Monash's Masterpiece
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Narrated by:
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Michael Carman
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By:
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Peter FitzSimons
About this listen
The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle - where infantry, tanks, artillery and planes operated together as a coordinated force.
Monash planned every detail meticulously, with nothing left to chance. Integrated use of tanks, planes, infantry, wireless (and even carrier pigeons!) was the basis, and it went on from there, down to the details: everyone used the same maps, with updated versions delivered by motorbike despatch riders to senior commanders, including Monash. Each infantry battalion was allocated to a tank group, and they advanced together. Supplies and ammunition were dropped as needed from planes. The losses were relatively few. In the words of Monash: 'A perfected modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases.'
Monash planned for the battle to last for 90 minutes - in the end it went for 93. What happened in those minutes changed for the rest of the war the way the British fought battles and the tactics and strategies used by the Allies.
Peter FitzSimons brings this Allied triumph to life and tells this magnificent story as it should be told.
©2018 Peter FitzSimons (P)2018 Hachette AustraliaListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A masterful biography of the U.S. Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II, Citizen Soldiers provides a compelling account of the extraordinary stories of ordinary men in their fight for democracy. From the high command on down to the enlisted men, Stephen E. Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from men on both sides who were there.
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Required reading, excellent narration
- By Jeremy on 06-30-11
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September Hope
- The American Side of a Bridge Too Far
- By: John C. McManus
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In September Hope, acclaimed historian John C. McManus explores World War II’s most ambitious invasion, an immense, daring offensive to defeat Nazi Germany before the end of 1944. Operation Market-Garden is one of the war’s most famous, but least understood, battles, and McManus tells the story of the American contribution to this crucial phase of the war in Europe.
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Go yanks go !
- By Alan on 03-06-13
By: John C. McManus
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Forty-Seven Days
- How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I
- By: Mitchell Yockelson
- Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Battle of the Meuse-Argonne stands as the deadliest clash in American history: More than a million untested American soldiers went up against a better-trained and more experienced German army, costing more than 26,000 deaths and leaving nearly 100,000 wounded. Yet, in 47 days of intense combat, those Americans pushed back the enemy and forced the Germans to surrender, bringing the First World War to an end - a feat the British and the French had not achieved after more than three years of fighting.
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Comprehensive history of The First Army in WWI
- By Bruce Miller on 03-08-18
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First Over There
- The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I
- By: Matthew J. Davenport
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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At first light on Tuesday, May 28th, 1918, waves of American riflemen from the US Army's First Division climbed from their trenches, charged across the shell-scarred French dirt of no-man's-land, and captured the hilltop village of Cantigny from the grip of the German Army. Those who survived the enemy machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand fighting held on for the next two days and nights in shallow foxholes under the sting of mustard gas and crushing steel of artillery fire.
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Outstanding storytelling.
- By David on 04-26-21
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A Storm in Flanders
- The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918: Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front
- By: Winston Groom
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Novelist and prizewinning historian Winston Groom's gripping history of the four-year battle for Ypres in Belgian Flanders, the pivotal engagement of World War I that would forever change the way the world fought - and thought about - war. This is Groom's account of what would become the most dreaded place on Earth.
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I love, love, love this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-16-16
By: Winston Groom
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The Battle of Arnhem
- The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II
- By: Antony Beevor
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 17, 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the groaning roar of airplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders, carrying the legendary American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the British 1st Airborne Division. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept, but could it have ever worked? The cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch.
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Fighting a lost war
- By Alec Drumm on 11-03-18
By: Antony Beevor
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The Liberator
- One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared - the entire time it took to liberate Europe - no regiment saw more action, and no single platoon, company, or battalion endured worse, than the ones commanded by Felix Sparks, who had entered the war as a greenhorn second lieutenant of the 157th "Eager for Duty" Infantry Regiment of the 45th "Thunderbird" Division. Sparks and his fellow Thunderbirds fought longest and hardest to defeat Hitler.
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Now I Know What a Hero Really Is
- By Steven on 11-27-12
By: Alex Kershaw
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D-Day
- The Battle for Normandy
- By: Antony Beevor
- Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned historian Antony Beevor, the man who "single-handedly transformed the reputation of military history" (The Guardian) presents the first major account in more than 20 years of the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Paris. This is the first book to describe not only the experiences of the American, British, Canadian, and German soldiers, but also the terrible suffering of the French caught up in the fighting.
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A commendable book
- By Michael on 01-19-10
By: Antony Beevor
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This Kind of War
- The Classic Korean War History
- By: T. R. Fehrenbach
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 24 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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This Kind of War is a monumental study of the conflict that began in June 1950. Successive generations of U.S. military officers have considered this book an indispensable part of their education. T. R. Fehrenbach's narrative brings to life the harrowing and bloody battles that were fought up and down the Korean Peninsula.
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Great narrative, frustrating redundancy
- By Ted on 08-16-10
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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If You Survive
- From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War II - One American Officer's Riveting True Story
- By: George Wilson
- Narrated by: Brian Keeler
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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George Wilson has garnered much acclaim for this shattering and enlightening memoir. Detailing his odyssey from July, 1944 until the following summer, If You Survive is a startling first-person account of the final year of World War II. Wilson was the only man from his original company to finish the war. As a Second Lieutenant, he went ashore at Utah Beach after the D-Day invasion amidst burned vehicles, sunken landing craft, and broken fortifications.
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the best story of the war in Europe I've read
- By David on 02-18-17
By: George Wilson
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Breakout from Juno
- First Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, July 4 - August 21, 1944
- By: Mark Zuehlke
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, Breakout from Juno, is the first dramatic chronicling of Canada's pivotal role throughout the entire Normandy Campaign following the D-Day landings.
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Disappointing narration and geography
- By Gary on 04-13-14
By: Mark Zuehlke
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The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave.
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It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers. Then—just when they were least expecting—they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack. For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught.
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Headwinds
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James Cook
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The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the globe. His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and navigation.
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Great. But...
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Tobruk
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In the early days of April 1941, the 14,000 Australian forces garrisoned in the Libyan town of Tobruk were told to expect reinforcements and supplies within eight weeks... Eight months later these heroic, gallant, determined 'Rats of Tobruk' were rescued by the British Navy having held the fort against the might of Rommel's never-before defeated Afrika Corps.
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Fair dinkum
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By: Peter FitzSimons
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Nancy Wake
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In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naive, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers.
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What listeners say about Monash's Masterpiece
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Paul Gallagher
- 09-28-23
Excellent history, almost unknown in US
I’ll say I stumbled across this book by accident and I couldn’t be happier it’s kind a let me know a lot about an unknown battle in war one and how the United States first fought alongside the Australians in World War I. Thank you I think you’ll enjoy this book
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- Tyler Moran Mills
- 08-09-24
Great story telling
Great and detailed story, gave both an overview as well as individual view from the soldiers eyes
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