Download or read book The Hurricane Pilot Who Became a Gestapo Agent written by M J Morgan and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2023-12-21 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tucked away in the archives of the Museum for Transport and Technology in Berlin is an old photograph of a Hawker Hurricane on public display. The image must have been taken before the night of 23/24 November 1943, when the museum and the greater part of its collection – including the Hurricane – were destroyed in a RAF bombing raid. The aircraft in the photograph bore a squadron commander’s pennant under the cockpit, had broken propellor blades and carried the squadron markings PA-A on its fuselage, as well as the serial number W9147. Intrigued by what he had seen, the picture launched the author on an investigation that uncovered an incredible story of wartime treachery and betrayal. That tale concerns one man in particular – Augustin Přeučil. Also known to his family and friends as Gustav Přeučil, it was Augustin who had been the Hurricane’s last RAF pilot. A 26-year-old aviator from Czechoslovakia, on first appearances Přeučil had fled his homeland after Nazi Germany took control and created the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia – part of Hitler’s Greater Germany. Having initially traveled to Poland, he then escaped to France and, from there, ultimately reached Britain, where he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Augustin Přeučil seemed to be just like many of the men who had arrived in the UK to continue the fight against Hitler. He appeared to be settled and even married an English girl in July 1941. But on 18 September of that year, he was posted missing, believed killed, while undertaking a training flight off the coast of Sunderland and Hartlepool. Přeučil’s body was never recovered and nothing more was heard of him. His young wife received a war widow’s pension; he was just another sad statistic of the war. However, Augustin Přeučil was far from dead. Having landed the ‘stolen’ Hurricane near Bastogne in Belgium, he was treated by local people as a downed Allied pilot, sheltered and then passed into the care of the local Resistance group. Přeučil repaid their trust by handing himself into the Gestapo – and revealing all he knew. The Gestapo’s response was swift and brutal. For Přeučil, this marked the start of a new career as an undercover agent for the Gestapo, principally in Czechoslovakia. As the author reveals, how he ended up serving Hitler’s Third Reich and betraying his homeland, his adopted country and a new wife, is a story that while strange is completely true. It is also one that ended with his death. Found guilty of High Treason, Přeučil was hanged by the Czech authorities in April 1947.
Download or read book The Hurricane Pilot Who Became a Gestapo Agent written by M J Morgan and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2023-12-21 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tucked away in the archives of the Museum for Transport and Technology in Berlin is an old photograph of a Hawker Hurricane on public display. The image must have been taken before the night of 23/24 November 1943, when the museum and the greater part of its collection – including the Hurricane – were destroyed in a RAF bombing raid. The aircraft in the photograph bore a squadron commander’s pennant under the cockpit, had broken propellor blades and carried the squadron markings PA-A on its fuselage, as well as the serial number W9147. Intrigued by what he had seen, the picture launched the author on an investigation that uncovered an incredible story of wartime treachery and betrayal. That tale concerns one man in particular – Augustin Přeučil. Also known to his family and friends as Gustav Přeučil, it was Augustin who had been the Hurricane’s last RAF pilot. A 26-year-old aviator from Czechoslovakia, on first appearances Přeučil had fled his homeland after Nazi Germany took control and created the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia – part of Hitler’s Greater Germany. Having initially traveled to Poland, he then escaped to France and, from there, ultimately reached Britain, where he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Augustin Přeučil seemed to be just like many of the men who had arrived in the UK to continue the fight against Hitler. He appeared to be settled and even married an English girl in July 1941. But on 18 September of that year, he was posted missing, believed killed, while undertaking a training flight off the coast of Sunderland and Hartlepool. Přeučil’s body was never recovered and nothing more was heard of him. His young wife received a war widow’s pension; he was just another sad statistic of the war. However, Augustin Přeučil was far from dead. Having landed the ‘stolen’ Hurricane near Bastogne in Belgium, he was treated by local people as a downed Allied pilot, sheltered and then passed into the care of the local Resistance group. Přeučil repaid their trust by handing himself into the Gestapo – and revealing all he knew. The Gestapo’s response was swift and brutal. For Přeučil, this marked the start of a new career as an undercover agent for the Gestapo, principally in Czechoslovakia. As the author reveals, how he ended up serving Hitler’s Third Reich and betraying his homeland, his adopted country and a new wife, is a story that while strange is completely true. It is also one that ended with his death. Found guilty of High Treason, Přeučil was hanged by the Czech authorities in April 1947.
Download or read book When Angels Wept written by Herman Lloyd Bruebaker and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2018-05-16 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War is cruel and bloody, achieving the most important objective. When ordered to neutralize the Nazi Red Dragon Tails mysterious chemical weapon, Bobby Ray, Peggy Jean Madison, Thomas Clinton, and Richard Davenport quickly recognized Red Dragon Tails terrifying evils. The year is 1941. Hitler is devastating Europe, while Imperial Japan is conquering Asia. A weapon is needed to halt the bloody flow. However, such a destructive system does exist. But there are troubles. Red Dragon Tail hasnt been used for two thousand years. The chemical formulation will have to be rediscovered, and Nazi Germany is actively experimenting with it. If Western civilization is to survive, it falls upon the Allied agents to not only properly blend the powders but also stop the Nazis from using it. At times, both options seemed impossible.
Download or read book Hurricane Squadron Ace written by Nick Thomas and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-11-30 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The story of one of the most heroic fighter aces of the Second World War . . . has been brought to life in this gripping new book.” —Lancashire Living Magazine Air Commodore Peter Malam “Pete” Brothers CBE, DSO, DFC, and Bar (1917-2008) was one of the most highly praised pilots of the Second World War. Decorated extensively, he secured a total of 16 “kills” over the course of the conflict, with 10 of these occurring during the Battle of Britain. Pivotal moments in his career include the time, in August 1940, when his flight encountered around a hundred enemy aircraft, including Messerschmitt 110s; he led the flight in attack against them, and soon found himself in a stalled position, out of which he spun, only to be confronted by a Dornier 215, which he shot down, before later destroying a Messerschmitt 109. Scores of these kind of risky maneuvers and winning victories punctuated a career defined by great courage, leadership and initiative in the face of fierce opposition. This new and engaging biography profiles a pilot who, until now, hasn’t been the subject of such a thorough book-length study. The story of his career is incredibly entertaining, featuring a number of hair-raising episodes, and is sure to appeal to fans of aviation history as well as the more general reader seeking out an action-packed biography offering fresh insights into one of the most pivotal conflicts of the twentieth century. “An engaging story of one of The Few . . . This is a book that entertains, inspires, moves, amuses, surprises—what more could any reader ask for.” —FIRE Project
Download or read book Ten Squadrons of Hurricanes written by Adrian Stewart and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-08-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many years the importance and contribution of the Hawker Hurricane was eclipsed by the Spitfire but statistically the Hurricane was superior in the majority of cases. Thanks to Tommy Sopwiths initiative and gamble the Hurricane was ready at the outbreak of the Second World War and in service throughout.As this superbly researched book reveals by examining the roles, actions and personalities of ten Hurricane squadrons, this iconic aircraft was not only exceptionally robust but astonishingly versatile. We track its performance from the Battle of France and Britain through the Middle East, Italy and on to Burma. It excelled as day and night interceptor, intruder and importantly as a rocket firing tank buster.The Hurricane inspired great loyalty among its pilots and their colourful personalities and thrilling experiences make this splendid book an informative and entertaining read.
Download or read book It s All Pensionable Time written by Sweanor, George and published by Neverdark. This book was released on 2014-05-11 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed memoir of the life and career of a WWII veteran and POW. George Sweanor was sent, along with fellow Allied Air Forces prisoners of war, to what he considers his Alma Mater, Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Silesia, Germany, after his Halifax bomber was shot down on the return leg from Berlin in March of 1943. The prisoner-of-war camp, famous for The Great Escape, was run by the German Luftwaffe (air force), and through their mutual respect for their profession the captors and their prisoners generally got along well. This afforded George the opportunity to carefully record the events of his imprisonment, and instilled in him the duty and desire to capture his 25 years of military service in this book. This memoir is an account of 25 years spent in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) as an observer (navigator, bomb aimer, gunner) during World War II, his marrying in England, his capture and imprisonment, assisting The Great Escape, returning to Canada after the war, supporting a military family of five girls, and serving in various exciting assignments that included years of pioneering work in the Arctic, the Korean Airlift, training NATO cadets (having as a pilot trainee in 1957 the high-school Luftwaffe flak gunner responsible for shooting him down in 1943), and terminating in November 1966 in the Combat Operations Center at NORAD, Colorado Springs, during the Vietnam War era. Additionally, this book includes rich statistics from World War II operations, diagrams, maps, pictures, cartoons, and a bit of humorous wit to temper the sorrows of war.
Download or read book Agent Provocateur for Hitler or Churchill written by David Tremain and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have been many remarkable women who served British Intelligence during the Second World War. One whose dubious claim to have worked for them is a fascinating tale involving three marriages – the first, to a spurious White Russian prince; the second to a playboy-turned-criminal involved in a major jewellery robbery in the heart of London’s Mayfair in the late 1930s. After the war she became romantically involved with a well-known British Fascist, but finally married another notorious criminal whom she had met earlier during the war. The descriptions variously ascribed to her ranged from ‘remarkable’ and ‘quite ravishing’ to ‘...a woman whose loose living would make her an object of shame on any farm-yard’. Until now, very little has been recorded about Stella Lonsdale’s life. She doesn’t even merit a mention in the two official histories of MI5, even though she managed to tie them up in knots for years. This book will explore the role this strange woman may or may not have played in working for British Intelligence, the French Deuxième Bureau, or the Abwehr – German military intelligence – during the Second World War, using her MI5 files as a primary source.
Download or read book Stories from the Stalags written by Martin W Bowman and published by Air World. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1942 until the end of the war in Europe, the aircraft of the RAF’s Bomber Command and the United States 8th and 15th Air Forces provided twenty-four-hour ‘round-the-clock’ bombing of the Third Reich. Aircraft and crew casualties were heavy as bomber after bomber succumbed to flak and fighter defenses. For those not killed outright by the Luftwaffe’s onslaught, only baling out over hostile enemy territory could offer any hope of survival. But this generally meant solitary confinement, interrogation, indignities and even extreme hardship for the men who became known as ‘Kriegies’, a word derived from the German Kriegsgefangenen meaning ‘prisoners of war’. Many months of incarceration, sometimes in appalling conditions, would become commonplace for those held in camps throughout Germany, Poland and the Greater Reich. Here, at first hand, are stories of some of those Allied bomber crewmen faced with sudden leaps into that dangerous unknown. For most, and particularly the injured, capture was immediate – imprisonment inevitable. For some evasion was possible, but rarely for long. For others taken prisoner, staying alive was uppermost in the minds of most and in many cases only the comradeship of fellow prisoners and, for some, thoughts of escape became a constant preoccupation. Never to be forgotten too are the conditions and suffering endured by many PoWs when, in the face of the relentless Soviet Army advance into Germany, the camps were hastily emptied and the prisoners forced to march westward as the Germans staged their last gasp, futile attempts to prevent the ‘Kriegies’ falling into Russian hands. For these men, many of whom had been behind the wire for years, this was the final injustice. Martin Bowman’s revealing narrative describes in adrenaline-pumping detail the furious air battles that led to the predicament of many shot-down airmen, as well as the personal campaigns they fought to regain their freedom. Fascinating for its gripping and factual recreation of the bombers’ encounters with enemy fighters and flak, as well as the confrontations in captivity between PoWs and guards, Stories from the Stalags provides a real insight into the war as some of those who ‘fell from formation’ saw it.
Download or read book The Battle Of France written by Peter Cornwell and published by After the Battle. This book was released on 2008-02-28 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Cornwell tells the story of the greatest air battle of the Second World War when six nations were locked in combat over north-western Europe for a traumatic six weeks in 1940. He describes the day-to-day events as the battle unfolds, and details the losses suffered by all six nations involved: Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and, rather belatedly, Italy. As far as RAF fighter squadrons in France were concerned, it was an all-Hurricane show, yet it was the Blenheim and Battle crews who suffered the brunt of the casualties. Every aircraft lost or damaged through enemy action while operating in France is listed together with the fate of the crews. The RAF lost more than a thousand aircraft of all types over the Western Front during the six-week battle, the French Air Force 1,400, but Luftwaffe losses were even higher at over 1,800 aircraft.
Download or read book Wings of Change written by Ron Dick and published by Erin, Ont. : Boston Mills Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of a rapid-fire period of change in aviation. The fourth volume in the Aviation Century series is the dramatic story of the worldshrinking developments in commercial aviation through the end of the twentieth century, in which airliners grew from frail biplanes to huge Jumbo jets. In the process, advanced air travel brought with it worldwide political, economic and social change. In 2004 commercial airlines carried an estimated 1.6 billion passengers. Each new generation of transport aircraft has brought greater reliability, economy and safety, and increased global commerce through technological advances. Each day millions of shipments now travel by air between continents via sophisticated air cargo and air express systems. Other chapters in Winds of Change examine: the wider world of aeronautics private aircraft (personal planes as well as ultralights, sailplanes, hang gliders and parasails) lighter-than-air flight (Zeppelins, blimps, hot-air balloons) rotary wings (helicopters and related craft) the challenges of research and development (from sketch pad to computers; designers, builders and test pilots).
Download or read book A Fighter Pilot s Call to Arms written by Stanislav Fejfar and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World War II memoir of a Battle of Britain fighter ace who escaped Czechoslovakia to serve in France and with the RAF in England. Stunned into action by the rapid collapse of his country in 1938, Czech pilot Stanislav Fejfar escaped and traveled through Poland to serve initially with the French Foreign Legion, then as a sous-lieutenant with the French air force in early 1940. After the demise of that country, he fled to England in July 1940 to join the RAF. Posted to 310 Squadron, he saw much feverish action and he rapidly became an ace during the Battle of Britain but was to lose his life on 17 May 1942, shot down over Boulogne flying his beloved Spitfire. Until recently it was not known that throughout his short career, Stanislav kept a full day-by-day diary which has been translated by Henry Prokop and is the basis for this book. Augmented by the diligent research of Norman Franks and Simon Muggleton in unearthing previously unpublished combat reports, letters and other articles of memorabilia, together with their annotated comments, this is an extremely valuable and moving account by a man who gave his life defending freedom. A book which will be sought out by anyone interested in the history of the Battle of Britain.
Download or read book The Czechoslovak Weekly written by and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book United Aircraft Quarterly Bee hive written by and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fatal Decisions written by Edmund Blandford and published by Castle Books. This book was released on 2001-04 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blunder, was probably a matter of life or death and caused by a decision taken under the stress and pressure of combat.
Download or read book Home by Christmas written by Martin W. Bowman and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beretter om amerikanske flybesætningers forhold og oplevelser som krigsfanger efter at have overlevet nedskydninger og flyhavarier over tysk besat område under 2. verdenskrig.
Download or read book Aces High written by Christopher Shores and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-18 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume updates the information in the first volume and adds some new names. Information has been added on the pilots who gained success against the V-1 flying bombs during 1944-45. Detail is also provided on those units in which virtually all the fighter pilots served at some time or another - the fighter Operational Training Units - and of specialist units such as the Central Gunnery School, Fighter Leader's School and Fighter Experimental Units. There is also coverage of the only other conflicts in which British pilots have been able to claim victories since 1945 - Korea and the Falklands Conflict.
Download or read book Avenue of Spies written by Alex Kershaw and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best-selling author of The Liberator brings to life the incredible true story of an American doctor in Paris, and his heroic espionage efforts during World War II. The leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris's hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son Phillip at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Just down the road at Number 31 was the "mad sadist" Theodor Dannecker, an Eichmann protégé charged with deporting French Jews to concentration camps. And Number 84 housed the Parisian headquarters of the Gestapo, run by the most effective spy hunter in Nazi Germany. From his office at the American Hospital, itself an epicenter of Allied and Axis intrigue, Jackson smuggled fallen Allied fighter pilots safely out of France, a job complicated by the hospital director's close ties to collaborationist Vichy. After witnessing the brutal round-up of his Jewish friends, Jackson invited Liberation to officially operate out of his home at Number 11—but the noose soon began to tighten. When his secret life was discovered by his Nazi neighbors, he and his family were forced to undertake a journey into the dark heart of the war-torn continent from which there was little chance of return. Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material and extensive interviews with Phillip Jackson, Alex Kershaw recreates the City of Light during its darkest days. The untold story of the Jackson family anchors the suspenseful narrative, and Kershaw dazzles readers with the vivid immediacy of the best spy thrillers. Awash with the tense atmosphere of World War II's Europe, Avenue of Spies introduces us to the brave doctor who risked everything to defy Hitler.
