Download or read book American Spitfire Aces of World War 2 written by Andrew Thomas and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2007-10-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first few American volunteers flew Spitfires with the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Many more joined their ranks, often posing as "Canadians", eventually forming three Eagle squadrons who earned a fierce fighting reputation. When the United States entered the war the Eagle fighter sections were issued with Spitfires and eventually transferred to the Eighth Air Force. In just two years of service with the USAAF, 22 pilots claimed five or more victories flying the Spitfire, whilst a further two dozen aces claimed part of their total flying them, a testament to their skill and success at the controls of this legendary warbird. Discover the experiences of a variety of American aces in their own words through first-hand accounts, interviews and combat reports, in a thrilling read that transports the reader from the Battle of Britain to the deserts of North Africa to Fortress Europe itself.
Download or read book American Spitfires written by Paul Ludwig and published by Ventura Hobby Products. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Camouflage and markings worn by USAAF Spitfires can bedistilled down to the simple formula of RAF camouflage and USAAF markings. Add to this, squadron badges and myriad personal markings and you have some of the most colourfulSpitfires of the Second World War.
Download or read book American Spitfires written by Paul Ludwig and published by Ventura Hobby Products. This book was released on 2006-12 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second part covers the Eagle Squadrons with their standard RAF camouflage and markings, the Fourth Fighter Group and then the Fifty Second Fighter Group, which like the 31st FG covered in Part I, operated Spitfires in a variety of colour Schemes over a two year period.
Download or read book Spitfires Yellow Tail Mustangs written by Tom Ivie and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Story of one of the best fighter units in the Mediterranean theater, which earned two Distinguished Unit Citations and produced 21 aces Vivid episodes of aerial combat during the key campaigns for Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, and more Nicknamed "Yellow Tails" for the color markings on their aircraft The unit flew British Spitfires before switching to P-51 Mustangs Includes rare photos and color artwork
Download or read book Spitfire s Forgotten Designer written by Mike Roussel and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Supermarine Spitfire was a classic design, well known for its efforts in defending British shores during the Second World War. However, while Reginald Mitchell is rightly celebrated for his original design of the Spitfire, the role of Joe Smith in the development of the Spitfire is often overlooked. Smith was an integral member of the design team from the earliest days, and on Mitchell’s death in 1937 he was appointed design office manager before becoming chief designer. Smith’s dedicated leadership in the development of the Spitfire during the war, as well as his efforts on post-war jet aircraft, deserve their place in history. Charting the fascinating history of Supermarine from 1913 to 1958, when the company ceased its operations in Southampton, shortly after Joe Smith’s death in 1956, this book tells its story through the eyes of apprentices and many other members of Smith’s team. Marvellous photographs add to the sense of what it was like to work under Joe Smith at the drawing boards of one of Britain’s most famous wartime aviation manufacturers.
Download or read book Spitfires Thunderbolts and Warm Beer written by Philip D. Caine and published by Warriors. This book was released on 2005-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Aviation buffs will smell the gunpowder." "Washington Post Book World"
Download or read book Star Spangled Spitfires written by Tony Holmes and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-05-31 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the medium of period photography, Star-Spangled Spitfires chronicles the combat operations of the USAAF units equipped with the iconic Supermarine fighter whilst employed in both the European and Mediterranean theaters of war, from the summer of 1942 right up to the end of the conflict.Only a handful of British combat aircraft wore the stars and bars of the USAAF during the Second World War, with the Beaufighter, Mosquito and Spitfire being the key types to see action with American crews in American squadrons. The Spitfire was, by some margin, the most widely used of the three, and the Yanks that flew it in combat rated the fighter very highly. Employed primarily by the six squadrons of the 31st and 52nd Fighter Groups, initially from airfields in the UK and then in North Africa and Italy, the Spitfire was used both as a fighter and fighter-bomber until it was replaced by the P-51 Mustang from the spring of 1944.The final star-spangled Spitfires in the frontline were the Eighth Air Forces high-flying and unarmed PR XI photo-reconnaissance aircraft, flown by to the 7th Photographic Reconnaissance Group alongside F-5 Lightnings from November 1943. Ranging as far into Germany as Berlin, the PR Blue Spitfires provided critical target imagery both pre- and post-strike for the Mighty Eighths heavy bombardment groups through to April 1945.All feature here across a series of black and white and color images that all capture some unique aspect of the star-spangled Spitfire's illustrious service career.
Download or read book Flying American Combat Aircraft of World War II written by Robin Higham and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Riveting, first-person accounts that put the reader in the cockpit. Dozens of photographs of the planes and the pilots that flew and fought in the skies from Tokyo to Berlin. Find out what it was like to fly some of the all-time classic aircraft of World War II, including the P-51 Mustang, B-17 Flying Fortress, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-38 Lightning, P-40 Kittyhawk, and many more!
Download or read book Air Combat Legends Supermarine Spitfire Messerschmitt Bf109 written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Flying American Combat Aircraft of World War II written by Robin D. S. Higham and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of illustrated photographs and narratives that describes the U.S. combat aircraft of World War Two written by the former aviators who flew those missions.
Download or read book Spitfire written by Leo McKinstry and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1940, the German Army had brought the rest of Europe to its knees. 'Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world will move forward into broad, sunlit uplands,' said Churchill. The future of Europe depended on Britain. A self-confident Herman Goring thought that it would be only a matter of weeks before his planes had forced Britain to surrender. The courage, resourcefulness and brilliant organisation of the RAF were to prove him wrong. By late September 1940, the RAF had proved invincible, thanks to the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire. It exceeded anything that any other air force possessed. RJ Mitchell, a shy and almost painfully modest engineer, was the genius behind the Spitfire. On the 5th March 1936, following its successful maiden flight, a legend was born. Prize-winning historian Leo McKinstry's vivid history of the Spitfire brings together a rich cast of characters and first hand testimonies. It is a tale full of drama and heroism, of glory and tragedy, with the main protagonist the remarkable plane that played a crucial role in saving Britain.
Download or read book Leading the Way to Victory written by Mark C. Vlahos and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading the Way to Victory is the official history of the 60th Troop Carrier Group, featuring unpublished first-person accounts by participating veterans and expertly written by retired USAF Colonel Mark C. Vlahos, combat veteran and former Vice Wing Commander of 314th Airlift Wing at the Little Rock Air Force Base. The December 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War II. Just six months later in May 1942, flying new C-47 transport aircraft, the 60th Troop Carrier Group led the way as the first U.S. TCG to deploy to England and the European Theater of Operations in World War II. Leading the way to victory, the 60th TCG’s first mission—dropping U. S. paratroopers outside of Oran, North Africa—was not only the first combat airborne mission in U.S. Army history, but also the longest airborne mission of the entire war. This drop spearheaded Operation TORCH, also known as the Invasion of North Africa, by taking key Axis airfields just inland from the amphibious landing zones. The 60th TCG went on to fly some of the first combat aeromedical evacuation missions and the first combat mission towing CG-4A “Waco” gliders during Operation HUSKY—the Invasion of Sicily. As the new airborne, air land, aeromedical evacuation, and glider missions matured in World War II, the 60th TCG continued to play a major role, paying in blood for valuable lessons learned in the school of hard knocks. The group later flew dramatic missions into Yugoslavia, supporting Partisans as part of the secret war in the Balkans, an episode of World War II history still all but unknown today and dropped British paratroops in the airborne invasion of Greece. The Group was inactivated at the end of the war. Drawing on official United States Army Air Forces microfilm records, operational records in the National Archives, photographs from both collections, published historical materials, and many personal accounts, author Mark C. Vlahos’ expertly written and highly readable volume is certain to become the standard history and go-to reference for the 60th TCG. This work offers scholars and lay readers alike an authoritative, informative, and engaging saga of the Group’s battles, adversity, hardships, and triumphs from inception through the Allied victory in Europe.
Download or read book Spitfires and Yellow Tail Mustangs written by Thomas G. Ivie and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The USAAF 52nd Fighter Group enjoyed an outstanding record in World War 2. This book describes the group's missions from its activation in 1941 to the end of the war.
Download or read book One Damn Thing After Another written by Tom Treanor and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HIS STORY IS HERE, but Tom Treanor, the young correspondent of the Los Angeles Times, is off to the wars again. Meanwhile, of the present book, he says: “Alice never saw more different things in Wonderland than I’ve seen since June 13, 1942. I’ve rung the changes from Chungking to Anzio and written 1,000 words a day about it. Because it’s all too new and confusing, I can’t explain any of the riddle. I can only give you the world all disconnected, just as I saw it in travelling, a sequence of separate worlds, nearly as crazy, independent, and self-centered as they were in Columbus’ time. “I have no theme but only a pocketful of pictures.” That’s what he thinks. Well, he may not have a theme, but he has an astounding knack for being in places where things happen, a high-octane sense of the ludicrous, and a zest and zip in his writing that make his book tops in entertainment. It is emphatically the “war book with a difference.”
Download or read book The Mediterranean and Middle East The destruction of the Axis forces in Africa written by Ian Stanley Ord Playfair and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spitfires Over Berlin written by Dan Sharp and published by HarperTempest. This book was released on 2019-10 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection of exciting, intriguing and thoroughly researched stories from the last days of WW2.
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
