Download or read book The Diary Letters of a World War I Fighter Pilot written by Christopher M. Burgess and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2008-10-17 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a first-hand account of the authors grandfather, Guy Mainwaring Knocker and his experiences as a pilot in the R.F.C. in the First World War written as a series of letters and diary entries. He wrote letters virtually every day to his family, while he trained in England and was in service in France, and often illustrated them with little sketches. Guy was a gifted artist, particularly pencil and Pen & ink, and also an excellent photographer. He flew with No 65 (Fighter) Squadron that was formed in June, 1916 as a fighter squadron, and flew to France in March 1917 in time to play a prominent part in the air operations during the Battles of Arras. In June 1917, the squadron moved to Calais for special patrol work in the Dover Straits area, to intercept enemy aircraft raiding England.
Download or read book Letters from a War Bird written by Elliott White Springs and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranked among the top five American flying aces of World War I, Elliot White Springs (1896-1959) was credited with shooting down twelve enemy aircraft during his tour in France. In the postwar years, he was a prolific writer whose nine books include War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator, a classic air combat narrative. After his father's death in 1931, Springs inherited Springs Mills and quickly became one of South Carolina's most innovative and successful textile mill owners. Edited by David K. Vaughan, this engaging collection of Springs's wartime correspondence follows the derring-do of an accomplished World War I fighter pilot before he became one of the best-known tycoons in modern South Carolina history. Following enlistment at Princeton University, Springs was sent to England, where he trained with the Royal Flying Corps and joined the prestigious British 85 Squadron, commanded by Canadian ace William "Billy" Bishop. Springs had earned four kills before being wounded in a crash landing in June 1918. On return to duty he transferred to the 148th Aero Squadron of the U.S. Army, where he remained for the next four months. By the end of the war, Springs had amassed eight more kills and was awarded the British Distinguished Flying Cross and the American Distinguished Service Cross. Because of his unique career as a pilot in both British and American flying squadrons, Springs was able to offer especially colorful descriptions of his flight training and aerial combat experiences from both perspectives. Grouped into sections according to his training and combat assignments, Springs's letters from his combat years are rife with the wit, bravado, and fatalism of a young aviator deeply enthralled with the wartime culture of England and France. His detailed accounts of dogfights bring readers into the action with all the vigor and danger of the era. In contextualizing this correspondence, Vaughan explores Springs's complex relationships with his father and young stepmother on the home front and maps the connections between Springs's firsthand experiences and his subsequent literary endeavors. This collection highlights the thrills, tactics, and technical aspects of early air warfare from the candid perspectives of a brave young flyer with deadly aim, unflinching nerves, and a prosperous future waiting for him back in his native South Carolina.
Download or read book Line Shoot written by Arthur Sager and published by Harwood Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Vipers in the Storm Diary of a Gulf War Fighter Pilot written by Keith Rosenkranz and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2002-05-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During Operation Desert Storm, Captain Keith Rosenkranz piloted his F-16 "Viper" in 30 combat missions. Here he recounts these experiences in searing, "you-are-there" detail, giving readers one of the most riveting depictions ever written of man and machine at war.
Download or read book New Guinea Skies written by Wayne P. Rothgeb and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1992 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Squadron to shoot down a hundred Japanese planes, and Lieutenant Rothgeb's account is filled with harrowing clashes, including a fiery crash and a raid on Rabaul. New Guinea itself posed a challenge to pilots as well, with its menacing jungles, fetid swamps, and sudden storms closing in around the impassable mountains. Author Rothgeb also reveals the human side of squadron life: special encounters, VIP visitors, adventures on leave, romances formed and broken, battles.
Download or read book American Airpower Comes Of Age General Henry H Hap Arnold s World War II Diaries Vol II Illustrated Edition written by Gen. Henry H. “Hap.” Arnold and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 927 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the Aerial Warfare In Europe During World War II illustrations pack with over 180 maps, plans, and photos. Gen Henry H. “Hap.” Arnold, US Army Air Forces (AAF) Chief of Staff during World War II, maintained diaries for his several journeys to various meetings and conferences throughout the conflict. Volume 1 introduces Hap Arnold, the setting for five of his journeys, the diaries he kept, and evaluations of those journeys and their consequences. General Arnold’s travels brought him into strategy meetings and personal conversations with virtually all leaders of Allied forces as well as many AAF troops around the world. He recorded his impressions, feelings, and expectations in his diaries. Maj Gen John W. Huston, USAF, retired, has captured the essence of Henry H. Hap Arnold—the man, the officer, the AAF chief, and his mission. Volume 2 encompasses General Arnold’s final seven journeys and the diaries he kept therein.
Download or read book I Flew for the Fuhrer written by Heinz Knocke and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Reading like a novel, this primary source is a valuable look at the ‘other side’ of World War II aviation.”—Gazette665 Heinz Knoke was one of the outstanding German fighter pilots of World War II and this vivid first-hand record of his experiences has become a classic among aviation memoirs, a bestselling counterbalance to the numerous accounts written by Allied pilots. Knoke joined the Luftwaffe on the outbreak of war, and eventually became commanding officer of a fighter wing. An outstandingly brave and skillful fighter, he logged over two thousand flights, and shot down fifty-two enemy aircraft. He had flown over four hundred operational missions before being crippled by wounds in an astonishing ‘last stand’ towards the end of the war. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his achievements. In a text that reveals his intense patriotism and discipline, he describes being brought up in the strict Prussian tradition, the impact of the coming of the Nazi regime, and his own wartime career set against a fascinating study of everyday life in the Luftwaffe, and of the high morale of the force until its disintegration. In a postscript provided for this edition, Heinz Knoke writes of the struggle to survive after the war in Germany, and his building of a new life. Now that the Berlin Wall has been torn down, his memoirs are set in a new perspective, both a valuable contribution to aviation literature and a moving human story.
Download or read book Laugh or Fly written by Peter Hart and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-09-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rip-roaring gallop through the lives of the Royal Flying Corps air crew in the Great War. They lived their lives amidst a strange dichotomy as they moved from safety to dire danger, and back again in a matter of hours. This created a dreadful strain that could soon shred anyone’s mental health. On the ground they were cloistered in simple but adequate accommodation several miles behind the lines. Farmhouses, barns and huts were used, but they were all far better than the squalor faced by the infantry scurrying in their muddy trenches. Flying personnel were blessed with beds and blankets. They could set up a decent mess and socialise to their heart’s content. A smorgasbord of entertainments, with perhaps an old out of tune piano, access to drink and occasional vigorous games of mess rugby. There were visits to local towns which offered tantalizing glimpses – and sometimes more - of the female of the species. A glimpse was probably never enough for most of these very young men. What more could a chap want? But when they were flying over the front it was no laughing matter. Death lurked in the skies, zooming in its ‘winged chariots’ out of the sun, or bursting from the clouds. A moment’s loss of concentration, or tactical blunder, could consign them to being shot down and falling thousands of feet until the crunching impact of terra firma brought a terrible relief. But better that than a punctured petrol tank, the first flickers of flame, then the roaring inferno and the agonies of incineration. There was little or nothing for them to laugh about in the air. But when back on the ground they tried to put aside their fears.
Download or read book Malta Spitfire written by George Beurling and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2011-07-14 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An aviator’s true story of WWII air combat, including two dramatic weeks in the skies above the besieged island of Malta. Twenty-five thousand feet above Malta—that is where the Spitfires intercepted the Messerschmitts, Macchis, and Reggianes as they swept eastward in their droves, screening the big Junkers with their bomb loads as they pummeled the island beneath: the most bombed patch of ground in the world. One of those Spitfire pilots was George Beurling, nicknamed “Screwball,” who in fourteen flying days destroyed twenty-seven German and Italian aircraft and damaged many more. Hailing from Canada, Beurling finally made it to Malta in the summer of 1942 after hard training and combat across the Channel. Malta Spitfire tells his story and that of the gallant Spitfire squadron, 249, which day after day ascended to the “top of the hill” to meet the enemy against overwhelming odds. With this memoir, readers experience the sensation of being in the cockpit with him, climbing to meet the planes driving in from Sicily, diving down through the fighter screen at the bombers, dodging the bullets coming out of the sun, or whipping up under the belly of an Me for a deflection shot at the engine. This is war without sentiment or romance, told in terms of human courage, skill, and heroism—a classic of WWII military aviation.
Download or read book An American on the Western Front written by Patrick Gregory and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the remarkable story of the American First World War serviceman Arthur Clifford Kimber. When his country entered the Great War in 1917, Kimber left Stanford University to carry the first official American flag to the Western Front. Fired by idealism for the French cause, the young student initially acted as a volunteer ambulance driver, before training as a pilot and taking part in dogfights against ‘the Boche’. His letters home give a vivid picture of what Kimber witnessed on his journey from Palo Alto, California to the front in France: keen-eyed descriptions of New York as it prepared for the forthcoming conflict, the privations of wartime Britain and France, and encounters with former president Theodore Roosevelt and Hollywood actress Lillian Gish. Kimber details his exhilaration, his everyday concerns and his horror as he adapts to an active wartime role. Arthur Clifford Kimber was one of the first Americans on the front line after the entry of the US into the war and, tragically, also one of the last to be buried there – killed in action just a few weeks before the end of the war. Here, his frank letters to his mother and brothers, compiled, edited and put in context by Patrick Gregory and Elizabeth Nurser, are published for the first time.
Download or read book The Last Fighter Pilot written by Don Brown and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!* The New York Post calls The Last Fighter Pilot a "must-read" book. From April to August of 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. Bestselling author Don Brown (Treason) sits down with Yelllin, now ninety-three years old, to tell the incredible true story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. The Last Fighter Pilot is a harrowing first-person account of war from one of America's last living World War II veterans.
Download or read book Letters Home written by John Edwin Gardiner and published by University of Regina Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Edwin Gardiner was the eldest son of James "Jimmy" Gardiner, the most prominent Liberal politician of his day in western Canada. Edwin was called up by the RCAF in November 1940, received his wings in October 1941, and travelled to England in early November 1941. On August 18, 1942, on the eve of the Dieppe Raid, Edwin wrote to his father: "At long last we're going to take part in something big which you will read all about in the papers long before you get this letter." Edwin Gardiner was killed when his plane went down on the following day. James Gardiner, who had lost two brothers in the First World War, had now lost his son to war. His wife, Violet, found the grief unbearable and took her own life in October 1944, yet another casualty of war.
Download or read book Spitfires Thunderbolts and Warm Beer written by Philip D. Caine and published by Potomac Books. This book was released on 1999-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of his war, LeRoy Gover had flown 159 combat missions, won numerous medals and made seven confirmed kills. This book weaves together the young flyer's letters and diary entries to create a portrait of the kind of man who helped win World War II.
Download or read book Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe in World War II written by Philip Kaplan and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2007-03-22 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the reality behind the myths of the legendary German fighter aces of World War II. It explains why only a small minority of pilots - those in whom the desire for combat overrode everything - accounted for so large a proportion of the victories. It surveys the skills that a successful fighter pilot must have - a natural aptitude for flying, marksmanship, keen eyesight - and the way in which fighter tactics have developed. The book examines the history of the classic fighter aircraft that were flown, such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Focke Wulf Fw 190, and examines each type's characteristics, advantages and disadvantages in combat. The accounts of the experiences of fighter pilots are based on archival research, diaries, letters, published and unpublished memoirs and personal interviews with veterans. The pilots included are Werner Molders, Gunther Rall, Adolf Galland, Erich Hartmann and Johannes Steinhoff.
Download or read book An Eighth Air Force Combat Diary written by John Alden Clark and published by First Page Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This excellent guide to insect biology may be used as a sole text or as a supplementary work source for students enrolled in a formal entomological course. It lends itself to use by those in need of a review of the "essentials," as well as agriculture and veterinary students, teachers at the elementary and secondary school level and others wishing to avail themselves to the opportunity to study insects.
Download or read book Dumb but Lucky written by Richard Curtis and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2005-06-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second lieutenant Dick Curtis arrived in Italy in May 1944–twenty years old and part of a shipment of P-51 Mustang fighter pilots so desperately needed that they were rushed into combat with less than thirty hours of flight time in their new high-performance aircraft. Six of the twelve pilots assigned to the 52nd Fighter Group were shot down in the first two weeks. By his ninth mission, Curtis was the only one still flying. A maverick, he barely escaped court-martial with his high-flying antics. Escorting bombers sent to pound heavily defended oil fields was risky enough, but strafing the enemy supply lines, ports, and airfields was even more dangerous. Curtis may chalk up his success to dumb luck, but these missions took exceptional skill and courage. This hair-raising account captures the air war in all its split-second terror and adrenaline-pumping action.
Download or read book To Fly and Fight written by Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his fathers farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Later after he received his wings and flew P-39s, he was chosen as one of the original flight leaders of the new 357th Fighter Group. Equipped with the new and deadly P-51 Mustang, the group shot down five enemy aircraft for each one it lost while escorting bombers to targets deep inside Germany. But the price was high. Half of its pilots were killed or imprisoned, including some of Buds closest friends. In February 1944, Bud Anderson, entered the uncertain, exhilarating, and deadly world of aerial combat. He flew two tours of combat against the Luftwaffe in less than a year. In battles sometimes involving hundreds of airplanes, he ranked among the groups leading aces with 16 aerial victories. He flew 116 missions in his old crow without ever being hit by enemy aircraft or turning back for any reason, despite one life or death confrontation after another. His friend Chuck Yeager, who flew with Anderson in the 357th, says, In an airplane, the guy was a mongoosethe best fighter pilot I ever saw. Buds years as a test pilot were at least as risky. In one bizarre experiment, he repeatedly linked up in midair with a B-29 bomber, wingtip to wingtip. In other tests, he flew a jet fighter that was launched and retrieved from a giant B-36 bomber. As in combat, he lost many friends flying tests such as these. Bud commanded a squadron of F-86 jet fighters in postwar Korea, and a wing of F-105s on Okinawa during the mid-1960s. In 1970 at age 48, he flew combat strikes as a wing commander against communist supply lines. To Fly and Fight is about flying, plain and simple: the joys and dangers and the very special skills it demands. Touching, thoughtful, and dead honest, it is the story of a boy who grew up living his dream.
