New Releases by James Daly

The bitter fighting in the so-called Falaise-Argentan Pocket in August 1944, during which the Allies encircled and destroyed a substantial part of Hitler’s forces in northern France following the D-Day landings, marked the last major battle of the Normandy campaign. Despite this, tens of thousands of German soldiers managed to escape through the infamous Falaise Gap. It was as the Allies continued to pursue the retreating enemy forces that the planners considered or drew-up a number of further airborne operations. As James Daly reveals, three operations, namely Lucky Strike, Transfigure and Axehead, might well have been part of the last of the fighting in the breakout from, Normandy itself. The first of these, Lucky Strike, was intended to see General Montgomery’s 21st Army Group strike to the north-east in the direction of the River Seine, where bridges near Rouen were to be taken by the British 1st Airborne Division. Transfigure was to be a major operation with the aim of using the First Allied Airborne Army against the French road network with the object of cutting the German lines of retreat across the Seine. Axehead, meanwhile, was a plan to establish an air-head on the eastern bank of the Seine. In this assault the British 1st Airborne Division, along with infantry, Sherman DD amphibious tanks, and specialised engineers, would establish crossings of the Dives, Touques, Risle and Seine rivers. As the Allies advanced further east into the Low Countries, further Allied airborne assaults were suggested. In Operation Linnet, for example, airborne forces were to capture and hold Tournai on the Escaut river in the western part of German-occupied Belgium. In the event, they were all cancelled, usually as the Allied forces reached the intended dropping zones before the airborne forces could take off. In particular, several of these operations bear very strong resemblance to elements of the Market Garden plan and show early signs of the mistakes. Operation Comet, for example, included a glider coup-de-main for the bridges at Arnhem, Nijmegen and Grave – why did this disappear for Market Garden? These operations and their planning show that far from being an operation that went wrong in September 1944, the flaws in the Arnhem plan were evident much earlier. They also show that divisions between the Allies emerged much earlier and ran much deeper than originally thought.

The airborne landings on D-Day played a major part in the success of the largest amphibious operation ever mounted. Yet just over three months later Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne operation ever attempted, failed to take all its objectives. It is notable, however, that in the film A Bridge Too Far Dirk Bogarde’s Lieutenant General ‘Boy’ Browning refers to a large number of cancelled operations since D-Day. What were these operations? Why do we know so little about them? And what can they tell us about Allied airborne planning, and the way that the allies fought, in 1944? As James Daly reveals, plans were considered or drawn-up for a number of ambitious airborne assaults that could have formed part of the Allies’ efforts to break out of the beachheads. Of these, three, operations Wastage, Tuxedo and Wild Oats, might well have been part of the fighting in Normandy itself. Operation Wild Oats, for example, was to see the 1st Airborne Division help capture Caen in conjunction with the British I Corps and XXX Corps. Three others, operations Beneficiary, Hands Up and Swordhilt, were to be combined airborne and amphibious descents to seize the vitally important ports of St Malo and Brest, as well as the Quiberon Bay area in southern Brittany. Airborne planning was frenetic and wide ranging during this period. One operation would have seen gliders landing on a beach; another would have seen the airborne troops taking off without maps. Some of them were months in the planning; others were merely an idea that lasted for a matter of days. Far from being standalone airborne operations, all of them were part of a wider strategy and several were major combined operations, effectively small-scale D-Days, complete with seaborne landings. For the first time, this book looks at each of these operations in detail. Using new research and drawing on original planning documents, including maps of planned drop zones and operational areas, most of which have never been published before, James Daly explores a little-known aspect of the Allies’ landings in France in the summer of 1944.

Over 6,000 men from Portsmouth are believed to have been killed during the First World War – the greatest loss of life that the city has ever known. Not only were thousands of Portsmouth soldiers killed on the Western Front, but Portsmouth-based ships were sunk throughout the war, causing massive loss of life. Thanks to a wealth of sources available and painstaking use of database software, it is possible to tell their stories in more detail than ever before. James Daly builds an extremely detailed picture of Portsmouth''s First World War dead, down to where they were born and where they lived. Not only will their powerfully poignant stories tell us about how the war was fought and won, and their sacrifices, but they will also provide a vividly clear picture of how Portsmouth and its people suffered during the war to end all wars.

Based on research into 2,549 servicemen and women from Portsmouth who were killed during World War 2, this book uncovers stories that have never been told before: a naval bomb disposal Petty Officer awarded the George Cross; a 16-year-old Para; a Battle of Britain hero; men killed in battleships, submarines, bombers and tanks throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. By using database software, the author has been able to analyse all 2,549 casualties and look at statistics such as their age and where in Portsmouth they came from. As well as telling the stories of individuals and units, it has been possible to build a picture of the effect that World War 2 had on Portsmouth''s communities.

An Early Snow (The Visions Come) is a Christmas story that takes place in northeastern Oklahoma in the mid-fifties. An energetic twelve-year-old boy named Toby is consumed by a perpetual dream of finding Santaas lost Christmas sack. In his mind, he must return it before Christmas. Toby is helped and encouraged by the aSquad, a a fraternal organization of sorts composed of his best friends from Murrow Indian Childrenas Home, Russell, Squee, Roscoe and Katy. Murrow Indian Childrenas Home is not an orphanage, but a home for children of dysfunctional families. The continuing dream is often in conflict with Tobyas real life at Murrow Indian Childrenas Home, and his mischievous activities get him and his friends into trouble. You are Toby. Will you be able to complete this decisive journey on time? Will a reunion forty years later dispel a few earlier myths and strengthen that long and unquenchable human spirit?

In this program, we proposed to demonstrate a compact, rugged, low-cost ammonia sensor with better than {+-}0.2 ppmv lower detection limit and resolution. Extensive design and trade studies indicated that this measurement could be made by exploiting the infrared absorbance of ammonia at 1527 nm to determine concentration. Key features of the design were (1) a electronically-tunable, wavelength-agile diode laser-pumped fiber laser, (2) a unique, low-cost folded path optical cell, and (3) an InGaAs photodiode (light detector). The sensor would be designed to make in situ measurements of ammonia in flue gas just downstream from the catalyst. The design proved robust and was able to operate at pressures in the range 1-3 atm and temperatures up to 500 C. With extensive signal processing, the sensor was able to make unambiguous ammonia measurements. But the signal processing degraded response time to almost 3 seconds and the measurement ambient conditions limited achievable resolution to about 20 ppmv ammonia. Extensive re-design, including a much longer optical path length and more robust real-time signal processing would be required to make sub-ppm measurements using this approach. During the performance period of this project, conventional in-situ laser based monitors and thick film ceramic ammonia sensors have been introduced and have gained acceptance in real-time feed-forward control for this application.

There is a critical civil rights issue in public education; the gap in achievement between Anglo students and their African-American and Latino counterparts. The gap has garnered the legislative attention of the federal government through No Child Left Behind. Despite gap pervasiveness, there are islands of excellence in seas of disparity; one of the defining qualities of these islands is strong educational leadership. Recent studies have suggested that educational leaders enacting a balance of adaptive and technical leadership have a direct effect on increasing student achievement. Using an originally designed instrument, 292 site administrators, district office administrators, and teachers were surveyed in 4 school districts, testing the hypothesis that the multi-faceted construct of trust has a predictive relationship with both adaptive and technical leadership. Results of multiple linear regression models indicate that the specific facets of respect, risk, and competence are significant predictors of adaptive and technical leadership. Significant differences were found between school and district office perceptions in both leadership and trust dimensions suggesting a lack of district-wide coherence.

The issue of financial volatility, especially since financial deregulation, has given rise to concerns regarding the effects of increased financial volatility on real economic activity. Two issues represent a substantial challenge to financial economists with respect to these concerns. The first relates to the identification of the causes of increased volatility in financial markets. Identification is a first step towards increasing both financial economists'' and policy-makers'' understanding of the interrelated causes of financial volatility. The second requires linking the effects of increased financial volatility to the real sector of the economy by examining the channels through which financial volatility influences fundamental economic variables.

This publication provides an outline of the similarities and differences between Sweden and Canada. It also reviews Sweden''s economy and industry from an historical perspective, covering the hundred or so years since the country''s industrialization in the early 1870s. In addition, it describes the main factors in the crisis of the late 1970s, analyzes events in the Swedish economy up to 1982, and presents alternative interpretations of whether Sweden''s crisis reflected disturbances in the world economy or was intensified by policies and developments within Sweden itself. It also looks at industrial policies, and developments in Sweden since 1982.

This study provides important empirical background to the continuing debate on Canadian industrial policy and trade. The analysis is based on primary data derived from a unique survey of individual firms, both Canadian and foreign-owned, conducted early in the 1981-1982 recession. The main purpose of the study is to assess whether recent changes in tariffs, exchange rates, wage rates, and other factors in Canada and the world economy suggest the need for any significant modification in the earlier analyses and conclusions. The study presents prior evidence on costs, specialization, and trade; assesses current costs and productivity, and presents new information on how increased exports and specialization would affect cost performance and international competitiveness; examines non-production costs and other non-cost influences on specialization and export performance; and suggests strategies for the private sector to consider in order to survive in the changing trade environment of the 1980s.

Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653) was a defender of ''the Natural Power of Kings against the Unnatural Liberty of the People.'' His doctrine of omnicompetent sovereignty had little influence on the thought and political debates of his time, for none of his writings was published until the last few years of his life; but it came under scrutiny later in the century, particularly during the exclusion crisis and in the political writings of John Locke. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of his thought, its context, and its place in English political thought as a whole. Daly examines Filmer''s publishing career, his relation to contemporary writers and critics, and the chief sources on which he drew. The book thus provides the background for a study of Filmer''s theory of sovereignty, its voluntarist concept of law, its rejection of prescription, fundamental law, and non-monarchical forms of government, and its insistence that monarchy be not only absolute, but arbitrary as well. Analysing Filmer''s interpretation of Adam''s (and all kings'') ''fatherly power,'' here described as ''legal patriarchalism,'' Daly shows it to be very different from most contemporary thought. In comparing Filmer''s thought with that of other royalists and the positions taken by his critics, notably Edward Gee, James Tyrrell, Algernon Sidney, and of course Locke, he shows it to be strikingly original, almost revolutionary, and frequently distorted by those who dealt with it.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication.