Showing titles in Air Forces

Operation Chrome Dome uncovers one of the Cold War’s most astonishing and unsettling secrets: for years, the United States kept nuclear-armed B-52 bombers flying around the clock, ready to launch a retaliatory strike at a moment’s notice. This gripping, factual narrative takes readers inside the hidden world of airborne deterrence—where “peace” was protected by aircraft carrying weapons capable of ending entire cities, and where routine missions depended on perfect discipline, flawless technology, and a constant battle against fatigue, weather, and human error.

25,000 feet above Malta -- that is where the Spitfires intercepted the Messerschmitts, Macchis and Reggianes as they swept eastwards in their droves, screening the big Junkers with their bomb loads as they pummeled the island beneath -- the most bombed patch of ground in the world.

In Battle of Britain: The Pilots and the Planes That Made History, Ed Gorman and Simon Pearson paint a vivid picture of the men and their machines as the battle for air superiority over Britain is played out across the skies of Europe, from western Ireland to the German capital. They tell remarkable stories involving hitherto unknown airmen from across the world who flew aircraft, including some that will be new to many listeners....

The loss of British bombers over Occupied Europe began to reach alarming levels in 1941. Could it be that the Germans were using a sophisticated form of radar to direct their night fighters and anti-aircraft guns at the British bombers? British aerial reconnaissance discovered what seemed to be...

He had to sit in a segregated rail car on the journey to army basic training in Mississippi in 1943. But two years later, the 20-year-old African American from New York was at the controls of a P-51, prowling for Luftwaffe aircraft at 5,000 feet over the Austrian countryside. This is the remarkable true story of Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr., one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. Award-winning aviation writer Philip Handleman re-creates the harrowing action and heart-pounding drama of Stewart's combat missions....

In the quiet Cambridgeshire countryside, between the villages of Coton and Madingley, lies a place where history and memory meet. The Cambridge American Cemetery, with its sweeping lawns, shining headstones, and solemn Wall of the Missing, is the only permanent American World War II cemetery in the United Kingdom. Nearly 4,000 servicemen and women rest here, and over 5,100 more are inscribed on the wall, their remains lost at sea or over enemy territory.

The history of the Spitfire contains many hitherto hidden or little-known stories of the men and women behind the plane - not only the gifted creators and inventors who brought the Spitfire to life or the brave fighter pilots from many countries who triumphed in battle but also the thousands of other people whose lives were affected by their personal connection to it - engineers, ground crew, factory or office workers, and their families. Spitfire Stories recounts the memories and stories of these people, from the birth of the iconic Spitfire in the 1930s to the present day.

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.

In the theatre of the Pacific during World War II, no single engagement would have consequences as profound or as immediate as the Battle of Midway. Fought over four searing days in June 1942, this carrier-versus-carrier clash marked the beginning of the end for Japan’s unchecked expansion and heralded a strategic reversal that would define the course of the Pacific War. Korey Blathewick’s The Battle of Midway offers an incisive, deeply researched exploration of this moment—examining not only what happened, but why it mattered, and how its impact reverberated far beyond the atoll’s reefs.

David R. “Buff” Honodel was a cocky young man with an inflated self-image when he arrived in 1969 at his base in Udorn, Thailand. His war was not in Vietnam; it was a secret one in the skies of a neighboring country almost unknown in America, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail that fed soldiers and supplies from North Vietnam into the South. Stateside he learned the art of flying the F-4, but in combat, the bomb-loaded fighter handled differently, targets shot back, and people suffered. Inert training ordnance was replaced by lethal weapons.

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.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Who Dares Wins Pioneers The origins story of the SAS is a myth. This is the real story of how the world's preeminent Special Forces came into existence. Speed, Aggression, Surprise is a fly-on-the-wall, character-driven story of how, from the wreckage of Dunkirk...

For more than 30 years, Giora Even-Epstein flew fighters for the Israel Air Force, achieving recognition as a highly skilled military aviator and the highest-scoring jet-mounted ace with the most num­ber of confirmed victories in the French Mirage. Having overcome numerous hurdles just to learn how to fly, he went on to compile a record of Arab MiGs and Sukhoi kills that bettered any other combat aviators' tally in the entire world. This fast-moving autobiography details his experiences particularly in the intense conflicts of 1967, the Six Day War, and 1973, the Yom Kippur War. 

Brought to you by Penguin. THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE ACTION-PACKED CLASSIC FILM 'GOOSE AND MAVERICK MOVE OVER . . .' Admiral James Stavridis March 1969. American jets are getting shot down at an unprecedented rate over Vietnam. In an urgent effort to regain the advantage the Admirals turn to a...

This is the nonfiction memoir of a young pilot, Bert Stiles, who flew 35 missions in the B-17 Flying Fortress over Germany and Italy during World War II. At 22 years of age, Stiles left college and joined the American Air Force. The next year he began his tour of duty as a copilot of a B-17, flying missions high over Germany, Italy, and other European targets, bombing cities far below.

Undaunted Valor, Lam Son 719 is a novel based on an accurate account of the bravery and dedication of helicopter crews, consisting of mostly teenagers and young officers flying under the most intense combat conditions since WWII. US Army and Marine Corps helicopters flew South Vietnamese ground forces fifty miles into Laos to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail in hopes of providing time for the South Vietnamese to take over the fight and allow American forces to come home.

The history of the Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who were seriously burned in aeroplane fires, is a truly inspiring, spine-tingling tale. Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War. The most rudimentary techniques were known only to a few surgeons worldwide. The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having maverick surgeon Archibald McIndoe - nicknamed ‘the Boss’, or ‘the Maestro’ - operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. McIndoe constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch.

The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior—a deep reconnaissance scout and attack aircraft—was legendary to those it supported. Regularly flying mere feet off of the ground while intentionally drawing enemy fire, almost everyone called Kiowa pilots crazy. Responsible for hunting elusive enemy fighters and protecting those under their charge, Kiowa crews displayed a fierce and intense devotion that was unparalleled.

The British and American bomber crews of the Second World War often had to endure the most terrifying conditions. Not for them the glorious, all-or-nothing exhilaration of the Battle of Britain pilots—rather, the slow dwindling of courage as mission followed mission, the long freezing, ear-shattering journey to the target, the bursting flak, the prowling night fighters. Then, if they were lucky, the long haul home, sometimes nursing a battered, barely flyable machine, often perilously short of fuel.

#1 New York Times bestseller! Frozen in Time is a gripping true story of survival, bravery, and honor in the vast Arctic wilderness during World War II, from the author of New York Times bestseller Lost in Shangri-La. On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four...