The Desert Air Force in World War II

The Desert Air Force in World War II PDF Author: Ken Delve
Publisher: Pen and Sword Aviation
ISBN: 9781399083263
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This is a comprehensive reference to the structure, operation, aircraft and men of the 1st Tactical Air Force, or Desert Air Force as it became known. It was formed in North Africa to support the 8th Army and included squadrons from the RAF, SAAF, RAAF and eventually the USAAF. The book includes descriptions of many notable defensive and offensive campaigns, the many types of aircraft used, weapons and the airfields that played host to these events. The five main sections of the book include a general historical introduction and overview, operations, operational groups, aircrew training and technical details of each aircraft type. Lengthy annexes cover personnel, the squadrons in World War II, accuracy of attacks, orders of battle for each wartime year, maps of airfield locations and numbers of enemy aircraft downed.

The Desert Air Force in World War II

The Desert Air Force in World War II PDF Author: Ken Delve
Publisher: Pen and Sword Aviation
ISBN: 9781399083263
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a comprehensive reference to the structure, operation, aircraft and men of the 1st Tactical Air Force, or Desert Air Force as it became known. It was formed in North Africa to support the 8th Army and included squadrons from the RAF, SAAF, RAAF and eventually the USAAF. The book includes descriptions of many notable defensive and offensive campaigns, the many types of aircraft used, weapons and the airfields that played host to these events. The five main sections of the book include a general historical introduction and overview, operations, operational groups, aircrew training and technical details of each aircraft type. Lengthy annexes cover personnel, the squadrons in World War II, accuracy of attacks, orders of battle for each wartime year, maps of airfield locations and numbers of enemy aircraft downed.

Command Of The Air

Command Of The Air PDF Author: General Giulio Douhet
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782898522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 620

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Book Description
In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

Germany and the Second World War

Germany and the Second World War PDF Author: Horst Boog
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0198228864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1444

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Book Description
This is the fourth in the comprehensive and authoritative series, Germany and the Second World War. It deals with the attack on the Soviet Union, the turning-point of the war. The detailed analysis is underpinned by an extensive apparatus of maps, diagrams, and tables.

Germany and the Second World War

Germany and the Second World War PDF Author: Horst Boog
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191089842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 3789

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Book Description
By the spring of 1943, after the defeat at Stalingrad, the writing was on the wall. But while commanders close to the troops on Germany's various fronts were beginning to read it, those at the top were resolutely looking the other way. This seventh volume in the magisterial 10-volume series from the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt [Research Institute for Military History] shows both Germany and her Japanese ally on the defensive, from 1943 into early 1945. It looks in depth at the strategic air war over the Reich and the mounting toll taken in the Battles of the Ruhr, Hamburg, and Berlin, and at the "Battle of the Radar Sets" so central to them all. The collapse of the Luftwaffe in its retaliatory role led to hopes being pinned on the revolutionary V-weapons, whose dramatic but ultimately fruitless achievements are chronicled. The Luftwaffe's weakness in defence is seen during the Normandy invasion, Operation overlord, an account of the planning, preparation and execution of which form the central part of this volume together with the landings in the south of France, the setback suffered at Arnhem, and the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes. The final part follows the fortunes of Germany's ally fighting in the Pacific, Burma, Thailand, and China, with American forces capturing islands ever closer to Japan's homeland, and culminates in her capitulation and the creation of a new postwar order in the Far East. The struggle between internal factions in the Japanese high command and imperial court is studied in detail, and highlights an interesting contrast with the intolerance of all dissent that typified the Nazi power structure. Based on meticulous research by MGFA's team of historians at Potsdam, this analysis of events is illustrated by a wealth of tables and maps covering aspects ranging from Germany's radar defence system and the targets of RAF Bomber Command and the US 8th Air Force, through the break-out from the Normandy beachhead, to the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

War in the Air

War in the Air PDF Author: Stephen Coonts
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743464529
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Presents twenty-six real-life accounts of aerial warfare, including "The Hero's Life" by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker and "The Flight of Enola Gay" by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts.

The Next War in the Air

The Next War in the Air PDF Author: Brett Holman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317022637
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
In the early twentieth century, the new technology of flight changed warfare irrevocably, not only on the battlefield, but also on the home front. As prophesied before 1914, Britain in the First World War was effectively no longer an island, with its cities attacked by Zeppelin airships and Gotha bombers in one of the first strategic bombing campaigns. Drawing on prewar ideas about the fragility of modern industrial civilization, some writers now began to argue that the main strategic risk to Britain was not invasion or blockade, but the possibility of a sudden and intense aerial bombardment of London and other cities, which would cause tremendous destruction and massive casualties. The nation would be shattered in a matter of days or weeks, before it could fully mobilize for war. Defeat, decline, and perhaps even extinction, would follow. This theory of the knock-out blow from the air solidified into a consensus during the 1920s and by the 1930s had largely become an orthodoxy, accepted by pacifists and militarists alike. But the devastation feared in 1938 during the Munich Crisis, when gas masks were distributed and hundreds of thousands fled London, was far in excess of the damage wrought by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz in 1940 and 1941, as terrible as that was. The knock-out blow, then, was a myth. But it was a myth with consequences. For the first time, The Next War in the Air reconstructs the concept of the knock-out blow as it was articulated in the public sphere, the reasons why it came to be so widely accepted by both experts and non-experts, and the way it shaped the responses of the British public to some of the great issues facing them in the 1930s, from pacifism to fascism. Drawing on both archival documents and fictional and non-fictional publications from the period between 1908, when aviation was first perceived as a threat to British security, and 1941, when the Blitz ended, and it became clear that no knock-out blow was coming, The Next War in the Air provides a fascinating insight into the origins and evolution of this important cultural and intellectual phenomenon, Britain's fear of the bomber.

Big Week

Big Week PDF Author: James Holland
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473542146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
'James Holland is a master' BBC History It was to be the battle to end the air war once and for all. During the third week of February 1944, the combined Allied air forces launched their first-ever round-the-clock bomber offensive against Germany. The aim was to smash the main factories and production centres of the Luftwaffe and at the same time draw the German fighter force up into the air and into battle. Big Week is the knife-edge story of bomber against flak gun and fighter, but also, crucially, fighter against fighter. Following the fortunes of pilots and aircrew from both sides, this is a blistering narrative of one of the most critical periods of the entire war. Big Week was the largest air battle ever witnessed, but it has been largely forgotten – until now.

MacArthur's Eagles

MacArthur's Eagles PDF Author: Lex McAulay
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The successful use of strategic U.S. air power in the South West Pacific during World War II enabled Gen. Douglas MacArthur to advance from Australia to Japan. This book examines the inexorable thrust of the general's U.S. Army's 5th Air Force, under air commander Gen. George C. Kenney, in the hard-hitting campaigns against the Japanese Army Air Force bases in New Guinea. During 1943 and 1944, the 5th Air Force destroyed its Japanese opponent three times, eventually opening the way for the advance--ahead of schedule--of MacArthur's Allied forces through New Guinea to the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. No other book describes these crucial operations in such breadth or detail. From the national level to the individual fighter pilot's level, the author chronicles what happened. Of particular merit is Lex McAuley's portrayal of the Japanese side of the conflict, including an inside look at the problems of the Japanese Air Force high command. The author explains the varying degrees of understanding the concept of air power exhibited by both Japanese and U.S. commanders, including not only the type of aircraft produced by each country but the ways in which the aircraft were used. Air combat missions come vividly and dramatically to life through the use of oral history interviews that lend an authoritative air to the book.

Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe

Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe PDF Author: Richard G. Davis
Publisher: Department of the Air Force
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 840

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Book Description
Offers the first detailed review of Carl A. Spaatz as a commander. Examines how the highest ranking U.S. airman in the European Theater of Operations of World War II viewed the war, worked with the British, and wielded the formidable air power at his disposal. Identifies specifically those aspects of his leadership that proved indispensable to the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany. Chapters: Carrying the Flame: From West Point to London, 1891-1942; Tempering the Blade: The North African Campaign, 1942-1943; Mediterranean Interlude: From Pantelleria to London, 1943; The Point of the Blade: Strategic Bombing and the Cross-Channel Invasion, 1944; and The Mortal Blow: From Normandy to Berlin, 1944-1945. Maps, charts and b & w photos.

The India-Pakistan Air War of 1965

The India-Pakistan Air War of 1965 PDF Author: P. V. S. Jagan Mohan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
First In The Series Of Books Detailing Wartime Operations Of The Indian Air Force (Iaf) It Provides A History Of The Air Component Of A War Triggered By Pakistan`S Invasion Of Kashmir In 1965. Based On Interviews With Iaf War Veterans, Squadron Diaries And Never Before Published Photographs Including Gun Camera Photos, The Book Is Very Valuable In Understanding The Deployment Of Air-Power In The Twentieth Century.