Download or read book A Soldier in the Cockpit written by Ron Pottinger and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In October 1939, barely a month after World War II erupted in Europe, Ron Pottinger was conscripted into the British Army as a rifleman in the Royal Fusiliers. A year later, amidst pilot shortages due to losses during the Battle of Britain, he transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he began flying the 7.5 ton Hawker Typhoon fighter. He flew dozens of dangerous ground-attack missions over occupied Europe through bad weather, heavy flak, and enemy fighters before being shot down in early 1945 and ending the war in a German prisoner of war camp. Ron Pottinger served for six years during World War II, most of it flying combat missions in the Royal Air Force. He lives in England.

Download or read book A Soldier in the Cockpit written by Ron W. Pottinger and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I could see a carpet of twinkling lights from the ack ack all along the rail sidings which bordered the canal. I dove onto these with my cannons going. Then suddenly, when the attention of all the guns turned on me, I realized how foolhardy I was being. I ran the guns along the row of rail trucks--opened the throttle wide and pulled straight up for the clouds--with tracers crossing in front and on all sides of the plane. Ron Pottinger started the war as a rifleman in the Royal Fusiliers, then transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he began flying the 7.5-ton Hawker Typhoon. He flew dozens of dangerous ground attack missions over occupied Europe through bad weather, heavy flak, and enemy fighters before being shot down and taken prisoner.

Download or read book One Day in Vietnam written by Gary Hook and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2000-09-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. and reflecting on the name of a distant cousin, first-time author Gary Hook set out to discover the man he had never known and what happened to him during the war. He searched for and found his cousin's closest relatives, friends and fellow soldiers with whom his cousin served during the war. Through extensive personal interviews and key government documents the author uncovered a story of gripping air combat, heroic sacrifice, and a terrible secret that lay hidden for more than thirty years.

Download or read book Cockpits of the Cold War written by Donald Nijboer and published by Erin, Ont. : Boston Mills Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pictorial book looks inside the cockpit of aircraft from 1947 to 1965 from the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, France and the Soviet Union. Featured aircraft includes a pilot's perspective on what it was like to fly.

Download or read book The Final Mission of Bottoms Up written by Dennis R. Okerstrom and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On November 18, 1944, the end of the war in Europe finally in sight, American copilot Lieutenant Lee Lamar struggled alongside pilot Randall Darden to keep Bottoms Up, their B-24J Liberator, in the air. They and their crew of eight young men had believed the intelligence officer who, at the predawn briefing at their base in southern Italy, had confided that their mission that day would be a milk run. But that twenty-first mission out of Italy would be their last. Bottoms Up was staggered by an antiaircraft shell that sent it plunging three miles earthward, the pilots recovering control at just 5,000 feet. With two engines out, they tried to make it to a tiny strip on a British-held island in the Adriatic Sea and in desperation threw out everything not essential to flight: machine guns, belts of ammunition, flak jackets. But over Pula, in what is now Croatia, they were once more hit by German fire, and the focus quickly became escaping the doomed bomber. Seemingly unable to extricate himself, Lamar all but surrendered to death before fortuitously bailing out. He was captured the next day and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at a stalag on the Baltic Sea, suffering the deprivations of little food and heat in Europe’s coldest winter in a century. He never saw most of his crew again. Then, in 2006, more than sixty years after these life-changing experiences, Lamar received an email from Croatian archaeologist Luka Bekic, who had discovered the wreckage of Bottoms Up. A veteran of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Bekic felt compelled to find out the crew’s identities and fates. Lee Lamar, a boy from a hardscrabble farm in rural northwestern Missouri, had gone to college on the GI Bill, become a civil engineer, gotten married, and raised a family. Yet, for all the opportunity that stemmed from his wartime service, part of him was lost. The prohibition on asking prisoners of war their memories during the repatriation process prevented him from reconciling himself to the events of that November day. That changed when, nearly a year after being contacted by Bekic, Lamar visited the site, hoping to gain closure, and met the Croatian Partisans who had helped some members of his crew escape. In this absorbing, alternating account of World War II and its aftermath, Dennis R. Okerstrom chronicles, through Lee Lamar’s experiences, the Great Depression generation who went on to fight in the most expensive war in history. This is the story of the young men who flew Bottoms Up on her final mission, of Lamar’s trip back to the scene of his recurring nightmare, and of a remarkable convergence of international courage, perseverance, and friendship.

Download or read book You Are Not Forgotten written by Bryan Bender and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1944 Major Marion “Ryan” McCown Jr., an earnest young Marine Corps pilot, came under attack by enemy fire and went down with his plane, lost to the dense jungle of Papua New Guinea. Some sixty years later, Major George Eyster V would find himself in the same sweltering and nearly impenetrable rain forest searching for evidence of MIAs. Coming from a long line of military officers dating back to the Revolutionary War, army service was Eyster’s family legacy. After a disillusioning tour of duty in Iraq and almost ending his army career, he accepts a posting to JPAC instead, an elite division whose sole mission is to bring all fallen soldiers home to the country for which they gave their lives. While Eyster’s search for McCown proves difficult, what emerges at the end of the unforgettable mission is an inspiring true tale of loss and redemption.

Download or read book Cockpit written by Donald Nijboer and published by . This book was released on 2006-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cockpits of World War II aircraft and the men who flew them.

Download or read book Once a Soldier written by R. Renwick Hart and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2013-11-25 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is all about the author’s life from his early days as a child in Hawaii, in the mid 1930’s, through his days at West Point, his war tour in Vietnam and military career with two additional retirement careers: First, with he and his wife creating an import and retail operation and later as an aircraft accident investigator and consultant. The book also reaches back into his family history and the lives of his mother and father to provide a genealogy of his heritage. As noted early in this memoir, “There is always time to ask your parents questions about their youth or how they met one another. After all, they are there and can answer those questions any day. So life rolls on and one day they are gone ... and the answers to all those questions are gone with them; FOREVER!” In this book, all those questions are answered, sometimes with great humor and occasionally with sadness, but always with accuracy and truth.

Download or read book World War II written by Robert R. Burch and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A story of a young B-17 pilot and his experiences leading up to military service, training, combat and after service. Anecdotes, stories, photographs included.

Download or read book United States Army Aviation Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Officers in Flight Suits written by John Darrell Sherwood and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1998-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States Air Force fought as a truly independent service for the first time during the Korean War. As a result, the fighter pilots reigned supreme. In Korea, American air power was challenged by the most advanced fighter of the time -- the Soviet MiG-15 -- and ruled the skies in many celebrated aerial battles. In addition, however, they destroyed virtually every major town and city in North Korea, demolished its entire crop irrigation system, and killed close to one million civilians. Korea, then, is the perfect laboratory for studying the culture of fighter pilots, a culture based on self-confidence and risk-taking, one which has promoted what John Darrell Sherwood calls "flight suit attitude." In Officers in Flight Suits, Sherwood explores the flight suit officer's life, drawing on memoirs, diaries, letters, novels, unit records, and personal papers as well as interviews with over fifty veterans who served in the Air Force in Korea. From their training to dramatic encounters during battle, from their socio-economic backgrounds to the flight suit culture they developed, Sherwood investigates every dimension of these pilots' lives. The book provides an illuminating portrait of fighter pilot culture, demonstrating how this culture affected their performance in battle and their attitudes toward others, particularly women, in their off-duty activities - Jacket flap.

Download or read book No Ordinary Pilot written by Suzanne Campbell-Jones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The compelling, previously unknown story of the wartime adventures of Bob Allen: pilot, aerial photographer and prisoner of war. After a lifetime in the RAF, Group Captain Bob Allen, finally allowed his children and grandchildren to see his official flying log. It contained the line: 'KILLED WHILST ON OPERATIONS'. He refused to answer any further questions, leaving instead a memoir of his life during World War II. Joining up aged 19, within six months he was in No.1 Squadron flying a Hurricane in a dog fight over the Channel. For almost two years he lived in West Africa, fighting Germany's Vichy French allies, as well as protecting the Southern Atlantic supply routes. Returning home at Christmas 1942, he retrained as a fighter-bomber pilot flying Typhoons and was one of the first over the Normandy beaches on D-Day. On 25 July 1944 Bob was shot down, spending the rest of the war in a POW camp where he was held in solitary confinement, interrogated by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the infamous Stalag Luft 3 and suffered the winter march of 1945 before being liberated by the Russians. Fleshing out Bob's careful third-person memoir with detailed research, his daughter Suzanne Campbell Jones tells the gripping story of a more or less ordinary man, who came home with extraordinary memories which he kept to himself for more than 50 years.

Download or read book One Soldier s Somber Flight written by Todd Longanacre and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Army, men and women are trained to be physically fit, disciplined, and calm under pressure to handle the rigors of a soldier's regimented lifestyle. Training that should lend itself To The unforeseen demands of a combat zone. However, For one soldier in Iraq in 2004, nothing could have mentally prepared him for one dark flight over Iraq. It all started as a simple four-day vacation pass; a brief escape from the mental and physical demands of modern warfare and a chance to fly out of Iraq for some well deserved R&R. It was supposed to be the perfect chance to catch up on his personal time. This lone Army Captain would soon be tested like never before when the plane that he was being transported to his R&R destination in suddenly changed course. Although he found that his flight was rerouted to pick up human remains, he didn't yet see that his outlook on life was also about to alter course. The time he would spend in the back of a cargo plane with three flag-covered caskets would take him from being inconvenienced and angry, To honored and inspired. With his deep and insightful writing style, readers will experience the heartfelt gratitude, pride, and undying patriotism experienced by American soldiers that are bonded by war. This is not the typical 'shoot-em-up' warrior novel. On the contrary, it is far deeper than that!

Download or read book With Wings as Eagles written by Cecil B. Currey and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Flying Soldiers written by Tim Lambert and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming an army helicopter pilot involves a rigorous 12 months of training with the Army Air Corps. Tying in with a BBC2 television series, this book follows ten soldiers from different ranks and regiments of the Army, pursuing their Wings. It focuses both on the technical skills and on the mental courage needed to transform them into front-line fighters flying killing machines.

Download or read book Eyes of Artillery written by Edgar F. Raines and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2000 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Long Flight Home written by Alan Hlad and published by A John Scognamiglio Book. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A USA Today Bestseller Inspired by fascinating, true, yet little-known events during World War II, The Long Flight Home is a testament to the power of courage in our darkest hours—a moving, masterfully written story of love and sacrifice. It is September 1940—a year into the war—and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan—loyal, intelligent, beautiful—but none more so than Duchess. Hatched from an egg that Susan incubated in a bowl under her grandfather’s desk lamp, Duchess shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, young crop-duster pilot Ollie Evans decides to join Britain’s Royal Air Force. His quest brings him to Epping and the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert mission to air-drop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France. Many will not survive. Those that do will bring home crucial information. Soon a friendship between Ollie and Susan deepens, but when his plane is downed behind enemy lines, both know how remote the chances of reunion must be. Yet Duchess will become an unexpected lifeline, relaying messages between Susan and Ollie as war rages on—and proving, at last, that hope is never truly lost. “Hlad adeptly drives home the devastating civilian cost of the war.” —Booklist