A high percentage of air crew in World War II failed to return home, but among those who did there are innumerable stories of miraculous escapes against the odds - which were that an airman would be dead before his 25th operation. This book collects 37 survivors' accounts, all of them guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat. Flight Lieutenant Lewis Bevis was delivering a Hurricane fighter to the Desert Air Force (DAF) in support of the Eighth Army in north Africa, taking the route considered the most dependable via Gibraltar and over the Sahara to Egypt. He took off in a flight of six Hurricanes, developed engine trouble, repaired at Kano, joined another flight but got separated in a sandstorm and came down among villagers who stripped the Hurricane overnight. Bevis got it airborne again but hit another sandstorm, and when it blew over he knew he only had one more chance to fire the engine. In August 1943 Flying Officer Penny took part in a raid on Berlin but was badly hit by flak and managed to bale out. Uncertain whether he was in Germany or Holland he took the risk of knocking on the door of a farm and found to his relief that the occupants were Dutch patriots who with the help of the resistance got him over into France, with a new identity and fake papers at every stage of the journey. From Paris he was smuggled to the Pyrenees which he had to cross on foot before presenting himself at a British embassy in Spain. In September 1943 Pilot Officer Alan Peart had to undertake a 30-minute defensive patrol over the Salerno beachhead to cover the Allied warships. Breaking off to give chase to three Dornier bombers, Peart found his Spitfire at the centre of a dog-fight, and only just made it back to base. Chapter headings are along the lines of "Baling out at 15000 feet - into the Battle of the Bulge", and each one is a cliff-hanging read. 290pp, glossary, maps, photos.

Royalty was popular in Barnsley in the early 20th century, and in 1912 King George V and Queen Mary paid a highly successful visit, attracting masses of cheering crowds to the town centre. Featured in the Domesday Book, Barnsley became an important centre in the 13th century when a market was established by Royal Charter, and in later centuries it was a staging post for coaches travelling further north. In 1914 Barnsley's Territorial Army numbered 220 and when war was declared they headed for Rotherham to receive their orders after listening to a patriotic address form Barnsley's Mayor. As the Battle of the Marne commenced, a fundraising concert at the Barnsley Empire raised over £44 for the war effort. At this time only about 30 per cent of the workforce was female, and most were in domestic service, but from the start of hostilities women began to work in a larger range of jobs. In October Mrs W K Peace signalled her willingness to receive a wounded soldier during his recuperation, and soon afterwards a group of about 35 Belgian refugees arrived in the town. At Christmas the Barnsley Union Workhouse, housing 100 women, 144 men and 44 children, received Christmas treats including a threepenny piece for each child. In April 1915 an outbreak of pilfering from local shops was traced back to a gang of children who were put on probation except for one girl who was sent to a reformatory. In October a new Variety Theatre was opened in the presence of the local aristocracy and dignitaries. The town rose to the demands of warfare, but by 1917 women working in jobs such as engineering were being warned they would have to relinquish them to men when the war ended. 198pp, paperback, black and white photos from the Barnsley Chronicle.

The day after war broke out in 1914 a battalion of the Durham Light Infantry set up camp in the city centre, accompanied by the Royal Field Artillery trundling their heavy weaponry. A recruiting drive had begun which was ultimately to see 360 of Durham's young people killed in warfare. When Corporal Bellaby was wounded at Mons in October it made the local news, but by the end of 1914 tens of thousands of soldiers had lost their lives, including members of Durham's mining community. 1914 had been a great year for England's rugby team, and local hero Arthur Dingle, who graduated from Oxford and then returned to teach at his old school in Durham, was a rugby international player. By the end of the war, 11 of the 30 members of the pre-war team had been killed, including Dingle who died at Gallipoli. 1915 saw the death of colourful Durham coal-owner Charles Stewart Vane Tempest Stewart, the 6th Marquess of Londonderry, who had been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and a Conservative politician. The Durham Light Infantry managed to raise a total of 43 battalions during the whole war, including a "bantam" battalion where the height requirement was reduced to five feet. In 1916 the Mayor of Durham took delivery of a captured German field gun, and although the purpose of the acquisition was unclear, the Dean of Durham Cathedral made a rousing speech. Many aspects of life went on as normal, and in 1917 two men were up before the magistrates charged with spitting on the floor of a train. Women were active in the town's two Voluntary Aid Detachment hospitals during the war, mainly in nursing and catering. 144pp, paperback, photos.

Pen & Sword Military Books presents a comprehensive history of Leeds during the Second World War. The book starts with the optimistic state of the city in 1939 before the war began, noting that there was a sense of enterprise as advertisements in local press read 'Leeds is Prosperous' alongside images of modern factories with the sign 'Factory sites available'. From there, the book looks at the city's experience during the war, including the first of the bombing raids on Leeds in March 1941 during which time, the author's own grandfather, Joe Schofield was an ARP warden in Beeston. The lives of citizens are shared in the book, whether that is their choice to shelter in coal sheds rather than public shelters, their eagerness to engage in the football season between 1940 and 1941 (even if Leeds lost to Middlesbrough), and the naivety of children who would use the roads for cricket, football, hopscotch, piggy as 'nobody in the area had a car'. Learn about the important role of the Women's Voluntary Service in Leeds which helped with a request for clothes for Dutch and Belgian refugees in Rotherham and was so successful that the branch not only sent a full lorry to the main Leeds Refugee Headquarters but also stored large quantities at the Public Assistance Board Centre. Discover the life of Sue Ryder, one of Leeds' most famous women who volunteered with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry at the age of 15 and took care of Polish flying aces. The photographs in the book offer fantastic insight into life in Leeds, including shots of aircraft production bungalows for Yeadon workers in Nunroyd, children from Guiseley at a VJ Day party organised by the British Legion and a gas car owned by Gillroyd Mills from Morley which was driven by gas pumped into the container from a roof. Paperback, black and white photos, 152pp.

First published in 1936, these 12 stories of daring battles by sea and air have a vividness that can only come from eyewitness accounts. Picking up 16 men from the wreckage left by a submarine attack, Gordon Campbell, Commander of the armed Decoy Q ship Pargust, knew there was imminent danger, and soon a torpedo tore through his engine room. A carefully rehearsed panic party descended to the lifeboats, complete with stuffed parrot, while the rest of the crew lay silent and invisible. The periscope of the sub was seen circling the boat, then broke surface, but Campbell held fire while the bogus "Master", pretending to escape with his crew in a lifeboat, led the sub even closer. Finally, half an hour after being torpedoed, they opened fire and sank the sub, managing to rescue only two crew of what proved to be a minelayer. For their uniform gallantry the Victoria Cross was awarded to the whole of HMS Pargust. In another cliff-hanging chapter, Captain Carpenter gives his account of the celebrated attack on the Zeebrugge Mole, designed to divert attention from the simultaneous blowing up of a railway bridge by submarines and the deliberate sinking of blockships across the entrance to the canal. Rain and off-course smokescreens impeded progress but that gave even more of an element of surprise when Vindictive reached the Mole. The resulting bombardment resulted in the deaths of many brave men but the heroic action on the viaduct is a breathtaking story. In the thick of Gallipoli the novelist Compton Mackenzie recounts an unexpected meeting with a fan, the second battle of Ypres is described by one of the pilots providing air cover, while a commander at the battle of Jutland describes with unsparing realism the psychological realities of close fighting. 168pp, paperback, photos.

The Bombing of GHQ Boulogne by Edward Ardizzone, Dunkirk: Embarkation of Wounded by Edward Bawden, An Old Battleground by Richard Seddon, Dangerous Work At Low Tide by Eric Ravilious and September 3rd 1939 by Henry Moore with barely human half drowned figures staring wildly are among the colour plates chosen for this collection of nine stories of courage, tenacity, inventiveness and persistence. During WWII, British artists produced over 6,000 works of war art, the result of a government scheme partly designed to prevent the artist being killed. The book tells the story of these nine war artists who ventured closer to the frontline than any others in their profession. In addition to the above mentioned were Barnett Freedman, Anthony Gross, Thomas Hennell, Albert Richards, and John Worsley who all travelled abroad into the dangers of war to chronicle events by painting them. They formed a close bond, yet two were torpedoed, two were taken prisoner, and three died, two in 1945 when peace time was at hand. Men who had previously made a comfortable living painting in studios were transformed by military uniforms and experiences that were to shape the rest of their lives, and their works significantly influenced the way in which we view war today. Some of the artists paintings and sketches have been included such as Henry Moore's Swimming Off the Southcoast on the Day War Broke Out - the stark coming together of a blue late summer's day and the looming blood-filled threat of war as a sky in the near distance, the first sight of the war the reader gets in this pictorial record of those six tragic years. The sequence of dates and locations provides a different kind of diary or journal. Full of biographical detail and so many aspects caught through the fine artists' eyes and into paint - the phoney war, evacuees harvesting, portraits of the great and the good, and the ordinary like gun manufacture, aerodrome runways, tanks rumbling through France, small boats at Dunkirk, anti-aircraft defences and bomb damage. 'John Worsley stood disconsolately near the wire, hands in pockets, eyes fixed on a point beyond the perimeter fence. That was dauntingly high, well over a man's height, with concrete posts at regular intervals... To his right was a wooden watchtower, under whose shadowy roof were more guards, crouched over machine-guns, watching him as he stared at the point where freedom began.' 240pp, well illustrated paperback, colour plates.

Women's lives were transformed during the 100 years between 1850 and 1950. In 1850 a married woman was not legally entitled to own property or assets, and had to hand everything over to her husband, but by 1950 she could graduate from university and enter most professions, retaining control of her own earnings whatever her circumstances. This book about women's emancipation focuses on the women of Plymouth, from the six women MPs during this period, including Nancy Astor who was the first female MP, to the mother of six and wife of an unco-operative husband who informed a survey, "I haven't any outdoor clothes so I chat to neighbours and sit on the back step mending and darning". The Ladies' National Association, originally formed to combat the humiliating treatment of prostitutes, was active in Plymouth particularly in the Nonconformist and Quaker communities. Domestic abuse was a common problem, and in 1923 women were finally allowed to petition for divorce. Overcrowding was a problem and 5,000 people, mainly women, regularly used the public washhouses for washing and drying laundry. By the 1890s there were women's suffrage groups in every town throughout the country, but there was also a vociferous anti-suffrage lobby. Women were active in philanthropic causes and in late 19th century Plymouth there were four women guardians of the local workhouse, though unfortunately they were voted off the board when they refused to allow the children to go to the pantomime. In 1918 many women gave up their jobs to returning soldiers, but the potentiality for independence had been established. 202pp, paperback, photos.

In collaboration with Sir Hew Strachan and the First World War historian Yvonne McEwen, editor Lizzie MacGregor in compiling this book reflects a longstanding interest in Scottish poetry in the first half of the 20th century. It is the story of Scotland at war, written in the poetry of the time in English, Gaelic and Scots, by servicemen, volunteers and those on the home front. Well-known soldier poets such as Charles Hamilton Sorley, E. A. Mackintosh, Domhnall Ruadh Choruna and Joseph Lee are joined by others who fought with their pens to chronical and comment on the war, among them Mary Symon, Neil Munro and Margaret Sackville. The book follows the war as it develops year by year and takes us from the very first 'Sough o' War' sweeping through the land, to the despair of the trenches and the anguish of the bereaved. There is unexpected humour and comradeship, women at work, men shattered by conflict, and the appalling tragedies of Gretna and the Iolaire, to post-war sorrow for a generation cast into the fire. A Vignette: 'On stark and tortured wire where refuse of war lies tangled in mire - when God is flinging rain down the skies - sit three little birds, singing.' - R. Watson Kerr. Throughout this volume is a strong sense of Scotland's identity, and in 1914, Scotland had produced proportionately more volunteers for Kitchener's New Armies than the rest of Britain. May Wedderbun Cannan in her poem 'To A Clerk, Now At the Wars' she envies the male clerk whom she has replaced because he is now freed to take an active part in the fighting. 152pp, nice clear layout for the poems.

Stowed away on the top of a train, 20 year Wim Aloserij escapes the obligatory work camps in Nazi-ruled Germany in 1943. The young man from Amsterdam then goes into hiding on a farm, sleeping for months in a wooden chest hidden underground, but it's not to last. In the cover of night Wim is captured during a raid and transported to the infamous Gestapo prison in Amsterdam. There he is thrown into the nightmare of the Holocaust and transported into Camp Amersfoort, the first of three concentration camps he must endure. 'Welcome to paradise' the SS guard had mumbled as he handed Wim a small stack of clothes and a buttoned-up sack of jangling items. He saw they had been stamped with the number 6178. As the victim of an alcoholic and abusive father, he is forced to adapt quicky and urgently to his hellish surroundings. However it is with the end of the war in sight that Wim must draw on every last strength he has when he finds himself caught in the very centre of Allied-Nazi crossfire. In the final days of the war he was bombed while aboard a Nazi prison boat and at the age of 94 finally felt ready to tell his incredible story which he had kept secret for most of his life. 324pp.

By the bestselling author of SAS Band of Brothers and Zero Six Bravo, here are seven incredible escapes made by Second World War heroes, superhuman endurance, breath-taking bluff and nerve and the use of audacious disguise or wreaking total bloody mayhem, and all seven dared to win all. The one escape set in Greece was Cpt Roy Farran's 600 mile sea journey aboard a caique from Athens to Alexandria in August 1941. The two in North Africa during 1942-43 involved Cpl John 'Jack' Byrne in Operation Squatter and Lt Thomas Langton's march across the desert unknown to him during the Alamein Battle. There is one in France with F/O Lew Fiddick (RCAF), Capt Henry Druce and Lt Col Brian Franks in Operation Loyton around Moussey in the Vosges. All showed important language skills and the ability to get on with locals, and an element of luck. After his escape from PG78 at Sulmona Lt George Paterson transformed his pragmatic SAS skills to more of an SOE agent working with partisan resistance between the borders of Switzerland and Italy. Sgt John 'Gentleman Jim' Almonds supplied immediate details of minefields he had crossed. Lt James Hughes was the sole survivor of the successful Operation Pomegranate, the preliminary attack on San Egidio Airfield in January 1944 immediately prior to the Anzio landings. Taken together these decisions and actions became vital in the development and speedy conclusion to the war. Lewis reveals that behind the scenes authorities were making moves to repatriate some of the 50,000 Allied POWs. 332pp, colour and archive photos.