Download or read book Flak at 12 O Clock written by Dean M. Bloyd and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2000-10-13 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flak at 12 O'Clock is about a Kansas farmboy's teenage experiences that lead to his becoming a co-pilot of a B-17 in the 8th Air Force during the final months of World War II. He describes his adventures as an Aviation Cadet that lead to his assignment, the blunders of superior officers and his reasons for giving up a career in the Air Force.
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 392 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 Screwball Express written by Kenneth H. Cassens and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1992-06-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed biography of a B-17G Flying Fortress assigned to the 379the Bomb Group at Kimbolton, England, during WWII.
Download or read book Vietnam War Slang written by Tom Dalzell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-25 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2014, the US marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the basis for the Johnson administration’s escalation of American military involvement in Southeast Asia and war against North Vietnam. Vietnam War Slang outlines the context behind the slang used by members of the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. Troops facing and inflicting death display a high degree of linguistic creativity. Vietnam was the last American war fought by an army with conscripts, and their involuntary participation in the war added a dimension to the language. War has always been an incubator for slang; it is brutal, and brutality demands a vocabulary to describe what we don’t encounter in peacetime civilian life. Furthermore, such language serves to create an intense bond between comrades in the armed forces, helping them to support the heavy burdens of war. The troops in Vietnam faced the usual demands of war, as well as several that were unique to Vietnam – a murky political basis for the war, widespread corruption in the ruling government, untraditional guerilla warfare, an unpredictable civilian population in Vietnam, and a growing lack of popular support for the war back in the US. For all these reasons, the language of those who fought in Vietnam was a vivid reflection of life in wartime. Vietnam War Slang lays out the definitive record of the lexicon of Americans who fought in the Vietnam War. Assuming no prior knowledge, it presents around 2000 headwords, with each entry divided into sections giving parts of speech, definitions, glosses, the countries of origin, dates of earliest known citations, and citations. It will be an essential resource for Vietnam veterans and their families, students and readers of history, and anyone interested in the principles underpinning the development of slang.
Download or read book The 12th SS written by Hubert Meyer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part two of the defining work on Hitler's elite fanatical boy soldiers continues with the survivors of the bloody fighting in France regrouping to make a final stand in the Ardennes and Hungary before Germany was overcome by the Allies. A detailed and gripping account of the most famous, and infamous, division to fight in World War II for any side.
Download or read book 450th Bomb Group H written by and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 450th Bomb Group (H) contained the 720th, 721st, 722nd, and 723rd squdrons.
Download or read book A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940 1945 Volume 5 written by Christopher Shores and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-03 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This international collaboration between air war historians is simply fantastic. . . . a deep-dive on the operations in a vast and very important theater of war.” —Air Classics During the final year of World War II, the defending Axis forces were steadily driven from southern skies by burgeoning Anglo-American power. This was despite the steady withdrawal of units to more demanding areas. This fifth volume of the series describes in detail the activities of the Allied tactical air forces in support of the armies on the ground as their opponents were steadily extracted from northern Italy and the Balkans for the final defense of the central European homeland. The book commences with coverage of the final fierce air-sea battles over the Aegean that preceded the advance northward to Rome and the ill-conceived British attempt to secure the Dodecanese islands following the armistice with Italy. The authors also deal fully and comprehensively with the advance northward following the occupation of Rome, and the departure of forces to support the invasion of France from the Riviera coast, coupled with the formation of a new Balkan Air Force in eastern Italy to pursue the German armies withdrawing from Yugoslavia and take possession of newly freed Greece. The effect of the creation within the same area of the US and RAF strategic forces to join the Allied Combined Bombing Offensive is also discussed. Includes photographs “Reflects the scope of a remarkable research effort and provides valuable detail that the reader is not going to find between two covers elsewhere.” —The NYMAS Review
Download or read book World War II from a Waist Gunner s View of Stalag 17 written by Staff Sergeant Luther Irwin Kelley and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-07-25 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War, guns, bombs and waist gunners—far removed from the small town of Fowler, Colorado, population about 1200, twenty-eight miles east of Pueblo, Colorado on Highway 50. I lived there with my Dad, Ray, who was Pastor of the Second Baptist church, my Mom, Florence, grandmother, Dora Kelley; older brother Fred, who went into the Army a year before I did, and my sister Lorene. Germany, with the leadership of Hitler had overrun several small countries—the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Austria; as well as the war with Russia and England, incarcerating all the Jews as he went along. The United States was furnishing England with food and all types of war supplies. Then a state of shock fell upon our country and our small town of Fowler when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. On December 8, 1941, our government declared war on Japan. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States and we in turn declared war on Germany the same day.
Download or read book Operation Pointblank 1944 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thorough examination of one of the most controversial operations in World War 2 Operation Pointblank was the code name for the United States Army Air Force's attempt to destroy German fighter capability through the use of daylight strategic bombing in advance of the D-Day landings. Launched in 1943, the operation immediately met with severe problems, most notably the horrible attrition experienced by the US bomber forces. However, with the arrival of the P-51 Mustang, the United States was able to equip the fighters to fly on long-range-bomber escort missions and take the fight to the Luftwaffe in the skies over Germany. Complete with maps, illustrations and photographs, this book examines the entire operation from both the Allied and the German perspectives, covering all the main decisions and technological innovations made by both sides in this epic struggle.
Download or read book Flak written by Edward B. Westermann and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Air raid sirens wail, searchlight beams flash across the sky, and the night is aflame with tracer fire and aerial explosions, as Allied bombers and German anti-aircraft units duel in the thundering darkness. Such "cinematic" scenes, played out with increasing frequency as World War II ground to a close, were more than mere stock material for movie melodramas. As Edward Westermann reveals, they point to a key but largely unappreciated aspect of the German war effort that has yet to get its full due.Long the neglected stepchild in studies of World War II air campaigns, German flak or anti-aircraft units have been frequently dismissed by American, British, and German historians (and by veterans of the European air war) as ineffective weapons that wasted valuable materiel and personnel resources desperately needed elsewhere by the Third Reich. Westermann emphatically disagrees with that view and makes a convincing case for the significant contributions made by the entire range of German anti-aircraft defenses.During the Allied air campaigns against the Third Reich, well over a million tons of bombs were dropped upon the German homeland, killing nearly 300,000 civilians, wounding another 780,000, and destroying more than 3,500,000 industrial and residential structures. Not surprisingly, that aerial Armageddon has inspired countless studies of both the victorious Allied bombing offensive and the ultimately doomed Luftwaffe defense of its own skies. By contrast, flak units have virtually been ignored, despite the fact that they employed more than a million men and women, were responsible for more than half of all Allied aircraft losses, forced Allied bombers to fly far abovehigh-accuracy altitudes, and thus allowed Germany to hold out far longer than it might have otherwise.Westermann's definitive study sheds new light on every facet of the development and organization of this vital defense arm, includi
Download or read book AAHS Journal written by American Aviation Historical Society and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Brave Man Fallen The Story of the Man His Crew Their Planes and His Final Mission Regensburg Germany 25 February 1944 written by Richard J. Voynik and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merriam Press World War 2 Biography. This is the story of Voynik's boyhood idol, Pete Rosko, who became a bombardier aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress during 1944, flying from Deopham Green Airbase, England, with the 452nd Bomb Group, U.S. Eighth Army Air Force. Included is the bombardier's personal war diary as well as biographies and memories of the three surviving crew members. A moving tribute to those who served in the Eighth Air Force and died, and to the few who survive today. This includes the mission diary of "F.W." Stoldt, the ball turret gunner, who passed away on 24 May 2004, additional details from Tom Dickenson, co-pilot, who passed away on 11 July 2004, and from the family of the late Placido Andrade, including many photos of the crew and aircraft. In addition, the publisher's files have been utilized to add numerous other images that depict what life was like for a B-17 bomber crew, from mission start to end. 88 photos, 1 cutaway drawing, 3 documents, 5 full-color insignia illustrations.
Download or read book The Wrong Stuff written by Truman Smith and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between April and July 1944, Truman Smith Flew thirty-five bombing missions over France and Germany. He was only twenty years old. Although barely adults, Smith and his peers worried about cramming a lifetime’s worth of experience into every free night, each knowing he probably would not survive the next bombing mission. Written with blunt honesty, wry humor, and insight, The Wrong Stuff is Smith’s gripping memoir of that time. In a new preface, the author comments with equal honesty and humor on the impact this book has had on his life.
Download or read book Grottaglie and Home written by and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1989 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Red River Valley Fighter Pilots written by and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1992-03 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tomorrows Promise written by Edward R Kofke Sr and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With an 'I'm going to make it attitude', Tomorrows Promise is a compilation of the diary 18 year old Eddie Kofke kept of his experiences and adventures during WWII from enlistment to discharge. Join the flights as young Ed shares the details of the 50 combat missions he flew as the tail gunner aboard the invincible B-24 Liberator, the Shoo-Shoo Baby. Laugh along with the crew as they experience numerous side adventures both overseas and stateside. As part of the 15th Air Force, 464th Bomb Group, the 'Baby' was one of 65 'Olive Drab' B-24's leaving Pocatello, Idaho in 1944. The Shoo-Shoo Baby was the first to finish all 50 missions with the original crew still intact, without one injury or death and the only 'Olive Drab' ship still flying in the 779th. The other 64 ships and 640 men were gone or replaced with many replacements replaced. This was despite 5 missions to the Ploesti oil refineries and being the number one target on Hermann Goering's Elite Luftwaff's kill list.
Download or read book The Mighty Eighth at War written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Relates how the American Eighth Air Force bombers helped Britain's Royal Air Force in fighting Germany during World War II.”—ProtoView From the beginning of World War II, the RAF’s Bomber Command had been the only means of striking Hitler’s Reich and its war machine. But the entry into the war of the United States—and the subsequent arrival in the UK of the Eighth Air Force—would more than double the Allied capability. The Flying Fortress and Liberator heavy bombers were mostly flown across the Atlantic by their young, green aircrew, and many succumbed en route and never arrived. Flying in northern Europe was a different ball game from American skies and it took a considerable time before the crews familiarized themselves with the vagaries of fog, low cloud, rain and snow. The American bombers bristled with defensive armament and elected to fly in close defensive formation during the day, leaving the RAF to carry out nighttime raids. With the arrival of long-range protective escort fighters, the task became a little easier. This book is the story, including many firsthand accounts, of how the American bomber force helped fight to eventual victory, by decimating German industry and transport systems—and breaking the Nazi war spirit.
