Download or read book Flights from Fassberg written by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, Colonel, US Air Force (Ret.), interweaves his story and that of his family with the larger history of World War II and the postwar world through a moving recollection and exploration of Fassberg, a small town in Germany few have heard of and fewer remember. Created in 1933 by the Hitler regime to train German aircrews, Fassberg hosted Samuel’s father in 1944–45 as an officer in the German air force. As fate and Germany's collapse chased young Wolfgang, Fassberg later became his home as a postwar refugee, frightened, traumatized, hungry, and cold. Built for war, Fassberg made its next mark as a harbinger of the new Cold War, serving as one of the operating bases for Allied aircraft during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. With the end of the Berlin Crisis, the airbase and town faced a dire future. When the Royal Air Force declared the airbase surplus to its needs, it also signed the place's death warrant, yet increasing Cold War tensions salvaged both base and town. Fassberg transformed again, this time into a forward operating base for NATO aircraft, including a fighter flown by Samuel's son. Both personal revelation and world history, replete with tales from pilots, mechanics, and all those whose lives intersected there, Flights from Fassberg provides context to the Berlin Airlift and its strategic impact, the development of NATO, and the establishment of the West German nation. The little town built for war survived to serve as a refuge for a lasting peace.
Download or read book Parameters written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Development of Air Navigation in West Germany after 1945 written by Frank W. Fischer and published by International Advisory Group Air Navigation Services (ANSA). This book was released on 2015-08-05 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This documentation about the development of air navigation in West Germany after 1945 explains the continuation in the further development of the establishment of military tactical air navigation services units beginning under the military governments of the victorious powers and the succeeding allied occupation forces in Germany. This transportation service of the first decade after the end of the war constitutes the cradle of modern european air traffic control (ATC) as the major part of the overall air navigation services system. It closes with the partial reconstitution of air sovereignty in West Germany (FRG) in 1955 and the end of the supervision on the re-established german federal air navigation system administration (BFS) by the Allied Civil Aviation Board - CAB of HICOM by mid 1956.
Download or read book Airman written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Candy Bombers written by Wolfgang J. Huschke and published by BWV Verlag. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 24 June 1948 Lucius D. Clay, the Commanding General of the American Forces in Europe, ordered that all disposable transport aircraft should be made available for flights to Berlin. His order marked the beginning of the largest ever humanitarian supply campaign carried out entirely by air transport, the Berlin Airlift. Clay was well aware of the political significance of his decision. The aim was to overcome the blockade mounted by the Soviet Union by supplying the western sectors of the city via air corridors. The political and historical background of the Berlin Airlift have been well rese.
Download or read book American Forces in Berlin written by Robert P. Grathwol and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Berlin and the American Military written by Robert P. Grathwol and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1999-10 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Robert P. Grathwol and Donita M. Moorhus here tell the story in words and pictures of that city and the thousands of American soldiers and their families who served and lived there between 1945 and 1994. Oral histories depict the people, places, and events that comprise the history of this vital outpost of democracy in the middle of a Communist bloc."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Daring Young Men written by Richard Reeves and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-04-03 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early hours of June 26, 1948, phones began ringing across America, waking up the airmen of World War II—pilots, navigators, and mechanics—who were finally beginning normal lives with new houses, new jobs, new wives, and new babies. Some were given just forty-eight hours to report to local military bases. The president, Harry S. Truman, was recalling them to active duty to try to save the desperate people of the western sectors of Berlin, the enemy capital many of them had bombed to rubble only three years before. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had ordered a blockade of the city, isolating the people of West Berlin, using hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers to close off all land and water access to the city. He was gambling that he could drive out the small detachments of American, British, and French occupation troops, because their only option was to stay and watch Berliners starve—or retaliate by starting World War III. The situation was impossible, Truman was told by his national security advisers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His answer: "We stay in Berlin. Period." That was when the phones started ringing and local police began banging on doors to deliver telegrams to the vets. Drawing on service records and hundreds of interviews in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, Reeves tells the stories of these civilian airmen, the successors to Stephen Ambrose’s "Citizen Soldiers," ordinary Americans again called to extraordinary tasks. They did the impossible, living in barns and muddy tents, flying over Soviet-occupied territory day and night, trying to stay awake, making it up as they went along and ignoring Russian fighters and occasional anti-aircraft fire trying to drive them to hostile ground. The Berlin Airlift changed the world. It ended when Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade, but only after the bravery and sense of duty of those young heroes had bought the Allies enough time to create a new West Germany and sign the mutual defense agreement that created NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And then they went home again. Some of them forgot where they had parked their cars after they got the call.
Download or read book Naval Aviation News written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Candy Bombers written by Andrei Cherny and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of the great narrative storytellers, Andrei Cherny recounts the exhilarating saga of the unlikely men who made the Berlin Airlift one of the great military and humanitarian successes of American history. “What an exciting, inspiring, and wonderfully-written book this is....Each page has lessons for today, and it is also a thrilling narrative to read.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Steve Jobs The Candy Bombers is a remarkable story with profound implications for our own time. Cherny tells the tale of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and secondstringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat, but also won the hearts of America’s defeated enemies, inspired people around the world to believe in America’s fundamental goodness, avoided World War III, and won the greatest battle of the Cold War without firing a shot. With newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews, The Candy Bombers takes readers along as American pilots, with only a few small rickety planes, manage to feed and supply West Berlin completely by air for nearly a year; as Harry Truman exploits the very real threat of war to win an upset reelection campaign; as America’s first secretary of defense descends into madness in the midst of a dangerous military crisis; and as a lovesick American pilot shows that acts of basic human kindness can send powerful ripples through the course of history.
Download or read book Air Force Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book I Always Wanted to Fly written by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-09-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until now, no book has covered all of Cold War air combat in the words of the men who waged it. In I Always Wanted to Fly, retired United States Air Force Colonel Wolfgang W. E. Samuel has gathered first-person memories from heroes of the cockpits and airstrips. Battling in dogfights when jets were novelties, saving lives in grueling airlifts, or flying dangerous reconnaissance missions deep into Soviet and Chinese airspace, these flyers waged America's longest and most secretively conducted air war. Many of the pilots Samuel interviewed invoke the same sentiment when asked why they risked their lives in the air—“I always wanted to fly.” While young, they were inspired by barnstormers, by World War I fighter legends, by the legendary Charles Lindbergh, and often just by seeing airplanes flying overhead. With the advent of World War II, many of these dreamers found themselves in cockpits soon after high school. Of those who survived World War II, many chose to continue following their dream, flying the Berlin Airlift, stopping the North Korean army during the “forgotten war” in Korea, and fighting in the Vietnam War. Told in personal narratives and reminiscences, I Always Wanted to Fly renders views from pilots' seats and flight decks during every air combat flashpoint from 1945–1968. Drawn from long exposure to the immense stress of warfare, the stories these warriors share are both heroic and historic. The author, a veteran of many secret reconnaissance missions, evokes individuals and scenes with authority and grace. He provides clear, concise historical context for each airman's memories. In I Always Wanted to Fly he has produced both a thrilling and inspirational acknowledgment of personal heroism and a valuable addition to our documentation of the Cold War.
Download or read book Master of the Air written by Robert A. Slayton and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2010-03-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the western Allies moved to consolidate their areas of control in occupied Germany, the USSR responded by cutting off land access to West Berlin, holding over two million residents of that city hostage in an aggressive act of brinkmanship. General William Henry Tunner was given a task that seemed doomed to failure--to supply a major city by air with everything it needed to survive from food to a winter's supply of coal--and made it a brilliant success, astonishing the world in a major public relations defeat for the Soviets, and demonstrating the unexpected capacity of air fleets in a postwar world.
Download or read book US Air Power Key to Deterrence written by John E. Jordan (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wait for the Waggon written by D J Sutton and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1998-01-12 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first ever published comprehensive history of the Royal Corps of Transport and its Predecessors, relating the proud part played in helping to develop the highly successful logistic system that the British Army now possesses.
Download or read book German Boy written by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was the experience of war for a child in bombed and ravaged Germany? In this memoir, the voice of innocence is heard. “This is great stuff,” exclaims Stephen E. Ambrose. “I love this book.” In this gripping account, a boy and his mother are wrenched from their tranquil lives to forge a path through the storm of war and the rubble of its aftermath. In the past there has been a spectrum of books and films that share other German World War II experiences. However, told from the perspective of a ten-year-old, this book is rare. The boy and his mother must prevail over hunger and despair, or die. In the Third Reich, young Wolfgang Samuel and his family are content but alone. The father, a Luftwaffe officer, is away fighting the Allies in the West. In 1945 as Berlin and nearby communities crumble, young Wolfgang, his mother Hedy, and little sister Ingrid flee the advancing Russian army. They have no inkling of the chaos ahead. In Strasburg, a small town north of Berlin where they find refuge, Wolfgang begins to comprehend the evils the Nazi regime brought to Germany. As the Reich collapses, mother, son, and daughter flee again just ahead of the Russian charge. In the chaos of defeat they struggle to find food and shelter. Death stalks the primitive camps that are their temporary havens, and the child becomes the family provider. Under the crushing responsibility, Wolfgang becomes his mother’s and sister’s mainstay. When they return to Strasburg, the Communists in control are as brutal as the Nazis. In the violent atmosphere of arbitrary arrest, rape, hunger, and fear, the boy and his mother persist. Pursued by Communist police through a fierce blizzard, they escape to the West, but even in the English zone, the constant search for food, warmth, and shelter dominates their lives, and the mother’s sacrifices become the boy’s nightmares. Although this is a time of deepest despair, Wolfgang hangs on to the thinnest thread of hope. In June 1948 with the arrival of the Americans flying the Berlin Airlift, Wolfgang begins a new journey.
Download or read book Silent Warriors Incredible Courage written by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 took the American military by surprise. Rushing to respond, the US and its allies developed a selective overflight program to gather intelligence. Silent Warriors, Incredible Courage is a history of the Cold War overflights of the Soviet Union, its allies, and the People's Republic of China, based on extensive interviews with dozens of pilots who flew these dangerous missions. In 1954 the number of flights expanded, and the highly classified SENSINT program was born. Soon, American RB-45C, RB-47E/H, RF-100s, and various versions of the RB-57 were in the air on an almost constant basis, providing the president and military leadership with hard facts about enemy capabilities and intentions. Eventually the SENSINT program was replaced by the high-flying U-2 spy plane. The U-2 overflights removed the mysteries of Soviet military power. These flights remained active until 1960 when a U-2 was shot down by Russian missiles, leading to the end of the program. Shortly thereafter planes were replaced by spy satellites. The overflights were so highly classified that no one, planner or participant, was allowed to talk about them—and no one did, until the overflight program and its pictorial record was declassified in the 1990s. Through extensive research of existing literature on the overflights and interviews conducted by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, this book reveals the story of the entire overflight program through the eyes of the pilots and crew who flew the planes. Samuel's account tells the stories of American heroes who risked their lives—and sometimes lost them—to protect their country.
