Wayne Stack — книжные серии

In 1939 more than 140,000 New Zealanders enlisted to fight overseas during World War II. Of these, 104,000 served in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Initially thrown into the doomed campaign to halt the German blitzkrieg on Greece and Crete (1941), the division was rebuilt under the leadership of MajGen Sir Bernard Freyberg, and became the elite corps within Montgomery's Eighth Army in the desert. After playing a vital role in the victory at El Alamein (1942) the ‘Kiwis' were the vanguard of the pursuit to Tunisia. In 1943-45 the division was heavily engaged in the Italian mountains, especially at Cassino (1944); it ended the war in Trieste. Meanwhile, a smaller NZ force supported US forces against the Japanese in the Solomons and New Guinea (1942-44). Fully illustrated with specially commissioned colour plates, this is the story of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force's vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II.

Although comparatively small in number, the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in World War I (1914-1918) earned an elite reputation on the Western Front, and the New Zealanders' war effort was a defining moment in their national history and sense of identity. The statistics are astonishing: of the total population of New Zealand of 1 million, no fewer than 100,000 men enlisted - that is one in every five men in the country, and of those, 18,000 men were killed and 58,000 wounded. In other words, 15 per cent of the male population of New Zealand became casualties. The NZEF was first committed at Gallipoli in 1915, NZ cavalry regiments helped defend Egypt and fought in Palestine with Allenby's famous Desert Mounted Corps; on the Western Front the Kiwis were called the 'Silent Division' for their fieldcraft and their uncomplaining professionalism. This book is both a tribute and a history of the crucial contribution made by a small nation.