One Man Air Force

Author : Major Don Salvatore Gentile
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 39 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2014-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781782894483

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One-Man Airforce [Illustrated Edition] by Major Don Salvatore Gentile Pdf

Illustrated with 14 photos of the Author and the Aircraft he flew. Gentile was born in Piqua, Ohio. After a fascination with flying as a child, his father provided him with his own plane, an Aerosport Biplane. He managed to log over 300 hours flying time by July 1941, when he attempted to join the Army Air Force. The U.S. military required two years of college for its pilots, which Gentile did not have, so he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was posted to the UK in 1941. Gentile flew the Supermarine Spitfire Mark V with No. 133 Squadron, one of the famed "Eagle Squadron" during 1942. His first kills (a Ju 88 and Fw 190) were on August 1, 1942, during Operation Jubilee. In September 1942, the Eagle squadrons transferred to the USAAF, becoming the 4th Fighter Group. Gentile became a flight commander in September 1943, now flying the P-47 Thunderbolt. Having been Spitfire pilots, Gentile and the other pilots of the 4th were displeased when they transitioned to the heavy P-47. By late 1943, Group Commander Col. Don Blakeslee pushed for re-equipment with the lighter, more maneuverable P-51 Mustang. Conversion to the P-51B at the end of February 1944 allowed Gentile to build a tally of 15.5 additional aircraft destroyed between March 3 and April 8, 1944. After downing 3 planes on April 8, he was the top scoring 8th Air Force ace when he crashed his personal P-51, named "Shangri La", on April 13, 1944 while stunting over the 4th FG’s airfield at Debden for a group of assembled press reporters and movie cameras. Blakeslee immediately grounded Gentile as a result, and he was sent back to the US for a tour selling war bonds. In 1944, Gentile co-wrote with well-known war correspondent Ira Wolfert One Man Air Force, an autobiography and account of his combat missions.

Author : Don S Gentile
Publisher : Independently Published
Page : 100 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2021-01-24
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9798599206484

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One-Man Air Force by Don S Gentile Pdf

-'Vivid... the combat history of an American ace' NEW YORK TIMES -This new 2021 Spitfire Publishers edition includes all the images from the original 1944 edition, extra contemporary photographs, a selection of Gentile's 'Encounter Reports' and additional first-hand testimony from Gentile's fellow pilots, John Godfrey and Duane BeesonCalled a 'One-man air force' by General Eisenhower, Don Gentile set the pace for the Hun-killing tournament fought over the skies of Europe in 1944 by P-51 Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt pilots. But what is he thinking when he sees a yellow-nosed Messerschmitt barrelling in for the kill? Is he scared? How does he feel when an enemy Focke-Wulf 190 is in his sights and he starts pouring steel into its frail fuselage? This short wartime memoir, written with the aid of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ira Wolfert, has the urgency of war reportage and the honesty of a 23-year-old former high-school football hero from Piqua, Ohio. 'Answers truthfully the questions everyone would like to ask a fighter pilot' NEW YORK TIMES.ABOUT THE AUTHORDominic Salvatore 'Don' Gentile was born in 1920 in Piqua, Ohio to Italian immigrants Patsy and Josephina Gentile. Fascinated by flying from an early age his father eventually paid for flying lessons and his own Aerosport single-seater biplane. By 1941 Don had clocked up over 300 flying hours. With the war raging in Europe, Don enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and by 1942 was flying Spitfires from England with 133 Squadron, one of the famed American 'Eagle Squadrons'. The Eagle squadrons were transferred to the USAAF to form the 4th Fighter Group flying the P-47 Thunderbolt and Don and his fellow pilots were the first to fly combat missions over Germany. Re-equipment with the P-51 Mustang in February 1944 was a game-changer. The Fourth were the first to escort bombers over Berlin in March and Don quickly became an ace in the exceptional Mustang fighter, building his tally to twenty-two aerial kills and six ground kills by the end of his tour. He survived the war but was killed in a flying accident in 1951.

Author : Maurer Maurer
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 520 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1961
Category : United States
ISBN : 9781428915855

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Air Force Combat Units of World War II by Maurer Maurer Pdf

Author : Don S. Gentile
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 44 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2017-08-07
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 152204129X

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One Man Air Force by Don S. Gentile Pdf

After shooting down thirty German airplanes, the equivalent of nearly two whole Luftwaffe squadrons, Gentile is rightly respected as one of America's greatest ever air aces. Gentile's personal account of life fighting through the skies of World War Two provides fascinating insight into the mind of this young pilot. The feelings of engaging an enemy in a dogfight, of having a Messerschmidt close on your tail, and of soaring into the air in Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Mustangs are all encompassed within this memoir. The admiration that Gentile commanded was demonstrated when General Dwight D. Eisenhower presented the pilot with the Distinguished Flying Cross and stated, "You are a One-Man Air Force." Gentile, in the course of this short book, takes the reader from his earliest memories of wanting to learn to fly through to his entry into the Second World War, through the course of three hundred and fifty combat hours in one hundred and eighty-two sorties, up to the moment when he was removed from front line combat in 1944. "This is not only the story of 'a one-man air force' against the Huns; nor is it only a story of the fluctuations, failures and successes of our air war against the Luftwaffe. It is also the story of a new type of American -- one who has been growing up all around this older generation of ours, sometimes, it seems, while we were hardly looking and who will be ready to take over and make use of the air power that is predicted now to lie just beyond the war." Ira S. Wolfert After surviving all the Germans could muster, he was killed in 1951 in a simple crash of a jet trainer while testing near Andrews AFB, Maryland. He was posthumously promoted to major and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton. This work was published shortly after he finished front line duty in 1944.

Author : Philip Kaplan
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2006-02-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781473819979

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Two-Man Air Force by Philip Kaplan Pdf

American volunteers Don Gentile (pronounced Jen-tilly) and John Godfrey flew together as leader and wingman respectively, with the USAAF 4th Fighter Group based at Debden near Cambridge in England. At the end of their missions with the 4th the two of them had accounted for over 58 enemy aircraft destroyed. Major Gentile had scored 22 air and 6 ground kills before he was returned to the USA to help raise money for the war effort. Major Godfrey was credited with 18 air and 12 ground kills before he was shot down and taken prisoner of war. This is the story of their amazing adventures and wartime partnership from their basic training in Canada and then onto England where they first flew the Supermarine Spitfire. It continues with their transfer to the USAAF 4th Fighter Group when the US entered the war and when the two were retrained to fly the P-47 Thunderbolt and eventually the superb P-51 Mustang. These two ace pilots loved life as much as flying - and as well as being hell-bent on destroying the enemy in the skies of Europe they also lived life to the full in their off-duty time in England.

Author : Walter Dumaux Edmonds
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 1951
Category : World War, 1939-1945
ISBN : 9781428915411

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They Fought With What They Had: The Story of the Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific, 1941-1942 by Walter Dumaux Edmonds Pdf

Author : Max Allan Collins
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0345419758

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Air Force One by Max Allan Collins Pdf

Based on a screenplay written by Andrew W. Marlowe.

Author : Donald K. Schneider
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 101 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1979
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781428993938

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Air Force heroes in Vietnam by Donald K. Schneider Pdf

Author : Christina Olds,Robin Olds,Ed Rasimus
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2010-04-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 142992909X

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Fighter Pilot by Christina Olds,Robin Olds,Ed Rasimus Pdf

Please note: This ebook edition does not include the photo insert from the print edition. The widely anticipated memoir of legendary ace American fighter pilot, Robin Olds Robin Olds was a larger-than-life hero with a towering personality. A graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army, Olds was one of the toughest college football players at the time. In WWII, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—and an ace with 12 aerial victories. But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend. He arrived in 1966 to find a dejected group of pilots and motivated them by placing himself on the flight schedule under officers junior to himself, then challenging them to train him properly because he would soon be leading them. Proving he wasn't a WWII retread, he led the wing with aggressiveness, scoring another four confirmed kills, becoming a rare triple ace. Olds (who retired a brigadier general and died in 2007) was a unique individual whose personal story is one of the most eagerly anticipated military books of the year.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 36 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1955
Category : Military morale
ISBN : UIUC:30112106754119

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You're the No. 1 Man by Anonim Pdf

Author : General Giulio Douhet
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2014-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781782898528

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Command Of The Air by General Giulio Douhet Pdf

In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 656 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Aeronautics
ISBN : UGA:32108035288029

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Air Force Magazine by Anonim Pdf

Author : Andy Wiseman,Sean Feast
Publisher : Grub Street Publishing
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2015-07-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781910690840

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An Alien Sky by Andy Wiseman,Sean Feast Pdf

The legendary RAF bomber who survived the infamous Stalag 3 POW camp recounts his WWII experiences in this military memoir. Growing up in Berlin just as Adolf Hitler was coming to power, Andrew Wiseman escaped to Poland with is family when he was thirteen. He later made his way to England where he joined the Royal Air Force, training first as a pilot and then as an air bomber in South Africa. Joining No. 466 squadron, he flew Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers in a handful of operations before being shot down in Occupied France. Wiseman spent the next year as a prisoner of war in Nazi prison camp Stalag Luft III, where he used his knowledge of Russian, Polish and German to act as a camp interpreter. Taking part in the prison break known as the Great Escape, Wiseman acted as a scrounger for the X committee who dug the tunnel. Moved from camp to camp, he was one of those forced into the Long March when the Germans attempting to escape the Russian advance. He later played a key role in avoiding bloodshed when the Russians refused to allow British and Norwegian prisoners to return home—a role for which he was later recognized by the King of Norway. Co-written with the acclaimed aviation historian Sean Feast, Andrew Wiseman’s wartime memoir is a vivid chronicle of courage, service and survival through the Second World War.

Author : National Audiovisual Center
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1978
Category : Audio-visual materials
ISBN : UIUC:30112101048681

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A Reference List of Audiovisual Materials Produced by the United States Government by National Audiovisual Center Pdf

Author : National Audiovisual Center
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 1978
Category : Audio-visual materials
ISBN : UCR:31210024909515

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A Reference List of Audiovisual Materials Produced by the United States Government, 1978 by National Audiovisual Center Pdf