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Author: Richard Knott
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1781594422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435
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Book Description
"I am not pressing you to fight the weather as well as the Germans, never forget that." So wrote Winston Churchill to Arthur Harris, the Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command, after the terrible events of 16 December 1943. In the murky dusk almost five hundred heavy bombers, almost entirely Lancasters, set out for Berlin from their bases in eastern England, from north Yorkshire to southern Cambridgeshire. They lifted off at around 4 pm to bomb the target four hours later and were expected to return at midnight. 328 aircrew lost their lives that night they were the victims of the weather, not the Germans. This book relates the tragic circumstances of individual crews as they struggled to find their home bases in low cloud and fog. It also includes stories from the local people who remember hearing a low-flying aircraft and all too often the frightful explosion as it struck unexpected high ground or even trees. Some rescue attempts were successful, but for most aircrew it was death in a blazing wreck. Many of the crash sites have been explored by the author as he tried to imagine exactly how each aircraft came to grief. It contains many photos of aircraft as they were and the remaining impact areas that remain to this day.
Author: Richard Knott
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1781594422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Get Book Here
Book Description
"I am not pressing you to fight the weather as well as the Germans, never forget that." So wrote Winston Churchill to Arthur Harris, the Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command, after the terrible events of 16 December 1943. In the murky dusk almost five hundred heavy bombers, almost entirely Lancasters, set out for Berlin from their bases in eastern England, from north Yorkshire to southern Cambridgeshire. They lifted off at around 4 pm to bomb the target four hours later and were expected to return at midnight. 328 aircrew lost their lives that night they were the victims of the weather, not the Germans. This book relates the tragic circumstances of individual crews as they struggled to find their home bases in low cloud and fog. It also includes stories from the local people who remember hearing a low-flying aircraft and all too often the frightful explosion as it struck unexpected high ground or even trees. Some rescue attempts were successful, but for most aircrew it was death in a blazing wreck. Many of the crash sites have been explored by the author as he tried to imagine exactly how each aircraft came to grief. It contains many photos of aircraft as they were and the remaining impact areas that remain to this day.
Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
ISBN: 1610588630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
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Book Description
This award-winning classic of WWII military history chronicles the Royal Air Force’s bombing campaign against Germany. RAF Bomber Command’s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. The struggle began meekly in 1939 with only a few aircraft—Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons—flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, blazing whole German cities in a single night. In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the UK, famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize
Author: Howard J. Sandall
Publisher: Schiffer Military
ISBN: 9780764338144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
622 Sqdn. was just one of many Bomber Squadrons whose airmen carried out nightly missions, putting their lives "on the line" for King and Country during WWII. This account is relayed through the memoirs, diaries and letters of the men and women who fought and died throughout this dark period. These young men came from all parts of the Commonwealth to unite under the banner of freedom and democracy. By war's end, they had forged themselves into one of the most formidable fighting forces in the history of air warfare.
Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 178159886X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
A thorough history of the RAF Bomber Command attack on the German city during World War II, by the author of The First Day on the Somme. This book describes one twenty-four-hour period in the Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive in the greatest possible detail. Author Martin Middlebrook sets the scene by outlining the course of the bombing war from 1939 to the night of the Nuremberg raid, the characters and aims of the British bombing leaders, and the composition of the opposing Bomber Command and German night fighter forces. The aim of the Nuremberg raid was not unlike many hundreds of other Royal Air Force missions but, due to the difficulties and dangers of the enemy defenses and weather plus bad luck, it went horribly wrong. The result was so notorious that it became a turning point in the campaign. The target, the symbolic Nazi rally city of Nuremberg, was only lightly damaged, and 96 out of 779 bombers went missing. Middlebrook recreates the events of the fateful night in astonishing detail. The result is a meticulous, dramatic, and often controversial account. It is also a moving tribute to the bravery of the RAF bomber crews and their adversaries. Praise for The Nuremberg Raid “Employing hundreds of eyewitness accounts, he shows the raid from the point of view of the German defenses and the civilians on the ground. Factual and analytical, this is a portrait of mechanized warfare at the level of personal experience.” —Simon Mawer, Wall Street Journal
Author: Kevin Wilson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643130994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 610
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Book Description
Bomber combat crews faced a wide array of perils as they flew over German territory. Bursts of heavy flak could tear the wings from their planes in a split second. Flaming bullets from German fighter planes could explode their fuel tanks, cut their oxygen supplies, destroy their engines. Thousands of young men were shot, blown up, or thrown from their planes five miles above the earth; and even those who returned faced the subtler dangers of ice and fog as they tried to land their battered aircraft back home.The winter of 1944 was the most dangerous time to be a combat airman in RAF Bomber Command. The chances of surviving a tour were as low as one in five, and morale had finally hit rock bottom. In this comprehensive history of the air war that year, Kevin Wilson describes the most dangerous period of the Battle of Berlin, and the unparalleled losses over Magdeburg, Leipzig and Nuremberg.Men of Air reveals how these ordinary men coped with the extraordinary pressure of flying, the loss of their colleagues, and the threat of death or capture. Brilliantly placing these stories within the context of The Great Escape, D-Day, the defeat of the V1 menace, and more, Wilson shows how the sheer grit and determination of these "Men of Air" finally turned the tide against the Germans.
Author: George Culling
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750984589
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 149
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Book Description
Of every 100 operational airmen in World War Two, 9 were killed flying in England and 3 severely injured in crashes, so non-operational casualties were significant in numbers, over 15,000. Operational casualties were of course chillingly grim – over 56,000 airmen died in the Second World War, over half those involved. George Culling was a nineteen-year-old Lancaster navigator whose own experiences often involved battling tricky and dangerous conditions. Fascinated by the ever-present dangers for airmen even well away from combat, he has collated tales from comrades and combined them with his own to preserve some of the unexpected, inconvenient, dangerous, and often downright bizarre experiences that frequently typified daily life for airmen in the Second World War.
Author: Arthur Harris
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473812607
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
The Royal Air Force commander of bombing operations during WWII offers an insider’s view of his legendary career in this classic military memoir. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris remains a controversial figure in the history of the RAF. While many vilify him for his merciless carpet bombing of Germany, others believe that his contributions to Allied victory are grossly undervalued. In Bomber Offensive, Harris candidly describes how he led the men of Bomber Command in the face of appalling casualties, his fierce disagreements with higher authority, and the complicated relationship he had with Winston Churchill. Written soon after the close of the Second World War, Harris's memoirs reveals the man behind the Allied bombing offensive that destroyed the Nazi war machine, but also many beautiful and historic cities, such as Dresden. His defense of these total war tactics stands in stark contrast to modern military policy, which considers such indiscriminate killing a war crime.
Author: Theo Boiten
Publisher: Crowood Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
NachtjagdBoitenSubtitled: The Night Fighter Versus Bomber War Over the Third Reich 1939-45. Of the 7,953 Bomber Command aircraft lost on night operations during WWII, an estimated 5,833 fell victim to Luftwaffe night fighters. This volume traces the parallel developments in RAF night bombing and the Luftwaffes night fighting capability using archive material and interviews with surviving aircrew from both sides.Hdbd., 7 3/4x 1, 24 pgs., 17 bandw ill.
Author: David Price
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1789542693
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
A moving tribute to the sacrifice and bravery of the fliers of RAF Bomber Command. ****************************** The Crew, based on interviews with Ken Cook, the crew's sole surviving member, recounts the wartime exploits of the members of an Avro Lancaster crew between 1942 and the war's end. Gloucestershire-born bomb aimer Ken Cook, hard-bitten Australian pilot Jim Comans, Navigator Don Bowes, Upper Gunner George Widdis, Tail Gunner 'Jock' Bolland, Flight Engineer Ken Randle and Radio Operator Roy Woollford were seven ordinary young men living in extraordinary times, risking their lives in freedom's cause in the dark skies above Hitler's Reich. From their earliest beginnings – in places as far apart as a Cotswold village and the suburbs of Sydney – through the adventure of training in North America and the dread and danger of the forty-five bombing raids they flew with 97 Squadron, David Price describes the crew's wartime experiences with human sympathy allied to a secure technical understanding of one of the RAF's most iconic aircraft. The drama and anxiety of individual missions – to Kassel, Munich and Augsburg as well as Berlin – is evoked with thrilling immediacy; while the military events and strategic decisions that drove the RAF's area bombing campaign against Nazi Germany are interwoven deftly with the narrative of the crew's operational careers. ****************************** Reviews: 'A sensitive account of the bomber's life... Price has given the bomber offensive a human face. This book [...] has a heart and soul' The Times. 'A fascinating and fast-paced account of the exploits of an Avro Lancaster bomber crew from 97 Squadron RAF' The Herald. 'A remarkable insight into the bravery, determination and skill of British Bomber Command crews during WWII' Waterstones.
Author: Jack Currie
Publisher: Crecy
ISBN: 1800350007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
This is a welcome reissue of a book which has been described as one of the best accounts about life in Bomber Command during World War II. Lancaster Target is the classic story of one crew’s fight to survive a full tour of operations in the night skies of wartime Europe. Flying Lancaster bombers from RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire between 1943 and 1944, Jack Currie chronicles the life and death struggles against flak, night fighters and perilous weather with clarity and feeling, whilst capturing the ‘live for the moment’ spirit of off-duty escapades. Jack Currie DFC served as a stretcher bearer and later ambulance driver during the London Blitz before gaining his wings in the USA. Having completed his first perilous operational tour of 30 missions in Lancaster’s, he went on to serve as a Pathfinder Mosquito pilot. He remained in the RAF after the war eventually reaching the rank of Squadron Leader. After he left the service, he became a renowned aviation writer and broadcaster and appeared in a number of TV and video productions.
