Author: Joseph R. Barry
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453550747
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
What happens when a naïve eighteen-year-old newly minted U.S. Marine is dropped into the ancient, exotic (also erotic), and distinctly foreign environment of the Far East? This book relates the experiences and adventures that occurred during the young man’s journey to coping with the cold war. There is no blood and guts here. No laudable heroism or sacrifice attends this young American’s memoirs. He served his country as did tens of thousands of other Americans during the jittery period of the cold war—with honor, loyalty, steadfastness, readiness, and as much tomfoolery and peccadilloes as could be conjured up. Although the hilarity and devilment described in the book belong in the past, the effect of this period of coping with a strange and powerful culture became a permanent part of character development. Our young American boy would be an entirely different man should he never had been one of America’s guardians manning the far off ramparts during that perilous time. That is precisely why this book was written. The members of the American armed forces of the cold war have not been honored for their service. Some were ruined by being uprooted to these foreign shores, others found fulfillment, none were unaffected. It could easily have been otherwise. One false move, one mistake, could have plummeted the United States and all their cold war warriors into the chaos of war again, and many of the names of men found within these pages might have ended up carved into the cold marble of a war memorial. It did not happen, and so this book is presented with pleasure and happy memories. It is hoped that the reader will enjoy basking in the cold war.
Basking in the Cold War
Author: Joseph R. Barry
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453550747
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
What happens when a naïve eighteen-year-old newly minted U.S. Marine is dropped into the ancient, exotic (also erotic), and distinctly foreign environment of the Far East? This book relates the experiences and adventures that occurred during the young man’s journey to coping with the cold war. There is no blood and guts here. No laudable heroism or sacrifice attends this young American’s memoirs. He served his country as did tens of thousands of other Americans during the jittery period of the cold war—with honor, loyalty, steadfastness, readiness, and as much tomfoolery and peccadilloes as could be conjured up. Although the hilarity and devilment described in the book belong in the past, the effect of this period of coping with a strange and powerful culture became a permanent part of character development. Our young American boy would be an entirely different man should he never had been one of America’s guardians manning the far off ramparts during that perilous time. That is precisely why this book was written. The members of the American armed forces of the cold war have not been honored for their service. Some were ruined by being uprooted to these foreign shores, others found fulfillment, none were unaffected. It could easily have been otherwise. One false move, one mistake, could have plummeted the United States and all their cold war warriors into the chaos of war again, and many of the names of men found within these pages might have ended up carved into the cold marble of a war memorial. It did not happen, and so this book is presented with pleasure and happy memories. It is hoped that the reader will enjoy basking in the cold war.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453550747
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
What happens when a naïve eighteen-year-old newly minted U.S. Marine is dropped into the ancient, exotic (also erotic), and distinctly foreign environment of the Far East? This book relates the experiences and adventures that occurred during the young man’s journey to coping with the cold war. There is no blood and guts here. No laudable heroism or sacrifice attends this young American’s memoirs. He served his country as did tens of thousands of other Americans during the jittery period of the cold war—with honor, loyalty, steadfastness, readiness, and as much tomfoolery and peccadilloes as could be conjured up. Although the hilarity and devilment described in the book belong in the past, the effect of this period of coping with a strange and powerful culture became a permanent part of character development. Our young American boy would be an entirely different man should he never had been one of America’s guardians manning the far off ramparts during that perilous time. That is precisely why this book was written. The members of the American armed forces of the cold war have not been honored for their service. Some were ruined by being uprooted to these foreign shores, others found fulfillment, none were unaffected. It could easily have been otherwise. One false move, one mistake, could have plummeted the United States and all their cold war warriors into the chaos of war again, and many of the names of men found within these pages might have ended up carved into the cold marble of a war memorial. It did not happen, and so this book is presented with pleasure and happy memories. It is hoped that the reader will enjoy basking in the cold war.
At the Highest Levels
Author: Michael R. Beschloss
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780316092814
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780316092814
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
Basking in the Cold War
Author: Joseph R. Barry
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 9781453550724
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
What happens when a naïve eighteen-year-old newly minted U.S. Marine is dropped into the ancient, exotic (also erotic), and distinctly foreign environment of the Far East? This book relates the experiences and adventures that occurred during the young man's journey to coping with the cold war. There is no blood and guts here. No laudable heroism or sacrifice attends this young American's memoirs. He served his country as did tens of thousands of other Americans during the jittery period of the cold war with honor, loyalty, steadfastness, readiness, and as much tomfoolery and peccadilloes as could be conjured up. Although the hilarity and devilment described in the book belong in the past, the effect of this period of coping with a strange and powerful culture became a permanent part of character development. Our young American boy would be an entirely different man should he never had been one of America's guardians manning the far off ramparts during that perilous time. That is precisely why this book was written. The members of the American armed forces of the cold war have not been honored for their service. Some were ruined by being uprooted to these foreign shores, others found fulfillment, none were unaffected. It could easily have been otherwise. One false move, one mistake, could have plummeted the United States and all their cold war warriors into the chaos of war again, and many of the names of men found within these pages might have ended up carved into the cold marble of a war memorial. It did not happen, and so this book is presented with pleasure and happy memories. It is hoped that the reader will enjoy basking in the cold war.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 9781453550724
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
What happens when a naïve eighteen-year-old newly minted U.S. Marine is dropped into the ancient, exotic (also erotic), and distinctly foreign environment of the Far East? This book relates the experiences and adventures that occurred during the young man's journey to coping with the cold war. There is no blood and guts here. No laudable heroism or sacrifice attends this young American's memoirs. He served his country as did tens of thousands of other Americans during the jittery period of the cold war with honor, loyalty, steadfastness, readiness, and as much tomfoolery and peccadilloes as could be conjured up. Although the hilarity and devilment described in the book belong in the past, the effect of this period of coping with a strange and powerful culture became a permanent part of character development. Our young American boy would be an entirely different man should he never had been one of America's guardians manning the far off ramparts during that perilous time. That is precisely why this book was written. The members of the American armed forces of the cold war have not been honored for their service. Some were ruined by being uprooted to these foreign shores, others found fulfillment, none were unaffected. It could easily have been otherwise. One false move, one mistake, could have plummeted the United States and all their cold war warriors into the chaos of war again, and many of the names of men found within these pages might have ended up carved into the cold marble of a war memorial. It did not happen, and so this book is presented with pleasure and happy memories. It is hoped that the reader will enjoy basking in the cold war.
The Making of the Cold War Enemy
Author: Ron Theodore Robin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government enlisted the aid of a select group of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to blueprint enemy behavior. Not only did these academics bring sophisticated concepts to what became a project of demonizing communist societies, but they influenced decision-making in the map rooms, prison camps, and battlefields of the Korean War and in Vietnam. With verve and insight, Ron Robin tells the intriguing story of the rise of behavioral scientists in government and how their potentially dangerous, "American" assumptions about human behavior would shape U.S. views of domestic disturbances and insurgencies in Third World countries for decades to come. Based at government-funded think tanks, the experts devised provocative solutions for key Cold War dilemmas, including psychological warfare projects, negotiation strategies during the Korean armistice, and morale studies in the Vietnam era. Robin examines factors that shaped the scientists' thinking and explores their psycho-cultural and rational choice explanations for enemy behavior. He reveals how the academics' intolerance for complexity ultimately reduced the nation's adversaries to borderline psychotics, ignored revolutionary social shifts in post-World War II Asia, and promoted the notion of a maniacal threat facing the United States. Putting the issue of scientific validity aside, Robin presents the first extensive analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of Cold War behavioral sciences in a book that will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the era and its legacy.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government enlisted the aid of a select group of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to blueprint enemy behavior. Not only did these academics bring sophisticated concepts to what became a project of demonizing communist societies, but they influenced decision-making in the map rooms, prison camps, and battlefields of the Korean War and in Vietnam. With verve and insight, Ron Robin tells the intriguing story of the rise of behavioral scientists in government and how their potentially dangerous, "American" assumptions about human behavior would shape U.S. views of domestic disturbances and insurgencies in Third World countries for decades to come. Based at government-funded think tanks, the experts devised provocative solutions for key Cold War dilemmas, including psychological warfare projects, negotiation strategies during the Korean armistice, and morale studies in the Vietnam era. Robin examines factors that shaped the scientists' thinking and explores their psycho-cultural and rational choice explanations for enemy behavior. He reveals how the academics' intolerance for complexity ultimately reduced the nation's adversaries to borderline psychotics, ignored revolutionary social shifts in post-World War II Asia, and promoted the notion of a maniacal threat facing the United States. Putting the issue of scientific validity aside, Robin presents the first extensive analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of Cold War behavioral sciences in a book that will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the era and its legacy.
Cold War Navy SEAL
Author: James M. Hawes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510734198
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
For the first time, a Navy SEAL tells the story of the US's clandestine operations in North Vietnam and the Congo during the Cold War. Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara attempting to export his revolution a few miles away. Cold War Navy SEAL gives unprecedented insight into a clandestine chapter in US history through the experiences of Hawes, a distinguished Navy frogman and later a CIA contractor. His journey began as an officer in the newly-formed SEAL Team 2, which then led him to Vietnam in 1964 to train hit-and-run boat teams who ran clandestine raids into North Vietnam. Those raids directly instigated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The CIA tapped Hawes to deploy to the Congo, where he would be tasked with creating and leading a paramilitary navy on Lake Tanganyika to disrupt guerilla action in the country. According to the US government, he did not, and could not, exist; he was on his own, 1400 miles from his closest allies, with only periodic letters via air-drop as communication. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara. In vivid detail that rivals any action movie, Hawes describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels on the other side and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission. Complete with never-before-seen photographs and interviews with fellow operatives in the Congo, Cold War Navy SEAL is an unblinking look at a portion of Cold War history never before told.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510734198
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
For the first time, a Navy SEAL tells the story of the US's clandestine operations in North Vietnam and the Congo during the Cold War. Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara attempting to export his revolution a few miles away. Cold War Navy SEAL gives unprecedented insight into a clandestine chapter in US history through the experiences of Hawes, a distinguished Navy frogman and later a CIA contractor. His journey began as an officer in the newly-formed SEAL Team 2, which then led him to Vietnam in 1964 to train hit-and-run boat teams who ran clandestine raids into North Vietnam. Those raids directly instigated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The CIA tapped Hawes to deploy to the Congo, where he would be tasked with creating and leading a paramilitary navy on Lake Tanganyika to disrupt guerilla action in the country. According to the US government, he did not, and could not, exist; he was on his own, 1400 miles from his closest allies, with only periodic letters via air-drop as communication. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara. In vivid detail that rivals any action movie, Hawes describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels on the other side and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission. Complete with never-before-seen photographs and interviews with fellow operatives in the Congo, Cold War Navy SEAL is an unblinking look at a portion of Cold War history never before told.
The Washington Book
Author: Carlos Lozada
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1668050730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist at The New York Times explores how people in power reveal themselves through their books and writings and, in so doing, illuminates the personal, political, and cultural conflicts driving Washington and the nation. As a long-time book critic and columnist in Washington, Carlos Lozada dissects all manner of texts: commission reports, political reporting, Supreme Court decisions, and congressional inquiries to understand the controversies animating life in the capital. He also reads copious books by politicians and top officials: tell-all accounts by administration insiders, campaign biographies by candidates longing for high office, revisionist memoirs by those leaving those offices behind. With this provocative essay collection, Lozada argues that no matter how carefully political figures sanitize their experiences, positions, and records, no matter how diligently they present themselves in the best and safest and most electable light, they almost always let slip the truth. They show us their faults and blind spots, their ambitions and compromises, their underlying motives and insecurities. Whether they mean to or not, they tell us who they really are. In his memoirs and speeches, Barack Obama constantly invoked the power and meaning of his life story, Lozada notes, a sign of how the former president capitalized on his personal symbolism, trying to transform it from inspiration on the campaign trail into an all-purpose governing tool. In a soliloquy about his hair in a self-help book published two decades ago, Donald Trump revealed not just his vanity, Lozada explains, but his utter isolation from the world, long before he entered the bubble of the White House. In deft and lacerating prose, Lozada interprets the unresolved tensions of Hillary Clinton’s ideological beliefs. He imagines the wonderful memoir George H.W. Bush could have given us but instead left scattered in throughout various books and letters. He explores why Kamala Harris has struggled to carve out a distinctive role as vice president. He explains how Ron DeSantis’s pitch to America is just a list of enemies. And he even glimpses what Vladimir Putin fears the most, and why he seeks conflict with the West. He does so all through their own books, and their own words. Lozada reads these books so you don’t have to. The Washington Book is the perfect guide to the state of our politics, and then men and women who dominate the terrain. It explores the construction of personal identity, the delusions of leadership, and that mix of subservience and ambition that can define a life in politics. The more we read the stories of Washington, Lozada contends, the clearer our understanding of the competing visions of our country.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1668050730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist at The New York Times explores how people in power reveal themselves through their books and writings and, in so doing, illuminates the personal, political, and cultural conflicts driving Washington and the nation. As a long-time book critic and columnist in Washington, Carlos Lozada dissects all manner of texts: commission reports, political reporting, Supreme Court decisions, and congressional inquiries to understand the controversies animating life in the capital. He also reads copious books by politicians and top officials: tell-all accounts by administration insiders, campaign biographies by candidates longing for high office, revisionist memoirs by those leaving those offices behind. With this provocative essay collection, Lozada argues that no matter how carefully political figures sanitize their experiences, positions, and records, no matter how diligently they present themselves in the best and safest and most electable light, they almost always let slip the truth. They show us their faults and blind spots, their ambitions and compromises, their underlying motives and insecurities. Whether they mean to or not, they tell us who they really are. In his memoirs and speeches, Barack Obama constantly invoked the power and meaning of his life story, Lozada notes, a sign of how the former president capitalized on his personal symbolism, trying to transform it from inspiration on the campaign trail into an all-purpose governing tool. In a soliloquy about his hair in a self-help book published two decades ago, Donald Trump revealed not just his vanity, Lozada explains, but his utter isolation from the world, long before he entered the bubble of the White House. In deft and lacerating prose, Lozada interprets the unresolved tensions of Hillary Clinton’s ideological beliefs. He imagines the wonderful memoir George H.W. Bush could have given us but instead left scattered in throughout various books and letters. He explores why Kamala Harris has struggled to carve out a distinctive role as vice president. He explains how Ron DeSantis’s pitch to America is just a list of enemies. And he even glimpses what Vladimir Putin fears the most, and why he seeks conflict with the West. He does so all through their own books, and their own words. Lozada reads these books so you don’t have to. The Washington Book is the perfect guide to the state of our politics, and then men and women who dominate the terrain. It explores the construction of personal identity, the delusions of leadership, and that mix of subservience and ambition that can define a life in politics. The more we read the stories of Washington, Lozada contends, the clearer our understanding of the competing visions of our country.
Local Consequences of the Global Cold War
Author: Jeffrey A. Engel
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804759472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Up to now the study of cold war history has been fully engaged in stressing the international character and broad themes of the story. This volume turns such diplomatic history upside down by studying how actions of international relations affected local popular life. Each chapter has its origins in a major international issue, and then unfolds the consequences of that issue for some region or city. Thus the starting points for the various contributions are great unifying questions regarding postwar occupation, militarization, industrialization, and decolonization. But the ending points are small and dispersed, such as movies in Japan, race relations in the American South, forests in East Germany, and industry in Novosibirsk. Collectively, these stories show how the cold war affected every facet of life--East and West, urban and rural, in developed and developing nations, in the superpowers and on the periphery of the international system.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804759472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Up to now the study of cold war history has been fully engaged in stressing the international character and broad themes of the story. This volume turns such diplomatic history upside down by studying how actions of international relations affected local popular life. Each chapter has its origins in a major international issue, and then unfolds the consequences of that issue for some region or city. Thus the starting points for the various contributions are great unifying questions regarding postwar occupation, militarization, industrialization, and decolonization. But the ending points are small and dispersed, such as movies in Japan, race relations in the American South, forests in East Germany, and industry in Novosibirsk. Collectively, these stories show how the cold war affected every facet of life--East and West, urban and rural, in developed and developing nations, in the superpowers and on the periphery of the international system.
The Cold War [2 volumes] [2 volumes]
Author: Priscilla Roberts
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 144085212X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 992
Book Description
This detailed two-volume set tells the story of the Cold War, the dominant international event of the second half of the 20th century, through a diverse selection of primary source documents. One of the most extensive to date, this set of primary source documents studies the Cold War comprehensively from its beginning, with the emergence of the world's first communist government in Russia in late 1917, to its end, in 1991. All of the key events, including the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the nuclear arms race, are discussed in detail. The primary sources provide insight into the thinking of all participants, drawing on Western, Soviet, Asian, and Latin American perspectives. In The Cold War: Interpreting Conflict through Primary Documents primary documents are organized chronologically, allowing readers to appreciate the ramifications of the Cold War within a clear time frame. Extensive interpretive commentary provides in-depth background and context for each document. This work is an indispensable reference for all readers seeking to become deeply knowledgeable about the Cold War.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 144085212X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 992
Book Description
This detailed two-volume set tells the story of the Cold War, the dominant international event of the second half of the 20th century, through a diverse selection of primary source documents. One of the most extensive to date, this set of primary source documents studies the Cold War comprehensively from its beginning, with the emergence of the world's first communist government in Russia in late 1917, to its end, in 1991. All of the key events, including the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the nuclear arms race, are discussed in detail. The primary sources provide insight into the thinking of all participants, drawing on Western, Soviet, Asian, and Latin American perspectives. In The Cold War: Interpreting Conflict through Primary Documents primary documents are organized chronologically, allowing readers to appreciate the ramifications of the Cold War within a clear time frame. Extensive interpretive commentary provides in-depth background and context for each document. This work is an indispensable reference for all readers seeking to become deeply knowledgeable about the Cold War.
Mental Maps in the Early Cold War Era, 1945-68
Author: S. Casey
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230306063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
The early Cold War was a period of dramatic change. New superpowers emerged, the European powers were eclipsed, colonial empires tottered. Political leaders everywhere had to make immense adjustments. This volume explores their hopes and fears, their sense of their place in the world and of the constraints under which they laboured.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230306063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
The early Cold War was a period of dramatic change. New superpowers emerged, the European powers were eclipsed, colonial empires tottered. Political leaders everywhere had to make immense adjustments. This volume explores their hopes and fears, their sense of their place in the world and of the constraints under which they laboured.
Fighter Pilot: From Cold War Jets to Spitfires
Author: Christopher Coville
Publisher: Air World
ISBN: 1399015605
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
A young boy sits in the back of a Chipmunk aircraft at RAF Woodvale, near Liverpool. He has never flown in anything before. As the power goes on and the little aeroplane soars into a clear blue sky, he decides at once that this is the only thing he wants to do in life: to be an RAF pilot. Fighter Pilot: From Cold War Jets to Spitfires tells the riveting story of how a boy from Liverpool, at the height of the Cold War, joined an RAF that was largely led by veterans of the Second World War. Christopher Coville arrived at the RAF College at Cranwell to find an environment shaped by English Public School traditions, but he made the grades needed to be streamed onto fighters, and went on to fly the Lightning, Phantom and Tornado F3 in the air defense role. Christopher eventually became station commander of RAF Coningsby and while in that role flew with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, becoming the only station commander to qualify on the Hurricane, Spitfire and Lancaster. He also qualified on helicopters and multi-engine aircraft and became responsible for the quality of the displays performed by the Red Arrows, flying with them regularly. Along the way, he steered the RAFâs biggest re-equipment programme since 1945 during a tour at the Ministry of defense and filling a challenging top NATO post during the wars in the Balkans. While this is a book about a young man from Liverpool who joined from grammar school and became a three-star Air Marshal, it is also, above all, a story written by a passionate aviator, whose affection for flying leaps out of every line, in a book which is full of excitement, deep knowledge of flying and affection for his fellow servicemen and women. But it is also a wonderful narrative about people, the great characters forged by military life, and honed by fear, exhilaration, and occasional tragedy. Fighter Pilot: From Cold War Jets to Spitfires is a unique perspective on aviation, written by a talented and dedicated pilot at the very top table of the RAF. This book culminates with his retirement, as the No.3 in the RAF, and being invited to have lunch with The Queen.
Publisher: Air World
ISBN: 1399015605
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
A young boy sits in the back of a Chipmunk aircraft at RAF Woodvale, near Liverpool. He has never flown in anything before. As the power goes on and the little aeroplane soars into a clear blue sky, he decides at once that this is the only thing he wants to do in life: to be an RAF pilot. Fighter Pilot: From Cold War Jets to Spitfires tells the riveting story of how a boy from Liverpool, at the height of the Cold War, joined an RAF that was largely led by veterans of the Second World War. Christopher Coville arrived at the RAF College at Cranwell to find an environment shaped by English Public School traditions, but he made the grades needed to be streamed onto fighters, and went on to fly the Lightning, Phantom and Tornado F3 in the air defense role. Christopher eventually became station commander of RAF Coningsby and while in that role flew with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, becoming the only station commander to qualify on the Hurricane, Spitfire and Lancaster. He also qualified on helicopters and multi-engine aircraft and became responsible for the quality of the displays performed by the Red Arrows, flying with them regularly. Along the way, he steered the RAFâs biggest re-equipment programme since 1945 during a tour at the Ministry of defense and filling a challenging top NATO post during the wars in the Balkans. While this is a book about a young man from Liverpool who joined from grammar school and became a three-star Air Marshal, it is also, above all, a story written by a passionate aviator, whose affection for flying leaps out of every line, in a book which is full of excitement, deep knowledge of flying and affection for his fellow servicemen and women. But it is also a wonderful narrative about people, the great characters forged by military life, and honed by fear, exhilaration, and occasional tragedy. Fighter Pilot: From Cold War Jets to Spitfires is a unique perspective on aviation, written by a talented and dedicated pilot at the very top table of the RAF. This book culminates with his retirement, as the No.3 in the RAF, and being invited to have lunch with The Queen.