Download or read book Bomb Aimer the World War II Memories of Flying Officer Tom Kernaghan as Related to D K Kernaghan written by Tom Kernaghan and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bomb Aimer the World War II Memories of Flying Officer Tom Kernaghan stationed in Jarvis Picton written by D. J. Kernaghan and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bomb Aimer written by Tom Kernaghan and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bomb Aimer the World War II Memoires of Flying Officer Tom Kernaghan written by Tom Kernaghan and published by Belleville, Ont. : D.J. Kernaghan. This book was released on 1994 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fighter Fighter Corkscrew Port written by Pat Cunningham and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2012-04-19 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The young men who flew with RAF Bomber Command in World War Two were a complex mixture of individuals but they all shared the gift of teamwork. A crew of seven may have comprised all non-commissioned men and some crews included commissioned officers but not always flying as pilots. The outstanding fact was that each man relied on every other member of his crew to return from each mission safely.This book contains ten intriguing reminiscences of bomber aircrew; some were pilots, others navigators, flight engineers, bomb-aimers or gunners. They flew as both commissioned or NCO airmen. Understandably, a common problem was that of coping with fear. Many former aircrew hold that anyone who claims to have felt no fear on operations is either lying or has allowed the years to blank out that fear. But there are a few who do maintain that they never felt afraid. For the majority, though, handling fear was something to be worked out by the individual. Some hit the bottle, others womanized to excess; others tightened the gut and bit the lip; or drew the curtain and focused upon the plotting table or the wireless set. The passing years may have silvered what hair remains, dulled the eye that formerly registered on the merest speck; lent a quiver to the hand that once controlled the stick, penciled in the track, manipulated the tuning dial, set the bombsight, tapped the gauge, or rotated the turret. And yet for all the attributes of age their irrepressible youthfulness shines through.
Download or read book The Fear in the Sky written by Pat Cunningham and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-09-19 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The young men who flew with RAF Bomber Command in World War Two were a complex mixture of individuals but they all shared the gift of teamwork. A crew of seven may have comprised all non commissioned men and some crews included commissioned officers but not always flying as pilots. The outstanding fact was that each man relied on every other member of his crew to return from each mission safely.This book contains ten intriguing reminiscences of bomber aircrew; some were pilots, others navigators, flight engineers, bomb-aimers or gunners. They flew as both commissioned or NCO airmen..Understandably, a common problem was that of coping with fear. Many former aircrew hold that anyone who claims to have felt no fear on operations is either lying or has allowed the years to blank out that fear. But there are a few who do maintain that they never felt afraid. For the majority, though, handling fear was something to be worked out by the individual. Some hit the bottle, others womanized to excess; others tightened the gut and bit the lip; or drew the curtain and focused upon the plotting table or the wireless set.The passing years may have silvered what hair remains, dulled the eye that formerly registered on the merest speck; lent a quiver to the hand that once controlled the stick, penciled in the track, manipulated the tuning dial, set the bombsight, tapped the gauge, or rotated the turret. And yet for all the attributes of age their irrepressible youthfulness shines through.
Download or read book World War II Dispatches to Akron written by Christopher LaHurd and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bombardier’s story of serving in the skies over Europe—and surviving in a POW camp—as told through his correspondence with his Ohio family. On his twenty-sixth horrifying mission over the hostile skies of Nazi Europe, a charismatic bombardier, seated at the nose of a B-17, strapped on his parachute as his disintegrating bomber dropped uncontrollably to the ground. What got him to this point, the ensuing months behind barbed wire, and his daily letters written to his family in Akron, Ohio, makes for an emotionally intense memoir. This is the true account of a single individual who represents the countless unsung warriors of the greatest generation during World War II. Previously published as A Story of One
Download or read book The 390th Bomb Group Anthology written by Wilbert H. Richarz and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1983-01-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 390th Bomb Group Anthology includes 83 stories written by 45 members of the 390th Bomb Group relating their personal adventures during the World War II years. of 1943, 1944, and 1945. The stories include combat briefs, mission stories, humor in the midst of war, evasion, and imprisonment after being shot down. Some of the stories were written as they happened during the war years while others are recollections of those events so prominent in the mins of those who lived them. The reader will be provided new insight into the war in the air by these personal accounts. The 390th Bomb Group was one of the most famous units in the Eighth Air Force. This unit flew 301 missions against Hitler's "Fortress Europe." This effort had a profound affect on the outcome of World War II in Europe.
Download or read book Vanishing Point written by Tom Wilber and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Vanishing Point, award winning journalist and author Tom Wilber pieces together the largely forgotten story of the bomber, Getaway Gertie, and an eclectic group of enthusiasts who have spent years searching for it. At the height of World War II, a B-24 Liberator bomber vanished with its crew while on a training mission over upstate New York. The final hours and ultimate resting place of pilot Keith Ponder and seven other US aviators aboard the plane remain mysteries to this day. The tale is at once a compelling instance of loss on the World War II American home front and a more extensive, largely unreported history. Ponder–a 21-year-old from rural Mississippi–and his crew were tragically unexceptional casualties in the monumental effort to recruit and train an air force en masse to counter the global conquest of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. More than fifteen thousand American airmen and, in some cases, women burned, crashed, or fell to their deaths in stateside training accidents during the war–their lives and stories shuffled away in piles of Air Force bureaucracy. The forgotten story of Getaway Gertie was originally inspired by summer evenings around the campfire on the shores of Lake Ontario, where parts of the plane have washed up. Building on those campfire tales, Wilber deftly connects myth with fact and memory with historicity. The result is a vivid portrait of the forgotten soldier of the home front and a new take on the meaning of wartime sacrifice as the last survivors of the Greatest Generation pass away.
Download or read book The Writing 69th written by Jim Hamilton and published by Green Harbor Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Writing 69th, eight civilian and military journalists who covered the U.S. 8th Air Force during World War II, included Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney and Homer Bigart. Six of them participated in a bombing raid on German Naval installations at Wilhelmshaven in 1943. One of the journalists, Bob Post of the New York Times, did not return. The author has gathered accounts from military and civilian participants to tell the story of the Writing 69th and the raid on Wilhelmshaven.
Download or read book Bomber Offensive written by Arthur Harris and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2005-03-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Royal Air Force commander of bombing operations during WWII offers an insider’s view of his legendary career in this classic military memoir. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris remains a controversial figure in the history of the RAF. While many vilify him for his merciless carpet bombing of Germany, others believe that his contributions to Allied victory are grossly undervalued. In Bomber Offensive, Harris candidly describes how he led the men of Bomber Command in the face of appalling casualties, his fierce disagreements with higher authority, and the complicated relationship he had with Winston Churchill. Written soon after the close of the Second World War, Harris's memoirs reveals the man behind the Allied bombing offensive that destroyed the Nazi war machine, but also many beautiful and historic cities, such as Dresden. His defense of these total war tactics stands in stark contrast to modern military policy, which considers such indiscriminate killing a war crime.
Download or read book Story of a World War II Bomb Aimer written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 35 Missions to Hell and Back written by Charles J "Chuck" Richardson and published by Page Publishing, Inc. This book was released on 2020-03-07 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-plus years in the writing, and for an additional ten years, this gut-wrenching, heartwarming story has been silently biding its time, awaiting a channel for expression. A compelling story of young boys bound by faith, courage, blood, sweat, and tears, and how that bonding created the brave young men they became. Hopefully, all who read this account will feel the deep emotions of terror, disappointment, frustration, laughter, love, peace, and joy experienced by the author during his service as a radioman/gunner on a B17G during World War II. Some of the stories contained in this manuscript have never been published or made public. Stationed in the European Theater of Operations in Framlingham, England, Mr. Richardson, USAAF, 8th AF, 390th Bomb Group (H), 571st Squadron, was the recipient of numerous major awards and citations, including Distinguished Flying Cross; Air Medal with 4 Oak-Leaf Clusters; 2 Presidential Unit Citations; Russian Medal of Victory in the Great Patriotic War (on behalf of Boris Yeltsin); Certificate in Recognition of Contribution/Service in liberating France and participation in the Invasion of Normandy, signed by French Secretary of Defense John-Pierre Messeret; French Jubilee of Liberty Medal; and French Legion of Honor Medal.
Download or read book The Men Who Flew the Heavy Bombers written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Pen and Sword Aviation. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Bowman’s considerable experience as a military historian has spanned over forty years, during which time he has amassed a wealth of material on the participation by RAF and Commonwealth and US 8th and 15th Air Force crews in the series of raids on the cities and oil transportation and industrial targets in the Third Reich, culminating in ‘Round-the-Clock’ bombing by the RAF, operating at night on the largely forgotten Stirling, the gamely Halifax and ultimately the more successful Lancaster, and the US 8th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator crews by day on a target list so long and wide ranging that it defies the imagination. Hundreds of hours of painstaking and fact-finding research and interviews and correspondence with numerous airmen and women and their relatives, in Britain, America and beyond has been woven into a highly readable and emotional outpouring of life and death in combat over the Third Reich as the men of the RAF and Commonwealth and American air forces describe in their own words the compelling, gripping and thought-provoking narrative of the Combined Bomber Offensive in World War Two, which resulted from the RAF nocturnal onslaught and the American unescorted precision attacks on targets throughout the Reich until the P-51 Mustang escort fighters enabled the 8th to assume the mantle of the leading bombing partner in theatre. February and March 1945 saw the most intense bombing destruction when Nazi defences were minimal or absent and the war was all but over. Final victory in May 1945 came at a high price indeed. Half of the U.S. Army Air Forces' casualties in World War II were suffered by Eighth Air Force, with in excess of 47,000 casualties, with more than 26,000 dead. RAF Bomber Command lost 55,573 men killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew and 8,403 wounded in action while 9,838 became prisoners of war. RAF and American bomber crews could, therefore be forgiven for thinking they had won a pyrrhic victory; one that had taken such a heavy toll that negated any true sense of achievement, though, if nothing else, the human effort spent by RAF Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force did pave the way for the Soviet victory in the east.
Download or read book The True Story of Catch 22 written by Patricia Chapman Meder and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the publication of his bestselling novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller usually chose to deny that any of his richly drawn characters were based on his actual war mates. However, to those who served with Heller in the 340th Bomb Group the novelÕs characters were indeed recognizableÑthe hard-drinking, vengeful, and disillusioned Chief White Half Oat, young, sliced-in-half Kid Sampson, shrieking, frenzied Hungry Joe, Colonel Cathcart, General Dreedle, Yossarian and that capitalist supreme, Milo Minderbinder. In this book, written and colorfully illustrated by the daughter of the 340th Bomb GroupÕs commander, Colonel Willis Chapman, we finally encounter the real men and combat missions on which the novel was based. While HellerÕs fully developed characters stand solely, solidly and uniquely on their own merits, The True Story of Catch-22 proves that any resemblance to persons living or dead is, in fact, actual. This three-part book blends fact, fancy, and history with full-blown original illustrations and rare, previously unpublished photos of these daring USAAF flyers and their Corsican-based B-25 Mitchell. Along with descriptions of the 340thÕs real wartime events, the work includes twelve men of the Bomb Group relating twelve richly told tales of their own. Now all of the men upon whom Heller based his characters are gone. However, the last survivor, George L. Wells, was an extraordinary combat pilot who tied the record for the number of bombing missions flown in WWII with 102. George, the model for Catch-22s Capt. Wren, is the common thread who weaves through this book, allowing the reader to truly feel the war and even thumb through George's well-worn mission book describing attacks on Axis ports, ships, bridges, and the notorious Brenner Pass. In this book the reader will discover that truth is indeed as fascinating as fiction! Author Patricia Chapman Meder has been a professional artist in both fine and commercial art for the past 35 years, 13 of them in Europe. When Catch-22 was published it was quickly apparent that this book was based on the Bomb Group her father commanded in World War II. This true-life parallel book thus begged to be written. Pat Meder has also written a full-color companion work to "The True Story of Catch-22," containing her delightful original artwork and caricatures of the individuals, "The True Story of Catch-22 Illustrated".
Download or read book Finding a Fallen Hero written by Bob Korkuc and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-22 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To all appearances, Anthony “Tony” Korkuc was just another casualty of World War II. A gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, Korkuc was lost on a bombing mission over Germany, and his family believed that his body had never been recovered. But when they learned in 1995 that Tony was actually buried at Arlington National Cemetery, his nephew Bob Korkuc set out on a seven-year quest to learn the true fate of an uncle he never knew. Finding a Fallen Hero is a compelling story that blends a wartime drama with a primer on specialized research. Author Bob Korkuc initially set out to learn how his Uncle Tony came to rest at Arlington. In the process, he also unraveled the mystery of what occurred over the skies of Germany half a century ago. Korkuc dug up military documents and private letters and interviewed people in both the United States and Germany. He tracked down surviving crewmembers and even found the brother of the Luftwaffe pilot who downed the B-17. Dozens of photographs help readers envision both Tony Korkuc’s fateful flight and his nephew’s dogged search for the truth. A gripping chronicle of exhaustive research, Finding a Fallen Hero will strike a chord with any reader who has lost a family member to war. And it will inspire others to satisfy their own unanswered questions.
Download or read book Operation Thunderclap and the Black March written by Richard Allison and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique dual biography chronicles the WWII experiences of two US airmen, one of whom was captured by Nazis, while the other bombed Germany. In February 1945, the Allies launched Operation Thunderclap, a series of maximum efforts against cities in eastern Germany. These deep-penetration raids would tax the bomber crews immensely, as well as bring new devastation to cities yet untouched by US airpower. Meanwhile, the Nazis attempted to move all their prisoners beyond the reach of the Soviet Army’s advancing spearheads, forcing thousands of Allied POWs on a five-hundred-mile, three-month trek that would come to be known as the Black March. Two B-17 crew members, a copilot and gunner, trained together in Gulfport, MS, and, in Fall 1944, were assigned to the longest-serving and most decorated US bomb group in England. However, their paths then diverged. The copilot flew thirty-one missions until the war’s end; the gunner was shot down and captured on his very first combat mission. These crew members both lived—one through Thunderclap and one through the Black March—and this is their story: an account of both constant air combat and travail on the ground. The copilot participated in the bombing of Dresden, where he witnessed a city already too far destroyed to expend additional bombs. The gunner survived the March, and once time was up for Germany, experienced a period in Soviet captivity. This unique book on the Allied air campaign offers new insights into what our fliers truly saw and experienced during the war.
