{"title":"Vincent Hunt","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the gripping historical narratives of Vincent Hunt. From royal scandals to Tudor intrigue, Hunt's meticulous research and engaging storytelling bring the past to vivid life. Start your historical journey here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"up-against-the-wall-book-vincent-hunt-9781911628835","title":"Up Against the Wall","description":"A hard-hitting history of the Soviet security police in totalitarian Latvia - with Latvians as both oppressors and oppressed. Through the stories of people held as prisoners, never told before in English,Up Against the Wall details the methods of a brutal totalitarian regime and the bloody twists and turns of Latvia's long and complicated relationship with the Soviet security police. This is not for the squeamish.At the KGB headquarters in Riga - the Corner House, or StūraMāja - suspects were questioned and executed during the 'Year of Terror' in 1940-41. When the Soviets returned in 1944 vast numbers of Latvians fled and a war of resistance fought from the forests by partisans lasted nearly a decade. The years of Soviet rule ended only in 1991.The author presents harrowing personal testimonies of those imprisoned, tortured and deported to Siberian gulags by the KGB, drawing from museum archives and interviews translated into English for this book as well as from declassified CIA files, KGB records and his own research in Latvia. He interviews human rights activists, partisans, KGB experts and those who led Latvia to independence in the 1990s and explores the role of Latvian KGB double agents in defeating anti-Soviet partisan groups and the West's Cold War spying missions.Ironically it was the feared Latvian Riflemen who helped crush the Bolsheviks' political rivals after the 1917 Revolution and defeat the British-backed White generals in the vicious Civil War of 1918-22, while Latvia itself became independent. Their reward was top jobs in the Soviet regime, including in the Cheka security police, the forerunner to the NKVD and KGB. But Stalin turned on the Latvians in the 1930s and mercilessly purged the old guard. When the Baltics were carved up by Hitler and Stalin, the Red Army killed or deported anyone opposing Soviet power in a period known as the 'Year of Terror'.Fifty years of occupation followed WWII as through the Cold War and into the late 1980s Latvian society was in the grip of the KGB. For 27 years after the collapse of the Soviet regime Latvian politicians argued over whether to publish the secret files of KGB agents. The book's final chapter deals with the decision in December 2018 for the 'Cheka Bags' to be opened, making Latvia's last KGB secrets public.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49544661401873,"sku":"GOR009849103","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50927497150737,"sku":"GOR014127315","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911628836.jpg?v=1751630179"},{"product_id":"up-against-the-wall-book-vincent-hunt-9781914059544","title":"Up Against the Wall","description":"A hard-hitting history of the Soviet security police in totalitarian Latvia - with Latvians as both oppressors and oppressed.Through the stories of people held as prisoners, never told before in English, Up Against the Wall details the methods of a brutal totalitarian regime and the bloody twists and turns of Latvia's long and complicated relationship with the Soviet security police. This is not for the squeamish. At the KGB headquarters in Riga - the Corner House, or Stūra māja - suspects were questioned and executed during the 'Year of Terror' in 1940-41. When the Soviets returned in 1944 vast numbers of Latvians fled and a war of resistance fought from the forests by partisans lasted nearly a decade. The years of Soviet rule ended only in 1991.The author presents harrowing personal testimonies of those imprisoned, tortured and deported to Siberian gulags by the KGB, drawing from museum archives and interviews translated into English for this book as well as from declassified CIA files, KGB records, and his own research in Latvia. He interviews human rights activists, partisans, KGB experts, and those who led Latvia to independence in the 1990s and explores the role of Latvian KGB double agents in defeating anti-Soviet partisan groups and the West's Cold War spying missions.Ironically, it was the feared Latvian Riflemen who helped crush the Bolsheviks' political rivals after the 1917 Revolution and defeat the British-backed White generals in the vicious Civil War of 1918-22, while Latvia itself became independent. Their reward was top jobs in the Soviet regime, including in the Cheka security police, the forerunner to the NKVD and KGB. But Stalin turned on the Latvians in the 1930s and mercilessly purged the old guard. When the Baltics were carved up by Hitler and Stalin, the Red Army killed or deported anyone opposing Soviet power in a period known as the 'Year of Terror'.Fifty years of occupation followed WWII as through the Cold War and into the late 1980s Latvian society was in the grip of the KGB. For 27 years after the collapse of the Soviet regime Latvian politicians argued over whether to publish the secret files of KGB agents. The book's final chapter deals with the decision in December 2018 for the 'Cheka Bags' to be opened, making Latvia's last KGB secrets public.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49576708145425,"sku":"GOR012527326","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50275640672529,"sku":"NGR9781914059544","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1914059549.jpg?v=1751630785"},{"product_id":"fire-and-ice-book-vincent-hunt-9780750989138","title":"Fire and Ice","description":"When Hitler ordered the north of Nazi-occupied Norway to be destroyed in a scorched earth retreat in 1944, everything of potential use to the Soviet enemy was destroyed. Harbours, bridges and towns were dynamited and every building torched. Fifty thousand people were forcibly evacuated - thousands more fled to hide incaves in sub-zero temperatures.High above the Arctic Circle, the author crosses northern Norway gathering scorched earth stories: of refugees starving on remote islands, fathers shot dead just days before the war ended, grandparents driven mad by relentless bombing, towns burned to the ground.He explores what remains of the Lyngen Line mountain bunkers in the Norwegian Alps - where the Allies feared a last stand by fanatical Nazis - and where starved Soviet prisoners of war too weak to work were dumped in death camps, some driven to cannibalism.With extracts from the Nuremberg trials of the generals who devastated northern Norway and modern reflections on the mental scars that have passed down generations, this is a journey into the heart of a brutal conflict set in a landscape of intense natural beauty.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49729628700945,"sku":"NGR9780750989138","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0750989130.jpg?v=1766656694"},{"product_id":"the-road-of-slaughter-book-vince-hunt-9781804512593","title":"The The Road of Slaughter","description":"Die Ziele unserer Studie sind: (i) Charakterisierung des vorherrschenden vegetativen Materials pro Schicht und pro Saison, das die Pr ferenz beim Nestbau zeigt, und (ii) Angabe des Teils des vegetativen Materials, der am h ufigsten beim Nestbau verwendet wird, des regenerativen Aspekts der fruchtfressenden B ume an den Standorten der Bodennester pro Saison, der H hen, die beim Bau der verschiedenen Arten von Luftnestern eingenommen werden, und ihrer Nutzungsart des Lebensbereichs pro Saison. Die Studie konnte die von den Gorillas der Chimanuka-Familie besuchten Gebiete, die Kategorien der Boden- und Luftnester, die H ufigkeit und Art der Nester, die beim Nestbau verwendeten Pflanzenarten und die Orte der Regeneration von def kierten Samen erheben. Das  bergeordnete Ziel ist es, durch saisonale Kenntnisse der verschiedenen Schichten, die sich in dem von den Gorillas beim Nestbau verdichteten vegetativen Material widerspiegeln, einen Beitrag zur Erforschung des Nistverhaltens im Sichttourismus zu leisten.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49752760877329,"sku":"NGR9781804512593","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51517288612113,"sku":"GOR014312236","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1804512591.jpg?v=1751631470"},{"product_id":"blood-in-the-forest-book-vincent-hunt-9781913336035","title":"Blood in the Forest","description":"\u003ci\u003eBlood in the Forest\u003c\/i\u003e tells the brutal story of the forgotten battles of the final months of the Second World War. While the eyes of the world were on Hitler's bunker, more than half a million men fought six cataclysmic battles along a front line of fields and forests in Western Latvia known as the Courland Pocket. Just an hour from the capital Riga, German forces bolstered by Latvian Legionnaires were cut off and trapped with their backs to the Baltic. The only way out was by sea: the only chance of survival to hold back the Red Army. Forced into uniform by Nazi and Soviet occupiers, Latvian fought Latvian - sometimes brother against brother. Hundreds of thousands of men died for little territorial gain in unimaginable slaughter. When the Germans capitulated, thousands of Latvians continued a war against Soviet rule from the forests for years afterwards.An award-winning documentary journalist, the author travels through the modern landscape gathering eye-witness accounts from seventy years before piecing together for the first time in English the stories of those who survived. He meets veterans who fought in the Latvian Legion, former partisans and a refugee who fled the Soviet advance to later become President, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a survivor of the little-known concentration camp at Popervale and founder of Riga's Jewish Museum, Margers Vestermanis has never spoken about his personal experiences. Here he gives details of the SS new world order planned in Kurzeme, his escape from a death march and subsequent survival in the forests with a Soviet partisan group - and a German deserter. With eyewitness accounts, detailed maps and expert contributions alongside rare newspaper archive, photographs from private collections and extracts from diaries translated into English from Latvian, German and Russian, the author assembles a ghastly picture of death and desperation in a tough, uncomfortable story of a nation both gripped by war and at war with itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49883713339665,"sku":"NGR9781913336035","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50272411910417,"sku":"GOR011522311","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1913336034.jpg?v=1751631719"},{"product_id":"blood-in-the-forest-book-vincent-hunt-9781911512066","title":"Blood in the Forest","description":"Blood in the Forest tells the brutal story of the forgotten battles of the final months of the Second World War. While the eyes of the world were on Hitler's bunker, more than half a million men fought six cataclysmic battles along a front line of fields and forests in Western Latvia known as the Courland Pocket. Just an hour from the capital Riga, German forces bolstered by Latvian Legionnaires were cut off and trapped with their backs to the Baltic. The only way out was by sea: the only chance of survival to hold back the Red Army. Forced into uniform by Nazi and Soviet occupiers, Latvian fought Latvian - sometimes brother against brother. Hundreds of thousands of men died for little territorial gain in unimaginable slaughter. When the Germans capitulated, thousands of Latvians continued a war against Soviet rule from the forests for years afterwards. An award-winning documentary journalist, the author travels through the modern landscape gathering eye-witness accounts from seventy years before piecing together for the first time in English the stories of those who survived. He meets veterans who fought in the Latvian Legion, former partisans and a refugee who fled the Soviet advance to later become President, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, A survivor of the little-known concentration camp at Popervale and founder of Riga's Jewish Museum, Margers Vestermanis has never spoken about his personal experiences. Here he gives details of the SS new world order planned in Kurzeme, his escape from a death march and subsequent survival in the forests with a Soviet partisan group - and a German deserter. With eyewitness accounts, detailed maps and expert contributions alongside rare newspaper archive, photographs from private collections and extracts from diaries translated into English from Latvian, German and Russian, the author assembles a ghastly picture of death and desperation in a tough, uncomfortable story of a nation both gripped by war and at war with itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51228024209681,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51228025291025,"sku":"GOR008774054","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911512064.jpg?v=1751630218"},{"product_id":"escape-from-berlin-book-vincent-hunt-9781804516294","title":"Escape from Berlin","description":"Tells the extraordinary escape of the Latvian 15th SS Division from certain death in 1945, as captured in First Lieutenant EdvÄ«ns BuÅ¡manis' diary. An hour after midnight, on 27 April 1945, 850 men of the Latvian 15th SS Division surrendered to American troops at Güterglück. They reached the River Elbe south of Berlin a week after abandoning their positions south-east of the city. To defend Hitler's capital meant almost certain death: to desert was deadly dangerous, and to survive they needed to dodge German patrols and Red Army tanks. The river meant survival. Remarkable film of the Latvians that day was discovered during the writing of this book. The still images reproduced here show the relief etched on their faces. Now for the first time in English, their exhilarating story can be told through the diary of the regiment's adjutant, First Lieutenant EdvÄ«ns BuÅ¡manis. The BuÅ¡manis diary is a tense, gripping and wonderfully eloquent account revealing the drama and detail of their incredible escape - and their will to survive. Eighty years later, the author follows their journey to the banks of the river through the fields of sunflowers and tiny countryside villages of Brandenburg. His new research in a modern landscape brings to life this virtually unknown story of daring, determination and a desire for life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51605722071313,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51605722202385,"sku":"NGR9781804516294","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51898504904977,"sku":"GOR014453292","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52464719724817,"sku":"GOR014531067","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52509520232721,"sku":"NIN9781804516294","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1804516295.jpg?v=1750930466"},{"product_id":"soldier-of-misfortune-book-vincent-hunt-9781804519592","title":"Soldier of Misfortune","description":"\u003ci\u003eSoldier of Misfortune\u003c\/i\u003e is the previously unpublished wartime memoir of Martin Ferrey, who served as a front-line officer with No. 9 Commando during the Second World War. Beginning as a reluctant recruit in the Scots Guards in 1940, Ferrey passed through Sandhurst before volunteering for the Army Commandos, with whom he would serve in Gibraltar, Italy and Albania during some of the hardest fighting of the Mediterranean campaign.Ferrey trained at Achnacarry and Lochailort during the formative years of the Commandos before taking part in operations including the raid on the Tremiti Islands, the Anzio landings and the savage fighting around Mount Ornito north of the Garigliano River, where he was badly wounded. He also served during operations in Albania as Allied forces sought to disrupt German withdrawals from the Balkans.Written with remarkable honesty, humour and self-awareness, Ferrey's memoir captures both the absurdity and brutality of wartime soldiering. He writes vividly about the hardships of training, the realities of Commando operations, the fear and confusion of combat, and the physical and psychological consequences of battle. Along the way he encounters a fascinating cast of wartime figures, including Randolph Churchill, Evelyn Waugh, Lord Mountbatten and many of Britain's most famous special forces soldiers.Supplemented by family letters, photographs and editorial notes, \u003ci\u003eSoldier of Misfortune\u003c\/i\u003e is both a compelling Commando memoir and an unusually thoughtful account of one officer's struggle to reconcile courage, fear, duty and survival in wartime.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53364175438097,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53364175700241,"sku":"NGR9781804519592","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781804519592.jpg?v=1781172232"},{"product_id":"sent-to-die-in-berlin-book-vincent-hunt-9781804519738","title":"Sent to Die in Berlin","description":"Sent to Die in Berlin is the untold story of 300 Latvian soldiers ordered into the German capital in late April 1945 in a futile attempt to hold back the Red Army. Very few survived, and until now the stories of the veterans who escaped have been in Latvian. Translated into English for the first time, the book adds extensive eyewitness accounts of the final battles for the German capital to the classic texts. The book covers the defence of key locations in the southern sector of the city, from Belle-Alliance-Platz, Gestapo headquarters and the Aviation Ministry to the Fuhrerbunker itself, through the eyes of the men of the Latvian 15th SS Reconnaissance Battalion. Drawing from diaries, articles and archive testimony, the author constructs a street-by-street chronology as - alongside the Spanish Ezquerra Battalion - the 300 Latvians try to slow the Soviet advance. In pitched battles from the Landwehr Canal up Saarlandstrasse to the Anhalter Bahnhof and Potsdamer Platz, the Latvians become the last line of defence of Hitler's Reich, with orders not to concede an inch of ground. They are at key moments in the battle: Lieutenant Atis Neilands acts as translator in the surrender negotiations and the Latvians are left holding the front line when the Germans slip away to break out at the Weidendammer Bridge on 1 May. By then there are very few Latvians surviving, but some escape and some return after years in Soviet labour camps to tell their stories much later in life. Through extensive archival research, painstaking translation and the author's street-by-street reconstruction of the battle through Latvian eyes, these vivid personal stories add valuable and dramatic insight to the classic accounts of the Fall of Berlin.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53364176388369,"sku":"NGR9781804519738","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781804519738.jpg?v=1775044132"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-vincent-hunt.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}