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Author: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473860792
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
'The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the air. The Fighters are our salvation but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory...' So said Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the War Cabinet on the first anniversary of the outbreak of war. But when Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939 her bombers were predominantly twin-engined types like the Wellington, Whitley and the Hampden which after suffering carnage during the day were soon switched to night operations.Wartime speeches alone cannot begin to describe the misery and fortitude, desperation and terror endured by the civilian population during the 'Blitz Nights' in Coventry, the London docklands and the East End as night after night bombs and incendiaries rained down on them. Their personal experiences and those of war correspondents like James Negley Farson are as vivid, poignant and descriptive as those of the bomber crews carrying the war to the enemy in the early night bomber offensive. These too are mostly recounted at first hand, sometimes in BBC broadcasts to the nation; and they include 'The Unanswerable Double'; 'Winged Words'; 'German Defences'; 'Getting Frightened'; 'Jump For It!'; 'The Night The Fuel Ran Out'; 'Flames, Flares and Fires'; 'Busted Flush'; 'The Tail Gunner's Story' and 'Hampden and 'Wimpy' Ops'. They tell just what it was like to fly in a heavy bomber over occupied Europe.
Author: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473860792
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Get Book
Book Description
'The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the air. The Fighters are our salvation but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory...' So said Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the War Cabinet on the first anniversary of the outbreak of war. But when Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939 her bombers were predominantly twin-engined types like the Wellington, Whitley and the Hampden which after suffering carnage during the day were soon switched to night operations.Wartime speeches alone cannot begin to describe the misery and fortitude, desperation and terror endured by the civilian population during the 'Blitz Nights' in Coventry, the London docklands and the East End as night after night bombs and incendiaries rained down on them. Their personal experiences and those of war correspondents like James Negley Farson are as vivid, poignant and descriptive as those of the bomber crews carrying the war to the enemy in the early night bomber offensive. These too are mostly recounted at first hand, sometimes in BBC broadcasts to the nation; and they include 'The Unanswerable Double'; 'Winged Words'; 'German Defences'; 'Getting Frightened'; 'Jump For It!'; 'The Night The Fuel Ran Out'; 'Flames, Flares and Fires'; 'Busted Flush'; 'The Tail Gunner's Story' and 'Hampden and 'Wimpy' Ops'. They tell just what it was like to fly in a heavy bomber over occupied Europe.
Author: Martin Bowman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783831944
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the air. The Fighters are our salvation but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory...'?? So said Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the War Cabinet on the first anniversary of the outbreak of war. But when Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939 her bombers were predominantly twin-engined types like the Wellington, Whitley and the Hampden which after suffering carnage during the day were soon switched to night operations.??Wartime speeches alone cannot begin to describe the misery and fortitude, desperation and terror endured by the civilian population during the 'Blitz Nights' in Coventry, the London docklands and the East End as night after night bombs and incendiaries rained down on them. Their personal experiences and those of war correspondents like James Negley Farson are as vivid, poignant and descriptive as those of the bomber crews carrying the war to the enemy in the early night bomber offensive. These too are mostly recounted at first hand, sometimes in BBC broadcasts to the nation; and they include 'The Unanswerable Double'; 'Winged Words'; 'German Defences'; 'Getting Frightened'; 'Jump For It!'; 'The Night The Fuel Ran Out'; 'Flames, Flares and Fires'; 'Busted Flush'; 'The Tail Gunner's Story' and 'Hampden and 'Wimpy' Ops'. They tell just what it was like to fly in a heavy bomber over occupied Europe.
Author: Lewis Brandon
Publisher: Stackpole Books
ISBN: 0811708691
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 514
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Book Description
* Two gripping memoirs by British night-fighter crewmen * Action-adventure tales of aerial combat aboard Beaufighter and Mosquito aircraft * Accounts of Pathfinders who flew ahead of bomber formations and marked targets deep inside German territory * How new technologies like airborne radar, one of World War II's best-kept secrets, were used * How night-fighters helped save British cities from destruction Lewis Brandon was a navigator and squadron leader with the Royal Air Force in World War II, earning the Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions. Albert Smith joined the RAF at sixteen and completed 90 missions in Wellingtons and Mosquitos.
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: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473864259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
Of the 7,953 Bomber Command aircraft lost on night operations during the Second World War, an estimated 5,833 fell victim to Luftwaffe night fighters. In this detailed re-enactment of the air war over Western Europe and the raids flown by the men of RAF Bomber Command, the author has pieced together official data and the words and memories of the pilots and air crew who participated in the proceedings. Across fifteen chapters, many unique experiences are regaled, enlivening the history of the night bombing raids that were hurled against Hitler's war machine during the latter half of the Second World War. They span the period between November 1943 and 1945 and cover the encounters between the Luftwaffe and RAF Bomber Command during their heyday. 'No Operation Was Easy' was a commonly coined phrase amongst this group who, night after night, struck out at targets such as the 'The Big City' (Berlin), Stuttgart and the Ruhr. These truly epic stories, gleaned from the memories of the men who made up Bomber Command, serve as an appropriate epitaph to their collective effort.
Author: John Grehan
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473894158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
The Special Operations Executive developed a vast network of agents across Occupied Europe which played a vital role in developing and sustaining Resistance movements that persistently sought to subvert German control of their territories. The culmination of their efforts was seen when the Allied armies landed at Normandy in June 1944, with the SOE and the Resistance causing widespread destruction and disruption behind the German lines.None of this would have been possible had it not been for the Royal Air Force. Not only the RAF supply the SOE, and the movements it led and coordinated, with the thousands of tons of arms and equipment needed to undertake this role, it also delivered and retrieved agents from under the very noses of the enemy.Compiled at the end of the war by the Air Historical Branch of the RAF, this is an extremely detailed and comprehensive account of the RAFs support for the SOE, and in it we learn of the enormous and complex arrangements undertaken by the Special Duties squadrons as well as showing how the material delivered by these aircraft was used in the field.This account is reproduced here in its entirety, along with a detailed appendix containing the official historical record of Bomber Command aircrews and aircraft engaged in clandestine operations. Taken together, this book represents the most comprehensive account of the RAFs support for SOE ever published.
Author: Alun Granfield
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844687082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323
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Book Description
205 Group RAF provided the only mobile force of heavy night bombers in the Mediterranean theater in the Second World War. It operated mainly from bases in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Italy, with occasional excursions to Malta, Greece and Iraq, attacking tactical and strategic targets according to the demands of the wider war in the theater. The force was relatively small when compared with the numbers of aircraft available to Bomber Command in the Western European theater, and it carried on using the venerable Vickers Wellington long after this aircraft had been relegated to the training role in the United Kingdom.Like their UK-based counterparts the night bombers were intended to operate in a strategic role, bombing targets away from the immediate battlefront. However, the demands of the war in the Middle East and Mediterranean soon diverted the bombers from their strategic role and saw them operating much closer to the front line in support of the hard pressed ground forces.The bomber squadrons in North Africa usually operated from Advanced Landing Grounds scraped out of the bare desert, with only a few tents for shelter. In Italy they did have more or less permanent bases, but they still lived in tents (if they were lucky) often surrounded by a sea of mud. There were no pubs, often no beer, and the only contact with their families were the eagerly awaited letters from home. Also the squadrons in England did not have Rommel continually knocking on their door. Thus, the operations of the night bombers in the Middle East and Mediterranean were often governed by the general progress of the war in the theater. The ebb and flow of the land battles not only determined the activities of the night bombers, but also determined their location. This book tells their story.
Author: Jonathan Falconer
Publisher: Haynes Publishing UK
ISBN: 9781785211928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Night after night for six years of war, RAF Bomber Command's squadrons pounded away at the cities of Nazi Germany in a determined effort to bring the Third Reich to its knees. Pitted against Bomber Harris's aircrews and aircraft were some of the most effective and deadly defenses the world had seen up until then. For Bomber Command to launch a 'maximum effort' raid on the Ruhr by night, or a low-level strike on a target in enemy occupied Europe by day, it involved a huge amount of planning. Who decided what to bomb? Why, when and where were bomber airfields built? How was the overall command structure organized, from the Air Council down to individual squadron level? Who were the commanders and who were the men that made up the rank and file of the Command? How did the RAF train its bomber crews? What aircraft did they fly and what weapons did they use? How was a raid planned and once it was launched what happened? How was the effectiveness of a raid and bomber tactics analyzed afterwards? How did the RAF go about tracing the 'missing' (47,000 men 'failed to return' from operations)? How were damaged bombers repaired and made good again for operations? Useful appendices include a Bomber Command War Diary listing key events 1939-1945, squadrons and their commanders, an a-to-z of bomber airfields, and sample orders of battle from 1939, 1943 and 1945. Fully illustrated with some 300 photographs, the RAF Bomber Command Operations Manual gives a compelling insight into the workings of one of the most powerful instruments of 20th century warfare.
Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428992820
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 123
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Book Description
Author: Donald W. Feesey
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783460571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
At the age of eighteen Don Feesey volunteered for pilot training with the RAF. Having almost completed his course to become a fighter pilot, an eye problem was detected and he was switched to navigational training. He completed a tour of thirty-four successful operations, the majority at night during 1944 and 1945 at the height of the bomber offensive. On one remarkable sortie his Lancaster lost all power and the order to bale out was given. As the aircraft gradually lost altitude, making a safe parachute descent more impossible by the second, Don was about to jump when the pilot, still at the controls, attracted his attention. It was a life or death situation. Should he jump or go to the assistance of his pilot, leading to an almost certain death? He elected to go to the aid of what he thought was his trapped pilot but to his astonishment he found that the skipper had nursed one engine back into life, so the only two remaining crew managed to struggle back across the Channel, only to find that at 700feet they could not climb over the usually welcome white cliffs of Dover. They turned for Manston, the nearest airfield and flew along the coastline to make an eventual safe landing.
