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Author : Nicholas A. Veronico Publisher : Quarto Publishing Group USA Page : 258 pages File Size : 41,9 Mb Release : 2013-06-15 Category : History ISBN : 9781610588119
“If you only have room in your collection for one book on WWII-era warbird wreck histories and recoveries, then it should be this one. . . . Fascinating.” —Alan Griffith, author of Consolidated Mess Aviation historian Nicholas A. Veronico has been investigating and writing about aircraft wrecks for many years. His website, wreckchasing.com, is the go-to source for enthusiasts who want to know more about how to locate vintage airplane wrecks and then tell their stories. In this engaging new book, Veronico explores the romantic era of World War II Warbirds and the stories of some of its most famous wrecks, including the “Swamp Ghost” (a B-17E which crashed in New Guinea in the early days of World War II and which was only recently recovered), and “Glacier Girl” (a P-38, part of “The Lost Squadron,” which crashed in a large ice sheet in Greenland in 1942). Throughout, Veronico provides a history of the aircraft, as well as the unique story behind each discovery and recovery with ample illustrations. Hidden Warbirds is aviation history at its best.
Author : Nicholas A. Veronico Publisher : Quarto Publishing Group USA Page : 259 pages File Size : 54,5 Mb Release : 2014-06-15 Category : History ISBN : 9781627881975
“Global and fraught with risk . . . from icy Norway to the steamy outback, we are there, witnesses to . . . the race to save the history of brave men.” —Adam Makos, New York Times–bestselling author of A Higher Call In Hidden Warbirds II, the engaging follow-up to the critically acclaimed Hidden Warbirds, aviation historian Nicholas A. Veronico further explores the romantic era of World War II warbirds and the stories of some of its most famous wrecks and recoveries. The long-lost aircraft featured in this much-anticipated sequel include a Hawker Tempest being restored in Texas; the sole surviving Brewster F3A Corsair, rescued from a swamp; and a Junkers 88 recovered from the icy waters of Norway. Throughout the book, Veronico provides a history of each aircraft, as well as the unique story behind each discovery and recovery, all accompanied by incredible documentary photographs. With over 150 of these photographs, depicting more than 20 warbird stories spanning the world, Hidden Warbirds II triumphantly continues a nonfiction series that renowned military author Alan Griffith calls “a fascinating joy to read.” “A fundamental contribution to aviation history, well researched and well written, as easy to read as a novel, and absolutely loaded with facts.” —Walter J. Boyne, USAF (ret.), historian and former director, Smithsonian National Air Space Museum, author of Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force 1947-2007 “Modern-day Indiana Jones–style archaeology and a global aviation scavenger hunt . . . Once again Nicolas Veronico has provided a seamless blend of meticulous research and vibrant photography that documents some of the great archaeological adventures of our time.” —Brad O’Connor, author of Stealth Fighter: A Year in the Life of an F-117 Pilot
Hidden Warbirds II by Nicholas A. Veronico,Nick Veronico Pdf
"The second installment in a series exploring the stories of famous wrecks and recoveries of World War II-era aircraft. Features over 150 photographs depicting more than 20 warbird stories around the world"--
A visual history of the US Eighth Air Force in World War II • Hundreds of photos of American aircraft damaged or shot down by the German Luftwaffe • Photos of damaged bomber and fighter planes, plus information on their crews and missions • Perfect complement to the narrative accounts in the Stackpole Military History Series • Ideal reference for military history fans, scholars, and modelers
Those who witnessed it never forgot it: the great armada of Allied ships that filled the English Channel on D-Day, June 6, 1944. From battleships, cruisers, and destroyers down to the much smaller landing ships and landing craft, these nearly 7,000 vessels bombarded the Normandy coast, ferried men, tanks, and equipment across the channel, and landed 150,000 troops—under withering German fire—on Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches in a single day. In numbers and scope, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Meanwhile, some 12,000 aircraft flew above the sea, a dizzying assortment of fighters and bombers, transports, recon craft, and gliders. Taking off from air fields in England, they dropped thousands of paratroopers and even vehicles, bombed roads and German positions miles inland, provided vital intelligence, and attacked any German planes that were able to take to the skies. It was the largest single-day aerial operation in history. And yet these important—and impressive—aspects of D-Day haven’t received the coverage they deserve, having been overshadowed by the fighting on the beaches. Veronico assembles photos of both the air and sea components of the D-Day invasion, giving the sailors and airmen their due and giving modern readers a vivid sense of what this monumental day was like in the air and at sea.
Drama. Tragedy. Irony. Unsolved mysteries. And throw in a little greed. Beneath Haunted Waters is not a ghost story; it’s not that kind of “haunted” at all. These are waters haunted by generations of people who cannot forget the story of how two B-24 Liberator bombers disappeared in 1943 and what happened to the boys on board. During the World War II years, the convention was to call young men in their late teens to their late 20s, “boys.” The boys who piloted bombers and fighter aircraft during World War II were 19 or 20 years old - barely out of their childhood. Imagine boarding a 737 today and seeing a teenager at the controls instead of a person with greying temples. That was the situation during the war. Beneath Haunted Waters is a story about that era, when children flew large airplanes equipped with enough firepower to destroy cities. And yet, boys they were, and boys they will always be. But it’s primarily a story of how they died, not in combat, but by accident. During World War II the USA lost 7100 combat aircraft and 5300 trainers, along with 15,530 pilots, crew members, and ground personnel in over 52,000 domestic accidents. These statistics don’t compare to the huge numbers of RAF, 8th Air Force, and Luftwaffe losses during the European air war but the numbers are still frightening: Between 1942-1945, US aviation losses to accidents (12,400) exceeded combat losses (4500) to the Japanese. For every plane shot down in the South Pacific there were three lost to accidents within the United States. While memoirs of those who served, histories of military and political leaders, and books about combat abound, very little has been written about the terrible toll of aviation training accidents during the war. Beneath Haunted Waters is unique because it tells this hardly known and little appreciated story. Most information on this subject is covered in official reports. It appears in a casual way in many memoirs. There are a few histories of the air war during World War II that mention aviation accidents during training or once the boys were in theater. There has been no popular, academic, or comprehensive book on the subject. I propose to cover this subject within the more personal story of what happened to the two Liberators that wound up in Huntington Lake and Hester Lake. Usually, pilots and crews of World War II aircraft were neither old enough to vote nor to drink. Many had never driven a car or taken a train ride much less been in an airplane. Nine months after enlistment they were flying the most technologically advanced, high performance, machines ever built. The same could be said for their navigation equipment and radio gear. But aviation had been around for only 40 years! Aircraft design was still in its infancy. Engines failed, pilots flew into mountains, navigators got lost, radios broke, and weather forecasts were frequently and fatally wrong.
Only in America could Walter A. Soplata, the son of penniless Czech immigrants, accomplish so much single-handedly saving historic aircraft from World War II and other periods. After a childhood spent building model airplanes while dreaming about having his own airfield, Soplata worked in a large scrapyard taking apart hundreds of warplane engines. Shocked to see a rare engine or sometimes a complete warplane on its way to the recycling furnace, he began collecting whatever he could find and afford. He eventually collected nearly 20 complete airplanes and countless pieces of others. One of his Corsair fighters included the experimental F2G Corsair #74 that won the Cleveland National Air Races in 1947. Among other priceless airplanes he rescued was an experimental XP-82 Twin Mustang, an F-82E Twin Mustang, an X-prototype Skyraider, a stainless steel BT-12, and an F7U Cutlass--Soplata hauled the Cutlass fuselage home by stuffing it inside a junked school bus for its 600-mile journey. The story of a workaholic father and his aviation-obsessed son, this book records the accomplishments of a rare bird, just like the many airplanes he saved.
Pearl Harbor Air Raid by Nicholas Veronico,Nicholas A. Veronico Pdf
Just in time for 75th anniversary commemorations of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this latest addition offers a complete visual history of the attack, its aftermath, and the salvage efforts that followed. Over 300 photos, with detailed captions—complete with information such as aircraft serial numbers—document aircraft, ships, submarines, and key locations. Text sidebars highlight President Roosevelt’s famous speech, the little known failed Japanese attack that followed in March 1942, and more.
Strides Towards Standard Methodologies in Aeronautical Archaeology by Hunter W. Whitehead,Megan Lickliter-Mundon Pdf
This volume presents a subfield overview on current research, trends, and commentary on the state of aeronautical archaeology and its development, through selections from a session on aviation archaeology at the 2020 Society for Historical Archaeology Conference. It serves to highlight those practices and projects that take strides towards standard methodologies in aeronautical archaeology. This book involves the study of aircraft crash sites, airfields, battlefields, and buildings or structures related to aviation. High profile sites and topics in this book include Lake Mead’s B-29 Superfortress, Tuskegee Airmen in Michigan, and patterns of preservation in WWII aircraft and their importance. A relatively new field, aeronautical archaeology is the sub-field of archaeology that examines past human interaction with flight. The authors aim to create more awareness for aviation cultural heritage projects and the associated community of scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts. This volume includes contributions from leading global scholars through varied scientific inquiries, summaries of site investigations, and conservation techniques of aeronautical heritage.
In 1938, Mercedes-Benz began production of the largest, most luxurious limousine in the world. A machine of frightening power and sinister beauty, the Grosser 770K Model 150 Offener Tourenwagen was 20 feet long, seven feet wide, and tipped the scales at 5 tons. Its supercharged, 230-horsepower engine propelled the beast to speeds over 100 m.p.h. while its occupants reclined on glove-leather seats stuffed with goose down. Armor plated and equipped with hidden compartments for Luger pistols, the 770K was a sumptuous monster with a monstrous patron: Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. Deployed mainly for propaganda purposes before the war, the hand-built limousines—in which Hitler rode standing in the front seat—motored through elaborate rallies and appeared in countless newsreels, swiftly becoming the Nazi party’s most durable symbol of wealth and power. Had Hitler not so thoroughly dominated the scene with his own megalomania, his opulent limousine could easily have eclipsed him. Most of the 770Ks didn’t make it out of the rubble of World War II. But several of them did. And two of them found their way, secretly and separately, to the United States. In The Devil’s Mercedes, author Robert Klara uncovers the forgotten story of how Americans responded to these rolling relics of fascism on their soil. The limousines made headlines, drew crowds, made fortunes and ruined lives. What never became public was how both of the cars would ultimately become tangled in a web of confusion, mania, and opportunism, fully entwined in a story of mistaken identity. Nobody knew that the limousine touted as Hitler’s had in fact never belonged to him, while the Mercedes shrugged off as an ordinary staff car—one later abandoned in a warehouse and sold off as government surplus—turned out to be none other than Hitler’s personal automobile. It would take 40 years, a cast of carnies and millionaires, the United States Army, and the sleuthing efforts of an obscure Canadian librarian to bring the entire truth to light. As he recounts this remarkable drama, Klara probes the meaning of these haunting hulks and their power to attract, excite and disgust. The limousines’ appearance collided with an American populous celebrating a victory even as it sought to stay a step ahead of the war’s ghosts. Ultimately, The Devil’s Mercedes isn’t only the story of a rare and notorious car, but what that car taught postwar America about itself.
Historic Aircraft Wrecks of San Diego County by G. Pat Macha Pdf
Clear weather and a natural harbor made San Diego an early aviation hub, but success in flight came with devastating tragedies. The remains of more than four hundred aircrafts lie scattered across the county's deserts and mountains. Experts estimate that dozens more are on the ocean floor off the coast. In 1922, army pilot Charles F. Webber's DeHavilland biplane went missing over Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 178 collided midair over San Diego and crashed in the residential North Park neighborhood, claiming the lives of 144 people in what was the worst airline disaster of the era. Author and aircraft accident research specialist G. Pat Macha recounts these and other stories of astonishing survival, heroism and heartbreaking fatality.
From the Prairie to the Pacific is the story of one man's journey from rural North Dakota to the cockpits of U.S. Navy jet fighters and ultimately Captain of a flagship aircraft carrier. Gil Rud flew combat missions over Vietnam in A-7 Corsair II aircraft before taking command of his own squadron. His success as a Naval aviator led to the ultimate reward – "Boss" of the world-famous Blue Angels aerobatic display team, overseeing their successful transition to the F/A-18 Hornet. Gil Rud reflects on his experiences and emotions as a husband and father as well as a pilot and an "officer and a gentleman." His stories of triumph and tragedy, from nights on the flight deck to nights on the town and the loss of close friends, reveal deep feelings, great insight and a wonderful sense of humor, as well as meticulous attention to detail.
“Winged treasure” they call them–the lost remains of the great American fighter planes and bombers that won World War II. Hellcats and Superfortresses, Corsairs and Dauntlesses. Produced by the thousands at the height of the war, and then cast off as scrap in the decades that followed, these warbirds are now worth literally anything–fortunes, families, even lives–to the people who search for them. Like many men, writer Carl Hoffman was bitten by the warbird bug as a child. But he never imagined that he would one day witness and participate in a heroic adventure himself–the most audacious warbird rescue attempt of all time. The crash of the Kee Bird B-29 Superfortress made banner headlines in 1947 when a team of Air Force pilots pulled off the near-miraculous feat of locating the wreck in Greenland and snatching its stranded crew from the teeth of the arctic winter. For nearly half a century, the almost perfectly intact warbird lay abandoned on a lake of ice–but not forgotten. Fifty years later, with collectors paying upward of a million dollars for salvageable World War II planes, two intense fanatics, legendary test pilot Darryl Greenaymer and starry-eyed salvage wizard Gary Larkins, hatched the insane idea of launching an expedition to Greenland to find the Kee Bird, bring it back to life, and fly it out. In this riveting adventure of man, machine, and history, the quest for winged treasure ultimately extends far beyond the search for the Kee Bird. Hoffman literally crisscrosses the country to track down the key players in the high-stakes warbird game. He meets a retired Midwestern carpenter who crammed every inch of his yard with now-precious warbirds during the lean years when they were considered junk; attends an air show where crowds go wild at the sight of four of the twelve air-worthy B-17s flying in formation; speaks to pilots and mechanics, millionaire businessmen and penniless kids–all of them ready to drop everything in pursuit of these fabled planes. “These planes are a sickness, that’s all there is to it,” one warbird fan tells Hoffman as he lovingly polishes his vintage B-17. In this superbly crafted narrative, Hoffman turns the warbird craze into the stuff of high drama and awesome adventure.Hunting Warbirdstakes us to the heart of one of the most fascinating obsessions of our time.