War Stories

It is 1914 and a group of German schoolboys are persuaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up, but soon they are experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

Captain Tom Barnes is leading British troops into a war zone when he is gravely injured by an exploding IED. This devastating moment and the transformative months that follow are narrated here by forty-five objects, telling one unforgettable story.

During the First World War a military execution in France is a key event in this story of duty, loyalty and love. Far away in north-east England orphaned Joshua is led into the world of a wounded Army officer, an army deserter and Dolly Weston, three people he comes to admire and love.

The Battle of Jutland exposed the battlecruisers’ weakness: its armour could be pierced by a single shell. In 1943, as Britain prepares to invade occupied Europe, Captain Guy Sherbrooke takes command of HMS Reliant, one of only two battlecruisers to have survived. He knows he could be her last captain.

In the heat of the French summer, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford travels to France and falls in love with his host's wife, Isabelle Azaire. When the world stops, their affair falters, and Stephen signs up. In a maze of tunnels under the trenches, Stephen finds the courage this war demands from the men in his command. And it is here that he will fight for everything he has ever known and loved. A contemporary classic, Birdsong has moved millions of readers all over the world. It is an epic story of passion, survival and redemption from a master storyteller.

Crete, 1941. In the face of a German invasion, Sergeant Jack Tanner is embroiled in a deadly game of survival that will test his resolve more than ever before. Not only has he fallen out with his commander but he has mortally offended Alopex, a powerful local chieftain.

As if that wasn't enough, Tanner and the rest of his battalion are caught in vicious close-quarter fighting against crack German paratroopers. Before long, they find themselves in bitter retreat to the mountainous interior where only one man can help them - Alopex.

Although whether he will come to their rescue or not remains to be seen...

1945, and in the newly liberated Paris there is a man hunt for Harry Cole. East End charmer, Resistance hero, but could he also be a traitor? Was he giving away the secrets of the French Resistance and the British Security Services, and do MI9 and Airey Neave have a good reason for wanting him silenced? Contains strong language.

31 June, 1943. An RAF crew prepare for their next bombing raid on Germany. It is a night that many will never forget. Len Deighton's devastating novel is a gripping minute-by-minute account of what happens over the next twenty-four hours. Told through the eyes of ordinary people in the air and on the ground - from a young pilot to the inhabitants of a small town in the Ruhr - Bomber is an unforgettable portrayal of individuals caught up in the wreckage of war.

Charles Thorogood has joined the Assault Commandos and is on a tour of duty in Northern Ireland. He and his men have the task of patrolling the tension-filled streets and experience all the tragedy and terror that this entails.

The story of three POWs who endure the hell of the Japanese camps on the Burma-Siam railway - Colonel Nicholson, a man prepared to sacrifice his life but not his dignity; Major Warden, a modest hero, saboteur and deadly killer; Commander Shears, who escaped from hell but was sent back.

Joss Lambert was always a loner, but at school he becomes friendly with Guy Liddell, and through him the whole Liddell family. Their home is the only place he is happy, but with war looming this happiness can't last. Joss joins the RAF and fights for his life in the Battle of Britain and again in the heat of North Africa.

Alex Ehren is a poet, a prisoner and a teacher in block 31 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the children's block. He spends his days trying to survive while illegally giving lessons to his young charges while shielding them as best he can from the impossible horrors of the camp. But trying to teach the children is not the only illicit activity that Alex is involved in. Alex is keeping a diary…

In 1939, a young girl sits alone in a station waiting room in Marseilles. Half-Jewish Ilse has been sent out of Nazi Germany to safety in Morocco by her mother. But her journey takes her back to France, where she cannot escape the Nazi occupation. Blown about by circumstances beyond her control, she must grow up alone in a demi-monde of refugees, whores and freedom fighters.

In Germany, Nicolai struggles against his destiny in the Hitler Youth. His only comfort is the friendship of Ilse’s mother, who works as a nanny in his affluent household.

The war eats up their youth. Though hope grows in France, a dark tableau is unfolding in Germany, and this reluctant soldier and brave young girl must fight for their survival.

The dramatic account of an English woman's work with a group of resistance fighters in World War 2;

It's 1814, and the war against Bonaparte rages to its bloody end upon the field of Waterloo. Cornet Matthew Hervey, of the 6th Light Dragoons, suddenly finds himself allotted a hero's role which will change the course of his life, and possibly the outcome of Waterloo...

In this classic novel, read from "The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston", George Sherston struggles to overcome shell shock in a military hospital during World War I. He eventually returns to the army and is sent to Palestine and Ireland and finally the Western Front in France.

Jack, a mongrel sheepdog, is found guarding his dying master after a bloody World War 1 battle. He transfers his loyalty to Captain Daly and the Dublin Fusiliers. Jack's presence and bravery brings hope to the young soldiers.

May 1940: Sergeant Jack Tanner has been posted to a training company on the southeast coast of England where the mysterious deaths of two Polish refugees lead him to believe there has been foul play. But Tanner must first deal with an enemy far more deadly than the Germans.... Book 2 of the series.

Bill Sarratt is a civil servant working on the war effort. Thwarted at every turn by bureaucracy and the vested interests of big business, the seemingly unflappable Bill is also on the verge of losing his wife Marcia to a literary poseur named Stephen. As the bombs continue to fall, Bill must decide whether he his willing to compromise his principles and prevent his life from crumbling before his very eyes.

CONTENT WARNING: This book contains language and views that reflect the attitudes of its time.

Having signed up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and ultimately, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see.

These stories cover 23 centuries of warfare, from Hannibal’s march on Rome on to the American Civil War, to the skies of France in World War Two and to the battlefields of Vietnam.

Sicily, 1943 - to fight the Nazi rearguard, old foes like the Mafia must become new friends for Jack Tanner and his crew. Tanner and his trusted sidekick, Sykes, find themselves embroiled in a fight that has become deeply personal, where they have to use all their resolve, skill and experience if they are to have any chance of survival.

By the end of 1943, all the evidence of the abortive German attempt to assassinate Winston Churchill has been buried in a grave in Norfolk. However, two of the most wanted ringleaders are still alive, and Himmler is demanding the eagle's return.

In the early morning hours of 6 November 1943, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler receives the coded message he has been waiting for "The Eagle has landed." It was to become known as the most daring enemy mission of the entire war: Operation Eagle, Himmler's audacious plan to kidnap Winston Churchill on British soil. But, despite spectacular secrecy, there was to be no surrender without a fight... For in that remote corner of Norfolk, an elite unit is gathered together. Ready to do battle for a nation against the most ruthless task force ever assembled.

A sensational tale of passion and fire set during the Falklands War. On one side, the largest and most effective seagoing task force ever assembled. On the other, an air force ready to die as they attack again and again despite the odds. A single deadly missile means the difference between winning and losing the war. One man can get General Galtieri the Exocets he needs to turn the tide. But he is a man haunted by love. And for that British Intelligence have a secret weapon of their own....

The trials and tribulations of life on board a nuclear submarine during the cold war. Strong language.

Essen, Germany, 1946.

Clara. Once a wartime icon and heiress to the Falkenberg iron works, she now finds herself on the run from the Allied authorities, accused of complicity in her father's war crimes. 

Jakob. A charming black marketeer, badly wounded in the war but determined to help what's left of his family survive the peace.

Willy. A teenage boy diligently guarding a mine full of Wehrmacht supplies, his only friend a canary named Gertrud. Convinced the war isn't over, he refuses to surrender his post. 

When Clara returns to her hometown, she finds everything she once knew in ruins. To survive, Clara must hide who she is. But to live, she must face up to the truth of what she's done.

It is the early months of the Arab Spring, 2011. But for three young men, two American and one Iraqi, their minds return again and again to 2006, to the bloodiest stretch of the Iraq War.

Members of the same platoon, they were tasked with the often deadly job of repairing potholes in the roads of the Al Anbar Province: potholes that almost always concealed a home-made bomb. They have survived the war but now they must learn to live with themselves.

As they struggle to find their place in a world that no longer knows them, they realise that the war has left nothing in their lives untouched and that salvation may come from an unexpected quarter.

Born in the United States but separated since they were boys, twin brothers Max and Harry Kelso found themselves fighting on opposite sides when World War Two broke out. Max was one of the Luftwaffe’s most feared pilots, Harry was a Yank ace in the RAF…Now, the machinery of war has set in motion an intrigue so devious, so full of danger, that they will be forced to question everything they value: their lives and ultimately their loyalties.

The guns of Navarone have been silenced, but the heroic survivors have no time to rest on their laurels. Keith Mallory, Andrea and Dusty Miller are parachuting into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of Partisans … and to fulfil a secret mission so deadly that it must be hidden from their own allies. Sequel to 'The Guns Of Navarone' (3331)

June, 1815. Five men, three armies, on the fields of Waterloo. What ensues is a battle for honour and glory. The two great leaders, Napoleon and Wellington, are in direct confrontation for the first time, to take their nations to victory.

In May 1942, Lt. John Carbis joins HMS Urgent, based on besieged Malta and skippered by the cool and harsh "Hammer" Hawke. Their mission is to disrupt Germany's supplies to Rommel's Afrika Korps since, unless the Allies stop Rommel's eastward advance, they may lose the war.

In the aftermath of World War II men and women throughout Europe and Asia start to rebuild their lives. In Japan an English soldier assesses the impact of the defeat and the occupation, whilst a young Australian woman tends to her dying brother. Some explicit sexual content.

It's 1942. America has just joined the war. Greyhound, an international convoy of thirty-seven allied ships, is in operation. 

Captain Krause must lead his first command of a US destroyer as the convoy ploughs through the icy, submarine-infested North Atlantic seas. For forty-eight hours, Krause will play a desperate cat and mouse game against the wolf packs of German U-boats. His mission looks doomed to fail. But armed with extraordinary courage and grit, hope may just be on the horizon...

Captain Keith Mallory, saboteur and mountaineer, is tasked with scaling the vast precipuice of Navarone and blowing up the guns, which are threatening the lives of twelve hundred British soldiers stranded on the small island of Kheros off the Turkish coast.

The story of men who rose to heroism, and then to something greater, HMS Ulysses takes its place alongside The Caine Mutiny and The Cruel Sea as one of the classic novels of the navy at war. It is the compelling story of Convoy FR77 to Murmansk – a voyage that pushes men to the limits of human endurance, crippled by enemy attack and the bitter cold of the Arctic.