On 20 May 1941, Generaloberst Kurt Student’s Luftwaffe XI Fliegerkorps conducted the first operational airborne invasion in history to seize Crete. Major-General Bernard Cyril Freyberg VC, 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, commanded the British forces defending the island. Freyberg, forewarned of the details of the invasion, possessed numerical superiority over the enemy, but was defeated within twelve days. Freyberg, later blamed for the defeat due to his perceived faulty defensive dispositions, was dealt a losing hand from the start. His troops consisted of those that could be rescued from the failed Greek Campaign and lacked sufficient weapons, communications, and transport to conduct the defense. Despite the best efforts of the Royal Navy, overwhelming Luftwaffe air superiority in the absence of the Royal Air Force isolated Crete and the relentless drive of the attacking German forces captured it. Poor tactical leadership by Freyberg’s subordinate commanders and their failure to prosecute his operational plan led to defeat by the barest margin. While a tactical loss, Freyberg’s destruction of the 7th Flieger Division resulted in Hitler never considering an operational airborne assault again. Freyberg, although accepting responsibility for the defeat, should not be held entirely culpable for the loss of Crete.

Offers an authoritative account of the lesser-known yet devastatingly brutal battle waged by the Italian campaign during World War II.

Index to selected publications of the Combined Arms Center.

In Dentists at War—12 Who Went Beyond the Call of Duty, author Norman Wahl has attempted to show how the dentist, so often envisioned by the public as the staid, methodical “tooth carpenter,” is capable of heroic deeds when called upon to do so, especially during wartime. Herein, Wahl presents 12 ordinarily peace-loving men whose lives were transformed by the circumstances in which they found themselves. Ever since dental officers became an integral part of the military (occurring in 1911 in the US Army), thousands of men and women of all nations have served both their profession and their country, under usually trying circumstances, diligently, and some heroically. Some lost their lives. Some were captured by the enemy and became prisoners of war (POWs), enduring beatings, starvation, and humiliation—and sometimes torture. Others volunteered for dangerous missions behind enemy lines. Dr Wahl has divided his account into more or less three sections: (1) history of military dentistry (Chapters I through IV), (2) prisoners of war through the ages (Chapters V through VII), and (3) the 12 selectees—their exploits (Chapters VIII through XII). Within these chapters you will meet an orthodontist who performed ferrying and guerrilla activities behind enemy lines, a Scottish POW who spied for M19, and an American captain who, manning a machine gun, killed 98 Japanese attackers on Saigon before succumbing to 76 bullet wounds as well as bayonet stabs, and nine others—all dentists.

Unlike the few other books written on the catastrophic fall of Crete in May 1941, this book concentrates on the military actions between the first German paratroop landing on 20 May and the final defeat and evacuation on 30 May. As well as studying the strengths, tactics, leadership and weapons of both sides, the book contains numerous graphic personal anecdotes by participants, be they German, Allied or Cretan. While the battle was a decisive defeat for the Allies, the Germans made a disastrous start. How they recovered from this so spectacularly is well covered.This is a worthy addition to the Battleground series being both a fine study of the conflict and an invaluable guide. The Author has visited Crete on many occasions and knows the ground well.

"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.