Military Disasters

In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor’easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived. On February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, were in the same horrifying predicament. Built with “dirty steel,” and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy.

Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents—Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima—Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.

When she first went to sea in April of 1961, the US nuclear submarine Thresher was the most advanced submarine at sea, built specifically to hunt and kill Soviet submarines. In The Death of the USS Thresher, renowned naval and intelligence consultant Norman Polmar recounts the dramatic circumstances surrounding her implosion, which killed all 129 men onboard in history's first loss of a nuclear submarine.

The year is 2026. The US military has a new weapon in its arsenal: an intelligent life-form so versatile that it can not only create a new generation of weapons but can become a weapon itself - entering a host’s body to manipulate (or kill) them. Admiral James Curtiss is tasked with deploying the new weapons, first in Cuba, then Venezuela, then China. But the news of the military’s breakthrough has gotten out and there are menacing forces trying to steal it. What’s more, a single man has somehow harnessed the new power and has become something more than human - godlike.

At the beginning of 1940, Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945, Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left her people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust. Despite Hitler's grand ambitions and the successful early stages of the Third Reich's advances into Europe, Frank McDonough convincingly argues that Germany was only ever a middle-ranking power and never truly stood a chance against the combined forces of the Allies.

Across the world, the United States recalls troops to combat civil unrest after the biggest economic meltdown in history. Marine Sergeant Ronaldo Salvatore’s platoon comes home to a powder keg that could ignite a civil war. While some see the coming collapse as the end, others see opportunity. Fleeing Naples after rival crime lords decimated his family, Don Antonio Moretti settles in Los Angeles to rebuild his criminal empire. But he is far from alone in his ambitions.

To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias - communities of nuclear families living in highly subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia - they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant.

Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite many words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent and previously successful men stumbled so badly. That changes with Road to Disaster. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson.

A decade after the Cold War, a violent explosion sent the Russian submarine Kursk to the bottom of the Barents Sea. The Russians claimed an outdated torpedo caused the incident and refused help from the West while 23 survivors died before they could be rescued. When Russian naval officers revealed evidence of a collision with a US spy sub, Vladimir Putin squelched the allegations and fired the officers. In Spies of the Deep, W. Craig Reed shatters the lies told by both Russian and US officials and exposes several shocking truths.

America is under attack! Bug Out! is the story of Frank and Jane, on the run from California in their Motorhome. In Bug Out! Part 7, Frank, Jane, and the group had to flee from Colorado, barely getting out alive. Bug Out! Part 8 follows our group as they take over an abandoned RV Park in Kansas. Kansas is sealed off, but our friends get through. It's safe, but will that last? Why was the RV Park abandoned? What blood-curdling secrets will be found there? More new characters appear. They are dangerous, but to whom? If the authorities and the press find out about the dark secrets of the RV ...

Evasive maneuvers – break hard right! Ryan ‘Reaper’ Merrick had a good reason to jump at the offer of a fake relationship as the beautiful stranger suggested. This would be an easy way to keep a crazy matchmaker off his back. All of his friends were happily married, so they assumed he should be. Fine. Whatever. Besides, being married for thirty days was nothing, wasn’t it? Caution! Grab the handles and punch out! Sophie Lane inherited the bed-and-breakfast, but only if she was married. She had to have a husband by Friday, or the family estate would be liquidated. The idea of losing ...

One pulse… and civilization crumbles. A catastrophic EMP attack plunges the world into darkness, igniting a global nuclear war that wipes out 90% of humanity. With law and order collapsing, survivors must fight not only for food and shelter—but for their lives. Colonel Thomas Bradley, a brilliant electronic warfare expert, leads a desperate group of survivors deep into the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Inside the massive underground facility, they battle against dwindling resources, radioactive fallout, and relentless attacks from militant factions determined to take what ...

A former FBI K9 handler, his childhood best friend who’s now a state senator, and a series of bombs threatening to tear the state capital apart. Amanda Winslow aspires to change the world through politics. She spent the past sixteen years working her way up to the position of state senator, no easy task for a low-income, born and bred, Texan girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Encouraging her along the way is her best friend, Jesse Dixon, who spent years traveling all over the country, first with the FBI, and then with the elite Disaster City Search and Rescue team, combating domestic...

Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details of Clausen's investigation and is a damning account of massive intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful day.

So Others May Live: Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death is the award-winning untold story of the US Coast Guard's quiet but resolute rescue swimmers. From deep ocean caves on the Oregon coast to the panicked and chaotic streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, here are their stunningly heroic stories.

The world's worst air disaster happened more than 40 years ago on a remote Atlantic Ocean island, when two fully loaded 747 passenger jets collided after a horrendous series of human errors. One of the jets, KLM Flight 4805, was traveling more than 150 miles an hour and was within seconds of lifting off when it crashed into Pan Am Flight 1736 taxiing in its path. The loss of lives was staggering - 583 dead. The crash happened after a lengthy series of major and minor human errors. In the intervening years, has aviation advanced to the point that such a disaster can't happen again?

An ex-Navy Seal used to being alone, a plus-sized single mom struggling to juggle her responsibilities, and a hurricane that brings them together. Mason Fredericks knows everything there is about water. It’s what makes him the perfect instructor for water rescue at the Disaster City Search and Rescue Academy. Any chance he gets, he spends it in the water. So, when he finally gets a weekend off, he heads to the nearest lake. While fishing, he sees a boy struggling in the water, and he and his K9 partner, Dover, dives in to save him. When he returns the boy to his waiting mother, he can’t...

America is under attack! Bug Out! is the story of Frank and Jane, on the run from California in their Motorhome. In Bug Out! Part 8, Frank, Jane, and the group make a terrifying discovery in their Kansas RV Park. Bug Out! Part 9 follows our group as they cope with the new danger they've found at the RV Park, while keeping the enemy at bay. The group partners with a dangerous trio. These new friends can help them defeat the dark forces coming at them, but at what cost? Kansas is still safe, but the enemy is on the move, taking over sections of Denver. The shadowy owner of their RV Park has ...

A new fire rescue officer needing to prove his place on the team, a model struggling to make a career, and a fire that brings the high school loner back into the life of his secret crush. Clark Voclain is a a skilled fire rescue officer and after finishing training at the Disaster City Search and Rescue Academy, he and his K9 partner are offered a permanent position. When they're assigned to help with a structure fire at the largest mall in all of Texas, he's surprised to find out that his high school crush is reported missing in the fire. Roselyn Lewis just got the biggest modeling gig of ...

Taking Love and Law Seriously Adam Reynolds has earned a solid reputation as a K9 handler for the Army. He and his partner, Valor, have become experts in searching for bombs, so when he is offered the chance to train at the elite, Disaster City Search and Rescue facility, he jumps at the chance. What he doesn’t expect is to fall for one of the female instructors. Clara Burnette is a decorated K9 instructor at Disaster City Search and Rescue. As a woman in a mostly male-dominated profession, she knows it’s never a good idea to get involved with a fellow cop. The problem is, she can’t ...