Audiobooks by Taylor Downing

The Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception

The Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception tells the remarkable story of the deceptions, hoaxes and misdirections carried out by the Allies ahead of the most pivotal moment of the Second World War - the D-Day invasion. The most audacious of these schemes aimed to convince German forces that plans to storm Normandy were a mere sideshow, and featured a fictitious army led by General Patton and furnished with hundreds of real-world dummy landing craft, tanks and aircraft. New research reveals a hidden link with Britain's film industry, as the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of this dramatic gambit is explored in detail. Full of fascinating characters from the US, Britain and Germany, this compelling and propulsive narrative explores one of the most remarkable secret campaigns of the Second World War.

Taylor Downing (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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Secret Warriors: Key Scientists, Code Breakers, and Propagandists of the Great War

A startling and vivid account of World War I, Secret Warriors uncovers how wartime code-breaking, aeronautics, and scientific research laid the foundation for many of the innovations of the twentieth century. World War I is often viewed as a war fought by armies of millions living and fighting in trenches, aided by brutal machinery that cost the lives of many. But behind all of this an intellectual war was also being fought between engineers, chemists, code-breakers, physicists, doctors, mathematicians, and intelligence gatherers. This hidden war was to make a positive and lasting contribution to how war was conducted on land, at sea, and in the air and, most importantly, to life at home. Secret Warriors provides an invaluable and fresh history of World War I, profiling a number of the key incidents and figures that led to great leaps forward for the twentieth century. Told in a lively and colorful narrative style, Secret Warriors reveals the unknown side of this tragic conflict.

Taylor Downing (Author), Derek Perkins (Narrator)

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1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink

A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983--the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear ArmageddonThe year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one--more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the United States, President Reagan vastly increased defense spending, described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and launched the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the country from incoming missiles. Seeing all this, Yuri Andropov, the paranoid Soviet leader, became convinced that the US really meant to attack the Soviet Union and he put the KGB on high alert, looking for signs of an imminent nuclear attack.When a Soviet plane shot down a Korean civilian jet, Reagan described it as "a crime against humanity." And Moscow grew increasingly concerned about America's language and behavior. Would they attack? The temperature rose fast. In November the West launched a wargame exercise, codenamed "Abel Archer," that looked to the Soviets like the real thing. With Andropov's finger inching ever closer to the nuclear button, the world was truly on the brink.This is an extraordinary and largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of missiles being readied, intelligence failures, misunderstandings, and the panic of world leaders. With access to hundreds of astonishing new documents, Taylor Downing tells for the first time the gripping but true story of how near the world came to nuclear war in 1983.

Taylor Downing (Author), Ben Onwukwe (Narrator)

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