North Africa 1942

Great Battles: The Battle of Alamein

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. In this Special, Colin Smith and John Bierman make the battle of Alamein come alive. 
 
A turning point in the Second World War, the battle of El Alamein was the culmination of a military campaign like no other. Fought across desolate arid terrain, the brutal fighting was matched by a camaraderie and respect between enemies as witnessed in no other theatre of war. Combining gritty personal testimonies with thorough journalistic investigation, John Bierman and Colin Smith present a compelling account of a ferocious but compassionate battle and a journey through the unforgiving North African landscape.

John Bierman and Colin Smith are both award winning journalists writing for most major newspapers. They have seperately published a number of previous books, including Alamein: War Without Hate. Their first, Fire in the Night, was a widely praised biography of the maverick British commander, Orde Wingate.

Heroism and Surrender in World War II

Singapore Burning

Churchill's description of the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, after Lt-Gen Percival's surrender led to over 100,000 British, Australian and Indian troops falling into the hands of the Japanese, was no wartime exaggeration. The Japanese had promised that there would be no Dunkirk in Singapore, and its fall led to imprisonment, torture and death for thousands of allied men and women. With much new material from British, Australian, Indian and Japanese sources, Colin Smith has woven together the full and terrifying story of the fall of Singapore and its aftermath. Here, alongside cowardice and incompetence, are forgotten acts of enormous heroism; treachery yet heart-rending loyalty; Japanese compassion as well as brutality from the bravest and most capricious enemy the British ever had to face.

An epic, engrossing account of the fall of Singapore - the best book on the subject

Colin Smith is a historian, novelist and former war correspondent. In 1972, at the age of twenty-three, he became the Observer's chief roving reporter and spent the next thirty years covering the world's trouble spots for the Observer and the Sunday Times - from Phnom Penh to the Golan Heights, from Saigon to Sarajevo, from Nikosia to Port-au-Prince. He was named International Reporter of the Year in the 1974 and 1984 British Press Awards. 
 
Today he is best known for his military histories of Britain's campaigns against the Vichy French, the 1942 surrender of Singapore and The Battle of Alamein, which was recently reissued in condensed form as part of Penguin's e-Book Shorts series. 
 
Smith lives in Nicosia with his wife Sylvia and several cats. Readers wishing to contact him or find out more about his work should visit www.colin-smith.info

War Without Hate

Alamein

'Excellent ... a remarkable achievement and ought to be recognised as one of the most succesful histories of the Western Desert and North African fighting yet to have appeared' John Keegan, Daily Telegraph 
 
For the British, the battle fought at ElAlamein in October 1942 became the turning point of the Second World War. In this study of the desert war, John Bierman and Colin Smith show why it is remembered by its survivors as a 'war without hate'. Through extensive research the authors provide a compellingly fresh perspective on the see-saw campaign in which the two sides chased each other back and forth across the unforgiving North African landscape.

'Rommel, the Desert Fox, has had biographers aplenty. Here is a first-class account of the arduous hunt to run him to ground' John Crossland, Sunday Times

'Excellent ... a remarkable achievement and ought to be recognised as one of the most successful histories of the Western Desert and North African fighting yet to have appeared' John Keegan, Daily Telegraph 
 
For the British, the battle fought at El Alamein in October 1942 became the turning point of the Second World War. In this study of the desert war, John Bierman and Colin Smith show why it is remembered by its survivors as a 'war without hate'. Through extensive research the authors provide a compellingly fresh perspective on the see-saw campaign in which the two sides chased each other back and forth across the unforgiving North African landscape.

John Bierman and Colin Smith are both award winning journalists writing for most major newspapers. They have separately published a number of previous books, this being their second collaboration. Their first, FIRE IN THE NIGHT, was a widely praised biography of the maverick British commander, Orde Wingate. Colin Smith is the author of Singapore Burning, published by Penguin, and the co-author of Warsaw Boy (with Andrew Borowiec).

Colin Smith

In Pursuit of the Jackal, 1975-2011

This is the latest edition of Colin Smith's best selling - it was translated into Spanish, French, German and Finnish -1976 biography of the Venezuelan born terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. Carlos - Portrait of a Terrorist is the result of painstaking research. Here is the full story of his transformation from spoilt playboy to 'The Jackal', once the favorite assassin of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 
 
Previously updated in 1995, after Carlos was sedated and sacked then handed over to French commandos in Khartoum, it has been revised following his latest 2011 conviction by a Paris court for a brutal series of terrorist bombings committed in 1982 and 1983. Smith's account blends perceptive eyewitness reportage of Carlos in action with the memories of friends, acquaintances and at least one lover.

Colin Smith

Carlos: Portrait of a Terrorist

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