Hastings Ismay's Books

The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

By: General Lord Hastings Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PC

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The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

By: General Lord Hastings Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PC

“This memoir is a masterly narrative by a participant at the very centre of British decision-making during the entire Second World War. Major General ‘Pug’ Ismay was appointed secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence in July 1938 and from there became, in May 1940, Churchill’s senior military assistant and an additional member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Officially, his role was the leadership of the office of the minister of defence. Churchill was by then both prime minister and minister of defence and continued in these twin roles throughout the war. Ismay saw himself as Churchill’s ‘agent’ and was once flippantly described as his ‘Eminence Khaki’. Ismay was in a unique position to observe Churchill, who became a close confidante. Ismay has been praised by several highly-placed sources for his achievements in diplomacy and man-management during his Army service. His tact and charm kept the potential friction between the chiefs-of-staff and their political masters entirely controlled. His ability to ride the sometimes wild swings in Churchill’s temperament, yet still bring to committees the correct interpretation and thrust of Churchill’s views, was highly valued. This book is a masterpiece of prose. It is a remarkable product of its time and is in no way self-indulgent. It lacks military jargon and acronyms. It is full of interesting and humorous anecdotes and provides an excellent account of many aspects of Churchill’s non-public persona. It contains a single monotone plate of the author as well as three organisational diagrams and four maps. Not only military historians, but anyone with an interest in British history from the 1920s to the 1950s, would be greatly satisfied with it.”—Bruce Short RUSI Journal

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744

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Pickle Partners Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1782893725

ISBN 13

9781782893721

Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

The Original Story of 'Operation Mincemeat' - Both Fact and Fiction - by the Men Who Were There

By: Hastings Ismay,John Julius Norwich

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Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

The Original Story of 'Operation Mincemeat' - Both Fact and Fiction - by the Men Who Were There

By: Hastings Ismay,John Julius Norwich

In the early hours of 30 April 1943, a corpse, wearing the uniform of an officer in the Royal Marines, was slipped into the waters off the south-west coast of Spain. With it was a briefcase, in which were papers detailing an imminent Allied invasion of Greece. As the British had anticipated, the supposedly neutral government of Fascist Spain turned the papers over to the Nazi High Command, who swallowed the story whole. It was perhaps the most decisive bluff of all time, for the Allies had no such plan: the purpose of ‘Operation Mincemeat’ was to blind the German High Command to their true objective – an attack on Southern Europe through Sicily. Though officially shrouded in secrecy, the operation soon became legendary (in part owing to Churchill’s post-war habit of telling the story at dinner). It gave rise to two very different books. In 1950 came Duff Cooper’s poignant novel Operation Heartbreak, a romantic tale, one which the government – right up to PM Clement Attlee – attempted to suppress. Its publication prompted the intelligence services to pressurize the operation’s mastermind, Ewen Montagu, into writing a factual account, The Man Who Never Was. Spellmount are proud to present these two accounts, fictional and factual, of one of the greatest intelligence operations ever undertaken, with an introduction by Duff Cooper’s son, John Julius Norwich.

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Page Count

209

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0752476327

ISBN 13

9780752476322

Winston's War

By: Max Hastings

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Winston's War

By: Max Hastings

A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never before. Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing in the face of what looked like certain defeat. Later, we see his significance ebb as the United States enters the war and the Soviets turn the tide on the Eastern Front. But Churchill, Hastings reminds us, knew as well as anyone that the war would be dominated by others, and he managed his relationships with the other Allied leaders strategically, so as to maintain Britain’s influence and limit Stalin’s gains. At the same time, Churchill faced political peril at home, a situation for which he himself was largely to blame. Hastings shows how Churchill nearly squandered the miraculous escape of the British troops at Dunkirk and failed to address fundamental flaws in the British Army. His tactical inaptitude and departmental meddling won him few friends in the military, and by 1942, many were calling for him to cede operational control. Nevertheless, Churchill managed to exude a public confidence that brought the nation through the bitter war. Hastings rejects the traditional Churchill hagiography while still managing to capture what he calls Churchill’s “appetite for the fray.” Certain to be a classic, Winston’s War is a riveting profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.

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Page Count

609

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307593126

ISBN 13

9780307593122

Armageddon

The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945

By: Max Hastings

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Armageddon

The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945

By: Max Hastings

This is epic story of the last eight months of World War II in Europe by one of Britain’s most highly regarded military historians, whose accounts of past battles John Keegan has described as worthy “to stand with that of the best journalists and writers” (New York Times Book Review). In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler’s army was beaten, and expected that the war would be over by Christmas. But the disastrous Allied airborne landing in Holland, American setbacks on the German border and in the Hürtgen Forest, together with the bitter Battle of the Bulge, drastically altered that timetable. Hastings tells the story of both the Eastern and Western Fronts, and paints a vivid portrait of the Red Army’s onslaught on Hitler’s empire. He has searched the archives of the major combatants and interviewed 170 survivors to give us an unprecedented understanding of how the great battles were fought, and of their human impact on American, British, German, and Russian soldiers and civilians. Hastings raises provocative questions: Were the Western Allied cause and campaign compromised by a desire to get the Soviets to do most of the fighting? Why were the Russians and Germans more effective soldiers than the Americans and British? Why did the bombing of Germany’s cities continue until the last weeks of the war, when it could no longer influence the outcome? Why did the Germans prove more fanatical foes than the Japanese, fighting to the bitter end? This book also contains vivid portraits of Stalin, Churchill, Eisenhower, Montgomery, and the other giants of the struggle. The crucial final months of the twentieth century’s greatest global conflict come alive in this rousing and revelatory chronicle.

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Page Count

674

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0375714227

ISBN 13

9780375714221

Aunt Charlotte's Stories of American history

By: Charlotte Mary Yonge,H. Hastings Weld

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Aunt Charlotte's Stories of American history

By: Charlotte Mary Yonge,H. Hastings Weld

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

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Page Count

418

Publisher

BoD – Books on Demand

Published Date

ISBN 10

3385300231

ISBN 13

9783385300231

The Secret War

Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945

By: Max Hastings

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The Secret War

Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945

By: Max Hastings

Monumental." --New York Times Book Review NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II—intelligence—showing how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome. Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.

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Page Count

447

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0062259296

ISBN 13

9780062259295

The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

By: General Lord Hastings Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PC

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The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

By: General Lord Hastings Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PC

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Page Count

744

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Pickle Partners Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1782893725

ISBN 13

9781782893721

Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

The Original Story of 'Operation Mincemeat' - Both Fact and Fiction - by the Men Who Were There

By: Duff Cooper,Ewen Montagu

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Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

The Original Story of 'Operation Mincemeat' - Both Fact and Fiction - by the Men Who Were There

By: Duff Cooper,Ewen Montagu

The greatest deception of the Second World War – and possibly in the whole of military history – took place in April 1943 when a body was found floating in the sea off the Spanish coast. The documents found on him would eventually find their way to Hitler's desk and send German troops hurtling in the wrong direction. The dead man convinced the Axis powers that the Allies were about to attack Greece and not the real target, Sicily. The course of the war was changed. In this volume is a story within the original extraordinary story. Duff Cooper's only fictional work, Operation Heartbreak, was based upon the emotionally charged decision to use an anonymous corpse to weave the web of deceit. The British authorities tried to suppress the book because it would show the Spanish in a bad light, with Franco now in power. A change of heart followed and Ewen Montagu was encouraged to tell the whole story. Anyone who read Ben Macintyre's best-selling Operation Mincemeat will have to read this double volume to understand the full story.

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Page Count

219

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0752476327

ISBN 13

9780752476322

Book's by Hastings Ismay

The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

Winston's War

Winston's War

Armageddon

Armageddon

Aunt Charlotte's Stories of American history

Aunt Charlotte's Stories of American history

The Secret War

The Secret War

The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

The Memoirs Of Lord Ismay

Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

Operation Heartbreak and The Man Who Never Was

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