Showing titles in Air Forces

Trapped inside a burning Lancaster bomber, 20,000 feet above Berlin, airman John Martin consigned himself to his fate and turned his thoughts to his fiancee back home. In a miraculous turn of events, however, the 21-year-old was thrown clear of his disintegrating airplane and found himself parachuting into the heart of Nazi Germany. He was soon to be captured and began his period as a prisoner of war.

The first operational military jet in the world, toward the end of the Second World War, the Me 262 was to be the German "miracle weapon". Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, training, and even served in it operationally. Could the Me 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Hitler's Jet Plane fills an important gap in the history of the Luftwaffe and of aviation in general with new research which discloses how the first military jet plane failed to make its mark on World War II. 

They were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. None faltered. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They landed their gliders ahead of the troops who stormed Omaha Beach, and sometimes miles ahead of the paratroopers bound for the far side of the Rhine River in Germany itself. From there, they had to hold their positions. They delivered medical teams, supplies and gasoline to troops surrounded in the Battle of the Bulge, ahead even of Patton's famous supply truck convoy.

With the Battle of Britain won, Winston Churchill and his military chiefs faced an even more fearsome challenge in the Battle of the Atlantic. Thwarted in his plans to invade, Hitler decided he would starve Britain into submission instead. Operating in conjunction with U-Boats, long-range Condor aircraft manned by élite German airmen attacked Allied ships far beyond the range of any land-based RAF fighters, with devastating results.

The Battle of Britain, 1940, was one of the most famous air battles in the history of warfare and it is a story of ruthless organisation, brilliant control and command. But at its heart is one particular figure, a legend ever since - the RAF fighter pilot. And one particular plane - a piece of...

The downing of Extortion 17 spurred a number of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the shootdown was revenge for bin Laden's death. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and the events of that fateful day is interwoven into a rich, complex narrative that also discusses modern joint combat operations and the history of the Afghan war to that date.

General Douglas MacArthur is one of the towering figures of World War II, and indeed of the 20th century, but his leadership of the second largest air force in the USAAF is often overlooked. When World War II ended, the three numbered air forces (the Fifth, Thirteenth, and Seventh) under his command possessed 4,004 combat aircraft, 433 reconnaissance aircraft, and 922 transports.

In late May 1927 an inexperienced and unassuming 25-year-old Air Mail pilot from rural Minnesota stunned the world by making the first non-stop transatlantic flight. A spectacular feat of individual daring and collective technological accomplishment, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris ushered in America's age of commercial aviation.

Michel Paradis’s Last Mission to Tokyo, a “superb” (The Wall Street Journal) and “engrossing...richly researched” (The New York Times Book Review) account of a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolittle Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined...

On September 7, 1940, the long-feared and anticipated attack by the German Luftwaffe plunged London into a cauldron of fire and devastation. This compelling book recreates that day in all its horror, using rich archival sources and first-hand accounts, many never before published. Eminent historian Peter Stansky weaves together the stories of people who recorded their experiences of the opening hours of the Blitz. Then, exploring more deeply, the author examines what that critical day meant to the nation at the time, and what it came to mean in following years.

In this engaging audiobook, we see how an 18-year-old miner shoveling ore from deep in the ground in Utah suddenly found himself, only two years later, 30,000 feet in the air over Nazi Germany, piloting a Flying Fortress in the first wave of America's air counteroffensive in Europe. Pathfinder Pioneer gives us vivid insights into the genesis of the American air campaign, told with the humor, attention to detail, and humility that captures the heart and soul of our Greatest Generation.

Viet Nam may be the only war we ever fought, or perhaps that was ever fought, in which the heroism of the American soldier was accompanied by humanitarianism unmatched in the annals of warfare. And the humanitarianism took place during the heat of the battle. The GI fixed as he fought, he cured and educated and built in the middle of the battle. He truly cared for, and about, those people. What other Army has ever done that? Humanitarianism was America's great victory in Viet Nam.

With the defeat of the Germans and Italians on Sicily in mid-July 1943, the focus of the war in the air shifted toward the battle for the Italian mainland itself. This campaign took place in the context of the coming invasion of northwest Europe, with many of the best units from the North African and Sicilian campaigns withdrawn to prepare for the new front, while those units that remained had a lower priority for replacements of men and material.

Joey Jacobson, a young Jewish man from Westmount on the Island of Montreal, trained as a navigator and bomb-aimer in Western Canada. On arriving in England, he was assigned to No. 106 Squadron, a British unit tasked with the bombing of Germany. Joey Jacobson’s War tells, in his own words, why he enlisted, his understanding of strategy, tactics, and the effectiveness of the air war at its lowest point, how he responded to the inevitable battle stress, and how he became both a hopeful idealist and a seasoned airman.

Until the end of the Cold War in 1990, the RAF had several major bases worldwide—largely in those areas where the service had been based during the inter-war years. In Cold War Boys Overseas, contributors recall their time at these foreign destinations. With almost half of RAF personnel serving abroad in the 1960s situated throughout Germany, the book starts its focus there with tales of monitoring the Soviet threat.

After travelling across various airbases in India and engaging with Air Force personnel-including the first generation of Chinook or Prachand helicopter pilots, Garud Commandos, surface-to-air missile operatives and Kargil heroes-Swapnil Pandey presents a collection of true stories that are more...

World War I, also known in its time as the Great War or the War to End all Wars, was an unprecedented conflict in terms of its sheer scale. Before 1914, flying machines were objects of public curiosity. By 1918, all the major belligerents were fielding squadrons of fighting aircraft. Bombs were dropped on Paris in August 1914, and Zeppelins bombed Belgian forces as the Germans advanced on Liège. Zeppelin raids on Britain would continue for nearly four years. These raids and the attempts to stop them would be carried out at the cutting edge of new technology.

With a total of 40 victories, Oswald Boelcke was Germany's first ace in World War I-and a century later he remains a towering figure in the history of air warfare, renowned for his character, inspirational leadership, organizational genius, development of air-to-air tactics, and impact on aerial doctrine. Paving the way for modern air forces across the world with his pioneering strategies, Boelcke had a dramatic effect on his contemporaries. The famed Red Baron's mentor, instructor, squadron commander, and friend, he exerted a tremendous influence upon the German air force.

From Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Bill O'Reilly's Killing series—with more than 12 million copies sold—comes a soaring account of England's desperate fight to fend off German invasion. Great Britain, summer 1940. The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain...

Curtis Lemay's life spanned an epoch in American military history—from his troubled background, heroic service in Europe, and firebombing of Tokyo to his guardianship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the cold war, frustrated career in government, and short-lived political run. LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay tells the whole story of the innovative pilot and navigator, brilliant strategist, unflagging patriot, and founder of modern strategic bombing.