Download or read book Air Heroes of World War II written by Robert Jackson and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Forgotten Heroes of World War II written by Thomas E. Simmons and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II was the defining event of the twentieth century. For everyone it was a time of confusion, fear, destruction, and death on a scale never before seen. Much has been written of the generals, campaigns, and battles of the war, but it was young, ordinary American kids who held our freedom in their hands as they fought for liberty across the globe. Forgotten Heroes of World War II offers a personal understanding of what was demanded of these young heroes through the stories of rank-and-file individuals who served in the navy, marines, army, air corps, and merchant marine in all theaters of the war. Their tales are told without pretense or apology. At the time, each thought himself no different from those around him, for they were all young, scared, and miserable. They were the ordinary, the extraordinary—the forgotten.

Download or read book Silent Heroes written by Sherri Greene Ottis and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early years of World War II, it was an amazing feat for an Allied airman shot down over occupied Europe to make it back to England. By 1943, however, pilots and crewmembers, supplied with "escape kits," knew they had a 50 percent chance of evading capture and returning home. An estimated 12,000 French civilians helped make this possible. More than 5,000 airmen, many of them American, successfully traveled along escape lines organized much like those of the U.S. Underground Railroad, using secret codes and stopping in safe houses. If caught, they risked internment in a POW camp. But the French, Belgian, and Dutch civilians who aided them risked torture and even death. Sherri Ottis writes candidly about the pilots and crewmen who walked out of occupied Europe, as well as the British intelligence agency in charge of Escape and Evasion. But her main focus is on the helpers, those patriots who have been all but ignored in English-language books and journals. To research their stories, Ottis hiked the Pyrenees and interviewed many of the survivors. She tells of the extreme difficulty they had in avoiding Nazi infiltration by double agents; of their creativity in hiding evaders in their homes, sometimes in the midst of unexpected searches; of their generosity in sharing their meager food supplies during wartime; and of their unflagging spirit and courage in the face of a war fought on a very personal level.

Download or read book Masters of the Air written by Donald L. Miller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes readers on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller's Air Force band, which toured U.S. air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. In 1943, an American bomber crewman stood only a one-in-five chance of surviving his tour of duty, twenty-five missions. The Eighth Air Force lost more men in the war than the U.S. Marine Corps. The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America -- white America, anyway. (African-Americans could not serve in the Eighth Air Force except in a support capacity.) The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the "King of Hollywood," Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland. Strategic bombing did not win the war, but the war could not have been won without it. American airpower destroyed the rail facilities and oil refineries that supplied the German war machine. The bombing campaign was a shared enterprise: the British flew under the cover of night while American bombers attacked by day, a technique that British commanders thought was suicidal. Masters of the Air is a story, as well, of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed. Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world's first and only bomber war.

Download or read book Fly Boy Heroes written by James H. Hallas and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-04-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the morning of December 7, 1941, Chief Aviation Ordnanceman John W. Finn, though suffering multiple wounds, continued to man his machine gun against waves of Japanese aircraft attacking the Kaneohe Bay Naval Station during the infamous Pearl Harbor raid. Just over three years later, as World War II struggled into its final months, a B-29 radioman named Red Erwin lingered near death after suffering horrific burns to save his air crew in the skies off Japan. They were the first and last of thirty U.S. Navy, Army, and Marine Corps aviation personnel awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions against the Japanese during World War II. They included pilots and crewmen manning fighters and dive bombers and flying boats and bombers. One was a general. Another was a sergeant. Some shot down large numbers of enemy aircraft in aerial combat. Others sacrificed themselves for their friends or risked everything for complete strangers. Who were these now largely forgotten men? Where did they come from? What inspired them to rise “above and beyond”? What, if anything, made them different? Virtually all had one thing in common: they always wanted to fly. They came from a generation that revered the aces of World War I, like Eddie Rickenbacker, the civilian flyer Charles Lindbergh, and the lost aviator Amelia Earhart—and then they blazed their own trail during World War II.

Download or read book Heroes in the Skies written by Ian Darling and published by Union Square + ORM. This book was released on 2019-02-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping collection of true stories that capture the bravery of American pilots who helped win WWII. American pilots fought fierce and often deadly battles in every theater of the Second World War, and many overcame incredible obstacles to survive. Meet some of these courageous aviators, including George McGovern, who survived enemy fire that left 110 holes in his aircraft; George H. W. Bush, shot down in the Pacific; Jim Landis, a naval flyer stationed in Pearl Harbor who returned fire even after sustaining a bullet through his hand; Alex Jefferson, a Tuskegee airman shot down over France and taken prisoner; and Betty Blake, one of the little-known women pilots who aided the war effort. Clifton Truman Daniel, a grandson of President Truman, provides the foreword to this collection of carefully researched and vividly told profiles in courage that will transport you to the bullet-ridden, bomb-laden skies of the early 1940s.

Download or read book They Fought With What They Had The Story of the Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific 1941 1942 written by Walter Dumaux Edmonds and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1951 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Overlord written by Thomas Alexander Hughes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-08 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over Lord is the fascinating story of how American tactical air power was developed by General Elwood "Pete" Quesada during World War II, including its decisive role in Operation OVERLORD and the liberation of Europe. Pete Quesada is one of World War II's unsung yet crucial heroes. With his famous "Ninth Tactical Air Command," Quesada established the best air-ground team in the European theater. he pioneered the use of radar in close air support operations, introducing weapons systems specifically geared to tactical operations. He nurtured new flying methods designed for the kind of precision bombing the battlefields of Europe demanded. And more than anything else, Pete Quesada championed efforts to model air and ground officers into a single fighting unit. His relationships with ground leaders like Generals Omar Bradley and "Lightning Joe" Collins were a model for the kind of interservice harmony that was essential for dislodging the entrenched German Army. At war's end everybody from General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower to ordinary infantrymen recognized Pete Quesada as the premier expert and dogged patron of close air support. Allied airplanes over the battlefields of Europe had undoubtedly shortened the war and saved many thousands of lives, and Pete Quesada came home to a hero's welcome in 1945. By then he was the personification of tactical air power. Indeed, he was its over lord. Unfortunately, Quesada's groundbreaking methods were all but forgotten after the war. As the Cold War deepened, Air Force leaders stressed the role of big bombers flying deep into enemy territory and renounced the importance of close air support missions. Quesada himself was shunted into jobs that were both illsuited to his fiery temperament and divorced from his wartime expertise in tactical aviation. Frustrated, he retired from the Air Force in 1951 at forty-seven years of age. Fortunately, the story of Quesada's innovative tactics did not end there for the American military. In Korea in the 1950s and Vietnam in the 1960s, U.S. servicemen struggled -- and died -- relearning and recreating the kinds of tactics that Quesada had made commonplace in 1944-45. Had the U.S. Air Force nurtured its capacity for close air support, those two conflicts may have unfolded differently. Since then, the Air Force has struggled for a better balance between its bombardment missions and its support functions. This is the definitive story of an extraordinary man, whose remarkable efforts to aid foot soldiers in World War II contributed significantly to the Allies' success. America's belated rediscovery of Quesada's precepts some forty years later in conflicts like Operation DESERT STORM only underscores the importance of Quesada's story.

Download or read book Heroes of the Air written by Chelsea Curtis Fraser and published by . This book was released on 1942 with total page 946 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Heroes of Aviation written by Laurence La Tourette Driggs and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written and published prior (the Preface is dated September 24, 1918) to the end of the Great War (now known as World War I) the author describes the advent of aerial warfare and gives a contemporaneous account of those aviators engaged in the conflict.

Download or read book 10 True Tales World War II Heroes written by Allan Zullo and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten true stories of real-life heroes from World War II! Pfc. Jack Lucas -- just a teenager -- is on patrol on Iwo Jima when two grenades land at his feet. Can he save his comrades' lives? Lt. Col. James Rudder and his Rangers are climbing a 100-foot-high cliff on a secret D-Day mission. Can they survive the Nazis' devastating firepower? Sgt. Forrest Vosler is blinded and wounded from an attack by German fighter planes on his crippled bomber. Can he make it home?The world was saved by these and many more real-life heroes. You will never forget their incredible true stories.

Download or read book Air Heroes of World War II written by Robert Jackson and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the exploits, bravery, and sometimes extraordinary survivals of airmen on all sides between 1939-1945

Download or read book Above the Reich written by Colin Heaton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensational eyewitness accounts from the most heroic and legendary American aviators of World War II, never before published as a book They are voices lost to time. Beginning in the late 1970s, five veteran airmen sat for private interviews. Decades after the guns fell silent, they recounted in vivid detail the most dangerous missions that made the difference in the war. Ed Haydon dueled with the deadliest of German aces—and forced him to the ground. Robert Johnson racked up twenty-seven kills in his P-47 Thunderbolt, but nearly lost his life when his plane was shot to ribbons and his guns jammed. Cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay was the Air Corps general who devised the bomber tactics that pummeled Germany's war machine. Robin Olds was a West Point football hero who became one of the most dogged, aggressive fighter pilots in the European theater, relentlessly pursuing Germans in his P-38 Lightning. And Jimmy Doolittle became the most celebrated American airman of the war—maybe even of all time—after he led the audacious raid to bomb Tokyo. Today these heroes are long gone, but now, in this incredible volume, they tell their stories in their own words.

Download or read book A Wing and a Prayer written by Harry H. Crosby and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A compelling account of the air war against Germany” written by the navigator portrayed by Anthony Boyle in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air (Publishers Weekly). They began operations out of England in the spring of ’43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the “Bloody Hundredth” a legend. Harry H. Crosby—depicted in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last. After dealing with his fear and gaining in skill and confidence, he was promoted to Group Navigator, surviving hairbreadth escapes and eluding death while leading thirty-seven missions, some of them involving two thousand aircraft. Now, in a breathtaking and often humorous account, he takes us into the hearts and minds of these intrepid airmen to experience both the triumph and the white-knuckle terror of the war in the skies. “Affecting . . . A vivid account . . . Uncommonly thoughtful recollections that address the moral ambiguities of a great cause without in any way denigrating the selfless valor or camaraderie that helped ennoble it.” —Kirkus Reviews “Re-creates for us the sense of how it was when European skies were filled with noise and danger, when the fate of millions hung in the balance. An evocative and excellent memoir.” —Library Journal “The acrid stench of fear and cordite, the coal burning stoves, the heroics, the losses . . . This has to be the best memoir I have read, bar none.” —George Hicks, director of the Airmen Memorial Museum

Download or read book Air Power written by Bill Gilbert and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2004-09 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This winner of the Navy's Roosevelt Award for Excellence in Writing covers heroes and heroism in American flight missions since 1916 and includes 29 black and white photographs.

Download or read book Air Force Combat Units of World War II written by Maurer Maurer and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1961 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Air Force heroes in Vietnam written by Donald K. Schneider and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1979 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: