Download or read book A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940 1945 written by Christopher Shores and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-11-05 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fourth volume in the comprehensive series “fills a gap in the existing narrative” of WWII’s Mediterranean air war (Journal of Military History). The fourth volume in this momentous series commences with the attacks on the Italian island fortress of Pantellaria, which led to its surrender and occupation achieved almost by air attack alone. The account continues with the ultimately successful, but at times very hard fought, invasions of Sicily and southern Italy as burgeoning Allied air power, now with full US involvement, increasingly dominated the skies overhead. The successive occupations of Sardinia and Corsica are also covered in detail. This is essentially the story of the tactical air forces up to the point when Rome was occupied, just at the same time as the Normandy landings were occurring in northwest France. With regards to the long-range tactical role of the Allied heavy bombers, only the period from May to October is examined, while they remained based in North Africa, with the narrative continuing in a future volume. This volume also delves into the story of “the soldiers’ air force.” Frequently overshadowed by more immediate newsworthy events elsewhere, the soldiers’ struggle was often of an equally Homeric nature. “No future publication on the Mediterranean air war will be credible without use of this series.” —Air Power History

Download or read book Air War Italy 1944 45 written by Nick Beale and published by Airlife Publishing. This book was released on 1996 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first account of the Luftwaffe and their allies from the liberation of Rome to the Axis surrender in Italy. It covers not only fighter combats but includes details of an Italian torpedo attack on Gibraltar.

Download or read book A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940 1945 Volume 5 written by Christopher Shores and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-03 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This international collaboration between air war historians is simply fantastic. . . . a deep-dive on the operations in a vast and very important theater of war.” —Air Classics During the final year of World War II, the defending Axis forces were steadily driven from southern skies by burgeoning Anglo-American power. This was despite the steady withdrawal of units to more demanding areas. This fifth volume of the series describes in detail the activities of the Allied tactical air forces in support of the armies on the ground as their opponents were steadily extracted from northern Italy and the Balkans for the final defense of the central European homeland. The book commences with coverage of the final fierce air-sea battles over the Aegean that preceded the advance northward to Rome and the ill-conceived British attempt to secure the Dodecanese islands following the armistice with Italy. The authors also deal fully and comprehensively with the advance northward following the occupation of Rome, and the departure of forces to support the invasion of France from the Riviera coast, coupled with the formation of a new Balkan Air Force in eastern Italy to pursue the German armies withdrawing from Yugoslavia and take possession of newly freed Greece. The effect of the creation within the same area of the US and RAF strategic forces to join the Allied Combined Bombing Offensive is also discussed. Includes photographs “Reflects the scope of a remarkable research effort and provides valuable detail that the reader is not going to find between two covers elsewhere.” —The NYMAS Review

Download or read book Air War Over Italy 1943 1945 written by Andrew J. Brookes and published by Ian Allan Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a narrative to the conflict from 1943 until the final German surrender of 1945.

Download or read book At War on the Gothic Line written by Christian Jennings and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian Jennings's At War on the Gothic Line tells the little-known story of the Allied effort to break the German defenses in Northern Italy—told through the eyes of the multi-national force that fought it. In the autumn of 1944, as Patton’s army paraded through Paris, another Allied force was gathering in southern Italy. Spearheaded by over 100,000 American troops, this vast, international army was faced with a grim task—break The Gothic Line, a series of interconnected German fortifications that stretched across the mountains of northern Italy. Striving to reach Europe’s vulnerable underbelly before the Red Army, these Allied soldiers fought uphill against entrenched enemies in some of the final and most brutal battles of the Second World War. In At War on the Gothic Line, veteran war correspondent and historian Christian Jennings provides an unprecedented look inside this unsung but highly significant campaign. Through the eyes of thirteen men and women from seven different countries, Jennings brings history to life as he vividly recounts the courageous acts of valor performed by these soldiers facing overwhelming odds, even as many experienced discrimination at the hands of their allies and superiors. Witness the courage of a young Japanese-American officer willing to die for those under his command. Lie in wait with a troop of Canadian fur trappers turned snipers. Creep along mountain paths with Indian warriors as they assault fortified positions in the dead of night. Learn to fear a one-armed SS-Major guilty of some of the most atrocious war-crimes in the European theater. All these stories and more pack the pages of this faced-paced, action-heavy history, taking readers inside one of the most important, and least discussed, campaigns of World War Two.

Download or read book The Italian Blitz 1940 43 written by Richard Worrall and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between June 1940 and August 1943, RAF Bomber Command undertook a little-known strategic bombing campaign in Europe. The target was Mussolini's Italy. This air campaign was a key part of the strategic policy of Britain from 1940 to 1943, which aimed at securing Italy's early surrender. However, it posed unique challenges, not least of which was Italy's natural defences of distance and the Alps. The bombing campaign against Italy can be divided into a number of phases, with each one having its own specific goals such as affecting Italian war production or hindering the Italian Navy's war in the Mediterranean. However, each also furthered the ultimate aim of forcing Italy's final capitulation, demonstrating that the tactic of area-bombing was not just about the destruction of an enemy's cities, as it could also fulfil wider strategic and political objectives. Indeed, the intensity and frequency of attack was greatly controlled, and the heavy bombing of Italy was only ever sanctioned by Britain's civilian war leaders to achieve both military and political goals. The issue of target-selection was also subject to a similar political restriction; cities and ports like Milan, Turin, Genoa and La Spezia were sanctioned under an official Directive, but other places, such as Verona, Venice, Florence and, above all, Rome, remained off-limits. This fascinating title from British strategic and military history expert Dr Richard Worrall explores the political, motivational and strategic challenges of the campaign in full. His thorough analysis and meticulous research is supported by specially commissioned artwork, maps, and contemporary photographs.

Download or read book Italy s Sorrow written by James Holland and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2008 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Holland's ground-breaking account expertly documents the German advance to the stalemate of the Gothic line and a segment of Italian history that has been largely neglected. The war in Italy was the most destructive campaign in the west as the Allies and Germans fought a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict up the mountainous leg of Italy during the last twelve months of the Second World War. While the Allies and Germans were slogging it out through the mountains, the Italians were fighting their own battles, one where Partisans and Fascists were pitted against each other in a bloody civil war. Around them, civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror and anarchy while, in the wake of the Allied advance, beleaguered and impoverished Italians were forced to pick their way through the ruins of their homes and country and often forced into making terrible and heart-rending decisions in order to survive.

Download or read book Air War Over Italy written by Patrick Branly and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Air Force Combat Units of World War II written by Maurer Maurer and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1961 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Bombers and the Bombed written by Richard Overy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-20 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultimate history of the Allied bombing campaigns in World War II Technology shapes the nature of all wars, and the Second World War hinged on a most unpredictable weapon: the bomb. Day and night, Britain and the United States unleashed massive fleets of bombers to kill and terrorize occupied Europe, destroying its cities. The grisly consequences call into question how “moral” a war the Allies fought. The Bombers and the Bombed radically overhauls our understanding of World War II. It pairs the story of the civilian front line in the Allied air war alongside the political context that shaped their strategic bombing campaigns, examining the responses to bombing and being bombed with renewed clarity. The first book to examine seriously not only the well-known attacks on Dresden and Hamburg but also the significance of the firebombing on other fronts, including Italy, where the crisis was far more severe than anything experienced in Germany, this is Richard Overy’s finest work yet. It is a rich reminder of the terrible military, technological, and ethical issues that relentlessly drove all the war’s participants into an abyss.

Download or read book A Chill in the Air written by Iris Origo and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A harrowing account of life in Italy in the year leading up to World War II, available in the US for the first time. In 1939 it was not a foregone conclusion that Mussolini would enter World War II on the side of Hitler. In this previously unpublished and only recently discovered diary, Iris Origo, author of the classic War in Val d’Orcia, provides a vivid account of how Mussolini decided on a course of action that would devastate his country and ultimately destroy his regime. Though the British-born Origo lived with her Italian husband on an estate in a remote part of Tuscany, she was supremely well-connected and regularly in touch with intellectual and diplomatic circles in Rome, where her godfather, William Phillips, was the American ambassador. Her diary describes the Fascist government’s growing infatuation with Nazi Germany as Hitler’s armies marched triumphantly across Europe and the campaign of propaganda and intimidation that was mounted in support of its new aims. The book ends with the birth of Origo’s daughter and Origo’s decision to go to Rome to work with prisoners of war at the Italian Red Cross. Together with War in Val d’Orcia, A Chill in the Air offers an indispensable record of Italy at war as well as a thrilling story of a formidable woman’s transformation from observer to actor at a great historical turning point.

Download or read book Allied Armies in Sicily and Italy 1943 1945 written by Simon Forty and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-03-30 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Italian campaign was one of the most debated of the Second World War, splitting the American and British allies, and causing great disharmony. After the fall of Rome and the surrender of Italy, the invasion of Normandy led to the Italian campaign becoming a sideshow as the ‘D-Day Dodgers’ fought their way through Italy to the Alps against a grinding defence and extreme weather. In a sequence of 200 wartime photographs Simon Forty sums up the major events of the conflict – from the landings on Sicily to the crossing of the Po. Commanded first by Sir Harold Alexander and then Mark Clark, the Allied armies (US Fifth and British Eighth) drew men not only from Britain, the United States, France and Poland but from all over the Commonwealth – from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa – as well as such other countries as Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Greece and Palestine. The devastation caused by the war in the cities, towns and countryside is part of the story, but perhaps the most powerful impression is made by the faces of the soldiers themselves as they look out from the Italian front of so long ago.

Download or read book The Mediterranean Air War written by Robert S. Ehlers, Jr. and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without what the Allies learned in the Mediterranean air war in 1942–1944, the Normandy landings—and so, perhaps, the Second World War II—would have ended differently. This is one of many lessons of The Mediterranean Air War, the first one-volume history of the vital role of airpower during the three-year struggle for control of the Mediterranean Basin in World War II—and of its significance for the Allied successes in the war's last two years. Airpower historian Robert S. Ehlers opens his account with an assessment of the pre-war Mediterranean theater, highlighting the ways in which the players' strategic choices, strengths, and shortcomings set the stage for and ultimately shaped the air campaigns over the Middle Sea. Beginning with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Ehlers reprises the developing international crisis—initially between Britain and Italy, and finally encompassing France, Germany, the US, other members of the British Commonwealth, and the Balkan countries. He then explores the Mediterranean air war in detail, with close attention to turning points, joint and combined operations, and the campaign's contribution to the larger Allied effort. In particular, his analysis shows how and why the success of Allied airpower in the Mediterranean laid the groundwork for combined-arms victories in the Middle East, the Indian Ocean area, North Africa, and the Atlantic, northwest Europe. Of grand-strategic importance from the days of Ancient Rome to the Great-Power rivalries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Middle Sea was no less crucial to the Allied forces and their foes. Here, in the successful offensives in North Africa in 1942 and 1943, the US and the British learned to conduct a coalition air and combined-arms war. Here, in Sicily and Italy in 1943 and 1944, the Allies mastered the logistics of providing air support for huge naval landings and opened a vital second aerial front against the Third Reich, bombing critical oil and transportation targets with great effectiveness. The first full examination of the Mediterranean theater in these critical roles—as a strategic and tactical testing ground for the Allies and as a vital theater of operations in its own right—The Mediterranean Air War fills in a long-missing but vital dimension of the history of World War II.

Download or read book Italy s Sorrow written by James Holland and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2008-04-01 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War, the campaign in Italy was the most destructive fought in Europe - a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict that raged up the country's mountainous leg. For frontline troops, casualty rates at Cassino and along the notorious Gothic Line were as high as they had been on the Western Front in the First World War. There were further similarities too: blasted landscapes, rain and mud, and months on end with the front line barely moving. And while the Allies and Germans were fighting it out through the mountains, the Italians were engaging in bitter battles too. Partisans were carrying out a crippling resistance campaign against the German troops but also battling the Fascists forces as well in what soon became a bloody civil war. Around them, innocent civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror and anarchy, while in the wake of the Allied advance, horrific numbers of impoverished and starving people were left to pick their way through the ruins of their homes and country. In the German-occupied north, there were more than 700 civilian massacres by German and Fascist troops in retaliation for Partisan activities, while in the south, many found themselves forced into making terrible and heart-rending decisions in order to survive. Although known as a land of beauty and for the richness of its culture, Italy's suffering in 1944-1945 is now largely forgotten. Italy's Sorrow by James Holland is the first account of the conflict there to tell the story from all sides and to include the experiences of soldiers and civilians alike. Offering extensive original research, it weaves together the drama and tragedy of that terrible year, including new perspectives and material on some of the most debated episodes to have emerged from World War II.

Download or read book The War Against Germany and Italy written by Kenneth E. Hunter and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Army Air Forces in World War II Men and planes written by and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Victory in Italy written by Richard Doherty and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the main focus in early 1945 was on the advance to The Fatherland, 15 Army Group's 5th (US) and 8th (British) Armies were achieving remarkable results in Northern Italy. Superb generalship (Truscott – 5th Army and McCreery – 8th Army under General