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Author: Will Largent
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 1557539936
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
From 1941 through 1945, British cadets in the Royal Air Force trained in the United States through the Lend-Lease Act, President Roosevelt’s ingenious plan to help beleaguered Great Britain while maintaining the semblance of neutrality. This book tells the saga of two Florida training fields during this turbulent time. In their own words, British pilots tell of their Florida experiences. Many of them still in their late teens, away from home for the first time, pale and thin from years of rationing, these young men encountered immense challenges and overwhelming generosity during their training in Florida. Now retired, these former pilots still smell the scent of orange blossoms when they glance through the log books they kept while flying their Stearmans and Harvards over Florida citrus groves. They fondly remember the times when they buzzed over the homes of their Florida “families” to let them know to expect them for Sunday dinner. More than fifty years later, their stories still resonate with universal emotions: fear of failure, love of country, camaraderie, romantic love, and the pain of tragic deaths. Their stories also remind the American reader of a unique time in our history, when, poised on the brink of war, the United States reached out to help a country in distress.
Author: Will Largent
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 1557539936
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
From 1941 through 1945, British cadets in the Royal Air Force trained in the United States through the Lend-Lease Act, President Roosevelt’s ingenious plan to help beleaguered Great Britain while maintaining the semblance of neutrality. This book tells the saga of two Florida training fields during this turbulent time. In their own words, British pilots tell of their Florida experiences. Many of them still in their late teens, away from home for the first time, pale and thin from years of rationing, these young men encountered immense challenges and overwhelming generosity during their training in Florida. Now retired, these former pilots still smell the scent of orange blossoms when they glance through the log books they kept while flying their Stearmans and Harvards over Florida citrus groves. They fondly remember the times when they buzzed over the homes of their Florida “families” to let them know to expect them for Sunday dinner. More than fifty years later, their stories still resonate with universal emotions: fear of failure, love of country, camaraderie, romantic love, and the pain of tragic deaths. Their stories also remind the American reader of a unique time in our history, when, poised on the brink of war, the United States reached out to help a country in distress.
Author: Tom Killebrew
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574416154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 460
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Book Description
By early 1941, the war raged in Europe and Great Britain stood alone against the aerial might of Nazi Germany. Although much of the Royal Air Force's pilot training program had been relocated to Canada and other Dominion countries, the need for pilots remained acute. The British looked to the United States for possible assistance. Passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 allowed for the training of British pilots in the United States and the formation of British Flying Training Schools. These unique schools were owned by American operators, staffed with American civilian instructors, supervised by British Royal Air Force officers, utilized aircraft supplied by the U.S. Army Air Corps, and used the RAF training syllabus. Within these pages, Tom Killebrew provides the first comprehensive history of all seven British Flying Training Schools located in Terrell, Texas; Lancaster, California; Miami, Oklahoma; Mesa, Arizona; Clewiston, Florida; Ponca City, Oklahoma; and Sweetwater, Texas. The first British students arrived in a still-neutral United States in June 1941. Many had never been in an airplane (or even driven an automobile), but they mastered the elements of flight, attended ground school classes, were introduced to the mysteries of the Link trainer and instrument flight, and then ventured out on cross country exercises. Students began night flying with the natural apprehension associated with taking off into a black sky, aided by only a few instruments, a flickering flare path, and limited ground references. Some students failed the periodic check flights and had to be eliminated from training, while others were killed during mishaps and are buried in local cemeteries. Those who finished the course became Royal Air Force pilots. But the story of the British Flying Training Schools is more than the story of young men learning to fly. These young British students would also forge a strong and long-lasting bond of friendship with the Americans they came to know. This bond would last not only during training, but would continue throughout the war, and still exist long after the end of the war.
Author: Nick Wynne
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614231427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Few realize what a vital role World War II and Florida played in each other's history. The war helped Florida move past its southern conservative mentality and emerge as a sophisticated society, and thousands of military men were trained under Florida's sunny skies. Here are stories from some of the one hundred military bases, including Tyndall Field, where Clark Gable trained, and Eglin Air Force Base, where Doolittle planned his raid on Tokyo. Read about Camp Gordon Johnston, referred to as "Hell by the Sea," built in a swampy, snake-infested subtropical jungle, and uncover the secrets of "Station J," a base that monitored the transmissions of German U-boats prowling off the coast. This fascinating collaboration between historians Nick Wynne and Richard Moorhead reveals the lasting impact of World War II on Florida as the United States heads into the seventieth anniversary of its entry into the war.
Author: Christopher Balzano
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467145688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Wide eyes, sweaty palms and a racing heart. Are these the tell-tale marks of a love story or a haunted tale? If the story is set in Florida, there's a good chance it's both. From the infamous Bellamy Bridge to a haunted lighthouse in Key West, love is in the air--but it isn't always a good thing. Author and folklorist Christopher Balzano follows lingering campus whispers and trails that vanish into the swamp to track down the urban legends and ghostly lore of Sunshine State love affairs that live on even after death.
Author: Bill Howard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1784420786
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 121
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Book Description
Between July and October 1940, in what became known as the Battle of Britain, a nation held its breath while the pilots of the Royal Air Force battled Hitler's Luftwaffe in the skies above England. A huge number of airmen lost their lives in this hard-fought episode and in the four years of air campaigns that followed, and those who survived faced terrifying risks; as Prime Minister Winston Churchill put it, 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'. In this beautifully illustrated tribute to 'The Few', Bill Howard catalogues the objects which were essential to every wartime pilot, from the superstitious good-luck charm to the parachute on which his life might have depended and a wealth of other poignant items relating to his day-to-day existence during the air war against the Nazis.
Author: Tom Killebrew
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574411691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
With the outbreak of World War II, British RAF officials sought to train aircrews outside of England, safe from enemy attack and poor weather. In the USA, six civilian flight schools dedicated themselves to instructing RAF pilots. Tom Killebrew explores the history of the Terrell Aviation School.
Author: S. P. MacKenzie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350024872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211
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Book Description
Since the Second World War, depictions of Royal Air Force operations in film and television drama have become so numerous that they make up a genre worthy of scholarly attention. In this illuminating study, S. P. MacKenzie explores the different ways in which the men of RAF Bomber Command have been represented in dramatic form on the big and small screen from the war years to the present day. Bomber Boys on Screen is the first in-depth study of how and why the screen-drama image of those who flew, those who directed them, and those who provided support for RAF bomber operations has changed over time, sometimes in contested circumstances. Until now dramas that focus on Bomber Command have tended to be mentioned only in passing or studied in isolation, despite the prevalence of surveys of both the British war film genre and of aviation cinema. In Bomber Boys on Screen MacKenzie examines the development, presentation, and reception of significant dramas on a decade-by-decade basis. Titles from the beginning of the war (The Lion Has Wings, 1939) to the start of new century (Bomber's Moon, 2014) are situated in the context of technical possibilities and limitations, evolving social and cultural norms in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and the development of moral and utilitarian controversies surrounding the wartime bomber offensive directed against Nazi Germany. While the focus is on feature films and television plays, reference is also made to documentaries, memorials, veterans' organizations, book titles, war comics, and other representations of the war fought by Bomber Command.
Author: Wilmer Nichols
Publisher: BookLocker.com
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
JJ Johnson was born prematurely to a poor family of sharecroppers in northeast Mississippi. He was accepted to Vanderbilt University at the age of 13 years and graduated at the age of 15. He then entered Princeton University on a full scholarship with room and board to study under Dr. Albert Einstein and graduated in 1941 with a PhD in Nuclear Physics at age 17 years. While at Princeton, JJ met and fell in love with Autumn Gamble from the consumer goods corporation, Proctor and Gamble. When World War II broke out, JJ volunteered for the U.S Navy and became a fighter pilot. After participation in four major battles on board the aircraft carriers Saratoga, Lexington, Yorktown and Enterprise, he was transferred to Los Alamos to work on the atomic bomb. In the summer of 1944, JJ returned to action aboard the Enterprise and then the new Lexington. In early 1945, he crashed at sea and after 20 days adrift, he was captured by the Japanese. After a short stint on Chichi Jima, JJ escaped, but was recaptured and transported to Ofuna a prison near Yokosuka on mainland Japan. After supplying fake information to the prison commander about the atomic bomb, JJ was rewarded with visits and services of a beautiful Japanese girl named Asami. As the war continued, JJ and Asami fell in love. After the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered and JJ was forced to leave Asami and return to America and reunite with Autumn.
Author: David Chrisinger
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984881329
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
A beautiful reckoning with the life and work of the legendary journalist Ernie Pyle, who gave World War II a human face for millions of Americans even as he wrestled with his own demons At the height of his fame and influence during World War II, Ernie Pyle’s nationally syndicated dispatches from combat zones shaped America’s understanding of what the war felt like to ordinary soldiers, as no writer’s work had before or has since. From North Africa to Sicily, from the beaches of Anzio to the beaches of Normandy, and on to the war in the Pacific, where he would meet his end, Ernie Pyle had a genius for connecting with his beloved dogfaced grunts. A humble man, himself plagued by melancholy and tortured by marriage to a partner whose mental health struggles were much more acute than his own, Pyle was in touch with suffering in a way that left an indelible mark on his readers. While never defeatist, his stories left no doubt as to the heavy weight of the burden soldiers carried. He wrote about post-traumatic stress long before that was a diagnosis. In The Soldier's Truth, acclaimed writer David Chrisinger brings Pyle’s journey to vivid life in all its heroism and pathos. Drawing on access to all of Pyle’s personal correspondence, his book captures every dramatic turn of Pyle’s war with sensory immediacy and a powerful feel for both the outer and the inner landscape. With a background in helping veterans and other survivors of trauma come to terms with their experiences through storytelling, Chrisinger brings enormous reservoirs of empathy and insight to bear on Pyle’s trials. Woven in and out of his chronicle is the golden thread of his own travels across these same landscapes, many of them still battle-scarred, searching for the landmarks Pyle wrote about. A moving tribute to an ordinary American hero whose impact on the war is still too little understood, and a powerful account of that war’s impact and how it is remembered, The Soldier's Truth takes its place among the essential contributions to our perception of war and how we make sense of it.
Author: Frank L. Grzyb
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 9781557531995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
A Story for All Americans: Vietnam, Victims, and Veterans (formerly titled, Touched by the Dragon) details wartime accounts of average servicemen and women - some heroic, some frightening, some amusing, some nearly unbelievable. The work is a historical compendium of fascinating and compelling stories woven together in a theme format. What makes this book truly unique, however, is its absence of literary pretentiousness. Relating oral accounts, the veterans speak in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. As seen through the eyes of the veterans, the stories include first-person experiences of infantry soldiers, a flight officer, a medic, a nurse, a combat engineer, an intelligence soldier, and various support personnel. Personalities emerge gradually as the veterans discuss their pre-war days, their training and preparation for Vietnam, and their actual in-country experiences. The stories speak of fear and survival: the paranoia of not knowing who or where the enemy was; the bullets, rockets, and mortars that could mangle a body or snuff out a life in an instant; and going home with a CMH - not the Congressional Medal of Honor, but a Casket with Metal Handles. The veterans also speak of friendships and simple acts of kindness. But more importantly, they speak of healing - both physical and mental.
