Download or read book War in a Stringbag written by Charles Lamb and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2001 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic autobiography by the best known Second World War Fleet Air Arm pilot. A story of real life adventure, action and heroism. Commander Charles Lamb fought an exceptional war flying the slow and obsolete Fairey Swordfish for the Fleet Air Arm. It was an antiquated machine, but it could outmanoeuvre almost any other aircraft, and in Charles Lamb's hands, the 'Stringbag' - as the torpedo bomber was affectionately known - was a deadly weapon. Charles Lamb fought in the thick of the action. This is his story, from the first day of war as a Lieutenant on board Courageous, to the accident aboard Implacable in action against the Japanese in June 1945 which ended his war. A rare account of determination, action and spirit by a man who was an inspiration to those around him.
Download or read book To War in a Stringbag written by Charles Lamb and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stringbag written by David Wragg and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2004-11-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a narrative account of the operations of the Fairey Swordfish throughout World War Two. The most famous of these was the attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, crippling three battleships and damaging several other ships as well as the seaplane base and an oil storage depot. The Swordfish played a prominent part in the Battle of Matapan and in the sinking of the Bismarck. Less happily, Swordfish were used in the unsuccessful and ill-prepared raid on the Germans at Petsamo and in the abortive attack on the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the Channel Dash in 1942.
Download or read book The Stringbags written by Garth Ennis and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2020-05-20 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you do the incredible often enough, they'll want you to do the impossible. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy began World War II with aircraft that could devastate enemy warships and merchantmen at will. Britain's Royal Navy squadrons went to war equipped with the Fairey Swordfish. A biplane torpedo bomber in an age of monoplanes, the Swordfish was underpowered and undergunned; an obsolete museum piece, an embarrassment. Its crews fully expected to be shot from the skies. Instead, they flew the ancient "Stringbag" into legend. Writer Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys, War Stories) and artist PJ Holden (Battlefields, World of Tanks: Citadel) present the story of the men who crewed the Swordfish: from their triumphs against the Italian Fleet at Taranto and the mighty German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic, to the deadly challenge of the Channel Dash in the bleak winter waters of their homeland. They lived as they flew, without a second to lose--and the greatest tributes to their courage would come from the enemy who strove to kill them. Based on the true story of the Royal Navy's Swordfish crews, The Stringbags is an epic tale of young men facing death in an aircraft almost out of time.
Download or read book To War in a Stringbag written by Outlet and published by . This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stringbag written by David Wragg and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2004-11-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a narrative account of the operations of the Fairey Swordfish throughout World War Two. The most famous of these was the attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, crippling three battleships and damaging several other ships as well as the seaplane base and an oil storage depot. The Swordfish played a prominent part in the Battle of Matapan and in the sinking of the Bismarck. Less happily, Swordfish were used in the unsuccessful and ill-prepared raid on the Germans at Petsamo and in the abortive attack on the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the Channel Dash in 1942.
Download or read book The Kamikaze Hunters written by Will Iredale and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or Kamikaze.Drawing on meticulous research and unique personal access to the remaining survivors, Will Iredale follows a group of young men from the moment they signed up through their initial training to the terrifying reality of fighting against pilots who, in the cruel last summer of the war, chose death rather than risk their country's dishonorable defeat—and deliberately flew their planes into Allied aircraft carriers.
Download or read book Bring Back My Stringbag written by John Kilbracken and published by Leo Cooper Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vigorous, light-hearted and extraordinarily vivid, this account by Lord Kilbracken of his five years in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War provides a remarkable picture of personal dealings with Swordfish aircraft, affectionately known as Stringbags, which, he asserts, 'seemed to have been left in the war by mistake.' At the same time he reveals what a significant often dramatic, role they played in the world course of hostilities.
Download or read book Fairey Swordfish in Action written by W. Harrison and published by Squadron/Signal Publications. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beskriver det engelske jagerfly Fairey Swordfish bygget i årene mellem 1. og 2. verdenskrig.
Download or read book Attack on Taranto written by Thomas P. Lowry and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On November 11, 1940, 21 slow, canvas-covered British warplanes, launched from the carrier Illustrious, attacked the harbor at the Italian port of Taranto and put most of the Italian navy out of commission. This all-but-forgotten operation, the authors argue, deserves historical recognition as an inspirational precedent for the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor 13 months later. Taranto demonstrated that battleships in a shallow, heavily defended harbor could be sunk by a handful of torpedo-bombers. That lesson Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Japanese fleet, learned well-while the American military virtually ignored it. “By this single stroke the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean was decisively altered.” –Winston S. Churchill
Download or read book Taranto written by David Hobbs and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If you only read one book on the development of the Fleet Air Arm and Naval air warfare in the Mediterranean during World War 2 then this should be it.” —Military Historical Society After the Italian declaration of war in June 1940, the Royal Navy found itself facing a larger and better-equipped Italian surface fleet, large Italian and German air forces equipped with modern aircraft and both Italian and German submarines. Its own aircraft were a critical element of an unprecedented fight on, over and under the sea surface. The best-known action was the crippling of the Italian fleet at Taranto, which demonstrated how aircraft carriers and their aircraft had replaced the dominance of battleships, but every subsequent operation is covered from the perspective of naval aviation. Some of these, like Matapan or the defense of the “Pedestal” convoy to Malta, are famous but others in support of land campaigns and in the Aegean after the Italian surrender are less well recorded. In all these, the ingenuity and innovation of the Fleet Air Arm shines through—Taranto pointed the way to what the Japanese would achieve at Pearl Harbor, while air cover for the Salerno landings demonstrated the effectiveness of carrier-borne fighters in amphibious operations, a tactic adopted by the US Navy. The author’s years of archival research together with his experience as a carrier pilot allow him to describe and analyze the operations of naval aircraft in the Mediterranean with unprecedented authority. This provides the book with novel insights into many familiar facets of the Mediterranean war while for the first time doing full justice to the Fleet Air Arm’s lesser known achievements. “A full and fascinating story.” —Clash of Steel
Download or read book I Sank The Bismarck written by John Moffat and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early hours of the 27th of May, 1941, the German warship Bismarck - scourge of the Atlantic ocean - was sailing towards a fateful encounter. Two days previously, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had issued the order to "Sink the Bismarck". High winds and low visibility added to the atrocious morning weather as Fleet Air Arm pilot, John Moffat, took to the air in his open cockpit bomber. Along with twelve other brave pilots, John Moffat took down the largest warship of its time. A warship that had destroyed the famed HMS Hood within minutes, and was able to withstand anything the British military threw at them. These men, in their Swordfish, managed to avoid the fearful anti-aircraft fire and launched their torpedoes. One of them hit, holing the German warship. This is his story - of how as a young man he experienced first-hand the titanic struggle for naval supremacy, the cramped-cabins and meagre rations of WW2, the mind-numbing patrols over hundreds of miles of ocean and the adrenalin and fear of being in a fragile aircraft sought out by gunfire. As the only surviving member of his fellow pilots, John Moffat tells of everything that led him to be able to say, "I sank the Bismarck".
Download or read book Genevieve s War written by Patricia Reilly Giff and published by Holiday House. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this companion to the Newbery Honor-winning Lily's Crossing, thirteen-year-old Genevieve risks everything to defy the Nazis and join the French Resistance. Winner of the Christopher Award! It's not always thinking of being happy. Doing the right thing will make you happy. Despite the farm-work and her irritable grandmother Memé, Genevieve thinks she may have found a new home in Alsace, France, where she spent the summer of 1939. Without much to return to in New York, Gen is ready to see if this new life will make her happy. But then World War II erupts. The Nazis conquer France. Now everyone in Alsace must speak German, act German, and think German--or else. Even worse, a cold Nazi officer has commandeered a room in Memé's farmhouse--and he can tell that Gen and her grandmother aren't loyal to the Reich. But Gen won't be cowed. And when her friend Rémy commits an act of sabotage, she hides him in the last place the Germans will look--in the attic, right above the Nazi's head. For more thrilling historical fiction, don't miss Island War, a survival story set in the remote Aleutian Islands, occupied by the Japanese during World War II, and A Slip of a Girl, a novel in verse about the Irish Land War of the late 19th century.
Download or read book The Battle of Matapan 1941 written by Mark Simmons and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1941, the Royal Navy scored one of the greatest one-sided victories against the Italian Fleet the Regia Marina at Matapan. It brought to an end six months of remarkable success for the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. When France fell and Italy declared war on Britain, Admiral Dudley Pound had wanted to evacuate the Mediterranean altogether and concentrate on home defence. Churchill overruled him, regarding such a move as the death knell of the British Empire. His decision made the Mediterranean theatre the focus of British land operations for four years, reliant on the Navy. In Admiral Andrew Cunningham, Churchill had a fleet commander in the Mediterranean who would miss no chance of hounding the enemy. Affectionately known as A.B.C. by his men, Cunningham was salty in his language, intolerant of fools and a master of tactics. In " The Battle of Matapan 1941: The Trafalgar of the Mediterranean", Mark Simmons explores the remarkable victories of Taranto and Matapan, as seen through the eyes of the men who manned the ships and flew the aircraft of the Mediterranean Fleet.
Download or read book Push Me Pull You written by Lewis J. Poteet and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, evocative, authoritative dictionary of words from the world community of flight, this book expresses the machismo, the terror, the care for technical excellence, struggles over the power of naming between PR for manufacturers and others, reporters, flight crews, ramp rats, PAX, cabin attendants. The exhilaration of a blue on blue flying day, the horror of a ground loop that goes bad, or a torque stall. Pilots, at the center, are extreme individualists in an activity that depends on teamwork mechanics, weather forecasters, air traffic controllers, computer experts, schedulers and trackers, dispatchers, ground crew. The stress produces variations in speaking that range from technical words to vivid slang exclamations (see Jesus nut). Sources include people from all the levels listed above, some aviation and space writers, Gulf War veterans, and required on-site research at air shows in Le Bourget, Farnsborough, Berlin, Ottawa, Abbotsford, and in Dayton, Pensacola (FL), CFB St. Hubert (Qc.), Dallas-Fort Worth, Renton (WA), Wichita (KS), Montreal, and at such WWII bases as Elvington, near York, England. The section on the names of aircraft includes both official names and the folk names given by those who actually had to fly or ride in them. I am amazed at how you have covered up all the profanity and kept such a clean book. You have made [this] look like a respectable language! Bill Robinson, Public Relations
Download or read book World War II at Sea written by Craig L. Symonds and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author of Lincoln and His Admirals (winner of the Lincoln Prize), The Battle of Midway (Best Book of the Year, Military History Quarterly), and Operation Neptune, (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature), Craig L. Symonds has established himself as one of the finest naval historians at work today. World War II at Sea represents his crowning achievement: a complete narrative of the naval war and all of its belligerents, on all of the world's oceans and seas, between 1939 and 1945. Opening with the 1930 London Conference, Symonds shows how any limitations on naval warfare would become irrelevant before the decade was up, as Europe erupted into conflict once more and its navies were brought to bear against each other. World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina-at the start of the war the fourth-largest navy in the world-and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; the struggles of the Russian Navy and the scuttling of the French Fleet in Toulon in 1942; the landings in North Africa and then Normandy. Here as well are the notable naval leaders-FDR and Churchill, both self-proclaimed "Navy men," Karl Dönitz, François Darlan, Ernest King, Isoroku Yamamoto, Erich Raeder, Inigo Campioni, Louis Mountbatten, William Halsey, as well as the hundreds of thousands of seamen and officers of all nationalities whose live were imperiled and lost during the greatest naval conflicts in history, from small-scale assaults and amphibious operations to the largest armadas ever assembled. Many have argued that World War II was dominated by naval operations; few have shown and how and why this was the case. Symonds combines precision with story-telling verve, expertly illuminating not only the mechanics of large-scale warfare on (and below) the sea but offering wisdom into the nature of the war itself.
Download or read book Fleet Air Arm Legends written by Matthew Willis and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few aircraft encompass as many contradictions as the Fairey Swordfish - the legendary 'Stringbag' naval torpedo bomber was approaching antiquation at the start of the war yet struck mortal blows against some of the most powerful battleships in the Axis fleets. Naval Aviation historian Matthew Willis explores how modern technology such as radar kept the Swordfish effective in the early years of the war and enabled it to find and hit the Italian fleet at Taranto, and the Bismarck in the Atlantic, in circumstances where no other aircraft could have succeeded.When it was finally superseded in its main role with the Fleet, the Swordfish fulfilled vital roles protecting convoys from the U-boat menace. The story of the Swordfish's service across the majority of theatres in WW2, from the hunt for the Graf Spee to the beaches of Normandy, is told here with never-before-published accounts from veteran aircrews. Includes 100+ historic photographs and unique images of the Royal Navy Historic Flight's preserved aircraft.
