Beaufighter Boys

Author : Graham Pitchfork
Publisher : Grub Street
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2019-08-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9781911621829

Get Book

Beaufighter Boys by Graham Pitchfork Pdf

The author of Shot Down in the Drink shares photos and anecdotes detailing the history of the World War II fighter plane and its crews across the globe. Researched many years ago by Graham Patrick for a project that did not come to fruition, Beaufighter air and ground crew gave freely of their stories, which ranged from complete memoirs to brief anecdotes. And there were a plethora of original photographs for him to choose from. He has built on these tales to trace the roles of Beaufighter squadrons spread across all the theatres of World War II operations. From home bases, through northwest Europe, North Africa, Malta and the Mediterranean, to the Far East and southwest Pacific, the Beaufighter served far and wide, as did the crews of the RAF, RAAF, SAAF, and New Zealand and Canadian squadrons. All are covered in this quite unique book to be savored by all those interested in the war in the air from 1939–1945.

Author : John Quaife
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2022-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781922615411

Get Book

Viking Boys by John Quaife Pdf

An Australian attack aircraft flies into a ship with guns blazing. Both crewmen are killed, but does anyone notice? At the entrance to Orsta fjord, down an overgrown path, a granite stone stands on a rocky outcrop at the water’s edge. Roughly inscribed in English, it records the loss of two young Australians. The stone was erected in 1947 by parents grieving the loss of their son. Each year villagers of Orsta pay homage to the sacrifice of these two young Australians who died to restore their freedom. Beaufighter pilot James Hakewill and his navigator Fred Sides died on 5 December 1944 when their aircraft slammed into a German gunboat in a fjord in Norway. Official records contain no mention of the aircraft hitting the ship. No one in the squadron knew what had happened. Neil Smith thought he had shot down his wingman. Kurt Heinowitcz from Breslau shovelled coal for the German Navy – he was on the gunboat. Fred’s mum believed her son had survived the crash and was lost in Russia. James was nominated for the Victoria Cross. Viking Boys tells their stories and reveals the experience of young Australians who fought and flew against German shipping in the fjords of Norway – and called themselves the Viking Boys.

Author : Leo McKinstry
Publisher : John Murray
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2023-06-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781529319385

Get Book

Cinderella Boys by Leo McKinstry Pdf

'Masterful' David Price 'McKinstry has done a fine job in rescuing Coastal Command from long neglect' Richard Overy The remarkable story of the unsung RAF wing who made Allied victory possible. In 1943 Britain was engaged in an epic struggle for survival as deadly wolf packs of German U-boats roamed the Atlantic. In desperation, Churchill turned to an overlooked, underfunded force known as "The Cinderella Service". Armed with long-range planes, depth charges, rocket projectiles and radar equipment, the Cinderella boys provided vital air defence. The German hunters became the hunted, and - in a stunning defeat - fully retreated by the summer. The transformation of Coastal Command from a ramshackle outfit into a formidable organisation served as one of the turning points of the war. But they never received the credit they deserved. Based on a wealth of new sources, Leo McKinstry shines a light on the courageous pilots, ingenious scientists and political risktakers who defended the freezing Atlantic from Nazi rule. 'Engrossing' Brendan Simms

Author : Hans Onderwater
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 492 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1997-09-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780850525755

Get Book

Gentlemen in Blue by Hans Onderwater Pdf

This is the history of 600 City of London Squadron from when they formed in 1925 to their disbandment in 1957.

Author : Graham Pitchfork
Publisher : Grub Street Publishing
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2021-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781911667643

Get Book

Buccaneer Boys 2 by Graham Pitchfork Pdf

Following the critically acclaimed publication eight years ago of Buccaneer Boys, long-serving Buccaneer navigator Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork has now followed up the great success of the book with more true tales from those who flew the last all-British bomber. Thirty Buccaneer ‘Boys’, drawn from the Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force, outline their experiences in the maritime role, operations overland, including the first Gulf War, and operations by the South Africans in the Border Wars. In addition to the aircrew, air engineer officers and ground crew have also contributed. The reader is left in no doubt that the ‘Buccaneer Boys’ knew how to work hard and to play hard. The skill, professionalism and excitement of operating and servicing this iconic British aircraft shines throughout every page. This book is lavishly illustrated with 100 black and white photographs and two-color plate sections of 40 photographs, many never previously published.

Author : Hugh Popham
Publisher : Seaforth Publishing
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2010-02-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781848320550

Get Book

Sea Flight by Hugh Popham Pdf

Hugh Popham joined the Fleet Air Arm in the summer of 1940 and was soon in training as a pilot at HMS Vincent and then Yeovilton; thereafter his wartime career as a naval pilot took him to the far corners of the world, notably to the Indian Ocean where he had to contend against the Japanese.?His story is one of a naval fighter pilot having to do his best with hopelessly inadequate planes. First the Sea Hurricanes, and then the Supermarine Seafires, proved to be less than brilliant machines, the Seafire proving far too fragile for the rigours of carrier operations. But it is this story, incorporating the kind of detail that is missing from many wartime memoirs, that makes this book so fascinating.

Author : Zbyšek Ne?as-Pemberton
Publisher : Air World
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2024-04-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781526789600

Get Book

Beaufighter and Mosquito Operations in WWII by Zbyšek Ne?as-Pemberton Pdf

Zbyšek Ne?as was just 18, and still a high school student, when he escaped from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia a month before the outbreak of war in 1939. He managed to make his way to Britain where he had a cousin. Ne?as enlisted in the RAF in 1940, initially being posted as an interpreter at the Czech Depot. Some of his early duties involved the interrogation of captured German aircrew. He was, however, determined to fly. That wish came not as a pilot, but as a radar operator. In time, Ne?as was posted to 68 Squadron, which throughout the war had a large number of Czech exiles on its strength – one flight was entirely Czech-manned. In this moving memoir, he details just what it was like to serve as part of an RAF night fighter crew during the second half of the Second World War. From the organization of squadron and operations, to the directing of night fighters in the bomber stream, problems of maintaining contact with the target, the duration of patrols to interception tactics, all, and more, is revealed in this book. Having trained on the Blenheim Mk.IV, Ne?as’ operational patrols began on Bristol Beaufighters, the squadron subsequently converting to de Havilland Mosquitoes. There are of course, the graphic accounts of victory in the air. This includes combat with a Heinkel He 177 Grief over North Sea, or the explosion of a Dornier Do 217 after another successful interception. As well as nighttime intruder operations over Europe, from the summer of 1944, 68 Squadron, Ne?as included, found itself drawn into the battle against Hitler’s V-weapons, particularly the V1. Ne?as’ crew ended the war with three confirmed kills, one probable, and two damaged. After the war, Ne?as returned to his homeland where he received the tragic news that that none of his immediate family had survived the German occupation This is Zbyšek Ne?as’ story of his part in the defense of Britain’s skies and the final victory against the Third Reich.

Author : Daniel Wyatt
Publisher : Mushroom Publishing
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2015-09-17
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781843191858

Get Book

The Falcon File by Daniel Wyatt Pdf

The intelligence war in Europe during WWII opens the eyes of young American intelligence officer Wesley Hollinger. He does not like what he sees... The Fuehrermaster Spring, 1941. Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill is on the verge of being overthrown by an English lobby group of Nazi appeasers who plan to sign a secret pact with Nazi Fuehrer Adolf Hitler to end the war in Europe. Hitler gets wind of the overthrow. He feels that the British group are ready to cut a deal on his terms, and that only one man--his deputy Rudolf Hess--could pull it off for the Fatherland. Through secret channels, Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler--who has his own ambitions to be Fuehrer--finds out what Hess and Hitler are attempting. Across the channel, Churchill's group is ready. Young hot-shot American intelligence agent, Wesley Hollinger, on loan to the British Secret Service, uncovers Heinrich Himmler's plan to eliminate Hess and plant an imposter... The Filberg Consortium It is late 1941. America has yet to enter the war. A German agent secretly lands in Great Britain with orders from Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler and financed by I.S. Filberg, the huge German industrial cartel, to identify and kill the prisoner called Rudolf Hess. Meanwhile, in London, American agent Wesley Hollinger discovers a crucial missing section to the first Hess peace papers found near the crash site in Scotland. The paperwork itemizes sensitive Wall Street loans to Nazi war factories -- deals arranged by I.S. Filberg. Hollinger doesn't know who to turn to -- his adopted England or his home country. And thousands of miles away in the Pacific a heavily-armed Japanese Task Force is heading towards Pearl Harbor... Foo Fighters It is early 1945 and Germany is losing the war. The Russians, the Americans, and the British are closing in on Berlin and Hitler's bunker. In this startling end-of-the-war tale two high-ranking Nazi officials, Martin Bormann and Hermann Goering, are collaborating with Wesley Hollinger and the American OSS for free passage out of Germany in exchange for blueprints to advanced German technology -- jet fighters, rockets, missiles and early flying saucers, nicknamed "Foo Fighters". The Americans are desperate to keep the Foo Fighter blueprints from reaching Russian and British hands. Wesley Hollinger of the OSS soon realizes what World War Two is really all about -- power, money, and politics.

Author : Jerry Scutts
Publisher : Crowood Press UK
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2005-03-04
Category : History
ISBN : 1861266669

Get Book

Bristol Beaufighter by Jerry Scutts Pdf

Developed from the unloved Bristol Beaufort, the Beaufighter was the RAF's first purpose-built nightfighter. Powered by two Bristol Hercules radials, it had a reputation for being one of the most effective, and probably the most difficult to fly, aircraft in the RAF's armoury in the first years of the Second World War. Used extensively in Europe, the Beaufighter later flew with disctinction in the South East Asian theatre. This book presents the technical and combat history of this popular warhorse.

Author : Sam McAughtry
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1985
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015012981398

Get Book

McAughtry's War by Sam McAughtry Pdf

Author : Andrew Bird
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2003-09-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781909166707

Get Book

A Separate Little War by Andrew Bird Pdf

Every day for nine months from September 1944 to the end of the war, young British, Commonwealth and Norwegian airmen flew from Banff aerodrome in northern Scotland in their Mosquitoes and Beaufighters to target the German U-Boats, merchantmen and freighters plying along the coast and in the fjords and leads of southwest Norway, encountering the Luftwaffe and flakships every step of the way. This Scottish strike wing fought in some of the bitterest and bloodiest attacks of the war, all at very low level and at close quarters. Their contribution to winning the war was crucial and while the cost in precious lives and equipment was in the same proportion as Bomber Command, they inflicted far greater damage to the enemy in relation to their losses. With Group Captain The Hon. Max Aitken, DSO DFC as station commander, Banff was eventually to become the base for a total of six Mosquito squadrons (including 235, 248 and 143), together with B Flight of the elite 333 Norwegian Squadron, and would team up on missions with the nearby Dallachy Beaufighter strike wing (404 RCAF, 455 RAAF, 489 RNZAF and 144 Squadrons). A Separate Little War, then, is a well researched and detailed history of a microcosm of Coastal Command. Supported by many photographs, maps and charts, the vast majority never published before, the author has drawn on the personal accounts of, amongst others, British and Norwegian pilots, ground crew and civilians which augment the official sources, to give a compelling, accurate and fascinating depiction of an aerodrome at war. It is a subject which will be of great interest and value to the general reader and to those students of the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, RAF and former Commonwealth Air Forces, the Polish Air Force and of maritime air operations during World War Two.

Author : Jack Colman
Publisher : Fonthill Media
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2019-12-08
Category : History
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

Get Book

Beaufighters Over Sea, Sand and Steaming Jungles by Jack Colman Pdf

In October 1943, Jack Colman changed from Liberators to Beaufighters and was selected for Torbeau training in Scotland. He joined a strike wing at North Coates attacking North Sea convoys off the coast of Holland. Later, Jack and his Beaufighter were sent to the Far East where he was deployed to fly out of Assam over Burma supporting the Forgotten Army. Midway through the tour, they converted to Mosquitoes - a change he was not particularly happy about. After a short rest converting pilots to Mosquitoes, he felt lucky to be put in charge of a small unit flying service personnel to various venues in southern India. Jack's enthusiasm for flying is maintained and his lucky escapes documented. His fascination with the cultural and social experiences gained in India leaves its mark as he comments on the privileges he experiences, now as a commissioned officer, and of the wealth chasm between the princes and the poor of India. This is a book not just about flying but how one man and his comrades lived through those unique and special times.

Author : Andrew Thomas
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2013-02-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9781472801715

Get Book

Beaufighter Aces of World War 2 by Andrew Thomas Pdf

Entering service at the end of the Battle of Britain, the pugnacious Bristol Beaufighter was deployed in numbers by Fighter Command just in time for the start of the Luftwaffe's night 'Blitz' on Britain. Flown by specialised nightfighter squadrons – several of them elite pre-war Auxiliary Air Force units – it was the first nightfighter to be equipped with an airborne radar as standard. Thus equipped, it combined the ability to 'see' the enemy at night with the devastating hitting power of four cannon and six machine guns. This book covers the exploits of the men who made ace in the Beaufighter and includes stunning original artwork together with first hand accounts of the action.

Author : David Smith
Publisher : After the Battle
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2016-02-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9781399076593

Get Book

Stations Of Coastal Command by David Smith Pdf

Coastal Command, created in 1936 alongside Fighter and Bomber Commands in the reorganization of the RAF in its preparations for the coming war, was Britain’s mainstay in the battle against the German submarine. As more and more Allied merchantmen were sunk during the long voyage from North America, the Mediterranean, and points south, tracking down the U-Boats became a constant struggle against harsh weather on long-distance patrols out over the Atlantic and Bay of Biscay. To counter the threat, Coastal Command established a ring of bases stretching from Scotland and Northern Ireland to Iceland, and from south Wales and south-western Britain to Gibraltar and the Azores, all 53 of these stations are covered in this book.

Author : Australia. Royal Australian Air Force,Australian War Memorial
Publisher : Canberra, A.C.T. : Pub. for the Royal Australian air force by Australian war memorial
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 1943
Category : Air pilots
ISBN : MINN:31951001700847Y

Get Book

RAAF Log by Australia. Royal Australian Air Force,Australian War Memorial Pdf