but its merchant ships were under attack. Pirates from North Africa's Barbary coast routinely captured American sailors and held them as slaves, demanding ransom and tribute payments far beyond what the new country could afford.

L'entrée, en 2015, de Germaine Tillion au Panthéon a consacré un itinéraire remarquable. Après avoir mené des recherches ethnologiques dans l'Aurès, Germaine Tillion s'engage dès 1940 dans la Résistance ; elle est arrêtée, sur dénonciation, en 1942, est emprisonnée puis déportée à Ravensbrück où elle vit et voit l'horreur pendant 18 mois.

¡Descubra la fascinante historia de las primeras guerras estadounidenses en África! A través de este libro conocerá las guerras berberiscas de 1801 a 1805 y de 1815, las primeras guerras estadounidenses fuera de Norteamérica. Los enemigos eran los piratas berberiscos musulmanes de la costa norteafricana. Descubra cómo los marineros estadounidenses fueron capturados y convertidos en esclavos en Marruecos, Argel, Túnez y Trípoli. ¿Por qué ocurrió esto?

It was the war that changed everything, and yet it's been mostly forgotten: in 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. It dominated newspaper headlines and newsreels. It inspired mass marches in Harlem, a play on Broadway, and independence movements in Africa. As the British Navy sailed into the Mediterranean for a white-knuckle showdown with Italian ships, riots broke out in major cities all over the United States.

At a time when the world waits anxiously to see what will happen next in Zimbabwe - when there is little food in the country's shops, life expectancy is plunging and Zimbabweans are fleeing repression and unemployment - this book gets to grips with the man at the helm of a corrupt regime; the man behind the monster. Holland's tireless investigation begins with her having dinner with Mugabe the freedom fighter and ends in a searching interview with Zimbabwe's president in December 2007, more than 30 years later.

The Shinkolobwe Mine in the Belgian Congo was described by a 1943 Manhattan Project intelligence report as the "most important deposit of uranium yet discovered in the world". So long as the United States remained in control of this mine and its supply, it had a world monopoly on the primary material needed to build an atomic bomb. The uranium from this mine was used to build the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.