Air History Military

Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Ian McPhedran takes us to the heart of the RAAF through personal accounts of fighter pilots’ bombing raids over Iraq, of hi-tech spy planes over Afghanistan, of the operational nerve centre of the Middle East war, and of the men and women who deliver humanitarian aid across the world. This is the compelling narrative, in the RAAF’s 90th year, of its aircraft, leadership, traditions, and personalities at a time of rapid change.

In 1944 and 1945, Tom Faulkner was a B-24 pilot flying out of San Giovanni airfield in Italy as a member of the 15th Air Force of the US Army Air Forces. Only 19 years old when he completed his 28th and last mission, Tom was one of the youngest bomber pilots to serve in the US Army Air Forces during World War II. Between September 1944 and the end of February 1945, he flew against targets in Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia.

Mira Slovak was born in Czechoslovakia and endured both the Nazi occupation and the brutal Russian liberation. He joined the Czech Air Force, rising to captain by the age of 21. When he could no longer tolerate life under the Communists, he hijacked an airliner and flew across the Iron Curtain to freedom. He outlasted communism, and when it collapsed in 1990, he returned to his home, only to realize his true home was and always would be the US.

In this extraordinary audiobook, Robert D. Kaplan lets listeners experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground. Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts provides a riveting ground-level portrait of the Global War on Terrorism on several continents.

The English Electric Canberra first came into production in the late 1940s and has since played a hugely significant part in world events. In Canberra Boys, Andrew Brookes takes us through its rich history with the help of those who operated this magnificent machine. Contributors include Roly "Bee" Beamont, the English Electric test pilot who first flew the aircraft in 1949.

Sliding out of the shadows of World War Two, the de Havilland Vampire—accompanied by the distinctive whine of its Goblin engine—quickly proved itself an effective alternative to piston-powered fighters. After entering operational service with the RAF (as the service's first single-engine jet) in 1946, the Vampire—sought by air forces the world over—held a number of notable records: the first fighter to exceed 500 mph, the first to set a world altitude record of almost 60,000 feet, the first jet to take off and land from an aircraft carrier, and the first jet to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Wayne K. Blickenstaff, known as "Blick," was a stalwart of the 350th Fighter Squadron of the 353rd Fighter Group based at Goxhill, Metfield, and Raydon, England, as part of the Eighth Air Force prosecuting the strategic air campaign against Germany. As an original cadre member, he rose steadily through the ranks to a Lieutenant Colonel and Group Operations Officer. His double "ace" status included a Me262 jet fighter and the destruction of five aircraft in one mission—giving him rare "ace in a day" status.

When the US president, Harry S Truman, declared the Truman Doctrine in March 1947, he could not have known that the resultant Cold War would persist for over forty years until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. In addition to nuclear and conventional military friction between the Eastern and Western blocs, the struggle for dominance involved a remarkable range of activities including the space race, psychological efforts, espionage, even rivalry at sporting functions and technological events.

They were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. None faltered. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They landed their gliders ahead of the troops who stormed Omaha Beach, and sometimes miles ahead of the paratroopers bound for the far side of the Rhine River in Germany itself. From there, they had to hold their positions. They delivered medical teams, supplies and gasoline to troops surrounded in the Battle of the Bulge, ahead even of Patton's famous supply truck convoy.

Chris Burwell charts one man's career in aviation from joining the RAF in 1969 aged eighteen, to having responsibility for training pilots for the world's major airlines nearly fifty years later. After training at RAF Cranwell and RAF Valley and a tour as a flying instructor on Jet Provosts, he joined the Harrier Force, flying on front-line squadrons in the United Kingdom and Germany during the Cold War and as an instructor on the Harrier Conversion Unit.

Experience the exciting combat tales of both Allied and Axis pilots around the world during World War II. Wings of War encompasses the World War II air war from late 1939 through 1945 and provides a chronological snapshot not only of famous and significant events from the global air war, but also of other lesser-known events that are equally thrilling and important. Over three dozen different Allied and Axis airplanes are featured, giving you a unique experience at the controls of a variety of World War II’s famed fighters, bombers, liaison, and jet airplanes.

Originally intended as a trainer, the Anglo-French Sepecat jet, equipped with the very latest in weapon-aiming and navigational equipment, eventually became the backbone of the RAF's tactical strike-attack and recce forces for a decade from the mid-1970s. In these minutes, the Jaguar Boys - pilots, engineer, and ground crew - tell of the aircraft's drawbacks and joys, their sadness at losses, and their pleasure at its development into a readily deployable and outstandingly capable fighter-bomber for the post-Cold War era.

Following on from the success of Victor Boys and Vulcan Boys, Tony Blackman, in collaboration with Anthony Wright, brings you Valiant Boys to complete the V Force set. This is a fascinating collection of personal accounts of operating Britain's first V bomber by aircrew and ground crew. The book tells the story from the aircraft's birth taking off from Vickers' tiny airfield at Wisley near Brooklands to its premature death from fatigue.

With the Battle of Britain won, Winston Churchill and his military chiefs faced an even more fearsome challenge in the Battle of the Atlantic. Thwarted in his plans to invade, Hitler decided he would starve Britain into submission instead. Operating in conjunction with U-Boats, long-range Condor aircraft manned by élite German airmen attacked Allied ships far beyond the range of any land-based RAF fighters, with devastating results.

Book three of the Sea Stories takes listeners to entirely new dimensions of adventures in "Foreign Lands". We find our young Marine captain and family totally immersed in "British Society" during a two-year assignment as an exchange officer with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. What they experience is professionally broadening and personally enriching while they are "On Her Majesty's Service".

In Turn and Burn the author takes the readers with him in the cockpit as he shares the fulfillment of his boyhood dream and some of his most memorable adventures and misadventures during a 24-year flying career as a fighter pilot, both in combat and peacetime.

The mission seemed simple enough. Completely restore a 75-year-old historic DC-3 and fly her from Montana to France for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Starting with no volunteers and no money. In under a year. With a crew that had only a few hours of experience flying one. Ride along with author and pilot Bryan Douglass, the rest of the flight crew, the volunteers, paratroopers, World War II veterans, and others on this inspirational story of an impossible dream that almost didn’t come true.

It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy Gibson, roared into the night sky from their Lincolnshire base. They were on a top-secret Bomber Command mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, now regarded as one of the most dangerous and audacious bombing raids of World War II - an attack on the formidable, well-defended dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Slung beneath the belly of each aircraft was one of the war’s greatest secrets - a bouncing bomb.

In 1972, America was completing its withdrawal from the long and divisive war in Vietnam. Air power covered the departure of ground forces, and search and rescue teams from all services and Air America covered the airmen and soldiers still in the fight. Day and night these military and civilian aircrews stood alert to respond to "Mayday" calls. The rescue forces were the answer to every man's prayer, and those forces brought home airmen, sailors, marines, and soldiers downed or trapped across the breadth and depth of the entire Southeast Asia theater.

The nearly half-million American air crewmen who served during World War II have almost disappeared. And so have their stories. Award-winning writer and former fighter pilot Jay A. Stout uses Unsung Eagles to save an exciting collection of those accounts from oblivion. These are not rehashed tales from the hoary icons of the war. Rather, they are stories from the masses of largely unrecognized men who - in the aggregate - actually won it.