Download or read book Daylight Bombing Operations 1939 1942 written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-05-30 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are no records of war more valuable than the first-hand accounts of the individuals who were actually there. The vivid honesty of the stories on display here brings into sharp focus the personal fears as well as the sheer exhilaration of flying sorties by day, often through heavy flak, sometimes at hedge-hopping or wave- skimming heights, as the squadrons of Blenheims, Mosquitoes, Mitchells and Venturas swept across the Continent towards their targets.From the outbreak of the Second World War to the eve of VE Day, the medium bomber crews of 2 Group RAF and 2nd Tactical Air Force flew vital operations over Europe. Here their story is told, month by perilous month, often in the words of the airmen themselves, their accounts supported by meticulous research. Their exploits include the first sorties of the war, the famous Operation Oyster to bomb the Philips works at Eindhoven and other low-level pinpoint attacks against key targets in occupied Europe and Scandinavia. While sharing in the triumph of their bombing successes, we are not spared details of the appalling sacrifices and the failed and aborted raids. These details are relayed in a series of poignant personal snapshots, highlighting the extraordinary valour of these ordinary men. Remarkable photographs include aerial views of targets under attack, as well as dramatic portraits of the aircraft involved. This book serves as a moving tribute to the efforts of the pilots involved in some of the most perilous daylight bombing operations of the Second World War.
Download or read book Fire and Fury written by Randall Hansen and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Bestseller An enlightening and utterly convincing re-examination of the allied aerial bombing campaign and of civilian German suffering during World War II–an essential addition to our understanding of world history. During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. Much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership. Hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, and using a compelling narrative approach, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved: military and civilian command in America, Britain, and Germany, aircrew in the sky, and civilians on the ground. Acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was wedded to an outdated strategy whose success had never been proven; how area bombing not only failed to win the war, it probably prolonged it; and that the US campaign, which was driven by a particularly American fusion of optimism and morality, played an important and largely unrecognized role in delivering Allied victory.
Download or read book Daylight Bombing Operations written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Decision Over Schweinfurt written by Thomas M. Coffey and published by Robert Hale. This book was released on 1978 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bombing of Schweinfurt, Germany during world war Two.
Download or read book Daylight Bombing Operations 1939 1942 written by Martin Bowman and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-05-30 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are no records of war more valuable than the first-hand accounts of the individuals who were actually there. The vivid honesty of the stories on display here brings into sharp focus the personal fears as well as the sheer exhilaration of flying sorties by day, often through heavy flak, sometimes at hedge-hopping or wave- skimming heights, as the squadrons of Blenheims, Mosquitoes, Mitchells and Venturas swept across the Continent towards their targets.??From the outbreak of the Second World War to the eve of VE Day, the medium bomber crews of 2 Group RAF and 2nd Tactical Air Force flew vital operations over Europe. Here their story is told, month by perilous month, often in the words of the airmen themselves, their accounts supported by meticulous research. Their exploits include the first sorties of the war, the famous Operation Oyster to bomb the Philips works at Eindhoven and other low-level pinpoint attacks against key targets in occupied Europe and Scandinavia. ??While sharing in the triumph of their bombing successes, we are not spared details of the appalling sacrifices and the failed and aborted raids. These details are relayed in a series of poignant personal snapshots, highlighting the extraordinary valour of these ordinary men. Remarkable photographs include aerial views of targets under attack, as well as dramatic portraits of the aircraft involved. This book serves as a moving tribute to the efforts of the pilots involved in some of the most perilous daylight bombing operations of the Second World War.
Download or read book Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II written by Phil Haun and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-04-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the cataclysmic losses suffered in World War I, air power theorists in Europe advocated for long-range bombers to overfly the trenches and strike deep into the enemy's heartland. The bombing of cities was seen as a means to collapse the enemy's will to resist and bring the war to a quick end. In the United States, airmen called for an independent air force, but with the nation's return to isolationism, there was little appetite for an offensive air power doctrine. By the 1930s, however, a cadre of officers at the US Army Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) had articulated an operational concept of high-altitude daylight precision bombing (HADPB) that would be the foundation for a uniquely American vision of strategic air attack. In Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II editor Phil Haun brings together nine ACTS lecture transcripts, which have been preserved in Air Force archives, exactly as delivered to the airmen destined to lead the US Army Air Forces in World War II. Presented is a distinctive American strategy of high-altitude daylight precision bombing as told through lectures given at the ACTS during the interwar period and how these airmen put the theory to the test. The book examines the Air Corps theory of HADPB as compared to the reality of combat in World War II by relying on recent, revisionist histories that have given scholars a deeper understanding of the impact of strategic bombing on Germany.
Download or read book Bombs Away written by John R. Bruning and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2011-05-22 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bombs Away! covers strategic bombing in Europe during World War II, that is, all aerial bombardment of a strategic nature which took place between 1939 and 1945. In addition to American (U.S. Army Air Forces) and British (RAF Bomber Command) strategic aerial campaigns against Germany, this book covers German use of strategic bombing during the Nazi’s conquest of Europe: the Battle of Britain, Operation Barbarossa, and the V 1 and V 2, where the Luftwaffe targeted Warsaw and Rotterdam (known as the Rotterdam Blitz). In addition, the book covers the blitzes against London and the bombing of other British industrial and port cities, such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Southampton, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Cardiff, and Coventry bombed during the Battle of Britain. The twin Allied campaigns against Germany—the USAAF by day, the RAF by night—built up into massive bombing of German industrial areas, notably the Ruhr, followed by attacks directly on cities such as Hamburg, Kassel, Pforzheim, Mainz, Cologne, Bremen, Essen, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Dortmund, Frankfurt, and the still controversial fire-bombing of Hamburg and Dresden. In addition to obvious targets like aircraft and tank manufacturers, ball bearing factories and plants that manufactured abrasives and grinding wheels were high priority targets. Petroleum refineries were a key target with USAAF aircraft based in North Africa and later Italy, bombing the massive refinery complexes in and around Ploesti, Romania, until August 1944 when the Soviet Red Army captured the area. Other missions included industrial targets in southern Germany like Regensburg and Schweinfurt. Missions to the Nazi capital, Berlin, started in 1940 and continued through March 1945. Throughout the war there were 314 air raids on Berlin. All of this is covered in detail with authoritative text and hundreds of archival photographs, many rare or never before published.
Download or read book The Bomber Mafia written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “truly compelling” (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war—from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?” Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.
Download or read book Ploesti 1943 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Operation Tidal Wave was one of the boldest and most controversial air raids by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). At the time, the Romanian Ploesti oil fields produced about a third of all Axis oil, and was Germany's single most important fuel source. In the summer of 1943, the USAAF decided to stage a major raid on Ploesti from air bases in Libya. The resulting Operation Tidal Wave raid on 1 August 1943 was one of the costliest to date, losing 53 aircraft, about a third of the starting force. Of the more than 150 bombers that took part in the raid, only 88 B-24s returned to Libya, 55 of which were damaged. On the other hand, of the 17 Medals of Honor awarded to US soldiers and airmen from Pearl Harbor in 1941 to D-Day in 1944, 5 were awarded to pilots of the Tidal Wave mission in recognition of their extraordinary performance. Although undoubtedly bold and heroic, the mission had questionable results. Initial assessments argued that the mission caused 40% of the refinery capacity at Ploesti to be lost but subsequent studies concluded that the damage was quickly repaired and that output had exceeded August levels within a month. This new study examines the raid in detail, exploring the reasons why its dubious success came at such a high price. Supported by maps, diagrams, and full-colour artwork including battlescenes and bird's-eye views, this is the full story of the audacious Ploesti raid of 1943.
Download or read book Bomber Offensive written by Arthur Harris and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2005-03-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sir Arthur Harris - Bomber Harris - remains the target of criticism and vilification by many, while others believe the contribution he and his men made to victory is grossly undervalued. He led the men of Bomber Command in the face of appalling casualties, had fierce disagreements with higher authority and enjoyed a complicated relationship with Winston Churchill. Written soon after the close of World War 2, this collection of Sir Arthur Harris's memoirs reveals the man behind the Allied bombing offensive that culminated in the destruction of the Nazi war machine but also many beautiful cities, including Dresden.
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 Terror from the Sky written by Igor Primoratz and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first interdisciplinary study of this contentious subject, leading experts in politics, history, and philosophy examine the complex aspects of the terror bombing of German cities during World War II. The contributors address the decision to embark on the bombing campaign, the moral issues raised by the bombing, and the main stages of the campaign and its effects on German civilians as well as on Germany's war effort. The book places the bombing campaign within the context of the history of air warfare, presenting the bombing as the first stage of the particular type of state terrorism that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and brought about the Cold War era "balance of terror." In doing so, it makes an important contribution to current debates about terrorism. It also analyzes the public debate in Germany about the historical, moral, and political significance of the deliberate killing of up to 600,000 German civilians by the British and American air forces. This pioneering collaboration provides a platform for a wide range of views--some of which are controversial--on a highly topical, painful, and morally challenging subject.
Download or read book America s Pursuit of Precision Bombing 1910 1945 written by Stephen Lee McFarland and published by Smithsonian Books (DC). This book was released on 1995 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McFarland (history, Auburn U.) traces the development of two interrelated technologies, bombsights and automatic pilots, from the first efforts in 1910 to stabilize aircraft during bombing to the atomic bombing of Japan. Drawing on primary documents he explains how the US government and the public wanted to hone bombing into a precise and effective instrument to end wars quickly with the fewest number of civilian casualties, and how the famous Nordon bombsight contributed to most of the destruction of military and industrial targets in Japan and Germany during World War II. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.
Download or read book Black Thursday The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid written by Martin Caidin and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-03-25 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Caidin's Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid tells of the United States Air Force's massive bombing raid into Nazi Germany's industrial heartland on Thursday, October 14, 1943. On that fateful day two hundred and ninety one hulking B-17 Flying Fortresses - escorted by squadrons of nimble P-47 Thunderbolts - miraculously fought their way through swarms of Messerschmitt Me-109's, Focke-Wulf FW-190's, Heinkel He-113's and more on their way to cripple the enemy's vital ball-bearings plant at Schweinfurt.
Download or read book Within Limits written by Wayne Thompson and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1997-07 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite American success in preventing the conquest of South Korea by communist North Korea, the Korean War of 1950-1953 did not satisfy Americans who expected the kind of total victory they had experienced in WW II. In Korea, the U.S. limited itself to conventional weapons. Even after communist China entered the war, Americans put China off-limits to conventional bombing as well as nuclear bombing. Operating within these limits, the U.S. Air Force helped to repel 2 invasions of South Korea while securing control of the skies so decisively that other U.N. forces could fight without fear of air attack.
Download or read book Storm Over Europe written by Juan Vázquez García and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-02-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All about the British and American bombing raids during WWII with over 250 color images and diagrams, with supporting operational maps to provide the full breadth of these raids. Following the Battle of France in 1940, British Bomber Command launched its response to the then-almighty Wehrmacht. Sadly, its beginnings were not at all promising: its resources were limited and the twin-engined aircraft in service had a very limited load capacity, as well as being vulnerable to the Luftwaffe. The progressive entry into service of the great four-engined planes would change the situation, but the great problem of night time raids, such as correctly identifying targets and a precise launching of the bombs, would never be adequately resolved. Bomber Command's highly controversial bombing tactics, under the firm hand of Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, continued to develop until the very end of the war, creating a weapon of devastation and terror. Meanwhile, in 1942 the Eighth American Air Force began a campaign of day time bombing raids on targets in continental Europe that would last until the end of the war. Flying in increasingly larger formations, initially without any fighter escort, the B-17 flying fortresses and the big B-24 Liberators were up against the aggressive German aircraft, who were forced to develop adequate tactics in order to deal with the enormous defensive firepower of the American planes. It would not be until the entry into service of the long-range escort fighters, especially the formidable P-51 Mustang, that the Luftwaffe finally found itself at a distinct disadvantage. Unlike the devastating and bloody night time campaign launched by Bomber Command, the American bombers were determined to demonstrate that precision bombing was possible on selected, strategic targets, which would stifle the economy and the German war effort, as well as minimizing civilian casualties.
