Description

pp. [8] 288.”We have all heard about the great generals of military history, and those whose heroic deeds changed the course of a war. But what about those, no less significant, behind the front line?

This book reveals the stories of 75 of military history’s little-known game-changers, including:

• Thomas Boston Corbett, the man who shot John Wilkes Booth

• Herman Hollerith, who devised the punchcard system used to keep track of prisoners sent to the concentration camps

• Hitler’s personal pilot, Hanna Reitsch

• Major John D Barry, the Confederate who mistakenly shot General Stonewall Jackson

• Lee Duncan, the American serviceman who rescued a puppy from the German trenches of World War I and took him back to America, where he became famous as Rin Tin Tin

• Lt Col Franz von Hurrach, who supplied the car for Ferdinand at Sarajevo and, from the running boards, gave such confusing directions to the driver that he sent him up the wrong street and straight into the arms of the waiting assassin.

This entertaining book provides an offbeat and engaging insight on the annals of war and reveals new aspects to the history we think we know.”