Special Forces History

Based on their experiences during the First World War, the Reichswehr decided that the infantry support gun of the future should be an armored, motorized vehicle: the Sturmgeschütz III. The weapon was used in the 'fire brigade role' at hotspots along the Front, where it was much feared by enemy forces. This book tells the tale of Brigade 191, aka the 'Buffalo Brigade', who used the Sturmgeschütz III as they took part in Operation Barbarossa in the Ukraine, saw action during the fight for Greece and were deployed to the areas of heaviest fighting in the campaign against the Soviet Union.

In 1984, Michael Vickers took charge of the CIA’s secret war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After inheriting a strategy aimed at imposing costs on the Soviets for their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Vickers transformed the covert campaign into an all-out effort to help the Afghan resistance win their war. More than any other American, he was responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan that led to the end of the Cold War. In By All Means Available, Vickers recounts his remarkable career.

In April of 1972, near the end of the Vietnam War, SEAL Lieutenant Tom Norris performed an unprecedented ground rescue of two American airmen who were shot down behind enemy lines in North Vietnam, a feat for which he would be awarded the Medal of Honor. Just six months later, Norris was sent on a dangerous special reconnaissance mission that would take his team deep into enemy territory. In the running gun battle that ensued, Lieutenant Norris was severely wounded; a bullet entered his left eye and exited the left side of his head.

In fall 1965, North Vietnam's high command smelled blood in the water. The South Vietnamese republic was on the verge of collapse, and Hanoi resolved to crush it once and for all. The communists set their sights on South Vietnam's strategically vital West-Central Highlands. Their first target was the American Special Forces camp at Plei Me, remote and isolated along the Cambodian border.

What if after decades there was still one more untold incredible Viet Nam war saga peppered with tightly-written notes from then young, not yet 20, and highly decorated leader of a small group of underground and Special Force combatants who searched and destroyed over 900 tunnels?

Yevgeni Nikolaev was one of Russia's leading snipers in World War II, and his memoir provides an unparalleled account of front-line action in crucial theaters of war. Nikolaev is credited with a remarkable 324 kills, and his wartime service included time in the siege of Leningrad in 1941/1942. His memoir is not a neutral, apolitical account. As a member of the NKVD, it is not surprising that his memoir is full of historical misinterpretation and justification of the agency's actions.

The Marine Special Operations Command ("MARSOC") is the newest component of the military's shift toward a fully integrated Special Operations Command structure. At first, the Marines were strongly against any Marines serving under anyone other than another Marine. Then 9/11 happened. In the years following, Marine forces found themselves growing more agreeable to inter-branch operational command, finally forming the Marine Special Operations Command in 2006.

At the beginning of 1941, it was unclear whether the Allies would be able to remain in the war for much longer. The potential of a German invasion of Britain loomed. The Battle of Britain, fought throughout the summer and early autumn of 1940, was unquestionably epic in scope. The largest air campaign in history at the time, the vaunted Nazi Luftwaffe sought to smash the Royal Air Force, but thankfully, the RAF stood toe to toe with the Luftwaffe and ensured Hitler’s planned invasion was permanently put on hold.

In America's new war, the first guns in the fight are special operations forces, including the Navy SEALs, specially trained warriors who operate with precision, swiftness, and lethal force. In the constantly shifting war on terror, SEAL units - small in number, flexible, stealthy, and efficient - are more vital than ever to America's security as they take the battle to an elusive enemy around the globe. This is essential listening for anyone who wants to know what goes into the making of America's best warriors.

It was the deadliest terror campaign ever mounted against a nation in modern times: the al-Aqsa, or Second, Intifada. This is the untold story of how Israel fought back with an elite force of undercover operatives drawn from the nation's diverse backgrounds and ethnicities - and united in their ability to walk among the enemy as no one else dared.

Into Enemy Waters is the story of World War II's most elite and daring unit of warriors, the direct precursors to the Navy SEALs, told through the eyes of its last living member, ninety-five-year-old George Morgan. Morgan was just a wiry, seventeen-year-old lifeguard from New Jersey when he joined the Navy's new combat demolition unit, tasked to blow up enemy coastal defenses ahead of landings by allied forces. His first assignment: Omaha Beach on D-Day. When he returned stateside, Morgan learned that his service was only beginning.

For three decades one of the most secretive units in the British military has been a mystery force known as X Platoon. Officially there was no X Platoon. The forty men in its elite number were specially selected from across the Armed Forces, at which point they simply ceased to exist. X Platoon had no budget, no weaponry, no vehicles and no kit - apart from what its men could beg, borrow or steal from other military units. For the first time a highly decorated veteran of this specialised force - otherwise known as the Pathfinders - reveals its unique story.

In the summer of 1942, an extraordinary group of men - among them a dentist, a medical student, a Hollywood star, an archaeologist, a British commando, and even former enemies of the Allies - formed an exceptional unit that would later become the US Navy's Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams.

Written with the unprecedented cooperation of the Naval Special Warfare community, here is the definitive history of the U.S. Navy SEALs, a thrilling chronicle that reveals the inside story behind the greatest combat operations of our nation’s most celebrated warriors.

Airlifted into the heart of the Sierra Leone jungle in the midst of the bloody civil war in 2000, 26 elite operators from the secret British elite unit X Platoon were sent into combat against thousands of Sierra Leonean rebels. Notorious for their brutality, the rebels were manned with captured UN armour, machine-guns and grenade-launchers, while the men of X Platoon were kitted with pitiful supplies of ammunition, malfunctioning rifles, and no body armour, grenades or heavy weapons. Intended to last only 48 hours, the mission mutated into a 16-day siege against the rebels.

In Level Zero Heroes, Michael Golembesky follows the members of U.S. Marine Special Operations Team 8222 on their assignment to the remote and isolated Taliban stronghold known as Bala Murghab as they conduct special operations in an effort to break the Taliban's grip on the Valley. What started out as a routine mission changed when two 82nd Airborne Paratroopers tragically drowned in the Bala Murghab River while trying to retrieve vital supplies from an air drop that had gone terribly wrong.

Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of America’s two-decade-long Afghan war.

Don Brown, a former US Navy JAG officer stationed at the Pentagon and a former special assistant United States attorney, re-creates the wartime action, tells the life stories of the elite warriors our nation lost on that day and tears apart the official military explanation of the incident contained in the infamous Colt Report, which reveals either gross incompetence or a massive cover-up.

Spud Ely's SAS career has taken him into some of the most deadly, high-octane, violent battles ever. From the Falklands to the Persian Gulf, he has been in the very centre of the most ferocious fighting scenes modern history has witnessed. Armed to the hilt with the most up-to-date, hi-tech military machinery and his highly-toned fighting skills, Steve is truly a force to be reckoned with. Fighting for Queen and Country is the unputdownable account of his most bloody, violent, heroic moments.

In crisp prose and sharp detail, Darling offers a moment-by-moment account of a one-day mission to track down and kill Taliban insurgents in the Zabul Province of southeastern Afghanistan. A rare day-in-the-life narrative that captures the mundane realities of deployment - the waiting, the heat, the heavy gear, the 0345 wake-up - along with the high-octane experience of crossing foreign terrain where every turn, every decision might have life or death consequences.