In the great sweep of twentieth-century history, World War II produced its share of spies, saboteurs, and secret agents, figures who...

On the morning of 7 May 1915, as the RMS Lusitania cut through the waters off the coast of Ireland, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt stood on deck, gazing at the unfolding chaos with extraordinary calm. A millionaire, sportsman, and heir to one of America’s most powerful dynasties, he would spend his final eighteen minutes not in panic, but rescuing children and women—knowing full well he could not swim. When the ship slipped beneath the waves, so did Vanderbilt, his body never recov

Lt Col Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, SAS, in the desert near Kabrit, 1942. “Wild maybe, but he was definitely someone you would want on...