Flying Against Fate

Author : S. P. MacKenzie
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2017-08-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780700624690

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Flying against Fate by S. P. MacKenzie Pdf

During World War II, Allied casualty rates in the air were high. Of the roughly 125,000 who served as aircrew with Bomber Command, 59,423 were killed or missing and presumed killed—a fatality rate of 45.5%. With odds like that, it would be no surprise if there were as few atheists in cockpits as there were in foxholes; and indeed, many airmen faced their dangerous missions with beliefs and rituals ranging from the traditional to the outlandish. Military historian S. P. MacKenzie considers this phenomenon in Flying against Fate, a pioneering study of the important role that superstition played in combat flier morale among the Allies in World War II. Mining a wealth of documents as well as a trove of published and unpublished memoirs and diaries, MacKenzie examines the myriad forms combat fliers' superstitions assumed, from jinxes to premonitions. Most commonly, airmen carried amulets or talismans—lucky boots or a stuffed toy; a coin whose year numbers added up to thirteen; counterintuitively, a boomerang. Some performed rituals or avoided other acts, e.g., having a photo taken before a flight. Whatever seemed to work was worth sticking with, and a heightened risk often meant an upsurge in superstitious thought and behavior. MacKenzie delves into behavior analysis studies to help explain the psychology behind much of the behavior he documents—not slighting the large cohort of crew members and commanders who demurred. He also looks into the ways in which superstitious behavior was tolerated or even encouraged by those in command who saw it as a means of buttressing morale. The first in-depth exploration of just how varied and deeply felt superstitious beliefs were to tens of thousands of combat fliers, Flying against Fate expands our understanding of a major aspect of the psychology of war in the air and of World War II.

Author : David Luhrssen
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2020-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9798216168782

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World War II on Film by David Luhrssen Pdf

World War II on Film examines the war through the lens of 12 films. The movies selected include productions made during World War II and in each succeeding decade, providing a sense of how different generations perceive the war. World War II on Film provides a succinct yet well-grounded appraisal of that war as seen through 12 representative films. The book separates fact from fiction, showing where the movies were accurate and where they departed from reality, and places them in the larger context of historical and social events. Each movie chosen represents a particular aspect of the conflict, including the air war over Europe, the condition of prisoners of war, Nazi atrocities, and the British evacuation at Dunkirk. Unlike most histories of Hollywood during World War II or the genre of war movies, World War II on Film examines in depth the relation between the depictions of events, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of life as seen on film with reality as documented by historians or recorded by journalists or eye-witnesses to the war. The volume will appeal to high school and college readers, as well as general interest readers and film buffs.

Author : Matt Carpenter
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 189 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2014-06-25
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781312274174

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FREEFALL INTO FATE by Matt Carpenter Pdf

An Army Veteran's True Story of Faith, a Sport Parachute Crash and a Glimpse into God's Realm. Matt Carpenter was almost killed when his parachute hit the ground at over 40 miles an hour. His body was destroyed by the impact. Matt's life was forever changed by God's blessings, and this story will change yours.

Author : Malhar Bhikaji Belsare
Publisher : Asian Educational Services
Page : 1234 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 8120600908

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ગુજરાતી-અંગ્રેજી ડિકશનરી by Malhar Bhikaji Belsare Pdf

Author : Martha Louise Rayne
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 1879
Category : Electronic
ISBN : UCD:31175034925001

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Against Fate by Martha Louise Rayne Pdf

Author : Charles MacArthur
Publisher : Samuel French, Inc.
Page : 116 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : American drama
ISBN : 0573611114

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Johnny on a Spot by Charles MacArthur Pdf

Author : Anthony Cooper
Publisher : Fonthill Media
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2021-01-29
Category : History
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Sub Hunters by Anthony Cooper Pdf

• Excellent photographs from the Australian War Memorial collection • Dramatic air battles over a turbulent sea, hundreds of miles from land and without hope of rescue • Striking U-boat ‘kills’ as concrete proof of operational successes • Beautifully illustrated with many rare and unpublished photographs • Of interest to aviation and military historians, modellers, gamers and flight simulator enthusiasts 1943 was the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic when forces, technologies and tactics turned against Germany’s U-boats. The victory not only secured Britain’s trans-Atlantic lifeline to the United States, but also enabled the vast build-up in military forces in Britain necessary to launch D-Day in 1944. The Allied battle to defeat the U-boat menace was a combined effort by the naval and air forces of several Allied nations, and this is the story of one part during the decisive mid-war period. Nos 10 and 461 Squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force flew Sunderland flying boats from bases in Wales and Devon as part of RAF Coastal Command; these two squadrons flew long-range daylight missions over the eastern Atlantic, patrolling Britain’s southwest approaches. They hunted and killed U-boats transiting between their mid-Atlantic hunting grounds and their bases in Bordeaux and fought furious air battles over the Bay of Biscay against Luftwaffe Ju 88 long-range fighters tasked specifically with shooting them down. These two Australian squadrons established a combat record.

Author : Ernest K. Gann
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 421 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 1986-07-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780671636036

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Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann Pdf

An episodic log of some of the author's more memorable hours aloft in peace and as a member of the Air Transport Command in war.

Author : G. Kurt Piehler
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2021-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9781496230003

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A Religious History of the American GI in World War II by G. Kurt Piehler Pdf

A Religious History of the American GI in World War II breaks new ground by recounting the armed forces’ unprecedented efforts to meet the spiritual needs of the fifteen million men and women who served in World War II. For President Franklin D. Roosevelt and many GIs, religion remained a core American value that fortified their resolve in the fight against Axis tyranny. While combatants turned to fellow comrades for support, even more were sustained by prayer. GIs flocked to services, and when they mourned comrades lost in battle, chaplains offered solace and underscored the righteousness of their cause. This study is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the social history of the American GI during World War II. Drawing on an extensive range of letters, diaries, oral histories, and memoirs, G. Kurt Piehler challenges the conventional wisdom that portrays the American GI as a nonideological warrior. American GIs echoed the views of FDR, who saw a Nazi victory as a threat to religious freedom and recognized the antisemitic character of the regime. Official policies promoted a civil religion that stressed equality between Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism. Many chaplains embraced this tri-faith vision and strived to meet the spiritual needs of all servicepeople regardless of their own denomination. While examples of bigotry, sectarianism, and intolerance remained, the armed forces fostered the free exercise of religion that promoted a respect for the plurality of American religious life among GIs.

Author : Sarah Parry Myers
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2023-09-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469675046

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Earning Their Wings by Sarah Parry Myers Pdf

Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's license who could afford to pay for their own transportation, training, and uniforms. Despite their highly developed skill set, rigorous training, and often dangerous work, the women of WASP were not granted military status until 1977, denied over three decades of Army Air Force benefits as well as the honor and respect given to male and female World War II veterans of other branches. Sarah Parry Myers not only offers a history of this short-lived program but considers its long-term consequences for the women who participated and subsequent generations of servicewomen and activists. Myers shows us how those in the WASP program bonded through their training, living together in barracks, sharing the dangers of risky flights, and struggling to be recognized as military personnel, and the friendships they forged lasted well after the Army Air Force dissolved the program. Despite the WASP program's short duration, its fliers formed activist networks and spent the next thirty years lobbying for recognition as veterans. Their efforts were finally recognized when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law granting WASP participants retroactive veteran status, entitling them to military benefits and burials.

Author : Carroll Dana Winslow
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 84 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2013-01-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781782891208

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With The French Flying Corps [Illustrated Edition] by Carroll Dana Winslow Pdf

“Petite bleu to pilote-a young American’s flight into war The author of this book, Dana Winslow, was a young American in Paris as France recruited men to fight the invading German forces of the Kaiser at the outbreak of the First World War. Feeling strongly for the plight and cause of the French, he immediately went to Les Invalides and there enlisted in the French Flying Corps as a trainee pilot. This vital first hand account is an essential source work of the period which reveals the training of the earliest French military aviators of the great conflict on the Western Front and it follows Winslow on his ‘rite of passage’ from inexperienced civilian, to lowly and little regarded aeronautical student (petit bleu) through his first perilous days in the combat zone to his time as an experienced and much prized pilote in the hostile skies over the trenches of the front lines. As may be expected, Winslow takes us to his war of dogfights, mid-air collisions, artillery spotting and reconnaissance in vivid-if humbly recounted-detail. Winslow’s book is especially valuable as an insight into the variety of aircraft employed by the French during his time with them and he provides useful details as to their construction, abilities, applications and flying characteristics such-as those of the peculiar ‘cut down’ Bleriot that was ‘the Penguin.’ He also gives an interesting view of the business of military flying in wartime, which he distinguishes as entirely separate from piloting, as he describes it, as a mere ‘conductor.’ Accounts of battling in the air during the Great War are not common, so this volume is, of course, a welcome addition to their limited number and will be of interest to everyone interested in the subject.”—Leonaur Print Version. Author — Winslow, Carroll Dana. Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in New York, C. Scribner’s sons, 1917. Original Page Count – xi and 226 pages Illustration — 15 illustrations.

Author : Douglas Porch
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 833 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2024-01-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781009204569

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Resistance and Liberation by Douglas Porch Pdf

In Resistance and Liberation, Douglas Porch continues his epic history of France at war. Emerging from the debâcle of 1940, France faced the quandary of how to rebuild military power, protect the empire, and resuscitate its global influence. While Charles de Gaulle rejected the armistice and launched his offshore crusade to reclaim French honor within the Allied camp, defeatists at Vichy embraced cooperation with the victorious Axis. The book charts the emerging dynamics of la France libre and the Alliance, Vichy collaboration, and the swelling resistance to the Axis occupation. From the campaigns in Tunisia and Italy to Liberation, Douglas Porch traces how de Gaulle sought to forge a French army and prevent civil war. He captures the experiences of ordinary French men and women caught up in war and defeat, the choices they made, the trials they endured, and how this has shaped France's memory of those traumatic years.

Author : Owen Davies
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2018-10-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192513380

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A Supernatural War by Owen Davies Pdf

A Supernatural War reveals the surprising stories of extraordinary people in a world caught up with the promise of occult powers. It was a commonly expressed view during the First World War that the conflict had seen a major revival of 'superstitious' beliefs and practices. Churches expressed concerns about the wearing of talismans and amulets, the international press paid considerable interest to the pronouncements of astrologers and prophets, and the authorities in several countries periodically clamped down on fortune tellers and mediums due to concerns over their effect on public morale. Out on the battlefields, soldiers of all nations sought to protect themselves through magical and religious rituals, and, on the home front, people sought out psychics and occult practitioners for news of the fate of their distant loved ones or communication with their spirits. Even away from concerns about the war, suspected witches continued to be abused and people continued to resort to magic and magical practitioners for personal protection, love, and success. Uncovering and examining beliefs, practices, and contemporary opinions regarding the role of the supernatural in the war years, Owen Davies explores the broader issues regarding early twentieth-century society in the West, the psychology of the supernatural during wartime, and the extent to which the war cast a spotlight on the widespread continuation of popular belief in magic.

Author : Douglas Porch
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 745 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2022-08-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107047464

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Defeat and Division by Douglas Porch Pdf

A definitive new history of the France at war from the war's outbreak to the invasion of North Africa in late 1942.

Author : Jeremy A. Crang
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2020-09-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107013476

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Sisters in Arms by Jeremy A. Crang Pdf

Jeremy Crang provides a compelling new history of women who served with the British armed forces during the Second World War.