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Author: John Stanaway
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764309106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
Beginning operations in April 1942 with a shoestring flight of four Lockheed F-4 Lightnings (the photo-recon version of the famed P-38), the 8th Photo Squadron gave the American Army Air Forces its only aerial reconnaissance coverage of the Southwest Pacific during the first part of the war. From the first days over New Guinea until the final sweeps over Japan the squadron struggled with the world's most treacherous weather and faulty equipment as well as a resolute Japanese enemy to write an astounding record of keeping the 5th Air Force pictorially informed. The 8th Photo Squadron participated in every campaign from Buna to Hollandia, Lae to Rabaul, the Philippines to the invasion of Okinawa. The squadron played a part in such famous battles as the Coral Sea and Bismarck Sea. Its first commander was Karl Polifka, who went on to be listed in the first rank of American reconnaissance. This book is comprised of over 500 photos most of which have never been published before many from the archives of squadron veterans. Many new facts are added to the annotated squadron diary that was kept when the 8th operated almost singlehandedly during 1942 and 1943.
Author: John Stanaway
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764309106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
Beginning operations in April 1942 with a shoestring flight of four Lockheed F-4 Lightnings (the photo-recon version of the famed P-38), the 8th Photo Squadron gave the American Army Air Forces its only aerial reconnaissance coverage of the Southwest Pacific during the first part of the war. From the first days over New Guinea until the final sweeps over Japan the squadron struggled with the world's most treacherous weather and faulty equipment as well as a resolute Japanese enemy to write an astounding record of keeping the 5th Air Force pictorially informed. The 8th Photo Squadron participated in every campaign from Buna to Hollandia, Lae to Rabaul, the Philippines to the invasion of Okinawa. The squadron played a part in such famous battles as the Coral Sea and Bismarck Sea. Its first commander was Karl Polifka, who went on to be listed in the first rank of American reconnaissance. This book is comprised of over 500 photos most of which have never been published before many from the archives of squadron veterans. Many new facts are added to the annotated squadron diary that was kept when the 8th operated almost singlehandedly during 1942 and 1943.
Author: James T. Controvich
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810850101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
This bibliography lists published and printed unit histories for the United States Air Force and Its Antecedents, including Air Divisions, Wings, Groups, Squadrons, Aviation Engineers, and the Women's Army Corps.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 644
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Book Description
Author: Bob Drury
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476774862
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
The "untold story of friendship, heroism and survival in World War II"--Book jacket.
Author: Damien Lewis
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306922568
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
The extraordinary, touching true story of Smoky, the smallest--and arguably bravest--dog of World War II In February 1944, as Japanese military advances threatened to overwhelm New Guinea, a tiny, four-pound Yorkshire Terrier was discovered hiding in the island's thick jungles. A total mystery as to her origins, she was adopted by US Army Air Force Corporal William "Bill" Wynne, an air-crewman in a photo reconnaissance squadron, becoming an irreplaceable lucky charm for the unit. When Smoky saved Wynne's life by barking a warning of an incoming kamikaze attack, he nicknamed her the "angel from a foxhole." Smoky's exploits continued when she jumped for the unit in a specially designed parachute and famously joined the aircrews flying daring sorties in the war-torn skies. But her most heroic feat was running a cable through a seventy-foot pipe no wider than four inches in places to enable critical communication lines to be run across an airbase which had just been seized from the enemy, saving hundreds of ground-crew from being exposed to enemy bombing. In recognition of her efforts, Smoky was awarded eight battle stars. Smoky the Brave brings to vivid life the danger and excitement of the many missions of World War II's smallest hero.
Author: Wolfgang W. E. Samuel
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626745943
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588
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Book Description
The twenty-seven stories in this book serve as a graphic reminder of the selfless heroism of America's World War II Army Air Forces flyers and how necessary they were to achieve Allied victory. Wolfgang Samuel and the pilots he interviewed reveal the peril these men faced to achieve a daunting task, impossible without their bravery. And their sacrifices were stunning—American bomber crews suffered the highest casualties (KIA, MIA, POW, wounded) of all American armed services in World War II. The stories preserved in this book bear that grave danger out. A member of a heavy bomber crew in the 8th Air Force in the period from mid-1942 to spring 1944 was less likely to survive than a US Marine fighting on Iwo Jima or Okinawa. The stories in this unique book are about men who went face to face with their adversaries, who saw their buddies die, who crashed planes, and who became prisoners of war. Many later went on to become the backbone of the postwar Air Force, serving in Korea and Vietnam and during the Cold War. Young Ken Chilstrom led a flight of eight A-36 fighter bombers on a low-level foray in Italy. Only he and two others came home. Bob Hoover thought he could take on the entire German air force, but on his first mission he was shot down, nearly perished, and suffered the remainder of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp. Wolfgang Samuel's new book is all about men like Ken, Bob, and the many friends they lost, who saw World War II through to the end and gave freedom to so many others.
Author: Tor Idar Larsen
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
Major Leif Lundsten flew hundreds of Spitfires during the Second World War. As a fighter pilot with 331 Squadron and test pilot with Vickers-Armstrong, he strapped on as many as seven different marks of Spitfires. All the way from the early mark II up to the rare, brutal XII version. Following Lundsten s career as a fighter pilot through the War, all the Spitfires he flew are covered in this book along with descriptions of his sorties. Behind every Spitfire there is a story to be told. Stories of brave heroism, tragic deaths or determined resilience. Many of the Spitfires disappeared quickly, shot down by Luftwaffe fighters. Others lived longer than our hero did, and still exist today, becoming legendary Spitfires on their own. The author pays tribute to a forgotten Spitfire hero, a gallant and brave man that did his country proud. Time and time again Leif Lundsten took a Spitfire to the air, whether it was an air-test or to meet the Luftwaffe in a dogfight over the channel. He never lived to tell his story, but the stories of the Spitfires he flew remains. This is Leif Lundsten s legacy.
Author: Allen D Boyer
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682470970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
In Rocky Boyer’s War, Allen Boyer offers a wry, keen-eyed, and occasionally disgruntled counterpoint history of the hard-fought, brilliant campaign that won World War II in the Southwest Pacific. Based in part on an unauthorized diary kept by the author's father, 1st Lt. Roscoe “Rocky” Boyer, this narrative history offers the reader an account of Allied air commander Gen. George Kenney's "air blitz" offensive as it was lived both in the cockpit and on the ground. During 1944, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s forces fought their way from New Guinea to the Philippines, Kenney, discarding pre-war doctrine, planned and ran an “air blitz” offensive. His 5th Air Force drove forward like a tank army, crash-landing in open country, seizing terrain, bulldozing new airfields, winning air control, and moving forward. At airfields on the front line, Rocky kept the radios working for the 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group, a fighter-bomber unit. Diaries were forbidden, but Rocky kept one—full of casualties, accidents, off-duty shenanigans, and rear-area snafus. He had friends killed when they shot it out with Japanese anti-aircraft gunners, or when their bombers vanished in bad weather. He wrote about wartime camp life at Nadzab, New Guinea, the largest air base in the world, part Scout camp and part frontier boomtown. He knew characters worthy of Catch-22: combat flyers who played contract bridge, military brass who played office politics, black quartermasters, and chaplains who stood up to colonels when a promotion party ended with drunken gunplay and dynamite. This is a narrative of the war as airmen lived it. Rocky’s experience of life on the front line gives from-the-bottom-up detail to the framework of Kenney’s air blitz. The author uses Rocky’s story as a jumping-off point from which to understand the daily life, pranks, mishaps, and casualties, of the men who in 1944 fought their way over the two thousand miles from New Guinea to the Philippines.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 3054
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Book Description
Author: Ed Bowker Staff
Publisher: R. R. Bowker
ISBN: 9780835246422
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 3274
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Book Description
