Download or read book Voices in Flight written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Pen and Sword Aviation. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thrilling new volume from Martin Bowman focusses on British, Canadian, Australian and German soldiers and airmen who were captured during the First World War. Determined that they wouldn't spend the rest of the conflict incarcerated uselessly behind bars, they endeavored to escape. These are their stories. All aspects of prison life are covered here, and the author examines the various escape tactics that were employed by British soldiers and airmen held in PoW camps all over Germany and Turkey. In order to provide a balanced account, the author has also uncovered stories of German navy and army escapees who attempted to flee from England. Each chapter is preceded by an account which explains the types of camps used in Britain and Germany, the numbers involved, the food, the camp money system for worker prisoners and a general appreciation of the conditions and chronology. Firsthand accounts from the prisoners themselves are then woven into the picture, creating an authentic sense of the PoW experience. The emphasis of this unique book is placed on the human story of the main characters, the unparalleled action on the Western Front and the interaction and camaraderie experienced between soldiers and airmen held in prison camps in England, Germany and Turkey during the Second World War.

Download or read book Escaping Soldiers and Airmen of World War I written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-08-30 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thrilling new volume from Martin Bowman focusses on British, Canadian, Australian and German soldiers and airmen who were captured during the First World War. Determined that they wouldnt spend the rest of the conflict incarcerated uselessly behind bars, they endeavored to escape. These are their stories.All aspects of prison life are covered here, and the author examines the various escape tactics that were employed by British soldiers and airmen held in PoW camps all over Germany and Turkey. In order to provide a balanced account, the author has also uncovered stories of German navy and army escapees who attempted to flee from England.Each chapter is preceded by an account which explains the types of camps used in Britain and Germany, the numbers involved, the food, the camp money system for worker prisoners and a general appreciation of the conditions and chronology. Firsthand accounts from the prisoners themselves are then woven into the picture, creating an authentic sense of the PoW experience.The emphasis of this unique book is placed on the human story of the main characters, the unparalleled action on the Western Front and the interaction and camaraderie experienced between soldiers and airmen held in prison camps in England, Germany and Turkey during the Second World War.

Download or read book Voices in the Air 1939 1945 written by Laddie Lucas and published by Random House. This book was released on 2003 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the air battles of the Second World War in the voices of those who took part. Drawn largely in the writings of the combatants themselves from all sides of the conflict, this book offers an individual account of the great aerial campaigns of WWII. It deals with various aspects of the war.

Download or read book The Lost Airman written by Seth Meyerowitz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the story of a World War II American Air Force turret-gunner who was one of two escapees when his team's plane was shot down near Cognac in 1943, tracing his harrowing six-month flight to safety across the Pyrenees under constant pursuit by the Gestapo.

Download or read book Voices of World War I written by Ann Heinrichs and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Describes first-hand accounts of World War I from those who lived through it"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Voices of World War I written by Priscilla Roberts and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together a diverse collection of primary source documents, this book illuminates the events and experiences of World War I from a variety of perspectives, from soldiers on the front lines to civilians supporting the war effort at home. Part of Bloomsbury's Voices of an Era series, this carefully curated collection highlight the wartime experiences of a diverse array of individuals from around the globe. In addition to covering major military innovations and turning points, documents explore how issues of gender, race,diplomacy, and empire building impacted individuals' experience of the Great War. Each of the 42 documents includes contextual information and thought-provoking questions to guide readers in their exploration of the text. In addition to high-interest sidebars, in-text glossary definitions, biographical snapshots of key figures, and a comprehensive chronology of the war, the book also includes a guide to evaluating and interpreting primary sources that bolsters readers' analytical and critical thinking skills. Although it was nicknamed "the war to end all wars," World War I heralded the start of modern-day conflicts. The human toll of the Great War was immense-an estimated 9 million soldiers died on the battlefield, while more than 5 million civilians died as the result of military actions, disease, or famine. In the wake of World War I, empires crumbled and new nations won their independence. Although the events and aftermath of World War I happened on an epic scale, the conflict is best understood through the human lens provided by these primary sources.

Download or read book Brother Bosch an Airman s Escape from Germany WWI Centenary Series written by Gerald Featherstone Knight and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-21 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This early work by Gerald Featherstone Knight was originally published in 1919 and we are now republishing it as part of our WWI Centenary Series. ''Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany' is a memoir written by a member of the Royal Flying Corps who was taken prisoner by German forces. During his nine months in prison, he made three escape attempts, the last of which was successful. He was awarded the Military Cross Posthumously after his death in 1919. This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world's bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history. Each publication also includes brand new introductory essays and a timeline to help the reader place the work in its historical context.

Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

Download or read book The Unsubstantial Air written by Samuel Hynes and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vivid story of the young Americans who fought and died in the aerial battles of World War I. Samuel Hynes's The Unsubstantial Air is a chronicle of war that is more than a military history; it traces the lives and deaths of the young Americans who fought in the skies over Europe in World War I. Using letters, journals, and memoirs, it speaks in their voices and answers primal questions: What was it like to be there? What was it like to fly those planes, to fight, to kill? The volunteer fliers were often privileged young men—the sort of college athletes and Ivy League students who might appear in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and sometimes did. For them, a war in the air would be like a college reunion. Others were roughnecks from farms and ranches, for whom it would all be strange. Together they would make one Air Service and fight one bitter, costly war. A wartime pilot himself, the memoirist and critic Samuel Hynes tells these young men's saga as the story of a generation. He shows how they dreamed of adventure and glory, and how they learned the realities of a pilot's life, the hardships and the danger, and how they came to know both the beauty of flight and the constant presence of death. They gasp in wonder at the world seen from a plane, struggle to keep their hands from freezing in open-air cockpits, party with actresses and aristocrats, and search for their friends' bodies on the battlefield. Their romantic war becomes more than that—it becomes a harsh but often thrilling new reality.

Download or read book The Lost Airman written by Seth Meyerowitz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable, untold story of World War II American Air Force turret-gunner Staff Sergeant Arthur Meyerowitz, who was shot down over Nazi-occupied France and evaded Gestapo pursuers for more than six months before escaping to freedom. Bronx-born top turret-gunner Arthur Meyerowitz was one of only two crewmen who escaped death or immediate capture on the ground, when their plane was shot down near Cognac, France, in 1943. After fleeing the wreck, Arthur knocked on the door of an isolated farmhouse, whose owners hastily took him in. Fortunately, his hosts had a tight connection to the French resistance group Morhange and its founder, Marcel Taillandier, who arranged for Arthur’s transfers among safe houses in southern France, shielding him from the Gestapo. Based on recently declassified material, exclusive personal interviews, and extensive research into the French Resistance, The Lost Airman tells the tense and riveting story of Arthur’s hair-raising journey to freedom—a true story of endurance, perseverance, and escape during World War II. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAP

Download or read book From Interrogation to Liberation a Photographic Journey Stalag Luft Iii written by Marilyn Jeffers Walton and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, 300,000 United States Army Air Corps airmen were shot down. Of that number, 51,000 were prisoners of war or listed as missing in action. Bombardiers, positioned in the vulnerable bombardiers compartment at the front of the aircraft, were in high demand. The authors fathers were two such bombardiers, one on a B-17 and the other on a B-24. Like so many of the post-war generation, the authors traveled on their own emotional journeys to reconstruct their fathers WWII experiences. Their fathers fought in the flak-ridden blue battlefield, and like thousands of other airmen shot out of the sky, became prisoners of war. They would endure deprivation, loneliness, and great peril. Held at Stalag Luft III, where the Great Escape of movie fame took place, they, along with the British, were eventually force marched 52-miles in the dead of winter to Spremberg, Germany, and loaded onto overcrowded, filthy, boxcars, the Americans to be taken to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, or to Stalag XIII-D in N rnberg. Languishing until their liberation in barbaric conditions with nearly 120,000 international POWs, they witnessed the death throes of the Third Reich. With many sons and daughters trying to explore the wartime histories of their loved ones, the authors supply crucial information and insight regarding the World War II POW experience in Europe. Often times, by necessity, that experience reflects the co-existence and tenuous relationship with the Germans holding them. In this book, there are stories that up until now have not been heard, and there are hundreds of pictures, many previously unseen, illustrating the prisoners plight. This book is a documentation of riveting history and a chance to vicariously live the war, told through their voices --echoes now fading with time. Their sacrifices to ensure precious freedom should never be forgotten.

Download or read book Flight of Eagles written by Ray Bowden and published by eBook Partnership. This book was released on 2012-12-08 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the 1700 American airmen of the 8th and 9th US Army Air Forces who parachuted or crash landed into northwest Europe in December 1943 only 121 evaders made it back to Allied control to continue the fight. These are the stories of the successful evasion of capture by those American airmen. Based on their interrogation and the detailed handwritten reports submitted within days of their escape by sea or via Spain, Andorra and Switzerland. These records were classified as secret for many years after the war had ended. This account reveals the hardships, compassion and occasional humour of their journeys through Nazi-controlled Europe. Journeys aided by the organised evasion lines, MI-9 agents, the Maquis, the Dutch Underground, the Belgian Secret Army but mostly by ordinary citizens who often made the greatest sacrifices of all in their struggle to aid the Allies and resist the occupation by a ruthless regime that would stop at nothing to crush those who dared to help.These accounts include twists and turns in the deadly game of hide and seek played against the Gestapo and the Abwehr in journeys through the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain. Failure could mean brutal interrogation, torture and execution for those that helped the airmen - and for the airmen themselves.

Download or read book One Mission to Ploesti written by Robert P. Moore and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lost among the great stories of World War II was the escape and rescue of hundreds of Allied airmen shot down over German-occupied Yugoslavia. Their target had been the vital Axis oil fields at Ploesti, Romania. Robert P. Moore and his B-17 crewmates were among the first wave of high altitude bombing raids that intensified in April, 1944. Enemy flak and engine trouble brought down their aircraft short of the target. It was Moore’s first mission, in an unfamiliar aircraft, with a crew he had met only moments before take-off. He bailed out into a completely unknown and rugged country, and was confronted by local militia carrying axes and firearms. The men were part of a larger nationalist army—Chetniks. Fiercely anti-communist, the Chetniks desperately wanted Allied help. The Chetniks guided Moore and hundreds of other airmen, traveling in rugged mountains to get them to a safe zone for rescue. Moore’s escape and rescue is here recounted in his own words. Moore and his airmen bailed out into a country that was at war with itself as well as the Germans. The Chetniks under the leadership of Gen. Draja Mihailovich were engaged not only in a war with the Nazi occupiers, they were also at odds with an army of their fellow countrymen, called Partisans, under the leadership of communist-leaning Josip Tito. Mihailovich and his Chetniks, in part to show solidarity with the Allies, guided downed American airmen to a secret airstrip in the mountains south of Belgrade. Mihailovich and American intelligence cooperated in Operation Halyard, the secret mission to rescue almost 500 airman and return them to their base. Following the war, many of the surviving airmen shared their story with family and friends. A few wrote about their adventure, and a few of those stories made it into print. Moore’s hometown newspaper ran a lengthy piece shortly after his return. Only now has Moore put together the complete experience, as a way to honor his wartime crewmen.

Download or read book The Army Air Forces in World War II Men and planes written by and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Freedom Flyers written by J. Todd Moye and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles America's first African American military pilots, who fought againt two enemies, the Axis powers of World War II and Jim Crow racism in the United States.

Download or read book Coffin Corner Boys written by Carole Engle Avriett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-05-14 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gripping…filled with…dramatic escapes, moments of surprising humanity, and acts of bravery." —Publishers Weekly A Story of Adventure, Survival, Loyalty, and Brotherhood Taking off from England on March 16, 1944, young Lt. George Starks and the nine-man crew of his Flying Fortress were assigned to the “coffin corner,” the most exposed position in the bomber formation headed for Germany. They never got there. Shot down over Nazi-occupied France, the airmen bailed out one by one, scattered across the countryside. Miraculously, all ten survived, but as they discarded their parachutes in the farmland of Champagne, their wartime odyssey was only beginning. Alone, with a broken foot and a 20mm shell fragment in his thigh, twenty-year-old Starks set out on an incredible 300-mile trek to Switzerland, making his way with the help of ordinary men and women who often put themselves in great danger on his behalf. Six weeks later, on the verge of giving up, Starks found himself in the hands of a heroic member of the French Resistance—he calls him “the bravest man I’ve ever known”—who got him safely across the heavily guarded border. Similar ordeals awaited the other nine crewmen, who faced injury, betrayal, cap-tivity, hunger, and depression. It was nothing short of miraculous that all ten came home at the end of the war. George Starks emerged from his ordeal with two passions—to stay in touch with his crew whatever the obstacles and to return to France to find and thank the brave souls to whom he owed his life. His enduring loyalty enabled him to do both.

Download or read book Grouchy s Waterloo written by Andrew W. Field and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-04-30 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An interesting approach to this part of the Waterloo campaign . . . a picture of a capable officer who was perhaps slightly out of his depth.”—HistoryOfWar In this concluding volume of his highly praised study exploring the French perspective of the Waterloo campaign, Andrew Field concentrates on an often-neglected aspect of Napoleon’s final offensive—the French victory over the Prussians at Ligny, Marshal Grouchy’s pursuit of the Prussians, and the battle at Wavre. The story of this side of the campaign is as full of controversy and interest as the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo which he has examined in such a penetrating and original way in his previous studies. Napoleon in his memoirs accused Grouchy, like Marshal Ney, of a series of failures in command that led to the French defeat, and many subsequent historians have taken the same line. This is one of the long-standing controversies that Andrew Field explores in fascinating detail. Grouchy’s extensive description of his operations forms the backbone of the narrative, supplemented by other French sources and those of Prussian eyewitnesses. “This book, when taken by itself, is a great addition to the history of the campaign. When looked at in conjunction as the third volume of four on the campaign, these books are a treasure trove of information from the French perspective.”—A Wargamers Needful Things “The research has been thorough, the style of writing clear and lucid with many maps and illustrations. A book not to be put down until it is finished. Very highly recommended.”—Clash of Steel