Colonel Ray Ward's magnificent Those Brave crews: The Epic Raid to Destroy Hiltler's Oil Fields, follows the fortunes of American aircraft on their suicidal mission against the vital Ploesti (Roumania) oil fields. With him you will follow each different crew, sit in the pilot's seat, and share the unique experience of the gunners dueling eye-to-eye with the enemy flack crews. The sacrifice and dedication of these men rivals other famous events in history, such as the calvary charges of the Crimea, Pickett's assault at Gettysburg, or Xenephon's March.

Bravest of the Brave is a chronicle of the life and adventures of David Porter, whose career spanned the formative years of the U.S. Navy, 1796-1843. He rose through the ranks from Midshipman to Commodore. He fought in the Quasi-French War, in the Tripolitan War and against the pirate, Jean Lafitte. During the War of 1812 he took his ship, the frigate U.S.S. Essex, around Cape Horn. It was the first time an American warship entered the Pacific Ocean. There he fought the British and also the Typees in the Marquesas Islands. The voyage ended with a major battle with two British warships at Valparaiso, Chile. After the war he became on of the three Commissioners of the Navy. He was assigned to rid the Caribbean of pirates. During this endeavor he became involved in a controversial decision that resulted in his court-martial. The novel, based on his own writings as well as other historical documents about the period, transports the reader through the tumultuous times of the early Republic. America faced perils not unlike today, aggression abroad from pirates and even attacks at home on American soil. David Porter's courage and bravery at a time of great danger to his country were instrumental in the successful termination of the threats and the development of the U.S. Navy. Porter summarizes his life in an excerpt from a letter he wrote shortly before his death. "There was a time when there was nothing that I thought too daring to be attempted for her (my country); but those times are past, and appear only as a confused and painful dream. A retrospect of the history of my life seems a highly-colored romance, which I should be very loath to live over again; and it would not be believed, if it was written."

Their Job Was To Get Inside Enemy Territory. And Be Ready To Fight Their Way Back Out... At the end of World War II, when daring marine reconnaissance units made a life-and-death difference in island warfare in the Pacific, a secret unit was formed inside the military. With courageous men risking their lives, Test Unit 1 experimented with new ways of inserting marines behind enemy lines-by sea and by land-and then getting them out again. As America barreled towards a confrontation in Indochina and a new era of warfare, First Force Recon was born... This is the untold, inside story of a super elite reconnaissance force-U.S. Special Operations Forces who practiced clandestine insertion and extraction by submarine, jet aircraft and helicopter, using tools and techniques that had never been tried before. Strapping you in the harness of a HALO parachute, launching from the torpedo room of a submerged submarine or climbing the extraction rig of a hovering marine chopper, Fortune Favors the Brave is a firsthand account of what it was like to build a new strike force from the ground up... to make sure that the next time America fought a war, Force Recon would be there. "A superb job...this book fills a void that needed to be filled." -Major Bruce "Doc" Norton, USMC (Ret.)

Since its original appearance in 1949, Irving A. Leonard's pioneering Books of the Brave has endured as the classic account of the introduction of literary culture to the Spanish New World. Leonard's study documents the works of fiction that accompanied and followed the conquistadores to the Americas and argues that popular texts influenced these men and shaped the way they thought and wrote about their experiences. UC Press's 1992 edition combines Leonard's text with a selection of the documents that were his most valuable sources—nine lists of books destined for the Indies. Containing a wealth of information, these lists provide the documentary evidence for what is perhaps Leonard's greatest contribution: his demonstration that royal and inquisitorial prohibitions failed to control the circulation of books and ideas in colonial Spanish America. Rolena Adorno's introduction reaffirms the lasting value of Books of the Brave and chronicles developments in cultural-historical studies that have shed light on the role of books in Spanish American colonial culture. Adorno situates Leonard's work at the threshold between older, triumphalist views of Spanish conquest history and more recent perspectives engendered by studies of native American peoples. With its rich descriptions of the book trade in both Spain and America, Books of the Brave has much to offer historians as well as literary critics. Indeed, it is a highly readable and engaging book for anyone interested in the cultural life of the New World. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.