S2 Actual reading list

Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command

Sean Naylor

St. Martin's Press · 2015

The New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2015 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History Since the attacks of September 11, one organization has been at the forefront of America's military response. Its efforts turned the tide against al-Qaida in Iraq, killed Bin Laden and Zarqawi, rescued Captain Phillips and captured Saddam Hussein. Its commander can direct cruise missile strikes from nuclear submarines and conduct special operations raids anywhere in the world. Relentless Strike tells the inside story of Joint Special Operations Command, the secret military organization that during the past decade has revolutionized counterterrorism, seamlessly fusing intelligence and operational skills to conduct missions that hit the headlines, and those that have remained in the shadows-until now. Because JSOC includes the military's most storied special operations units-Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, the 75th Ranger Regiment-as well as America's most secret aviation and intelligence units, this is their story, too. Relentless Strike reveals tension-drenched meetings in war rooms from the Pentagon to Iraq and special operations battles from the cabin of an MH-60 Black Hawk to the driver's seat of Delta Force's Pinzgauer vehicles as they approach their targets. Through exclusive interviews, reporter Sean Naylor uses his unique access to reveal how an organization designed in the 1980s for a very limited mission set transformed itself after 9/11 to become the military's premier weapon in the war against terrorism and how it continues to evolve today.

Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War

Ben Macintyre

Crown · 2016

In the summer of 1941, at the height of the war in the Western Desert, a bored and eccentric young officer, David Stirling, came up with a plan that was radical and entirely against the rules: a small undercover unit that would inflict mayhem behind enemy lines. Despite intense opposition, Winston Churchill personally gave Stirling permission to recruit the toughest, brightest and most ruthless soldiers he could find. So began the most celebrated and mysterious military organisation in the world: the SAS. Now, 75 years later, the SAS has finally decided to tell its astonishing story. It has opened its secret archives for the first time, granting historian Ben Macintyre full access to a treasure trove of unseen reports, memos, diaries, letters, maps and photographs, as well as free rein to interview surviving Originals and those who knew them. The result is an exhilarating tale of fearlessness and heroism, recklessness and tragedy; of extraordinary men who were willing to take monumental risks. It is a story about the meaning of courage.

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975

Max Hastings

Harper · 2018

An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War. Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings, and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas. No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the twenty-first century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.

Barren SEAD: USAF Defense Suppression Doctrine, 1953-1972

James L. Young Jr.

Since 1972, the United States Air Force has argued that its operations against North Vietnam were unsuccessful primarily through a combination of civilian interference and poor strategic choices. Often citing the “success” of Operation Linebacker II as an example of what might have been had its leaders been given free rein, for almost fifty years the Air Force has maintained that its proper employment is the key to winning America’s wars. In Barren SEAD, award winning historian James L. Young Jr. propagates a different Instead of being a sign of what the Air Force was capable of, Linebacker II was a bitter failure that starkly outlined the USAF’s limitations. Furthermore, the meddling of the Johnson and Nixon Administrations played a minor role in this outcome. The USAF's defeat was not brought about by civilian meddling, but resulted from Air Force leaders’ refusal to develop a Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) doctrine from 1953-1972. Relying primarily on Air Force archival documents, memoirs, and contemporary doctrinal publications, Dr. Young illustrates just how dangerous the Air Force’s inability to nurture its SEAD capability was during this period of the Cold War. James L. Young Jr. holds a doctorate in U.S. History from Kansas State University and is a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Barren SEAD is his first non-fiction book. Previously he has won the United States Naval Institute's 2016 Cyberwarfare Essay Contest, runner up in the 2011 James Adams Cold War Essay Contest, and has had an essay selected by the U.S. Naval Heritage Command for its professional reading list. Dr. Young's other professional articles can be found in Armor Magazine, The Journal of Military History, and Proceedings. For those who prefer fiction, Dr. Young also writes alternate history (Usurper's War series / Phases of Mars anthologies) and military science fiction (Vergassy Universe).

Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901-1940, and the Consequences for World War II

Jörg Muth

University of North Texas Press · 2011

Selected by General Raymond Odierno, 38th Army Chief of Staff, for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List, for "The Army Profession," March 2012. Selected by General James F. Amos, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, as required reading for all senior enlisted men and all Majors and Lieutenant-Colonels, January 2013.Selected by Major General H.R. McMaster at the Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, for the Leader Development Study Program, December 2013.   Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award, 2012.   In Command Culture, Jörg Muth examines the different paths the United States Army and the German Armed Forces traveled to select, educate, and promote their officers in the crucial time before World War II. Muth demonstrates that the military education system in Germany represented an organized effort where each school and examination provided the stepping stone for the next. But in the United States, there existed no communication about teaching contents or didactical matters among the various schools and academies, and they existed in a self chosen insular environment. American officers who finally made their way through an erratic selection process and past West Point to the important Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, found themselves usually deeply disappointed, because they were faced again with a rather below average faculty who forced them after every exercise to accept the approved “school solution.” Command Culture explores the paradox that in Germany officers came from a closed authoritarian society but received an extremely open minded military education, whereas their counterparts in the United States came from one of the most democratic societies but received an outdated military education that harnessed their minds and limited their initiative. On the other hand, German officer candidates learned that in war everything is possible and a war of extermination acceptable. For American officers, raised in a democracy, certain boundaries could never be crossed. This work for the first time clearly explains the lack of audacity of many high ranking American officers during World War II, as well as the reason why so many German officers became perpetrators or accomplices of war crimes and atrocities or remained bystanders without speaking up. Those American officers who became outstanding leaders in World War II did so not so much because of their military education, but despite it.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Jocko Willink

The #1 New York Times bestseller Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership―at every level―is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields. Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment. A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate lead and win.

My Commando Operations: The Memoirs of Hitler's Most Daring Commando

Otto Skorzeny

The memoirs of the legendary Skorzeny appear here in its first unabridged English edition. Skorzeny's fame began with the successful raid to free Benito Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, Italy in 1943. His elite commandos surprised Italian guards in a daring daytime raid. Hitler presented Skorzeny with the Knight's Cross for this operation. Not only is this raid explained in minute detail, many of Skorzeny's previously unknown operations in all European and Russian theatres of World War II are given in detailed accounts. Operation Griffin - the innovative use of German Kommandos dressed as American soldiers working behind enemy lines - during the Ardennes Offensive in 1944 is given in-depth coverage, as is Skorzeny's rememberances on the Malmedy massacre. Skorzeny also offers his insights into the mysterious Rudolf Hess mission to England in May 1941, and offers a behind the scenes look at German and Russian secret military intelligence, and the workings of Canaris and Gehlen. ***This 1997 Schiffer edition has the same ISBN (0887407188. 9780887407185) as the 1995 edition from the same publisher, though the dust-jacket is completely different.***

Skorzeny's Special Missions: The Memoirs of 'the Most Dangerous Man in Europe'

Otto Skorzeny

Greenhill Books · 1997

Book by Skorzeny, Otto

Sting of the Scorpion: The Inside Story of the Long Range Desert Group

Mike Morgan

Sutton Pub. · 2003

The Long Range Desert Group was Britain's original Special Force in the Western Desert long before the SAS burst onto the scene. Sting of the Scorpion is the exclusive, authorised, inside story of the tough LRDG raiders of the Second World War, drawn from the unpublished records of the famous force. The unit won unrivalled mastery of the North African desert in their wide-ranging and heavily armed trucks, earning grudging praise even from Rommel, the Desert Fox himself, for their skilful reconnaissance, punishing raids and powers of evasion.

The Tiger's Way: A U.S. Private's Best Chance for Survival

H. John Poole

Posterity Press · 2003

This book is not just fun reading for determined riflemen, but vital self-defense info. for all security ranks and jobs. The Pentagon lost on the ground 40 years ago, and its squad tactics haven't changed much. Herein lie more advanced techniques for every category of short-range combat. They will permit better small-unit maneuvers (and fewer losses) for every intensity of combat. As Western ordnance turned more lethal, Eastern armies came to rely on tiny semi-autonomous elements. Most provide every rifleman with guerrilla training. Until the Pentagon follows suit, its own infantry enlistees will have less field skill, initiative, and decision-making experience than their Communist counterparts. In any close encounter, they will die unnecessarily and their commanders too often fail to win.

Rhodesian SAS Combat Manual

Rhodesian Forces

Independently Published · 2020

The "Rhodesian SAS Combat Manual" is a significant historical look of the small unit tactics employed by the elite unit during the Rhodesian Bush War. Not only is it a glimpse back at how this unit operated, but a lot of the material is still relevant today fighting counter-insurgencies. This book covers tactical follow-ups, ambush tactics, infiltration methods and combat tracking and more!

From Troy to Entebbe

John Arquilla

Univ.P.of America · 1996

Special operations, though most commonly associated with the period from the Second World War to the present, have played a key role throughout the history of conflict from the Trojan War to the great arms struggles of the 20th century. This volume introduces the reader to the broad sweep of the history of special operations, and also includes several excerpts from the classic literature on the subject. Contents: Origins: Robert Graves, 'The Wooden Horse', 'The Sack of Troy'; Raiding in the Age of Sail: G.M. Thomson, 'The Damage Done by this Corsair', 'The Wind Commands Me Away'; Ian Grimble, 'The Imp,^Rrieuse'; The Early American Tradition: Kenneth Roberts, 'The Raid on St. Francis'; Fred Cook, 'Struggle for the South'; R.E. Dupuy and W.H. Baumer, 'Wars With the Barbary Pirates'; 19th Century Colonial Warfare; Leo Tolstoy, The Raid; Wyatt Blassingame, 'How the Legion Began', 'The Legion Fights in Algeria'; The Civil War: Archer Hines, 'Military Means, Political Ends'; Bruce Catton, 'Total War and an Election'; World War I: Lowell Thomas, 'Trapped by a G-Ship..'; T.E. Lawrence, 'The Raid Upon the Bridges'; World War II in Western Europe and North Africa: Cajus Bekker, 'The Coup de Main at Eben Emael', 'The Blood-Bath of Crete'; Paul Carell, 'A British Commando Attempt to Capture Rommel', 'The British Raid on Tobruk', 'Brandenburgers in Action Behind the Front'; John Lodwick, Raiders from the Sea, Chapters 16-18; The Pacific War: Walter Lord, 'A Very Private War';Ronald Spector, 'The Road to Myitkyina'; Milton E. Miles, 'Chinese Pirates and the SACO Dragon'; Algeria, Round II: Jean Lart,^Rguy, 'The Leap of Leucadia'; The Ultimate Rescue: Chaim Herzog, 'Entebbe'; Bibliography; Index.

The Australian Army at War: An Official Record of Service in Two Hemispheres 1939-1944

Ray Merriam

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform · Mar 21, 2012

Merriam Press Military Monograph 304. Seventh Edition (March 2012). This work presents a brief but comprehensive summary of the Australian Army from 1939 to 1944, including coverage of their "battle record" in North Africa, Greece, Crete, Syria, Malaya, Java, Timor, Portuguese Timor, New Britain, New Guinea, Milne Bay, The Owen Stanleys, Wau, Markham and Ramu Valleys, and Ethiopia. Other contents * Special forces * Mainland defense * Australia's Home Guard * Army Women's Services * Manpower * Artillery * Rations * Equipment * Signals * Medical service * 56 Photos * 1 Maps * 1 Drawing.