Author: Edgar Wollstone
Publisher: AJS
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 34

Get Book Here

Book Description
Richard H. Best, or simply Dick as known among his comrades was an American dive bomber who managed to sink two Japanese aircraft carriers, including the flagship Akagi on a single day during the Battle of Midway. The Battle of Midway was one of the most decisive battles that turned the tables for the United States of America in the Second World War. Best was in his best as he shot one Japanese carrier after the other. He was the recipient of the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross awards. Though Best was posthumously recommended for Medal of Honor, it didn’t see fruition. It is incredulous that one man was able to turn the tides of the World War II in just one day. With all four carriers decimated, the Japanese navy was in tatters. If its fleet wasn’t annihilated by the American dive bombers, Japan would have continued its belligerence unabated and with impunity. Born in Bayonne, Best always aspired to be a pilot someday. He grew up listening to the legends of air veterans of World War One. It is no wonder that Best came out to be the best dive bomber during World War 2.

Author: Colin M. King
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781920800246
Category : Beaufort (Bomber)
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book records the exploits of the airmen of the first Australian Beaufort squadron in action in World War II. Developed as a torpedo and general reconnaissance bomber, the Beaufort was the heaviest, most powerful and most complex aircraft ever built in this country. It entered service with the Royal Australian Air Force at a time when Japanese invasion seemed imminent. As the tide of the war in the South-West Pacific turned from one mostly fought over the ocean to a land-based operation, the original squadron was joined by additional Beaufort units to form the RAAF's No 71 Wing. Employing new methods of warfare, the Beaufort crews closely supported American and Australian ground forces. Using participants' own words to describe events, from the hazards of training to the fury of offensive operations, the author vividly brings to life the bravery of the aviators and the dedication and skill of the ground crews who operated Beauforts during the protracted campaign across the South-West Pacific.

Author: Ron Mackay
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764321313
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Air Branch of the Royal Navy that was to carve its name into maritime history as the Fleet Air Arm faced an orphan existence up to 1937 when the Admiralty, having handed over control in 1918 to the RAF, resumed charge of its aviators. The Force was poorly equipped and dangerously short of qualified personnel with which to effectively challenge its Axis adversaries, and suffered accordingly in the initial stages of World War II. The provision of superior carrier aircraft designs (primarily from the U.S. Grumman and Chance-Vought companies), and a similar whole-sale expansion in Fleet and Escort carriers (most of the latter supplied from American shipyards), as well as the personnel with which to operate the warships and aircraft ensured that by 1943 the Fleet Air Arm was an all-round, efficient Force capable of independent combat operations in all the major War Zones right up to VJ-Day.

Author: ALEX HENSHAW.
Publisher:
ISBN: 1800351577
Category : Airplanes, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Nathaniel Fick
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0618773436
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book Here

Book Description
An ex-Marine captain shares his story of fighting in a recon battalion in both Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning with his brutal training on Quantico Island and following his progress through various training sessions and, ultimately, conflict in the deadliest conflicts since the Vietnam War.

Author: Hanna Reitsch
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786259214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 676

Get Book Here

Book Description
Includes the Aerial Warfare In Europe During World War II illustrations pack with over 200 maps, plans, and photos. Hanna Reitsch is unusual in being a feminine woman who was yet the equal of men in a dangerous male profession — test-piloting new military aircraft. Her love of flying from childhood on, along with her superior intelligence, determination, and ability to withstand tremendous stresses, gave her the edge that allowed her to rise to the top of the aviation world. Hanna Reitsch offered her gifts to the German nation in the same way that Adolf Hitler and many others did — with a complete giving of herself and her abilities, holding nothing back. Although she lived to 1979, she never renounced her participation with the National Socialist government or criticized Hitler, even under pressure to do so. Hanna’s life story is an amazing one that sounds almost unbelievable in its drama and acts of heroism. She never married or had children; instead she occupied herself with the two burning loves of her life — flying and the salvation of her beloved Fatherland in its time of need.

Author: Estate of Barton Whaley
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612519830
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
Written by the undisputed dean of U.S. denial and deception experts, Practise to Deceive is the most in-depth look at deception as a military strategy. Barton Whaley knew the history of denial and deception across time, disciplines, and culture. He was the foremost authority on the intricacies of denial and deception strategy and tactics. For Whaley, deception was a mind-game, requiring imagination, deep critical thought, a profound understanding of the enemy as well as one's self (a variation of Sun Tzu), and patience and fortitude. This book presents 88 vividly descriptive case studies to serve as a handbook for intelligence and military professionals. In Whaley's analysis, variations in guilefulness between opposing individuals or groups can be crucial in deciding who achieves victory in combat.

Author: Richard Bosworth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108406406
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 718

Get Book Here

Book Description
War is often described as an extension of politics by violent means. With contributions from twenty-eight eminent historians, Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of the Second World War examines the relationship between ideology and politics in the war's origins, dynamics and consequences. Part I examines the ideologies of the combatants and shows how the war can be understood as a struggle of words, ideas and values with the rival powers expressing divergent claims to justice and controlling news from the front in order to sustain moral and influence international opinion. Part II looks at politics from the perspective of pre-war and wartime diplomacy as well as examining the way in which neutrals were treated and behaved. The volume concludes by assessing the impact of states, politics and ideology on the fate of individuals as occupied and liberated peoples, collaborators and resistors, and as British and French colonial subjects.

Author: Penny Summerfield
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1847791549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contesting home defence is a new history of the Home Guard, a novel national defence force of the Second World War composed of civilians who served as part-time soldiers: it questions accounts of the force and the war, which have seen them as symbols of national unity. It scrutinises the Home Guard’s reputation and explores whether this ‘people’s army’ was a site of social cohesion or of dissension by assessing the competing claims made for it at the time. It then examines the way it was represented during the war and has been since, notably in Dad’s Army, and discusses the memories of men and women who served in it. The book makes a significant and original contribution to debates concerning the British home front and introduces fresh ways of understanding the Second World War.

Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465093191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 775

Get Book Here

Book Description
A "breathtakingly magisterial" account of World War II by America's preeminent military historian (Wall Street Journal) World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. Never before had a war been fought on so many diverse landscapes and in so many different ways, from rocket attacks in London to jungle fighting in Burma to armor strikes in Libya. The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, bestselling author Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory. An authoritative new history of astonishing breadth, The Second World Wars offers a stunning reinterpretation of history's deadliest conflict.