Dan Harvey Libros

The Battle of Arnhem was a major World War II battle at the vanguard of the Allied Operation Market Garden, the dramatic but unsuccessful campaign fought by the British Army in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. This was the first-time airborne troops were used by the Allies on such a scale, and the objective was a series of nine bridges that might have provided an Allied invasion route into Germany. Airborne and Land Forces successfully liberated Eindhoven and Nijmegen but were thwarted by the Nazis at the Battle of Arnhem, in their efforts to secure the last bridge over the River Rhine. Only a small British force was able to reach the Arnhem Road Bridge but was overwhelmed by Nazi defenders and, after nine days of fighting, the shattered remains of the Division were withdrawn. The British 1st Airborne Division lost most of its strength and didn’t see combat again. What is less well known in this famous saga, however, is the vital contribution of hundreds of Irish soldiers from a host of backgrounds, with a mixture of experience and range of ranks. Men from the north of Ireland and men from the south gave their all to this Allied campaign, and in A Bloody Week , their dramatic story is finally being told.

The epic Allied invasion of German-occupied Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, has been extensively chronicled. The largest seaborne invasion in history, it began the liberation of German-occupied France, and later Europe, from Nazi control What is less well known, however, is that thousands of Irish and members of the Irish diaspora were among the Allied units that landed on the Normandy beaches. Their vital participation has been overlooked abroad and even more so in Ireland. There were Irish among the American, British and Canadian airborne and glider-borne infantry landings; Irishmen were on the beaches from dawn, in and amongst the first and subsequent assault waves to hit the beaches; in the skies above in bombers and fighter aircraft; and on naval vessels all along the Normandy coastline. They were also prominent among the D-Day planners and commanders. This Irish contribution to the most extraordinary military operation ever attempted in the history of warfare is told here for the first time

The Battle of Britain, regarded by historians as one of the greatest air battles in the history of warfare, was an early turning point in the Second World War. In the summer of 1940, the German army had, with astonishing speed, mercilessly swept aside all before them and were perched on the northern coastline of France. Outright victory over all of Europe was impeded only by the expanse of the English Channel. The supremely confident, yet-to-be defeated Luftwaffe (German Air Force) were eager for continued action, to claim air superiority and victory over an outnumbered RAF and clear the skies for the amphibious invasions of Britain and Ireland. It was vital that the RAF deny them, and so a ferocious and highly strategic aerial battle began that was to rage for more than three months. Among those in the RAF's Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons were Irishmen, who were in the thick of the aerial exchanges, daring 'dog-fights,' and intrepid interceptions of German bombers. A Bloody The Irish at the Battle of Britain for the first time tells the true and full story of their heretofore underestimated involvement in this epic aerial encounter.

Post D-Day, with the Allies on the newly created ‘Second Front’ driving fast eastwards beyond Paris, and the Russians on the ‘Eastern Front’ pressing westwards, the fervour of the fanatical Fascist Nazi Regime remained undiminished. For the Third Reich it was intolerable to believe that they must now concede. Instead of ending the war and suing for peace, the levels of hostility, hatred, and horror heightened, and the brutality, viciousness, and terror increased. The resistance to the Allied advances across Europe, first towards, then within Germany intensified, and every inch of the Fatherland was bitterly contested. With the Allies, in their thousands, were the Irish. A Bloody Victory unearths these people from the corners of Irish history and transports them back to the D-Day beaches and the bridge at Arnhem, to the frozen landscapes at the Battle of the Bulge and the banks of the River Rhine, to the unimaginable horrors of Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps, and finally to the ruinous Battle of Berlin. There was no one individual ‘Irish narrative’ in the Second World War, but there was a narrative of Irish Individuals, and in A Bloody Victory, Dan Harvey pays due tribute to their significant contribution.

The book explores the significant decline of Christianity in America, highlighting a Pew 2015 Research Report that reveals a 7% drop in self-identified Christians from 2007 to 2014. In contrast, the number of atheists and agnostics nearly doubled during the same period. The trend is particularly pronounced among younger adults, with over a third of individuals aged 37 and under identifying as religiously unaffiliated, indicating a profound shift in the religious landscape of the nation.

The word Zulu means 'heaven, ' but for the suddenly besieged British garrison at Rorke's Drift, it represented a hellish horde of warriors from the Zulu nation. A Bloody Night documents the terrifying struggle of these Irishmen as thousands of poorly armed but well-trained Zulus unexpectedly hurled themselves in a deadly onslaught against their hastily barricaded trading station and mission hospital. The battle, a defining clash in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, was a bare struggle for survival; the deeds and heroics of the Irish soldiers, subdued within the grand narrative, were no less exceptional than that of their English counterparts. Dan Harvey brings examples of their sheer resilience to the fore. The defense of Rorke's Drift is a tale of courage in adversity against impossible odds; the little-known but significant role of these Irishmen is all the more intriguing for its unheralded heroism. [Subject: Military History, History, Irish Studies

During a time of high tension, terror and fear, the Irish Defence Forces faced the very real threat of the Irish State being plunged into a savagely sectarian civil war. The southern state faced a breakdown of law and order, severely challenged by manhunts, prison breaks, shoot-outs, kidnappings, bank robberies, subversive training camps, bomb-making factories, illegal weapons shipments, and border operations. Soldiering Against Subversion is the dramatic and previously untold story of the Irish Defence Forces' critical role in defending the southern state against paramilitary forces during the worse years of the modern Troubles. Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Dan Harvey, describes the major operations via in-depth interviews with Irish Defence veterans, revealing how these brave men and women protected the state on home soil. From the kidnapping of Shergar and Quinsworth CEO Don Tidey, the manhunt and capture of INLA leader Dessie 'the Border Fox' O'Hare, the pandemonium as the Irish army quells a violet prison riot in Mountjoy in 1972, to the Irish navy's efforts to thwart gun-running off the coast of Kerry, these first-hand accounts reveal the true story of the fight for the nation's democracy.