September Book Vote and Last Month's Results

We would like to apologise for the glitch in the book vote. We are working getting this resolved as soon as we can. While we fix this issue, we have put September's book vote here. We are very sorry for the inconvenience. 

This month the book vote looks at the Raid series. From sieges during the Eighty Years' War to battles in the 1970s, this month's vote covers a wide range of events. Read more about the full list of options below and cast your vote in the poll below!! Plus, check out the results of last month's Campaign book vote below. 

Hellburners in Antwerp 1585: Weapons of mass destruction in the Eighty Years’ War

Fireships were among the most terrifying naval weapons available in the age of fighting sail, and in the desperate Siege of Antwerp the Dutch rebels took the concept one stage further. The Spanish had built a fortified floating bridge to cut Antwerp’s communications and starve the population out. The Dutch ‘hellburners’ were two merchant ships, each with a carefully prepared three-tonne bomb below decks, to be sailed into the bridge as part of a regular fireship attack. While one failed to explode, the other – triggered by a new clockwork mechanism – blew the bridge and the garrison apart, killing around 800 men. However the Dutch could not exploit this success and the Antwerp surrendered a few months later.

Mirbat 1972: The SAS’s heroic battle in Oman

During the Dhofar Rebellion, nine members of the SAS, manning a small outpost in the Omani desert, fought an action against hundreds of Adoo guerrillas attempting to overrun the position. Their defence rested on their ability to keep in action their single 25-pounder artillery piece, a weapon 800yds from the main outpost. Sgt Talaiasi Labalaba manned the exposed weapon alone until he was killed, and he was followed by three others, one of whom was also killed. But the handful of men managed to keep the Adoo at bay long enough for reinforcements and air support to arrive and scatter the guerrillas.

Operation Anthropoid 1942: The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

Reinhard Heydrich was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, and one of the most hated in Europe – known as the ‘Bucher of Prague’ for his brutal rule in occupied Czechoslovakia. In 1941 the Czechoslovak forces in exile in London made the decision to assassinate him, to demonstrate that Czechoslovakia was still in the fight. Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš ambushed Heydrich’s open car on the streets of Prague, and despite the attack not going to plan, fatally wounded Heydrich. The price was heavy, however. The two assassins were hunted down and killed, along with other resistance personnel, while hundreds of civilians were murdered and villages razed in reprisal.

Operation Jericho 1944: Mosquitos lead a jailbreak

Jericho was one of the most remarkable raids of World War II. After a series of Gestapo round-ups of suspected Resistance members, Amiens prison in northern France contained a number of agents awaiting execution, and others of exceptional value to the upcoming invasion of Normandy. British and American intelligence pressed for a rescue attempt on the fortified prison. The answer was a jailbreak, aided by armed French Resistance personnel on the ground, but one initiated by a high-risk, precision bombing strike by a handful of Mosquitos and Typhoons to blow holes in the prison walls. Hundreds of prisoners poured out, and although many were recaptured the most important got away.

Sydney Harbour 1942: Japanese midget submarines strike Australia

During the height of the Japanese offensives, a small unit of IJN submarines embarked on a long-range mission to strike at a major Australian city. Their midget submarines made it past the initial defences and into Sydney Harbour, but several were sunk, and the Allied cruisers in Sydney – HMAS Adelaide and Canberra, and USS Chicago – survived. This book would examine not just the Sydney attacks and why they failed, but the Japanese submarines’ follow-up bombardments and attacks in Australian waters.

Did your favourite win? Which Raid title did you vote for? Let us know in the comments!