Air History Military

Thunderbolt 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 US Army Air Force pilot in the European theater to surpass Eddie Rickenbacker's World War I tally of 26 enemy planes destroyed.

Drones are transforming warfare through the use of artificial intelligence, drone swarms, and surveillance - leading to competition between the US, China, Israel, and Iran. Who will be the next drone superpower?

The Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 is the most advanced multi-role combat aircraft in the world. Capable of flying at nearly twice the speed of sound and powering to a height of more than 10 miles in less time than it takes to boil a kettle, a single Typhoon can also deliver a heavy bombload with such lethal precision that a whole squadron of Lancasters could not have guaranteed the same result.

Stalingrad ranks as one of the most infamous, savage and emotive battles of the 20th century. It has consumed military historians since the 1950s and has inspired many books and much debate. This book tells the story of the operation mounted by the Luftwaffe to supply, by airlift, the trapped and exhausted German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. Using previously unpublished diaries, original Luftwaffe reports and specially commissioned artwork, this gripping battle is told in detail through the eyes of the Luftwaffe commanders and pilots.

When we remember the Second World War in the air, we think of fighter pilots and bomber crews. But what was it like for the men and women working as ground crew and in the aircraft factories who also played a crucial role in defeating Hitler? What was it like making history? What sense did these individuals have of what they were doing, either at the time or later? Did they feel they were caught up in the tide of great events? Or were they simply doing their demanding and often dangerous duty?

Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up. Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire.

For nearly a decade, Brett Velicovich was at the center of America's new warfare: using unmanned aerial vehicles - drones - to take down the world's deadliest terrorists across the globe. One of an elite handful in the entire military with the authority to select targets and issue death orders, he worked in concert with the full human and technological network of American intelligence - assets, analysts, spies, informants - and the military's elite operatives to stalk, capture, and eliminate high-value targets in al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Listeners will learn over 100 facts about military sea and military air vehicles, such as helicopters, bombers, and stealth flighters, as well as submarines, mammoth ships, and militarized barges.

Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, originally from Ohio, was best known as one of the commanders of the 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron, a crack unit of World War I pilots that included many former members of the famed Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron.

On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four days later, a B-17 on the search-and-rescue mission also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. The U.S. military launched a second daring rescue operation, but the Grumman Duck amphibious plane sent to find the men vanished. In this thrilling adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing crashes and the fate of the survivors and their would-be saviors.

The air war over Europe during World War II proved that combat in the sky can be even more devastating than combat on the ground. When the war ended, every major city in Germany was virtually destroyed. A German writer admitted that his own nation, in taking up the sword to conquer the world, had "summoned up those bands of furies which raced across the German skies".

The 'Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club' was the tongue-in-cheek nickname of the US Seventh Fleet that was stationed off the coast of Vietnam and this book tells the full story of the US Naval air campaign in the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1975.

A comprehensive history of Britain's greatest bomber plane. The Spitfire and the Lancaster were the two RAF weapons of victory in the Second World War, but the glamour of the fighter has tended to overshadow the performance of the heavy bomber. Yet without the Lancaster, Britain would never have been able to take the fight to the German homeland. Highlights the scale of the bomber's achievements, including the famous Dambusters attacks. With its vast bomb bay, ease of handling and surprising speed, the mighty Lancaster transformed the effectiveness of the Bomber Command.

An honest tour of the Vietnam War from the soldier's eye view... Nam-Sense is the brilliantly written story of a combat squad leader in the 101st Airborne Division. Arthur Wiknik was a 19-year-old kid from New England when he was drafted into the US Army in 1968. After completing various NCO training programs, he was promoted to sergeant "without ever setting foot in a combat zone" and sent to Vietnam in early 1969. Shortly after his arrival on the far side of the world, Wiknik was assigned to Camp Evans, a mixed-unit base camp near the Northern village of Phong Dien.

On the heels of the enormous success of his masterwork The Grapes of Wrath, and at the height of the American war effort, John Steinbeck, one of the most prolific and influential literary figures of his generation, wrote Bombs Away, a nonfiction account of his experiences with US Army Air Force bomber crews during World War II. Now, for the first time since its original publication in 1942, Penguin Classics presents this exclusive edition of Steinbeck's introduction to the then-nascent US Army Air Force and its bomber crew.

In early 1943 Britain was engaged in an epic struggle for survival. As the deadly wolf packs of German U-boats roamed the Atlantic, supply lines and shipping losses fell victim to the carnage. In desperation, Churchill turned to the RAF's maritime wing - an overlooked, underfunded force known as "The Cinderella Service". But the ascendancy of the U-boat forced a change in attitude. Provided with the long-range planes, depth charges, rocket projectiles and radar equipment with which to challenge the enemy. The Cinderella boys provided vital air defence.

On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of Arab and German terrorists who demanded the release of 53 terrorists. The plane was forced to divert to Entebbe in Uganda - ruled by the murderous despot Idi Amin, who had no interest in intervening. Days later, Israeli commandos disguised as Ugandan soldiers assaulted the airport terminal, killed all the terrorists, and rescued all the hostages but three who were killed in the crossfire. The assault force suffered just one fatality.

Visual Friendlies, Tally Target: Surges continues the story of the role of forward air controllers (JTACs) and Close Air Support (CAS), picking up in 2006 and continuing through 2013. This volume covers the evolution of Joint Fires through the colloquial "second phase" of the War on Terror—the "surges" of Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2010–2011. Vol. II recounts the evolution of air power during the rising counterinsurgencies, as well as the psychology and mental makeup of these exclusive tribes.

Hell Above Earth tells an unforgettable story of two World War II American bomber pilots who forged an unexpected but enduring bond in the flak-filled skies over Nazi Germany. But there's a twist: one of them was related to the head of the Luftwaffe, Reich Marshal Herman Goering, and the other had secret orders from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to kill him if anything went wrong during their missions.

Britain was the first country to ever suffer a ballistic missile attack from beyond its borders. This book tells the story of that attack. During 1942 and 1943, confusing rumours circulated about the German development of a 'giant rocket'. Most experts, including Winston Churchill's own scientific adviser Lord Cherwell, declared that such a weapon was impossible. It was only after the patient sifting of European intelligence that the most influential doubters were convinced such a weapon was being built. Then on 8 September 1944, the first V-2 landed in Chiswick. Between then and the final rocket impact on 27 March 1945, more than a thousand landed on British soil, killing nearly three thousand people and seriously injuring more than six thousand.