A British Royal Air Force glider pilot recounts his service, capture, imprisonment, and escape during World War II in this gripping memoir.This is the remarkable true story of a young army glider pilot's experience of the last days in the defence of Arnhem Bridge, his eventual capture and then escape to be adopted by the Resistance, the hair-raising journey through occupied Europe and his eventual return to the UK.After capture Freeman was first taken to Apel...

"[A] perfect blend of sympathetic career biography and gripping military history . . . a definite winner for all World War II military history buffs" ( Library Journal).In July 1944, the Allies were stunned by the appearance of the Messerschmitt Me 262, the world's first operational jet warplane. More than one hundred mph faster than any other aircraft in the skies, the Me 262 gained scores of victories over Allied fighters and bombers, and by the end of th...

ACES AGAINST GERMANYThe American Aces SpeakEric HammelIn the second volume of his critically acclaimed series, The American Aces Speak, military historian Eric Hammel brings fresh first person accounts from U.S. Army Air Corps fighter aces who blasted their way across the skies of North Africa, the Mediterranean, and northern and southern Europe in the great crusade against Hitler's vaunted Luftwaffe and other Axis air forces. Coupled with a concise historical overview of America's air war ag...

In the Cockpit II: Inside History-Making Aircraft of World War II provides close-up access to the instrument panels, controls, and crew stations of 34 legendary World War II aircraft in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's impressive collection. Using a high-end digital camera with a wide-angle lens and complex shooting techniques that combine digital precision with manual dexterity, photographers Eric F. Long and Mark A. Avino expertly capture every detail of the cockp...

The 'storm troopers' of the Luftwaffe, the elite Sturmgruppen units comprised the most heavily armed and armoured fighter interceptors ever produced by the Germans.Their role was to smash like a mighty fist through the massed ranks of USAAF daylight bombers. Only volunteers could serve with these elite units, and each pilot was trained to close with the enemy and engage him in extremely short-range combat, attacking from the front and the rear in tight arrowhead fo...

From the Battle of Britain to D-Day, this book uncovers the history of the Channel War.From the beaches of Dunkirk to the launch of Operation Overlord, the Channel saw continuous action during World War II, and was the world's most fought-over waterway. In this fascinating account, Robert Jackson offers a study of the Channel War from 1939–45, detailing the German threats to British shipping, the use of convoys and the extensive minelaying operations, as well as th...

In Fighting the Flying Circus, Captain Rickenbacker recounts his combat missions against the Germans in the skies over Europe during WWI.

Thunderbolt! The Extraordinary Story of a World War II Ace is the incredible true-life story of Robert S. Johnson, one of America's leading fighter pilot aces in World War II. His memoir is an action-packed account of how a young man from Lawton, Oklahoma went on to amass 28 enemy kills, the first U. S. Army Air Force pilot in the European theater to surpass Eddie Rickenbacker's World War I tally of 26 enemy planes destroyed. Johnson's detailed, vivid descriptions of his close-scr...

This is a fighter pilot’s memoir of four tumultuous years, 1938–1942, when he was first trained, then fought and survived in not one but two of the biggest aerial campaigns of the war, the Battle of Britain and the equally epic, but lesser known, Siege of Malta.When the Germans were blitzing their way across France in spring 1940, Pilot Officer Tom Neil had just received his first posting – to 249 Squadron. Nineteen years old and fresh from training, he was soon to be pitched into ...

While the Japanese war cabinet argued about whether to surrender, and on what terms, the U.S. Army Strategic Air Force on Guam and Tinian geared up for a thousand-plane raid upon the Empire. It would be the last air raid of the Second World War. This little book, which first appeared in Air & Space / Smithsonian magazine on the 50th anniversary of the war's end, tells the story of those momentous forty-eight hours. Revised and expanded for e-book publication, including: a portfoli...

A gripping account of the RAF's attempt to destroy a Messerschmitt factory in 1944, and the carnage and confusion that unfolded on a dark winter night.Seventy-nine heavy bombers failed to return from the catastrophic raid on the industrial city of Leipzig on the night of February 19–20, 1944. Some 420 aircrew were killed and a further 131 became prisoners of war. It was at that time the RAF's most costly raid of World War II by far.The town was attacked in ...

In this riveting narrative, Jack R. Myers recounts his experiences as a B-17 bombardier during World War II. Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1944 at age twenty, Myers began flying missions with the 2nd Bomb Group, U.S. Fifteenth Air Force. He learned firsthand the exhilaration—and terror—of being shot at and missed.Based in Italy, the Fifteenth Air Force flew strategic bombing raids over southern Germany, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia. Less celebrated than the E...