Download or read book The Legendary Norden Bombsight written by Albert L. Pardini and published by Schiffer Military History. This book was released on 1999 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed volume covering the famous Norden Bombsight (NBS) which was one of the most secret weapons used before and during World War II by the United States in its bomber aircraft. The NBS was again called to duty in 1967-67 during the Vietnam War.
Download or read book Wings written by Tom D Crouch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-11-09 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Invention of the Airplane ushered in the modern age. Tom D. Crouch chronicles how conquest of the skies shifted the way people travel, wage war, and perceive the promise of life. From balloons and kites to passenger jets, from stealth fighters to interplanetary rockets, Crouch tells how the enthusiasm of amateurs spawned an industry that now determines the rise and fall of nations. Achievements have been breathtaking, and yet this is not a tale of unalloyed progress. Blind alleys ended in debt and failure; bitter disappointment and stark terror exacted a price for technical progress. In the end, there is no more fascinating cast of characters than those who wrote history in the sky and, in living a dream, forever changed the world. Book jacket.
Download or read book Birth of a Legend written by Capt Arthur H. Wagner Uscg (Ret) and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Competition for Army acquisition funding in the betrween wars depression years was fierce. The opposing camps of Fighter Supremacy versus Strategic Bombing played out at the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS), at GHQ, before Congress and in the media. Military exercises pitted the Navy and the Air Corps in operations with real cloak and dagger background gambits, each trying to gain the upper hand. When leaders such as Benjamin Foulois, Billy Mitchell, and Frank Andrews eventually were able to foster a bomber competition to replace the Martin B-10, Boeing's four-engined Model 299 was a clear winner; but then it crashed at Dayton, and the Army opted for the Douglas B-18. Somehow, Frank Andrews had enough faith in his convictions and managed to have 13 Y1B-17s produced and sent to the 2nd Bombardment Group at Langley Field, VA. There Robert Olds and his three squadrons enthralled the country with long range goodwill flights, transcontinental speed runs with an obscure 1st Lt Curtis leMay navigating the way, and a thrilling movie "Test Pilot" starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy. Fortunately for the trials of WWII, these daring young men of the Army Air Corps put their careers on the line, and made the B-17 one of the iconic weapons of that conflict. This is the untold story of the aircraft development and the men who made it happen.
Download or read book The Sound of Freedom written by James P. Rife and published by Department of the Navy. This book was released on 2006 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the evolution of the Dahlgren Laboratory from a proof and test facility into a modern research and development center crucial to the technological evolution of the United States Navy.
Download or read book Birth of a Legend written by LtCol Leon E. Braxton USAF and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-27 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Competition for Army acquisition funding in the betrween wars depression years was fierce. The opposing camps of Fighter Supremacy versus Strategic Bombing played out at the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS), at GHQ, before Congress and in the media. Military exercises pitted the Navy and the Air Corps in operations with real cloak and dagger background gambits, each trying to gain the upper hand. When leaders such as Benjamin Foulois, Billy Mitchell, and Frank Andrews eventually were able to foster a bomber competition to replace the Martin B-10, Boeing's four-engined Model 299 was a clear winner; but then it crashed at Dayton, and the Army opted for the Douglas B-18. Somehow, Frank Andrews had enough faith in his convictions and managed to have 13 Y1B-17s produced and sent to the 2nd Bombardment Group at Langley Field, VA. There Robert Olds and his three squadrons enthralled the country with long range goodwill flights, transcontinental speed runs with an obscure 1st Lt Curtis leMay navigating the way, and a thrilling movie "Test Pilot" starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy. Fortunately for the trials of WWII, these daring young men of the Army Air Corps put their careers on the line, and made the B-17 one of the iconic weapons of that conflict. This is the untold story of the aircraft development and the men who made it happen.
Download or read book The Wild Blue Yonder and Beyond written by Rob Morris and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2012 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete history of a legendary World War II bomb group
Download or read book World War II 5 volumes written by Spencer C. Tucker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 2730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than 1,700 cross-referenced entries covering every aspect of World War II, the events and developments of the era, and myriad related subjects as well as a documents volume, this is the most comprehensive reference work available on the war. This encyclopedia represents a single source of authoritative information on World War II that provides accessible coverage of the causes, course, and consequences of the war. Its introductory overview essays and cross-referenced A–Z entries explain how various sources of friction culminated in a second worldwide conflict, document the events of the war and why individual battles were won and lost, and identify numerous ways the war has permanently changed the world. The coverage addresses the individuals, campaigns, battles, key weapons systems, strategic decisions, and technological developments of the conflict, as well as the diplomatic, economic, and cultural aspects of World War II. The five-volume set provides comprehensive information that gives readers insight into the reasons for the war's direction and outcome. Readers will understand the motivations behind Japan's decision to attack the United States, appreciate how the concentration of German military resources on the Eastern Front affected the war's outcome, understand the major strategic decisions of the war and the factors behind them, grasp how the Second Sino-Japanese War contributed to the start of World War II, and see the direct impact of new military technology on the outcomes of the battles during the conflict. The lengthy documents volume represents a valuable repository of additional information for student research.
Download or read book East Tennessee in World War II written by Dewaine A. Speaks and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like every other red-blooded American, East Tennessee residents did all they could to help end World War II. Locals like "Petie" Siler signed up for service, despite having fought in World War I. Oak Ridge residents worked expeditiously on the Manhattan Project, gathering uranium-235 to fuel the first atomic bomb. Knoxville's Rohm & Haas Chemical Company branch furnished Plexiglas for aircraft. Military veterans Dewaine A. Speaks and Dr. Ray Clift detail the unified sacrifices and contributions of East Tennessee's honorable soldiers and civilians.
Download or read book Bombing Pompeii written by Nigel Pollard and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-11-18 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bombing Pompeii examines the circumstances under which over 160 Allied bombs hit the archaeological site of Pompeii in August and September 1943, and the wider significance of this event in the history of efforts to protect cultural heritage in conflict zones, a broader issue that is still of great importance. From detailed examinations of contemporary archival document, Nigel Pollard shows that the bomb damage to ancient Pompeii was accidental, and the bombs were aimed at road and rail routes close to the site in an urgent attempt to slow down the reinforcement and supply of German counter- attacks that threatened to defeat the Allied landings in the Gulf of Salerno. The book sets this event, along with other instances of damage and risk to cultural heritage in Italy in the Second World War, in the context of the development of the Allied Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives – the “Monuments Men.”
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 Belle of the Brawl written by Gary A Best and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wartime biography follows the life of a Second World War B-17 bombardier from the beginning of the war to its conclusion. Based on the 150 letters the airman, Fred Lull, wrote home to his mother, much of the horrors of what he experienced off the wing of his plane, aircraft destroyed, dismemberment by flak, go unshared. Fred did not want his mother to worry and could not tell her: ‘I noticed some movement and a flash of light out of the corner of my right eye. The plane that had been flying right next to us had exploded and simply disappeared.’ Using the bombardier’s combat flight record, research data and interviews of former B-17 crew members, the story unfolds, breaking through the barrier of an unwillingness and inability to tell loved ones of the smell and taste of war.
Download or read book Weston Fulton in Tennessee Edison of the South written by Dewaine A. Speaks and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Weston Fulton, the Knoxville inventor who became known as the "Edison of the South." Explains Fulton's impact on technical, military, educational, and manufacturing history and includes photographs of his best-known invention, the seamless metal bellows.
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 The sound of freedom Naval Weapons Technology at Dahlgren Virginia 1918 2006 written by James P. Rife and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2006 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of the evolution of the Dahlgren Laboratory from a naval proof and test facility into a modern research and development center crucial to the technological evolution of the U.S. Navy. Combining a close analysis of the technical work that led to the improvements in weapons, bombsights, missiles, and the computers that provided their guidance with a close account of changing management styles, this work recounts many previously classified stories.
Download or read book The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces written by Robert O Harder and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While scores of books have been published about the atomic bombings that helped end World War II, little has been written about the personal lives and relationship of the three men that led the raids. Paul Tibbets, Tom Ferebee, and Ted “Dutch” Van Kirk exemplified what Life Magazine meant when in 1942 it called the B-17 pilot, bombardier, and navigator “the three musketeers of the Army Air Forces.” A former navigator-bombardier and pilot himself, Harder brings a fresh perspective to an otherwise well-known narrative. He provides a rare insider’s look at exactly who these three fellows were, how they were trained, what they meant to each other, and finally how everything coalesced into the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks.
Download or read book The Allied Bombing of Central Italy written by Teresa Fava Thomas and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Allied Bombing of Central Italy examines the results of the Second World War Allied bombing campaign on Palestrina and Rome, Italy, and the long-term impact of the war on the mountainside town and on the Barberini family's art collection including the Nile Mosaic. It explores the history and cultural significance of Palestrina, its strategic setting, the recovery of the town, the restoration of the Nile Mosaic, which remains the largest Egyptian-style mosaic extant. A unique aspect of the destruction was that it uncovered a pagan temple, the Sanctuary of Fortuna. The bombing destroyed the homes built on its terraces but revealed the ancient structure buried beneath which had remained unseen for half a millennium. It took more than a decade for the mosaic to be restored and the Sanctuary of Fortuna established as a national archeological museum. The book explores the pressure by the Mussolini regime to control the Barberini family's art collection, the uses of cultural materials for propaganda purposes, the Allied use of airpower in the Italian theater of war, the postwar decision-making and recovery process. The book is one of the very few long-range studies of the war's impact on a single Italian town. It is suitable for academic seminars and an educated general audience.
Download or read book Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II written by Stewart Halsey Ross and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-10-03 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States relied heavily on bombing to defeat the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, and air raids were touted as "precision" bombing in American propaganda. But was precision possible over cloud-covered Europe or a darkened Japanese countryside? Could the vaunted Norden optical bombsight in fact "drop bombs into pickle barrels" as advertised? Were the American aircrews well trained and well protected? How good were their airplanes? What were the results of the costly raids? This work sets suppositions against facts surrounding the United States' use of strategic bombing in World War II. Chapters cover the events leading up to World War II; the start of the war; the seers and the planners; the airplanes, bombs, bombsights, and aircrews; the planes Germany used to defend itself against American planes; the five cities (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki) that experienced the most destruction; and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of the damage done by aerial bombing. The book also probes the government's myth-building statements that supported America's view of itself as a uniquely humanitarian nation, and analyzes the role played by interservice rivalry--"battleship admirals" against "bomber generals."
