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The Squadrons Of The Royal Air Force Commonwealth 1918 1988
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Book Synopsis The Lion of the RAF by : Paul McElhinney
Download or read book The Lion of the RAF written by Paul McElhinney and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible true story of Air Marshal Sir George Robert Beamish, KCB, CBE - a man who played rugby for Ireland and the British & Irish Lions before becoming a leading light of the RAF during the Second World War, and a senior commander in the years following the war.
Book Synopsis The Crucible of War, 1939-1945 by : Brereton Greenhous
Download or read book The Crucible of War, 1939-1945 written by Brereton Greenhous and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 1148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The RCAF, with a total strength of 4061 officers and men on 1 September 1939, grew by the end of the war to a strength of more than 263,000 men and women. This important and well-illustrated new history shows how they contributed to the resolution of the most significant conflict of our time.
Book Synopsis The Fighting Cocks by : Jimmy Beedle
Download or read book The Fighting Cocks written by Jimmy Beedle and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2011-06-29 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April 1916, a group of early aviators gathered in the fields beneath the crags and ramparts of Stirling Castle to form what was to become one of the Royal Air Forces most distinguished fighter squadrons. Few squadrons can match the history of 43 Squadron which has included being the first to undertake ground attack operations during the First World War, shooting down the first enemy aircraft over England in the Second World War, and achieving the remarkable double of shooting down 6 enemy aircraft in one day in both World Wars. Its distinctive emblem of the Fighting Cock embodies the spirit and resilience of a fighter squadron that has been in the vanguard of RAF operations for almost a century. Perhaps the Fighting Cocks finest period occurred during the Battle of Britain when its Hurricanes destroyed 60 enemy aircraft with a further thirteen probables and twenty-five more damaged. With the advent of the jet age, 43 Squadron became the first unit to fly the Hunter, seeing operational duties in Aden, before re-equipping with the Phantom until the end of the Cold War. This new edition of the Fighting Cocks history brings the story up to date and covers its 20 years of service with the Tornado F3, including the Gulf War, NATO operations over Bosnia, and the Iraq War. * This new edition of the Fighting Cocks history brings the story up to date * Few squadrons can match the history of 43 Squadron * Fighting Cock embodies the spirit and resilience of a fighter squadron that has been in the vanguard of RAF operations for almost a century
Book Synopsis Aces High, Volume 1 by : Christopher Shores
Download or read book Aces High, Volume 1 written by Christopher Shores and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-18 with total page 1266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First in the Aces High series—a military reference of the fighter pilots who had five or more confirmed victories while serving in the Royal Air Force. Introduced by the French quite early in World War I, the term “ace” was used to describe a pilot credited with five or more aerial victories. But in the United Kingdom, the term was never officially recognized. Becoming an ace was partly luck, especially considering the campaigns in which they flew and the areas of combat. There are three distinct kinds of aces: the defensive ace, the offensive ace, and the night fighter. This book is a revised collection of the biographies of the highest scoring Allied fighter pilots of World War II—including those with the confirmed claims of shooting down five aircraft and those pilots with lower scores but whose wartime careers prove them worthy of inclusion. All details of their combat are arranged in tabular form. Included are a selection of photographs from hitherto private collections. “There are some authors whose name alone is sufficient reason to but a book, and Christopher Shores is surely one of these . . . By profession a chartered surveyor, he served in the Royal Air Force in the 1950s so his writing bears the stamp of authenticity.” —HistoryNet
Book Synopsis Bomber Command Airfields of Yorkshire by : Peter Jacobs
Download or read book Bomber Command Airfields of Yorkshire written by Peter Jacobs and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of the Aviation Heritage Trail series, the accomplished military author and former RAF Officer Peter Jacobs takes us to the county of Yorkshire and to its many bomber airfields of the Second World War.From the opening day of hostilities, RAF Bomber Command took the offensive to Nazi Germany and played a leading role in the liberation of Europe. Yorkshires airfields played a key part throughout, initially as home to the Whitley squadrons of No 4 Group and then to the four-engine Halifax heavy bombers; indeed, Bomber Commands first night operation of the war was flown from one of the countys many bomber airfields. Then, as the bombing offensive gathered pace, Yorkshire welcomed the new all-Canadian No 6 (RCAF) Group, after which all of Bomber Commands major efforts during the hardest years of 1943/44 against the Ruhr, Hamburg and Berlin involved the Yorkshire-based squadrons.Most of Yorkshires wartime bomber airfields have long gone, but many have managed to retain the flying link with their wartime past. For example, the former RAF airfields of Finningley and Middleton St George, and the factory airfield of Yeadon, are now the sites of international airports, while Breighton, Burn, Full Sutton, Pocklington and Rufforth are still used for light aircraft flying or gliding and Elvington is home to the magnificent Yorkshire Air Museum.From airfields such as these came countless acts of personal courage and self-sacrifice, with two men being awarded the Victoria Cross, Britains highest award for gallantry. Stories of both men are included, as are tales of other personalities who brought these airfields to life. The stories of thirty-three airfields are told in total, with a brief history of each accompanied by details of how to find them and what remains of them today. Whatever your interest, be it aviation history or more local, the county of Yorkshire has rightly taken its place in the history of Bomber Command.
Book Synopsis The Allied Air Campaign Against Hitler's U-boats by : Timothy S. Good
Download or read book The Allied Air Campaign Against Hitler's U-boats written by Timothy S. Good and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No weapon platform sank more U-boats in the Second World War than the Allied aircraft. Whether it was an American ’plane operating from American escort carriers, US aircraft from Royal Air Force bases, or British aircraft from bases throughout the world, these officers and men became the most decisive factor in turning the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic against the German submarine threat. While the German crews could threaten escort vessels with torpedoes, or avoid them by remaining submerged, their leaders never developed an effective strategy against aircraft. However, the Allied aircraft did not enjoy much early success. British, Canadian and Australian air crews that fought the U-boats from 1939 until 1941 achieved few triumphs. They possessed neither the aircraft nor the bases necessary to deliver consistent lethal attacks against German submarines. In 1941, the Royal Air Force finally began implementing an effective aircraft response when it initiated training on the American-built Consolidated B-24 Liberators. Supported by other types then in service, these four-engine bombers would prove to be decisive. With America’s entry into the war, the United States Navy and the United States Army Air Forces also began employing Liberators against the U-boats so that by mid-1943, the Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of U-boat forces, withdrew his submarines from the North Atlantic in recognition of the Allied aircraft’s new dominance. From Dönitz’s retreat to the end of the war, Allied aircraft continued to dominate the U-boat battle as it shifted to other areas including the Bay of Biscay. Dönitz eventually ordered his U-boats to remain on the surface and engage Allied aircraft as opposed to submerging. This approach did lead to the demise of some Allied aircraft, but it also resulted in even more U-boat being sunk. Most critically, Dönitz acknowledged with his new policy that he knew of no tactics or weapons that would defend his submarines from Allied aircraft. In the end, it was a matter of choosing whether his submariners would die submerged or die surfaced. Either way, Allied aircraft prevailed. The Allied Air Campaign Against Hitler’s U-Boats is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of this most crucial battle which helped turn the Battle of the Atlantic irrevocably in favour of the Allies.
Book Synopsis The RAF's French Foreign Legion by : G H Bennett
Download or read book The RAF's French Foreign Legion written by G H Bennett and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the relationship between the Royal Air Force and the French Fighter pilots who flew for the RAF during WWII.
Book Synopsis British Naval Aviation in World War II by : Gilbert S. Guinn
Download or read book British Naval Aviation in World War II written by Gilbert S. Guinn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-07-20 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the outome of the Battle of the Atlantic from 1939 to 1945 depended Britain's survival in the midst of a global war. The need to control the sealanes to Britain was mirrored by a need to control the skies above. Carrier based aircraft and seaplanes would play an important role in defeating the German submarine menace and in combating her surface fleet. However, at the start of World War II Britain possessed neither the training or industrial establishment necessary to develop this arm of warfare. From 1940 onwards the United States provided answers to the problem firstly in the form of American built aircraft, then American built aircraft carriers and finally American trained pilots. Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm pilots were being trained in the United States under a scheme set up by the United States Navy as part of the Lend Lease agreement. In the safer skies over the United States American Navy pilots would train British aviation cadets how to fly and to fight. This process is examined from a variety of different perspectives including the military, diplomatic, educational and cultural. For many young British aviation cadets the journey across the Atlantic and across America was as surprising as it was lengthy. Many would find themselves caught up with issues such as segregation in the American South of which they had little understanding. The book is based on interviews and correspondence with hundreds of former cadets who trained in the United States in the 1940s together with material from the British and American archives.
Book Synopsis Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War by : W. R. Chorley
Download or read book Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War written by W. R. Chorley and published by Midland. This book was released on 1992 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fourth volume in the series which deals with the losses sustained by the RAF Bomber Command during the 2nd World War. It has already found favour with historians, and those friends and relatives affected by the loss.
Book Synopsis RAF Fighters Before the Storm by : Martin Derry
Download or read book RAF Fighters Before the Storm written by Martin Derry and published by Air World. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the First World War ended the then recently established Royal Air Force was awash with aircraft of all descriptions. More surprising, perhaps, was the fact that despite an ongoing cull of obsolescing types, on the last day of 1919, the RAF still possessed 9,122 non-obsolete aircraft , with a further 1,100 more assigned to the Fleet Air Arm. while the famous SE.5A and Sopwith Camel had by this time largely been consigned to history, the RAF possessed no less than 1,860 Sopwith Snipes which, from 1920, would become the RAF’s standard single-seat fighter for years to come. Other core types on charge on 31 December 1919 included some 1,650 Bristol F.2B fighters and 1,250 de Havilland DH.9As, which, together with the Snipe, accounted for over fifty per cent of the RAF’s inventory at that time. Avro 504 training aircraft accounted for a further 2,700 airframes. In this Flight Craft Special, the authors provide a detailed and informative pictorial history of those scout/fighter aircraft that served in an operational capacity with the RAF from January 1920 until the last day of 1939 – a period in which Britain once again moved from an era of peace to war with an old enemy, albeit this time Hitler’s totalitarian National Socialist Germany as opposed to the Imperial Germany of old. As well as covering each of the fighter types used during the inter-war period, and featuring most of the squadrons, the photographs themselves convey the sense of the technical advances that rapidly took root within Britain’s aero industries from the mid-1930s onwards, moving from the brightly-marked overall silver wood and linen biplanes to the dull camouflaged metal-skinned monoplanes. The progression of machine-gun development – from the Lewis and Vickers of the First World War to the later Browning – is covered, spanning the days of the biplanes’ two fixed synchronised Lewis or Vickers .303-inch machine-guns mounted in the forward fuselage to eight wing-mounted .303-inch Browning machine-guns in the ‘new’ monoplane fighters. There is also a small, but fascinating, section on the monoplane ‘also rans’ – the monoplane fighters that were designed and had prototypes built but failed to reach the finishing post!
Book Synopsis Ultra Versus U-Boats by : Roy Conyers Nesbit
Download or read book Ultra Versus U-Boats written by Roy Conyers Nesbit and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2009-04-17 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keeping the Atlantic sea-lanes open was a vital factor in the fight against Nazi Germany. In the battle to protect merchant shipping from the menace of surface raiders and U-boats, Allied resolve and resources were tested to the utmost. The story of the extraordinary measures that were taken to combat the threat, at sea and in the air, has often been told. But there is one crucial element in this prolonged campaign that has still not been fully appreciated the role of code-breaking, in particular the decryption of secret signals transmitted by German Enigma machines. And this is the focus of Roy Nesbits fascinating new account of the Battle of the Atlantic. Using previously unpublished decrypts of U-boat signals, selected from the National Archives, along with historic wartime photographs, he tells the stories of the individual U-boats and describes their fate. Their terse signals reveal, perhaps move vividly than conventional communications could do, the desperate plight of the U-boatmen as they struggled against increasingly effective Allied countermeasures that eventually overwhelmed them.
Book Synopsis Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: Aircraft and crew losses: 1944 by : W. R. Chorley
Download or read book Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: Aircraft and crew losses: 1944 written by W. R. Chorley and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis RAF Handbook 1939-1945 by : David Wragg
Download or read book RAF Handbook 1939-1945 written by David Wragg and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2007-01-18 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It opens with a brief history of the service, followed by a chapter that reviews its situation on the outbreak of war. The chapters that follow look at the structure of the RAF, from the Air Ministry and Chief of the Air Staff down to squadron level, to include each of the Commands, including Transport Command (a creation of the war years). The main aircraft types used are listed, as well as a full listing of squadrons and airfields in the British Isles. The training of personnel, and such matters as uniforms, rank insignia, medals and life on a typical airfield, are also covered. The main battles or campaigns in which the service was involved are also described.
Book Synopsis The Battle for Burma by : Roy Conyers Nesbit
Download or read book The Battle for Burma written by Roy Conyers Nesbit and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The struggle of British, Commonwealth and American-Chinese troops against the Japanese in Burma was one of the decisive campaigns of the Second World War. British India was threatened by the Japanese advance, the fate of the British Empire in the East hung in the balance. The tropical climate dense malarial jungle infested with vermin and swept by monsoon rains made the fighting, for both sides, a remarkable feat of arms. Yet the war in Burma rarely receives the attention it deserves. Roy C. Nesbit, in this highly illustrated account, traces the entire course of the campaign. In vivid detail he describes the British retreat and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese invaders in 1942. The Japanese were fanatical and trained in jungle warfare, well-equipped and backed with an overwhelming air power. The Allied response was to build up their forces on a massive scale eventually over 1,300,000 personnel were involved and to train them to fight in the jungle conditions. Their counter-offensive, launched in 1944, culminated in the battles at Imphal and Kohima which turned the course of the conflict, and the reconquest of Burma was achieved just before the atom bomb was dropped.
Book Synopsis Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: Aircraft and crew losses 1945 by : W. R. Chorley
Download or read book Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: Aircraft and crew losses 1945 written by W. R. Chorley and published by Midland Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the sixth volume in the series which deals with the losses sustained by the RAF Bomber Command during the 2nd World War. It has already found favour with historians, and those friends and relatives affected by the loss.'
Book Synopsis Fighter Operations in Europe and North Africa, 1939–1945 by : David Wragg
Download or read book Fighter Operations in Europe and North Africa, 1939–1945 written by David Wragg and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighter Operations in Europe and North Africa 1939–1945 tells the story of Allied and German fighter pilots in Europe, over the Mediterranean and in North Africa during the Second World War. The book starts with the early skirmishes as each side tested the others defenses, moves through the Battle of Britain and then the Blitz, when the emphasis switched from single-engined day fighters to twin-engined night fighters, while increasingly fighters were used to sweep over enemy air fields and lines of communication in occupied France. This overlapped with the need to provide air cover for the besieged island fortress of Malta by day and by night, as well as defensive operations against Axis forces in Crete and North Africa, but as the balance of power changed in North Africa, the Desert Air Force was formed incorporating elements from many Allied air forces and the emphasis moved to offensive operations in support of ground forces. The invasions of Italy and the South of France also called for fighter cover, initially by carrier-based aircraft. The lessons learnt in North Africa were put to good use by the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force, which accompanied the advancing allied armies towards and eventually into Germany, achieving all important air supremacy which was a major factor in the Allied victory. The book also covers Luftwaffe fighter pilots as they sought to stop the RAF by night and the USAAF by day, against increasingly overwhelming odds.
Download or read book Wimpy written by Steve Bond and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To date there has been a paucity of books on this remarkable aircraft. Among its claims to fame are the following: the only RAF bomber to serve in its original role from first day of war to last, and in every theater; the first type to bomb Germany; the first type to bomb Berlin; the first type to drop the 4,000lb ‘Cookie’ bomb; and so on. A serious study is well overdue, drawing not just on official documentation but relying greatly on personal accounts and anecdotes from the veterans who were there, both air and ground crew. And here it is. Through his diligent research over many years, author Steve Bond has produced an outstanding work. His coverage of operations will include, inter alia, the early bombing campaigns, the switch to main force activity, the use of OTU aircraft and crews on operations, the protection of Atlantic and Mediterranean convoys, service with the FAA and the French and the Wellington’s continued use as bomber and transport aircraft. A worthy tribute, then, replete with original photographs throughout.
