Download or read book The Strike Wings written by Roy Conyers Nesbit and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November 1942, the RAF formed special Strike Wings to attack the heavily defended and seemingly invulnerable convoys that brought Germanys vital supplies of iron ore from Scandinavia down the coast of Europe to feed its war machine. The outcome was a series sea/air battles at close quarters, fought with increasing ferocity until the last days of the war. The Germans tried everything against the Beaufighters and Mosquitos of the Strike Wings fighters, intense flak, parachute mines and even flame-throwers and the casualties were appallingly heavy on both sides. In this classic account of one of the neglected, yet crucial theaters of the air war Roy Nesbit, himself a survivor of strike aircraft of Coastal Command, describes these complex battles from British and German records, assisted by first-hand accounts from some of the brave airmen who took part. He also analyzes the effects of the tactics employed on the German war economy, with some startling conclusions. The result is a fascinating, clearly written and vivid history of events that were little publicized during the war for reasons of security. His book includes detailed diagrams of some of the key attacks and features some astonishing photographs taken in action.
Download or read book A Separate Little War written by Andrew D. Bird and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During WWII, young British Commonwealth and Norwegian airmen flew to target German U-boats, merchant men and freighters in the fjords and leads of southwest Norway. By recording their crucial contribution to winning the world war, in a compelling, accurate and fascinating way, this book ensures their memory will not be overlooked.
Download or read book Strike and Strike Again written by Ian Gordon and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 455 Squadron RAAF was the sole Australian strike squadron in RAF Coastal Command, and flew the formidable Bristol Beaufighter, armed with 20 mm cannon, bombs and rockets. A salvo of eight of these rockets could smash through a large merchant ship and send it to the bottom. As part of the devastating strike wings of Coastal Command, 455 Squadron attacked German shipping off Holland and Denmark, and in Norwegian fiords. Here some of the fiercest battles were fought, the strike squadrons diving into concentrated automatic flak, among defending Focke-Wulfs and over merciless freezing waters. The deep fiords, with precipitous rocky sides, were unforgiving; precise flying was necessary for survival. 455 Squadron, 'the Viking Boys', mastered some of the most demanding and perilous operational flying of the war. This history describes the men who flew, the ground crews who gave unstinting support, and includes full appendices of personnel, aircraft on strength and operations. 'The type of work carried out by this Squadron is akin to that of the Viking - short sharp swoops across the sea by a compact, well armed force... The spirit of the Australians is like that of the Vikings, adventurous and free.' 455 Squadron Commanding Officer, Jack Davenport
Download or read book The Strike Wings written by Roy Conyers Nesbit and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Court of Wings and Ruin written by Sarah J. Maas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-05 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah J. Maas hit the New York Times SERIES list at #1 with A Court of Wings and Ruin!
Download or read book China s Wings written by Gregory Crouch and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Enduring Patagonia comes a dazzling tale of aerial adventure set against the roiling backdrop of war in Asia. The incredible real-life saga of the flying band of brothers who opened the skies over China in the years leading up to World War II—and boldly safeguarded them during that conflict—China’s Wings is one of the most exhilarating untold chapters in the annals of flight. At the center of the maelstrom is the book’s courtly, laconic protagonist, American aviation executive William Langhorne Bond. In search of adventure, he arrives in Nationalist China in 1931, charged with turning around the turbulent nation’s flagging airline business, the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). The mission will take him to the wild and lawless frontiers of commercial aviation: into cockpits with daredevil pilots flying—sometimes literally—on a wing and a prayer; into the dangerous maze of Chinese politics, where scheming warlords and volatile military officers jockey for advantage; and into the boardrooms, backrooms, and corridors of power inhabited by such outsized figures as Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek; President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; foreign minister T. V. Soong; Generals Arnold, Stilwell, and Marshall; and legendary Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe. With the outbreak of full-scale war in 1941, Bond and CNAC are transformed from uneasy spectators to active participants in the struggle against Axis imperialism. Drawing on meticulous research, primary sources, and extensive personal interviews with participants, Gregory Crouch offers harrowing accounts of brutal bombing runs and heroic evacuations, as the fight to keep one airline flying becomes part of the larger struggle for China’s survival. He plunges us into a world of perilous night flights, emergency water landings, and the constant threat of predatory Japanese warplanes. When Japanese forces capture Burma and blockade China’s only overland supply route, Bond and his pilots must battle shortages of airplanes, personnel, and spare parts to airlift supplies over an untried five-hundred-mile-long aerial gauntlet high above the Himalayas—the infamous “Hump”—pioneering one of the most celebrated endeavors in aviation history. A hero’s-eye view of history in the grand tradition of Lynne Olson’s Citizens of London, China’s Wings takes readers on a mesmerizing journey to a time and place that reshaped the modern world.
Download or read book Fiscal Year 1975 Authorization for Military Procurement Research and Development and Active Duty Selected Reserve and Civilian Personnel Strengths written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Britain s Greatest Aircraft written by Robert Jackson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2007-09-20 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last century the British aircraft industry created and produced many outstanding aeroplanes. These aircraft were world leaders in advanced technology, utilizing inventions by British engineers and scientists such as radar, the jet engine, the ejector seat and vertical take-off and landing. This book describes the design-history, development and operational careers of twenty-two legendary military and civil aeroplanes. Each one has played a significant part in aviation history. Sopwith Camel, SE.5, Bristol F2B Fighter and the Airco DH4 were all great successes in the relatively early days of flight. In the thirties the Bristol Bulldog fighter was an outstanding export success and the Short 'C' Class flying boat, later to become the Sunderland of World War II fame, pioneered the long-distance routes to the Empire. The pugnacious foreign policy of Hitler's Reich rung sudden alarm bells, rapid advances in fighting aircraft for the RAF became a premium objective. The brilliant Geodic construction of the Vickers Wellington bomber helped it survive terrible punishment throughout World War II, both the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire saved England from invasion and the Bristol Beaufighter, de Havilland Mosquito and Avro Lancaster took the war to enemy soil. The Gloster Meteor became the word's first operational jet fighter and the English Electric Canberra became the RAF's first jet bomber and was manufactured under licence in the USA as the Martin B-57. In post-war years the Vickers Viscount became the world's first turboprop airliner and eventually became Britain's best selling commercial aircraft, whilst the de Havilland Comet became the world's first jet airliner. Despite Britain's recessionary years in the 50s and early 60s, military success came with the beautiful Hawker Hunter, the super-sonic Fairey Delta experimental aircraft that broke the World Air Speed Record and the Vickers Valiant that pioneered the operational techniques to deliver Britain's nuclear deterrent. Later, there followed the Mach 2 English Electric Lightning and the ill-fated TSR-2, the cancellation of which is still regarded as one of the greatest mistakes ever made in British aviation history. Finally, the Harrier, the world's first vertical take-off and landing jet fighter that is still in service and now only being built in the USA. Finally the Harrier, the world's first vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, still in service and now being further developed in the USA.
Download or read book The Royal Navy s Air Service in the Great War written by David Hobbs and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-09-30 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a few short years after 1914 the Royal Navy practically invented naval air warfare, not only producing the first effective aircraft carriers, but also pioneering most of the techniques and tactics that made naval air power a reality. By 1918 the RN was so far ahead of other navies that a US Navy observer sent to study the British use of aircraft at sea concluded that any discussion of the subject must first consider their methods. Indeed, by the time the war ended the RN was training for a carrier-borne attack by torpedo-bombers on the German fleet in its bases over two decades before the first successful employment of this tactic, against the Italians at Taranto.Following two previously well-received histories of British naval aviation, David Hobbs here turns his attention to the operational and technical achievements of the Royal Naval Air Service, both at sea and ashore, from 1914 to 1918. Detailed explanations of operations, the technology that underpinned them and the people who carried them out bring into sharp focus a revolutionary period of development that changed naval warfare forever. Controversially, the RNAS was subsumed into the newly created Royal Air Force in 1918, so as the centenary of its extinction approaches, this book is a timely reminder of its true significance.
Download or read book A Separate Little War written by Andrew Bird and published by . This book was released on 2003-09-19 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day for nine months from September 1944 to the end of the war, young British, Commonwealth and Norwegian airmen flew from Banff aerodrome in northern Scotland in their Mosquitoes and Beaufighters to target the German U-Boats, merchantmen and freighters plying along the coast and in the fjords and leads of southwest Norway, encountering the Luftwaffe and flakships every step of the way. This Scottish strike wing fought in some of the bitterest and bloodiest attacks of the war, all at very low level and at close quarters. Their contribution to winning the war was crucial and while the cost in precious lives and equipment was in the same proportion as Bomber Command, they inflicted far greater damage to the enemy in relation to their losses. With Group Captain The Hon. Max Aitken, DSO DFC as station commander, Banff was eventually to become the base for a total of six Mosquito squadrons (including 235, 248 and 143), together with B Flight of the elite 333 Norwegian Squadron, and would team up on missions with the nearby Dallachy Beaufighter strike wing (404 RCAF, 455 RAAF, 489 RNZAF and 144 Squadrons). A Separate Little War, then, is a well researched and detailed history of a microcosm of Coastal Command. Supported by many photographs, maps and charts, the vast majority never published before, the author has drawn on the personal accounts of, amongst others, British and Norwegian pilots, ground crew and civilians which augment the official sources, to give a compelling, accurate and fascinating depiction of an aerodrome at war. It is a subject which will be of great interest and value to the general reader and to those students of the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, RAF and former Commonwealth Air Forces, the Polish Air Force and of maritime air operations during World War Two.
Download or read book Naval Anti Aircraft Guns Gunnery written by Norman Friedman and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 1252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature gives “an excellent overview of the problems involved in shooting at airplanes from ships.” (Coast Defense Journal). This book does for naval anti-aircraft defense what the author’s Naval Firepower did for surface gunnery—it makes a highly complex but historically crucial subject accessible to the layman. It chronicles the growing aerial threat from its inception in the First World War, and the response of each of the major navies down to the end of the Second, highlighting in particular the widely underestimated danger from dive-bombing. Central to this discussion is an analysis of what effective AA fire-control required, and how well each navy's systems actually worked. It also takes in the weapons themselves, how they were placed on ships, and how this reflected the tactical concepts of naval AA defense. Renowned military historian Norman Friedman offers striking insights he argues, for example, that the Royal Navy, so often criticized for lack of “air-mindedness,” was actually the most alert to the threat, but that its systems were inadequate—not because they were too primitive but because they tried to achieve too much. The book summarizes the experience of WW2, particularly in theaters where the aerial danger was greatest, and a concluding chapter looks at post-1945 developments that drew on wartime lessons. All important guns, directors and electronics are represented in close-up photos and drawings, and lengthy appendices detail their technical data. It is, simply, another superb contribution to naval technical history by its leading exponent.
Download or read book Ship Busters written by Ralph Barker and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “vividly told” history of torpedo attacks from the air in the Second World War, by a member of the Royal Air Force (The Sunday Times). Low-level strikes against enemy shipping by torpedo-carrying aircraft were perhaps the most dangerous forms of air attack developed during WWII, and few isolated actions had such a direct impact on naval and military actions. This book tells the story of the RAF men involved, from the early attacks by single Beauforts off the Dutch and Norwegian coasts to the massed assaults of later years by the famous “strike-wings.” The author, who joined the RAF in 1940 as a wireless operator/ air gunner, and served in the UK, the Middle East, and West Africa, and whose career on torpedo work ended in a crash in which his pilot and navigator were killed, includes many historic actions: the lone moonlight attack by a twenty-two-year-old flight sergeant on the pocket-battleship Lützow; the torpedoing of the Gneisena in Brest harbor; the Channel Dash of the Scharnhorst, Gneisena, and Prinz Eugen and the heroic Swordfish attacks; and the vital strikes from Malta in 1942 against the Italian fleet and the supply shipping of the Afrika Korps. The result is a fascinating book, vivid in its true picture of aircrew life, stirring in its descriptions of heroic actions, intensely moving in its record of human endeavor.
Download or read book Thanks for the Great Flight written by Captain James F Vaughan and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I never considered I would become an airline pilot. It was always " too expensive "or "took too much time", or I would not be hired "with-out a four college degree". Perhaps because " I wore eye-glasses..." I was content to offer Flight Instruction in my community, and did quite well teaching new low time private pilot students, and Advanced certificate pilots. I have been employed by six airlines, and the only reason I was hired at each one was because the airline needed pilots to operate the airline! I began researching the commercial pilot status and numbers, and realized there truly is a pilot shortage world wide. In my book I speak about the training and preparation that go into obtaining a pilot license. I will take the reader on an actual Airline Transport Pilot check-flight, describing the sensations and maneuvers required for the Captain candidate to master. We will fly a simulator during our training, and I will relate a humorous story that helped to break up the monotony of performing the same flight profile over, and over again. I will explain the various aircraft systems as they pertain to flight, so perhaps a non-pilot airline passenger may feel more informed of how an aircraft operates. I will also address the aircraft performance factors that may actually aid the passenger in selecting routes and times, to ease their occasional travel delays. Lastly, I will relate a few "super-natural " instances that by my only explanation the Christian Lord was watching over my flight. I have truly been blessed in my life by becoming a commercial airline pilot!
Download or read book Beaufighter written by Simon W. Parry and published by Red Kite / Air Research. This book was released on 2001-02 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a photographic album of the units that went to war in the Bristol Beaufighter.
Download or read book Tailhook Eagles in Flight written by Randy W. Baumgardner and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1998 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the role of women in Latin American history demands a full examination of their activities in the region's political, economic, and domestic spheres. Toward this end, historian Gertrude M. Yeager has assembled the multidisciplinary collection Confronting Change, Challenging Tradition. The essays in this volume explore the ways in which Latin American women have shaped-and have been shaped by-the traditional practices and ideologies of their cultures. The selections are arranged in two sections: Culture and the Status of Women, and Reconstructing the Past.
Download or read book Hunters Over Arabia written by Ray Deacon and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Provides an incredible insight into not only the majestic and beautifully lined Hunter, but also to RAF operations in insurgent wars.” —Flight Line Book Review Based on official records held at the National Archives and other published sources, Hunters over Arabia presents an in-depth account of the operations performed by the Hawker Hunter squadrons policing the desert wastelands and high mountain ranges of the Middle East. Copiously illustrated with color and black and white photographs, a high percentage of operations performed by this versatile British ground attack and reconnaissance fighter are described in detail. Using a chronological format, the narrative focuses on the period during which the Hunter served in the Middle East, from 1960 to 1971. Further chapters are dedicated to the three Hunter variants most closely associated with the Middle East, the FGA.9, FR.10 and T.7, together with their respective allocation dates. A short background to Aden, its historical links to Britain, and RAF airfields administered by Middle East Command complete this factual account. “Will be referenced for years to come as the authoritative source of operations across the troubled Middle East at the end of British influence.” —Aircrew Book Review “Fantastic color and black and white images and beautifully written with great use of National Archive documentation. This book will thrill and inform all enthusiasts of the Hawker Hunter.” —Vintage Airfix
Download or read book Beaufighter Boys written by Graham Pitchfork and published by Grub Street. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Shot Down in the Drink shares photos and anecdotes detailing the history of the World War II fighter plane and its crews across the globe. Researched many years ago by Graham Patrick for a project that did not come to fruition, Beaufighter air and ground crew gave freely of their stories, which ranged from complete memoirs to brief anecdotes. And there were a plethora of original photographs for him to choose from. He has built on these tales to trace the roles of Beaufighter squadrons spread across all the theatres of World War II operations. From home bases, through northwest Europe, North Africa, Malta and the Mediterranean, to the Far East and southwest Pacific, the Beaufighter served far and wide, as did the crews of the RAF, RAAF, SAAF, and New Zealand and Canadian squadrons. All are covered in this quite unique book to be savored by all those interested in the war in the air from 1939–1945.
