Download or read book Detling Airfield written by Anthony J. Moor and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2011-06-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of the Kentish airfield that was a station of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in World War I and the Royal Air Force (RAF) in World War II.
Download or read book Detling Airfield written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Detling Airfield written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Airfields of the D Day Invasion Air Force written by Peter Jacobs and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of the Aviation Heritage Trail series, the airfields and interest in this book are concentrated in a particular area - in this case Kent, Surrey, East Sussex, Essex and Greater London. The South east of England emerged from six years of war with a rich diversity of RAF bomber and fighter airfields used by the 2nd Tactical Air Force, both before and after the D-Day landings. Much of this proud legacy is now threatening to disappear. However, the tourist can combine visits to an abundance of disused and active airfields, country houses and museums with countless attractions, imaginative locations and broadland and coastal hideaways that have no equal. The airfields and other places of interest include Northolt, Manston, Sculthorp, Dunsfold, Swanton Morley, Hunsdon, Gravesend, Detling, Biggin Hill, Kenley, Redhill, Gatwick, Heston, Hornchurch, Chailey, Coolham, Horne, West Malling and Newchurch. This book looks at the history and personalities associated with each base, what remains today and explores the favourite local wartime haunts where aircrew and ground crew would have sought well-deserved entertainment and relaxation. Other museums and places that are relevant will also be described and general directions on how to get them included.
Download or read book Battle of Britain written by Patrick Bishop and published by Quercus. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Britain is the epic story of the fight for control of the skies over England in the bitterly long summer of 1940. Bestselling author Patrick Bishopâ??s compelling day-to-day chronicle is enhanced with eye-witness accounts, diary extracts and pilot profiles, as the horrific reality of air combat is vividly portrayed in this account of the life and death struggle between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe. This is the story Britainâ??s "finest hour," a fight for national survival that had a profound impact on servicemen and civilians alike, and ultimately proved to be a key a turning point in the course of the war.
Download or read book Last of the Few written by Max Arthur and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler’s inevitable invasion attempt. For the German army to land across the channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skies—the Royal Air Force would have to be broken. So every day throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties. Greatly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the pilots of RAF Fighter Command scrambled as many as five times a day, and civilians watched skies crisscrossed with the contrails from the constant dogfights between Spitfires and Me-109s. Britain’s very freedom depended on the outcome of that summer’s battle: Its air defenses were badly battered and nearly broken, but against all odds, “The Few,” as they came to be known, bought Britain’s freedom—many with their lives. More than a fifth of the British and Allied pilots died during the Battle of Britain. These are the personal accounts of the pilots who fought and survived that battle. Their stories are as riveting, as vivid, and as poignant as they were seventy years ago. We will not see their like again.
Download or read book Fighter Aces of the RAF in the Battle of Britain written by Philip Kaplan and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2008-03-25 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the reality behind the myths of the legendary RAF fighter aces during the Battle of Britain. The accounts of the experiences of fighter pilots are based on archival research, diaries, letters, published and unpublished memoirs and personal interviews with veterans.
Download or read book Kent at War 1939 45 written by Tanya Wynn and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive account of the southern English county during WWII covers everything from the Dunkirk evacuations to the Battle of Britain and more. Located along the English Channel, the southeastern county of Kent played a significant role in the Second World War. This volume covers Kent’s many contributions—both civilian and military—throughout the conflict. The chronicle details how the Dover Patrol kept Allied shipping safe in the English Channel, as well as the preparation and aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuations of May 1940, with all of the vessels leaving from and returning to Kent ports and harbors. Kent’s numerous airfields were of vital importance during the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940. The Richborough camp, set up in 1939 at the old First World War Kitchener barracks, provided safe haven to thousands of German and Austrian Jewish refugees. This book includes never before published letters written to one of the camps residents during his stay there. Historian Tanya Wynn also discusses the county's military hospitals and pow camps, it’s Victorian Cross and George Medal winners, and the restricted areas that adorned the coast as the people of Kent battened down the hatches, knowing that they were the very first line of defense in case of a German invasion.
Download or read book Nine Lives written by Alan C Deere and published by Crecy Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nine Lives is the renowned autobiography of New Zealand's most famous RAF pilot from the Munich crisis until the invasion of France in 1944. Al Deere experienced the drama of the early days of the Battle of Britain while operating with Spitfire squadrons based at Hornchurch and Manston, and his compelling story tells of the successes and frustrations during those critical weeks.
Download or read book Kent Britain s Frontline County written by Clive Holden and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2017-04-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating insight into Kent's long and distinguished military defence heritage.
Download or read book Churchill s Few written by John Willis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eighty years after the Battle of Britain this vivid and dramatic book tells the story, in their own words, of six brave young men who fought courageously in the skies above England to prevent Hitler's invasion of Britain. This thin blue line in their Hurricanes and Spitfires were the 'few' to whom Churchill said the nation owed so much. It was, as one pilot's wife put it 'a queer, golden time', when men in their teens and twenties fought each other in a brutal but still gentlemanly conflict. At stake was the very future of Britain. The six men in this sympathetic but honest portrayal were from vastly contrasting backgrounds. Geoffrey Page, shot down in his Hurricane and the victim of horrendous burns, was a founder member of the legendary Guinea Pig Club. Bob Doe, also badly injured, was one of the most successful fighter aces but remained unheralded and out of the public eye. Cyril Bamberger rose from humble origins as a Sergeant Pilot to win a DFC and bar. Joseph Slagowski was one of the small band of heroic Polish pilots whose contribution to the Battle, as this book shows, remains scandalously undervalued. Former Daily Telegraph journalist Geoffrey Myers, Intelligence Officer in a squadron that was hopelessly and fatally led, wrote eloquent contemporaneous letters to his family, extracts of which are published here for the first time. Not all the heroes fought for Britain. Unusually this book includes the parallel but contrasting story of Luftwaffe pilot Ulrich Steinhilper, shot down and captured over Kent and destined to become one of the greatest escapers of World War II, evading British and Canadian prison camp guards five times. This unique and moving record throws light on the long-term consequences of the Battle of Britain on the lives of the young pilots in the frontline. These insightful portraits illuminate the ineradicable marks that one momentous battle made on the brave participants of both sides. Just a few months of brutal aerial combat changed their lives and history forever. As Geoffrey Page said: 'I still find it hard to take when children point at me because of my burnt face and hands. They are my enemies now, not the Germans.'
Download or read book Coastal Dawn written by Andrew D. Bird and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of A Separate Little War, a detailed history of the British World War II aircraft and their brave crew. In 1940, the defense of Great Britain rested with a handful of volunteer aircrew, Churchill’s “few.” Overshadowed in later folklore by the more famous Spitfire and Hurricane pilots, there were other pilots, observers and air gunners—just as courageous—flying the Bristol Blenheim MKIV-F. The future of the country and arguably that of the free world depended also on their skill, morale, and sacrifice. Remarkably little has been chronicled of these men and their aircraft—the “Trade Protection” squadrons formed by Hugh Dowding—allotted to 11 Group in October, 1939. The aircraft’s range and endurance made it suitable for defense of coastal shipping against attack on the southern and eastern shores of Britain, and for operations further afield. Indeed, during bitter fighting casualties among Numbers 235, 236, 248, and 254 Squadron Blenheims were high on operations over Norway, Holland, France, Dunkirk, and then the Battle of Britain where the Blenheims were completely outclassed by Messerschmitt 109 and 110 fighters, and fell easy victims, scythed from the sky. But the record of the aircraft and their crew was an immensely proud one. Drawing on contemporary diaries, periodicals, letters, logbooks, memoirs, and interviews with survivors, lauded historian Andy Bird reassesses the vital role they played and repositions it in history. In doing so, he justifiably embraces the heroes we have left behind.
Download or read book Tony s war written by Britta von Zweigbergk and published by Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Pu. This book was released on 2007 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These 'British Isles' of ours are populated by people who originate from throughout the world; from North, South, East and West. Individually, or as family groups, they will have come to start a new life; to escape from persecution, hunger or despair. It is our strength because somehow we learn to adapt ourselves to meet our own, and other's needs, no matter how daunting they may be. Tony and Nita Zweigbergk learned to do just that during their, very different, childhood and teenage years. Then they met and fell in love. Then along came World War II. We are privileged to share these experiences, plus by reading between the lines we are able to share the boredom, depression, comradeship, fun, fear and sorrow that became the life of those who lived 'on the edge of life and death' to ensure our precious freedom.
Download or read book The Battle of Britain written by John Frayn Turner and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-05-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: Shrewsbury, England: Airlife, 1998.
Download or read book Junkers Ju 87 Stukageschwader 1937 41 written by John Weal and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ju 87 Stuka was the most feared weapon in the German arsenal in the first year of World War 2, the Luftwaffe using it to deadly effect during the Blitzkrieg between September 1939 and June 1940. Although vulnerable to the enemy fighters due to its moderate speed in level flight and general lack of manoeuvrability, the Ju 87 nevertheless soon came to symbolise the might of Nazi Germany as the mere handful of Stukageschwader supporting the Wehrmacht rampaging out of the Fatherland took a heavy toll of the Allied forces.
Download or read book Spirit of the Blue written by Hugh Thomas and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter joined the R.A.F. in 1938 on a short-service commission and was despatched to France when war broke out. After serving with legendary fighter ace Douglas Bader, Peter was posted to North Africa in 1942, where he was forced to crash-land his Hurricane in a minefield. He flew Spitfires on intruder sorties over France before and during D-Day, on bomber escort duty against V-weapons sites and in support of mass daylight raids deep into Germany. Awarded the D.F.C. in December 1944, he also flew as fighter escort to King George VI's Dakota. By the war's end, Peter had flown every mark of Spitfire and Hurricane in the R.A.F.'s inventory.
Download or read book The Battle of Britain written by Kate Moore and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lavishly illustrated and highly designed history of one of the defining moments of both British history and World War II. In 1940 Britain was an island under siege. The march of the Nazi war machine had been unrelenting: France and Belgium had quickly fallen and now the British Empire and the Commonwealth stood alone to counter the grave threat. However, their fate would not be decided by armies of millions but by a small band of fighter pilots. It was on their shoulders that Britain's best chance of survival rested. Above the villages and cities, playing fields and market towns, the skies of southern England were the scene of countless dogfights as the fledgling Fighter Command duelled daily against the might of the Luftwaffe. The Battle of Britain offers an in-depth assessment of the situation leading up to the summer of 1940, the strategies employed by the adversaries and the brutal aerial battle itself. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, contemporary art and posters, and accompanied by numerous first-hand accounts, this is a volume that captures the reality of a defining chapter in British history.
