Showing results for "Air" in Armed Forces

After travelling across various airbases in India and engaging with Air Force personnel-including the first generation of Chinook or Prachand helicopter pilots, Garud Commandos, surface-to-air missile operatives and Kargil heroes-Swapnil Pandey presents a collection of true stories that are more...

He had to sit in a segregated rail car on the journey to army basic training in Mississippi in 1943. But two years later, the 20-year-old African American from New York was at the controls of a P-51, prowling for Luftwaffe aircraft at 5,000 feet over the Austrian countryside. This is the remarkable true story of Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr., one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. Award-winning aviation writer Philip Handleman re-creates the harrowing action and heart-pounding drama of Stewart's combat missions....

Jay A. Stout breaks new ground in World War II history with this gripping account of one of the war’s most highly decorated American fighter groups. Stout combines the storytelling gifts and careful research for a seasoned historian with the combat experience of a former fighter pilot to tell the remarkable story of the 352nd Fighter Group. This isn’t just the story of a single fighter group; it’s the story of how the United States won the air war over Europe.

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives.

Frank Luke, Jr., was an unlikely pilot. In the Great War, when fliers were still "knights of the air", Luke was an ungallant loner, a kid from Arizona who collected tarantulas, shot buzzards, and boxed miners. But during two torrid weeks in September 1918, he was the deadliest man on the Western Front. In only 10 missions, he destroyed 14 heavily defended German balloons and four airplanes, a rampage unequalled even by the dreaded von Richtofen, and the second highest American tally of the entire war.

Drones are transforming warfare through the use of artificial intelligence, drone swarms, and surveillance - leading to competition between the US, China, Israel, and Iran. Who will be the next drone superpower?

For more than 30 years, Giora Even-Epstein flew fighters for the Israel Air Force, achieving recognition as a highly skilled military aviator and the highest-scoring jet-mounted ace with the most num­ber of confirmed victories in the French Mirage. Having overcome numerous hurdles just to learn how to fly, he went on to compile a record of Arab MiGs and Sukhoi kills that bettered any other combat aviators' tally in the entire world. This fast-moving autobiography details his experiences particularly in the intense conflicts of 1967, the Six Day War, and 1973, the Yom Kippur War.

One of the few RAF aircrew to play a central part in two of the Second World War's most momentous events, the Battle of Britain and D-Day, Cyril 'Frank' Babbage was a survivor. He wasn't just an immensely skilled pilot; he was also blessed with extraordinary good fortune.

The British and American bomber crews of the Second World War often had to endure the most terrifying conditions. Not for them the glorious, all-or-nothing exhilaration of the Battle of Britain pilots—rather, the slow dwindling of courage as mission followed mission, the long freezing, ear-shattering journey to the target, the bursting flak, the prowling night fighters. Then, if they were lucky, the long haul home, sometimes nursing a battered, barely flyable machine, often perilously short of fuel.

Airpower over the Rhine is a critical new perspective on the air battle between the French Air Force (FAF) and the Luftwaffe in the skies over France during May and June 1940. Author James F. Slaughter III examines how each country's leadership created the circumstances that enabled the Luftwaffe's victory over the FAF and Germany's ultimate defeat of France.

In February 1942, a reconnaissance party of US Army Air Force officers arrived in England. Firmly wedded to the doctrine of daylight precision bombing, they believed they could help turn the tide of the war in Europe. In the months that followed, they formed the Eighth Air Force—an organization that grew at an astonishing rate. To accommodate it, almost seventy airfields were built across the eastern counties of England. At the heart of the Eighth Air Force was its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. This is the story of just one "Bomb Group".

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The definitive history of combat aviation and fighter aircraft, from World War I to present INCLUDES 32 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND 12 MAPS Lords of the Sky is the “dramatic, fast-paced, and definitive"" (Michael Korda) history of fighter pilots and aircraft and their...

The inspiration for this brilliant anthology is the "I Learnt About Flying from That" articles that first appeared in the RAF flight safety magazine Air Clues in the 1940s and continue to feature in the magazine to this day. Flying Through the Ranks gets a five-star start with an extraordinary tale from a marshal of the Royal Air Force and continues in the same vein. Men and women of every rank—pilots, navigators, engineers, a RAF regiment officer, and airmen too—reveal similar intriguing experiences in both war and peace.

In Marshall's Great Captain, author Kathy Wilson details Andrews's extraordinary life and career. The first biography dedicated to the namesake of Joint Base Andrews, this book sheds a light on Andrews's crucial role in orchestrating US involvement in WWII, as well as the professional relationship between Andrews and Marshall. Wilson raises Andrews's legacy to its legitimate place within the annals of both air power and WWII history and posits that there is a high probability that Andrews was Marshall's first choice for the office of Supreme Allied Commander.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A terrific book … It really is one of the most enjoyable histories I’ve read in many a year’ JAMES HOLLAND ‘Riveting … A brilliant account’ DAILY MAIL THE FIRST AUTHORISED HISTORY OF THE SBS. Britain’s SBS – or Special Boat Service – was the...

In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.

On the morning of August 15, 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin flew the last combat mission of World War II out of Iwo Jima. Today, Captain Yellin is a sharp, engaging, 93-year-old veteran whose story is brought to life by best-selling author Don Brown.

Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Ian McPhedran takes us to the heart of the RAAF through personal accounts of fighter pilots’ bombing raids over Iraq, of hi-tech spy planes over Afghanistan, of the operational nerve centre of the Middle East war, and of the men and women who deliver humanitarian aid across the world. This is the compelling narrative, in the RAAF’s 90th year, of its aircraft, leadership, traditions, and personalities at a time of rapid change.

The ability of the US Navy to fight and win a protracted war in the Pacific was not solely the result of technology, tactics, or leadership. Naval aviation maintenance played a major role in the US victory over Japan in WWII. The naval war against Japan did not achieve sustained success until enough aircraft technicians were available to support the high tempo of aviation operations that fast carrier task force doctrine demanded.