Air War

In 1971 William Reeder was a senior captain on his second tour in Vietnam. He had flown armed, fixed-wing OV-1 Mohawks on secret missions deep into enemy territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, on his first tour. He returned as a helicopter pilot eager to experience a whole new perspective as a Cobra gunship pilot. Believing that Nixon's Vietnamization would soon end the war, Reeder was anxious to see combat action. To him, it appeared that the Americans had prevailed, beaten the Viet Cong, and were passing everything over to the South Vietnamese Army so Americans could leave.

Created during the Second World War, the SAS was a small band of men brought together in the North African desert. They were the toughest and brightest of their cohort, the most resilient, most capable in close combat and most careful in surveillance. Winning approval for this radical new form of warfare was no small feat, but eventually it was achieved. The SAS was born, their mission to take on small-scale but often devastating raids and risks behind enemy lines. Levine tours us through the wartime experience, taking us behind the scenes through exclusive access to SAS archives.

At the turn of the twentieth century two new technologies—the car and airplane—took the nation's imagination by storm as they burst, like comets, into American life. The brave souls that leaped into these dangerous contraptions and pushed them to unexplored extremes became new American heroes: the race car driver and the flying ace. No individual did more to create and intensify these raw new roles than the tall, gangly Eddie Rickenbacker, who defied death over and over with such courage and pluck that a generation of Americans came to know his face better than the president's.

In Ted W. Lawson’s classic Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Lawson gives a vivid eyewitness account of the unorthodox assignment that 85 intrepid volunteer airmen - the “Tokyo Raiders” - under the command of celebrated flier James H. Doolittle executed in April 1942. The plan called for 16 B-25 twin-engine medium bombers of the Army Air Corps to take off from the aircraft carrier Hornet, bomb industrial targets in Japan, and land at airfields in China.

Paul Tremelling was just seven years old when he watched the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers leave their home base in Somerset to do battle against the Argentine Air Force in the Falklands War. Two decades later, he would join this exclusive club, one of an elite band of Fleet Air Arm fighter pilots, charged with standing in the way of Her Majesty's enemies. This is the story of what it takes to make it in the dog-eat-dog arena of fighter combat. In the cockpit or crew room, the pressure is relentless, the humour merciless. It's no place for the faint-hearted.

The birth of the Royal Air Force marked a pivotal moment in military history. World War I was frozen in the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, which gave strategic urgency to any means of directly attacking enemy resources and morale. The new technologies of air power held promise, and by 1917 German bombers had begun attacking British cities.

The first-ever inside look at the US military’s secretive Remotely Piloted Aircraft program - equal parts techno-thriller, historical account, and war memoir. Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), commonly referred to by the media as drones, are a mysterious and headline-making tool in the military’s counterterrorism arsenal. Their story has been pieced together by technology reporters, major newspapers, and on-the-ground accounts from the Middle East, but it has never been fully told by an insider.

The first operational military jet in the world, toward the end of the Second World War, the Me 262 was to be the German "miracle weapon". Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, training, and even served in it operationally. Could the Me 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Hitler's Jet Plane fills an important gap in the history of the Luftwaffe and of aviation in general with new research which discloses how the first military jet plane failed to make its mark on World War II.

In May 1943, Guy Gibson led 617 Squadron on an audacious assault on the dams of the Ruhr valley using Barnes Wallis' ingenious 'bouncing bombs.' What happened to RAF 617 Squadron after the completion of Operation Chastise? The raid had been a success, but the bombing offensive against Nazi-occupied territories did not let up and 617 Squadron continued to be at the heart of these operations.

During the Second World War, Flt Lt Richard Stevens led an extraordinary campaign as an RAF nightfighter. Known to contemporaries as "Cat's Eyes" and by the height of his success in July 1941 as the "Lone Wolf", Flt Lt Stevens was the RAF's highest scoring nightfighter pilot with 14 victories. What makes his story unique is that all this was achieved without the aid of radar or another crew member. Instead, Flt Lt Stevens used extraordinary skill, instinct, and innate marksmanship.

From near-suicidal RAF attacks in 1940 through to the dawn of the jet age in 1945, Flames in the Sky captures the astonishing drama, intensity, heroism, and incomparable exhilaration of the World War Two air war like no other book. This epic global struggle between Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mustangs, Mosquitos, Messerschmitts, Zeros, Kamikazes, and more is brought vividly to life by a writer who was himself in the thick of the action.

The incredible true story of the most spectacular aircraft-carrier battle in history - World War II's Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. Here is the true account of those great and terrible days - by those who were there, in the thick of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Drawing upon numerous interviews with American and Japanese veterans as well as official sources, Clash of the Carriers is an unforgettable testimonial to the bravery of those who fought and those who died in a battle that will never be forgotten.

Sherman Lead is the gripping story of a year flying the F-4 in combat during the Vietnam War, told through the eyes of a fighter pilot. Operating out of Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand in 1968-69, Gail Peck and his squadronmates in the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing were tasked with flying combat missions into North Vietnam and Laos. The F-4 was heavily involved in the air-to-ground mission at this time, with targets being well defended by enemy anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles.

Merton Naydler joined the RAF at the age of 19 and served for the next six years until May 1946. He flew Spitfires and Hurricanes during a tour of duty that took him to North Africa, Burma, and Malaya. This extremely entertaining memoir portrays wartime life in the desert environment where sand and flies and life under canvas made living and flying a daunting experience. This is the story of a sergeant pilot who learned his trade the hard way, in action over Africa and then honed his combat skills in the skies over Japanese-held tropical forests where he was eventually commissioned.

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.

The Berlin blockade brought former allies to the brink of war. Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union defeated and began their occupation of Germany in 1945, and within a few years, the Soviets and their Western partners were jockeying for control of their former foe. Attempting to thwart the Allied powers' plans to create a unified West German government, the Soviets blocked rail and road access to the western sectors of Berlin in June 1948.

November 1943 to May 1945. The US Army Air Forces waged an unprecedentedly dogged and violent campaign against Hitler's vital oil production and industrial plants on theThird Reich's southern flank. Flying from southern Italy, far from the limelight enjoyed by the Eighth Air Force in England, the Fifteenth Air Force engaged in high-risk missions spanning most of the European continent. The story of the Fifteenth Air Force deserves a prideful place in the annals of American gallantry.

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.

Pan Am at War chronicles the airline's historic role in advancing aviation and serving America's national interest before and during World War II. From its inception, Pan American Airways operated as the "wings of democracy", spanning six continents and placing the country at the leading edge of international aviation. At the same time, it was clandestinely helping to fight America's wars.

Sharkey Ward commanded 801 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Invincible, was senior Sea Harrier adviser to the Command, flew over 60 missions and was awarded DSC. Yet had he followed all his instructions to the letter, Britain might well have lost the Falklands War. His dramatic first-hand story of the air war in the South Atlantic is also an extraordinary, outspoken account of inter-service rivalries, bureaucratic interference and dangerous ignorance of the realities of air combat among many senior commanders.