Bring Back My Stringbag

Bring Back My Stringbag PDF Author: John Raymond Godley Baron Kilbracken
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Air pilots, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description

Bring Back My Stringbag

Bring Back My Stringbag PDF Author: John Raymond Godley Baron Kilbracken
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Air pilots, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description


Bring Back My Stringbag

Bring Back My Stringbag PDF Author: John Kilbracken
Publisher: Leo Cooper Books
ISBN: 9780850524956
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
Vigorous, light-hearted and extraordinarily vivid, this account by Lord Kilbracken of his five years in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War provides a remarkable picture of personal dealings with Swordfish aircraft, affectionately known as Stringbags, which, he asserts, 'seemed to have been left in the war by mistake.' At the same time he reveals what a significant often dramatic, role they played in the world course of hostilities.

Stringbag

Stringbag PDF Author: David Wragg
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473818699
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a narrative account of the operations of the Fairey Swordfish throughout World War Two. The most famous of these was the attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, crippling three battleships and damaging several other ships as well as the seaplane base and an oil storage depot. The Swordfish played a prominent part in the Battle of Matapan and in the sinking of the Bismarck. Less happily, Swordfish were used in the unsuccessful and ill-prepared raid on the Germans at Petsamo and in the abortive attack on the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the Channel Dash in 1942.

Past to Present

Past to Present PDF Author: William Stevenson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762787376
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
William Stevenson may be best known for his friendship with and books about another William Stephenson, otherwise known as Intrepid, whose spy network and secret diplomacy changed the course of history. Originally published in 1976, A Man Called Intrepid sold over 2 million copies and quickly became a New York Timesbestseller. However, readers will be just as fascinated by his life’s story and adventures. Stevenson chronicles the major events of his life, beginning with his daring and dangerous time as a naval pilot during WWII flying a multitude of legendary aircraft—Stringbag, Tiger Moth, Seafire, Hellcats—and learning various maneuvers in the skies enroute to Russia, over England, Canada, Scotland, and the Pacific. After the war, still yearning for adventure, he returns to Canada to write for The Toronto Daily Star, where he again meets William Stephenson (aka Intrepid) on assignment and develops a lifelong friendship. Stevenson travels the globe, visiting Hong Kong, Delhi, Kashmir, Kenya, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, Thailand, and many other exotic locals, where he meets iconic figures, such as Ian Fleming, Prime Minister Nehru, Ho Chi Minh, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung, Zhou Enlai, Tito, Khrushchev, and the King of Thailand among others. Privy to confidential information, full of international intrigue, Stevenson is a living embodiment of modern history. Past to Present, with story after amazing story to tell, will leave the reader breathless.

Wings over the Waves

Wings over the Waves PDF Author: Graham Drucker
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844687821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the biography of one of the Royal Navys legendary pilots. BF or Daddy as he was known, started his career at Dartmouth and then spent his early seagoing years in Hong Kong, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. His wartime experiences as a Fleet Air pilot aboard HMS Glorious included the historic air strike at Taranto and the search for the Graf Spee. In May 1940 he was loaned to Coastal Command and attacked German Panzer tanks in a biplane, defended Allied troops over Dunkirk and was one of only a few naval officers to fight in the Battle of Britain. After a period as a test pilot at Boscombe Down he became one of only four Wing Leaders in the Royal Navy. His successful leadership lead to many more successes, not least the crippling of Tirpitz as part of a diversionary plan in the lead up to D-Day.He was a superb pilot, loved by all the air and ground crew under his command. His reputation as a fearless and dynamic leader remains a legend today. The book contains detailed and graphic accounts of aerial sorties and strikes throughout the dark days over Nazi Europe. Tragically he was killed in action in July 1944, one week prior to promotion and a job ashore. The book includes many of his letters and extracts from his diary.

Luck of the Devil

Luck of the Devil PDF Author: Robert le Page
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844686000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
Robert le Page flew with the Fleet Air Arm from 1940 to 1945, mostly in 816 Squadron flying carrier-based Fairey Swordfish. He saw action mine-laying off Cherbourg, hunting U-boats, escorting convoys in the North Atlantic and Arctic seas and covering D-Day. Much of his early war years were aboard HMS Dasher and he was lucky to be ashore when the carrier mysteriously exploded and sank in the Clyde. This decimated 816 Squadron which was eventually re-equipped and then worked up to operational readiness to fly from HMS Tracker. His story is full of insights into wartime naval flying. For example when they were tasked with finding and attacking German E Boats they found that in a headwind these powerful boats could outdistance the Stringbag. They devised a plan which was to glide as quietly as possible on their approach to the quarry and power up the engine only seconds before they attacked a plan that was unfortunately unsuccessful. Once when landing in rough weather his aircraft was waved to go round again. With throttle wide open the Swordfish struggled back into the air, but alas the tailhook snagged the top wire of the barrier protecting other parked aircraft. The author remembered staring down from the stalling aircraft to see a terror stricken fitter gazing up at him. Fortunately all survived.

The Stringbags

The Stringbags PDF Author: Garth Ennis
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682475239
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
If you do the incredible often enough, they'll want you to do the impossible. ​ Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy began World War II with aircraft that could devastate enemy warships and merchantmen at will. Britain's Royal Navy squadrons went to war equipped with the Fairey Swordfish. A biplane torpedo bomber in an age of monoplanes, the Swordfish was underpowered and undergunned; an obsolete museum piece, an embarrassment. Its crews fully expected to be shot from the skies. Instead, they flew the ancient Stringbag into legend. ​ Writer Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys, War Stories) and artist PJ Holden (Battlefields, World of Tanks: Citadel) present the story of the men who crewed the Swordfish: from their triumphs against the Italian Fleet at Taranto and the mighty German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic, to the deadly challenge of the Channel Dash in the bleak winter waters of their homeland. They lived as they flew, without a second to lose--and the greatest tributes to their courage would come from the enemy who strove to kill them. Based on the true story of the Royal Navy's Swordfish crews, The Stringbags is an epic tale of young men facing death in an aircraft almost out of time.

Spymistress

Spymistress PDF Author: William Stevenson
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
ISBN: 9781559707633
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Get Book Here

Book Description
She was beautiful. She was ruthless. Recruited at the age of twenty-three by legendary spymaster William Stephenson - code name: Intrepid - Vera Atkins undertook countless perilous missions in the 1930s. Her fierce intellect, personal courage, and facility with languages quickly propelled her to the leadership echelon of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by Winston Churchill. During World War II, she became Great Britain's spymistress. Her agents penetrated deep behind enemy lines, aided resistance fighters, destroyed vital targets, helped Allied pilots evade capture, and radioed information back to London. They were prepared to die to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Vera Atkins was demobilized in 1947. Author William Stevenson was the only person she trusted to record her life - as he had done for her one-time recruiter, Intrepid - with one condition: He would not publish her biography until after her death. Here is her incredible story. Book jacket.

Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea'

Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea' PDF Author: E.E. Barringer
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 0850522781
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the story of 835 Naval Air Squadron as told by one of its surviving officers. It tells the story of the outstanding fleets of flying and the importance of the Merchant Navy in the Second World War.

Lighter Than Air

Lighter Than Air PDF Author: Guy Warner
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473829046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
Neville Florian Usborne entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1897. In the years between him joining up and the outbreak of the First World War, he engaged in a huge number of enterprises and endeavours. Praise and respect garnered in accordance with his achievements all helped to establish his reputation in later years as an 'irreplaceable' pioneer and a leading light of early British airship design. His fertile imagination and enterprising spirit fused to form a dynamic personality, able in wartime to draw up countless schemes in an effort to outwit the enemy. His chief task during the Great War was to dream up new tactics and designs to combat the Zeppelin menace, perceived as one of the most damaging threats of the entire conflict. He was also deeply involved in the design of the very successful SS and Coastal Class airships; indeed, during 1915 he was actually appointed Inspector Commander of Airships at the Admiralty. Unfortunately, his illustrious career was destined to be cut short in 1916 when he was killed testing a prototype of one of his own designs. This new biography seeks to shine a light on an overlooked pioneer of early aviation and it does so in entertaining and reverential style. The importance of Usborne the pioneer is made plain; as one of his contemporaries commented upon his death No one can talk of the early days of British airship design without mention of his name and work. A personality was lost on that February day which was irreplaceable.