Article excerpt:
THE heroics of a Tayside war hero have been revealed in a new book for the first time.
The book — which marks 100 years since one of the bloodiest battles in the First World War — features 400 accounts of tank crews.
One of the stories features the heroics of Dundee-born soldier, Corporal William McNicoll, who worked as a solicitor after the war.
In August 1918, Cpl McNicoll took his tank five miles into hostile Western Front territory.
He suffered two direct hits under German bombardment.
However, the soldier, who himself was injured, bravely held his position under heavy machine gun fire to allow his wounded men to retreat to safety.
For this act, Cpl McNicoll was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
On returning to his home in Kinnettles, Angus, on leave in October 1918, he was presented with a gold watch bought by local parishioners.
Cpl McNicoll’s story is only one of the accounts captured in The First Tank Crews: The Lives of the Men Who Fought at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette 15 September 1916.
While featuring tales of the 1916 event, the book, which is penned by Stephen Pope, also tells of stories of other fights — including Cpl McNicoll’s heroics during the Battle of Amiens.
Images of War is a long running series by Pen and Sword books, primarily focused on WW2. While most of the titles in the series focus on either a particular campaign or a military unit, they also include titles on different WW2 era tanks. The latest tank themed entry in the series is 
Lately we have noticed a number of older public domain publications being listed for sale as Kindle books on Amazon. We would suggest that before people spend money on these items, do a quick Google search. In many cases, you can find a free PDF of the same document. One example of this is Spearhead in the West 1941-1945. This book, written in 1945, documents the history of the US 3rd Armored Division during the Second World War. The book can be 
. For those that prefer a physical hard copy, it appears that this 
, new copies of this reprint are going for around $35 on Amazon currently.
On August 25, Osprey books will be releasing their latest offering in the long running New Vanguard book series. 
On August 25, a new book on 
The first tanks of the East German armed forces in the immediate post-war era became the Soviet T 34/76 and T 34/85. These vehicles came from Red Army wartime production and were soon supplemented by post-war Polish production vehicles. During its service in the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) the T 34/85 was modernised to German T 34/85m standards. Additionally several German-designed T 34-based armoured recovery vehicles and specialised vehicles were introduced. Alongside these served SU 85 and SU 100 self-propelled guns.
After a long and demanding development the new Schützenpanzer Puma armoured infantry fighting vehicle was now introduced to the German Bundeswehr. During his research the author was granted hitherto unprecedented access to the development history, technology and training of the Puma. This publication shows on 128 pages in two volumes and with a total of 350 illustrations so many details of the weapon system that the reader is able to “look over the shoulder” of engineers, mechanics and crew. A worthy documentation of this latest high-tech asset to the German armed forces.
Fans of WWII German armor will be happy to know that on August 25, Osprety Publishing has slated for release a new book on the Sturmartillerie. Titled 
and the 
for Osprey. This new book appears similar in size and format to his previous Osprey hardcovers, at least based on the cover (yes, we know we shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover!) Mr Anderson also written for Osprey a history of the Panzerwaffe in two volumes. The 
is available now, the 
will be available next year.
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