Author: Ron Smith
Publisher: Crecy Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1800351534
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 167
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Book Description
A Bomber Command book with a difference. Rear Gunner Pathfinders is the story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small Perspex bubble of a 'Tail-End Charlie' rear gunner in a Lancaster. Flying firstly with 626 squadron, and later 156 Pathfinder squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations and recorded them with the intensity brought on by the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret.
Author: Smith Ron Smith
Publisher: Crecy Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1800351542
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 165
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Book Description
A Bomber Command book with a difference. Rear Gunner Pathfinders is the story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small Perspex bubble of a 'Tail-End Charlie' rear gunner in a Lancaster. Flying firstly with 626 squadron, and later 156 Pathfinder squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations and recorded them with the intensity brought on by the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret.
Author: Ron Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780907579274
Category : Aerial gunnery
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This is a Bomber Command story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small Perspex bubble of a 'Tail-End Charlie' rear gunner in a Lancaster. Flying first with 626 squadron, and later 156 Pathfinder squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations and recorded them with the intensity brought on by the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret. "Suddenly we were over the Big City . . . after long hours of searching the night sky from the coast, to be suddenly propelled into the brilliant hell over Berlin produced a freezing of the mind . . . flak sliced up through the broken illuminated clouds, ascending gracefully to stream past the turret. A Lancaster slid across at right angles with a single fighter just behind it, as if attached by an invisible thread . . . the city far below was bubbling and boiling, splashes of fire opening out as the blockbusters pierced this terrible brew."
Author: John Nichol
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312378066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444
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Book Description
Night after night they stifled their fears and flew through flak and packs of enemy fighters to drop the bombs that would demolish the Third Reich. The airmen of the United States 8th Army Air ForceAmerican and British Bomber Command were among the greatest heroes of the Second World War, defying Hitler in the darkest early days of the war and taking the battle to the German homeland when no one else would. Toward the end of the conflict, too, they continued to sacrifice their lives to shatter an enemy sworn never to surrender. Blasted out of the sky in an instant or bailing out from burning aircraft to drop helplessly into hostile hands, they would die in their tens of thousands to ensure the enemy's defeat. Especially vulnerable were the "tail-end Charlies"---for the Americans, which meant two things: the gunners who flew countless missions in a plexiglass bubble at the back of the bomber, and the last bomber in the formation who ended up flying through the most hell, and for the British, the rear-gunners who flew operations in a Plexiglas bubble at the back of the bomber. Following their groundbreaking revelations about the ordeals suffered by Allied prisoners of war in their bestselling book, The Last Escape, John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the astonishing and deeply moving story of the controversial last battles in the skies of Germany through the eyes of the forgotten heroes who fought them. "This is the best account that has been written of the heroic American and British bomber crews . . . the best of its kind." ---George McGovern "Rivaling the best of Stephen Ambrose's work, Tail-End Charlies gives a breathtakingly intimate look at the lives, loves, and deaths of the brave airmen of the greatest generation. This fascinating book is as valuable for its stories of joyous life on the ground as it is for its sobering tales of death in the air. You see the whole picture of the war here from the eyes of the strong young men who fought it." ---Walter J. Boyne, bestselling author of Beyond the Wild Blue "Adds new dimensions to the saga of the air war in Europe. The eyewitness accounts, reported within the context of the battle against Nazi Germany, provide a sense of the ordeals, the terror, the gore, and the heroism of ordinary men thrust into the savagery of aerial combat." ---Gerald Astor, author of The Mighty Eighth
Author: W. W. Robinson
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1781594589
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349
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Book Description
When he died in 1946, Flight Lieutenant Jack Mossop left behind a widow and child, a chest full of medals, and a diary. He was 25 years old. The diary gave tantalizing glimpses of his career; sixty years on, his son has uncovered the truth. It is the story of an ordinary Durham lad called upon to perform extraordinary deeds.Serving initially as a Wireless Operator in 49 Squadron, he progressed to 76 Squadron under the legendary Leonard Cheshire, and finished as a Deputy Master Bomber with the elite Pathfinder Group in 35 Squadron.To complete even one tour of duty was against the odds. To complete a second and then to volunteer for a third was nigh-on incredible. Small wonder that one of his crewmates called him The bravest man I ever knew. It is all the more tragic that he died a civilians death on board a BOAC Lancastrian after the war, in suspicious circumstances, which attracted the attention of the Prime Minister himself.Jack saw most of the great actions of Bomber Command, from the 1,000 bomber raids of 1942, to the Battles of the Ruhr and Berlin in 1943, and the daylight operations of Normandy before and after D-Day. His story stands as a microcosm of the entire bomber campaign. Bill Robinsons account is a fascinating and stirring account of courage in war: a tribute not only to one mans courage, but also to the courage of the nameless thousands whose stories will now never be told.
Author: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473861136
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
This book contains fourteen stirring accounts, each conveying an authentic sense of what it was really like to fly as a member of air-crew during the various bombing operations of the Second World War. The storytellers are an eclectic mix of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and gunners who flew on operations in heavy bombers. It conveys the terror of being coned by German searchlights over the target, attacks by Luftwaffe night-fighters, often catastrophic damage to aircraft and the ensuing struggle to keep the machine airborne on the return trip to base. It tells of the comradeship between the crew and the humour between them, often borne of fear. The gentle and unassuming narratives include 'Millennium'; 'One of Our Aircraft Is Missing'; Bomber's Moon; 'Bombing Berlin' 'The Ordeal Of Pilot Officer Romans DFC'; Last Man Out' operations on Whitleys and Halifaxes; Flying Officer 'X'; Stirlings; 'Rescue At Sea' 'The Incendiary Load's Alight'; 'The Night Of The Bombs' and 'The Kassel Raids of 1943' as well as BBC Broadcasts and stories by Allied war correspondents. Each of these accounts conveys the sense of purpose that these men felt in doing one of the most dangerous jobs of the war. It is a fitting tribute to those that survived and the many thousands who died in the struggle against Hitler's dreadful ambitions in Europe.
Author: Sean Mcmullen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312870546
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
The balance of power in the war between the Australians and the Americans is tipped by the ultimate weapon, The Miocene Arrow.
Author: Chris Ward
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844687325
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
6 Group was born out of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), which, among other things called for the formation of 25 Canadian Squadrons in Britain. This figure was later downsized. The Canadian vision was of a Canadian force operating independently alongside Bomber Command in the manner of the American 8th, but skillfull negotiating by the British resulted in Canadian Bomber squadrons operating within the RAF under RAF control but funded by Canada. On the 1st of January 1943 most of the existing RCAF squadrons were brought together on stations in North Yorkshire and County Durham to form 6 Group. By the end of the war 14 Squadrons were operational and one other had been posted to the Pathfinders. After an uncertain beginning the Group became an efficient and valuable contributor to Bomber Command's campaigns. Beginning predominantly with Wellingtons the Group was re-equipped with a mixture of Halifaxes and Lancasters, including the Hercules powered MkII and the Canadian built MKX.
Author: Ted Stocker
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1909166715
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
The only RAF flight engineer to be awarded a Distinguished Service Order recounts his prolific WWII combat career in this engaging military memoir. Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker lived a charmed life. Joining the Royal Air Force as a teenager, he trained as one of the famous Halton Aircraft Apprentices known as Trenchard’s Brats. Stationed at RAF Boscombe Down, he flew prototype Stirling and Halifax bombers just as the Second World War broke out. Qualifying as one of the RAF’s first flight engineers, he went on to join Bomber Command’s elite Pathfinder Force. Stocker was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1943 and eventually completed more than 100 bombing operations, often as a master bomber. Although his aircraft was frequently hit, and he survived a crash landing, Stocker was never wounded. His achievements were recognized with the only known Distinguished Service Order issued to a flight engineer. In this candid and fascinating memoir, co-written by acclaimed aviation historian Sean Feast, Stocker relates his incredible tale of singular courage and miraculous survival.
Author: Turner Publishing
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1563111675
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 141
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Book Description
History of the airforce gunners from early days through World War II and later
