Bombs Away by Pathfinders of the Eighth Air Force PDF Download

Author: Marshall J. Thixton
Publisher: Fnp Military Division
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Author: Eds James Lee Hutchinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781438903668
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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You will either see yourself in the pages of this book, or you know someone who has been in such predicaments. Two people who have such a strong chemistry and lust for each other, but when one is available the other is not as they weave through a series of relationships, missing each other in between. They are meant for each other but each afraid that neither can "measure up". They live in love, lust and desire for each other. Will they ever get it right?

Author: Eds James Lee Hutchinson
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1468535323
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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"Bombs Away "--This is the author's second book on his WW II service as a B-17 radio operator in 20 combat missions in the 490th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force. The book is compiled of stories about "Hutch"and other airmen as told by the combat crew members themselves. The stories paint vivid pictures of how it was to be a part of the Eighth Air Force's bombing missions that left England to blast targets in Hitler's Third Reich. Each day the skies filled with hundreds of B-17 Flying Fortress bombers and their escorts crossing the English Channel toward enemy targets heavily protected by anti-aircraft batteries and German fighters waiting to attack the heavy bombers. Hutch writes, "The crews manned their combat positions and waited for the hell they knew was coming". Airmen of the Fifteenth Air Force blasted enemy targets in the Italian and Mediteranian theater. The author's amazing stories of survival and/or death in the deadly skies is riveting. Stories from interviews with WWII veterans and information from the 490th Historical Record provide eyewitness accounts of bombing missions, fighter attacks, mid-air collisions, and airmen shot down and imprisoned in POW camps. Final chapters tell of a childhood in the poverty and hardships of the Great Depression.The 274 page book contains 29 photos, 72 war stories and 24 tales of a Hoosier boyhood.

Author: James T. Controvich
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810850101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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This bibliography lists published and printed unit histories for the United States Air Force and Its Antecedents, including Air Divisions, Wings, Groups, Squadrons, Aviation Engineers, and the Women's Army Corps.

Author: Frederick A. Johnsen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781610607759
Category : Airplanes, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Flying at 25,000 feet, loaded with 6000 pounds of bombs, bristling with thirteen .50 caliber machine guns, and with a highly trained and motivated flight crew, the B-17 Flying Fortress became the physical symbol of America's Mighty Eighth Air Force. Arrayed against the Eighth Air Force was Nazi Germany's veteran, battle tested air armada the Luftwaffa. But the B-17 didn't go to war alone. The Eighth Air Force also deployed some of the most famous aircraft: the rugged B-24 Liberator, the nimble P-38 Lightning, the P-47 Thunderbolt with its four pairs of deadly wing mounted .50 caliber machine guns, and the quick and high flying P-51 Mustang.

Author: John Steinbeck
Publisher: New York, Viking P
ISBN:
Category : Bomber pilots
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Author: Ian Hawkins
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597977128
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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The 95th Bomb Group (Heavy), the most highly decorated bomb group of World War II, participated in every major mission of the war in Europe from May 1943 through the warÆs end and was awarded an unprecedented three Presidential Unit Citations. Flying the celebrated B-17 Flying Fortress, the 95th was the first U.S. bomb group to bomb Berlinùa feat that put it on the centerfold of Life magazineùand the last group to lose a plane over Europe in World War II. Over six hundred men in the 95th never came home. The Wild Blue Yonder and Beyond is the first book to cover a World War II bomb group from its inception through the present day. Utilizing interviews with nearly a hundred air war veterans, dozens of unpublished crew memoirs, all the bomb groupÆs official mission reports from the National Archives, and nearly a hundred other sources, author Rob Morris (assisted by air war historian Ian Hawkins) provides a deep tactical and human understanding of the group. Also included are the stories of the veteransÆ wives and families, who fought a different kind of war at home, and the residents of Horham, whose tiny English village was suddenly on the warÆs front lines. Intensely human, exhaustively researched, and lovingly told, this book is certain to be a classic in the field and a resource for anyone interested in the workings of a World War II bomb group.

Author: Donald L. Miller
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 722

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This volume looks at the history of the Eighth Air Force in Britain. It covers the individual destinies, the famous and notorious raids like Schweinfurt-Regensburg and Dresden, the social transformation of east Anglian villages by an influx of good-time Yanks, the POW camps, and the endless controversy about the ethics of bombing.

Author: S. P. MacKenzie
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700624694
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
During World War II, Allied casualty rates in the air were high. Of the roughly 125,000 who served as aircrew with Bomber Command, 59,423 were killed or missing and presumed killed—a fatality rate of 45.5%. With odds like that, it would be no surprise if there were as few atheists in cockpits as there were in foxholes; and indeed, many airmen faced their dangerous missions with beliefs and rituals ranging from the traditional to the outlandish. Military historian S. P. MacKenzie considers this phenomenon in Flying against Fate, a pioneering study of the important role that superstition played in combat flier morale among the Allies in World War II. Mining a wealth of documents as well as a trove of published and unpublished memoirs and diaries, MacKenzie examines the myriad forms combat fliers' superstitions assumed, from jinxes to premonitions. Most commonly, airmen carried amulets or talismans—lucky boots or a stuffed toy; a coin whose year numbers added up to thirteen; counterintuitively, a boomerang. Some performed rituals or avoided other acts, e.g., having a photo taken before a flight. Whatever seemed to work was worth sticking with, and a heightened risk often meant an upsurge in superstitious thought and behavior. MacKenzie delves into behavior analysis studies to help explain the psychology behind much of the behavior he documents—not slighting the large cohort of crew members and commanders who demurred. He also looks into the ways in which superstitious behavior was tolerated or even encouraged by those in command who saw it as a means of buttressing morale. The first in-depth exploration of just how varied and deeply felt superstitious beliefs were to tens of thousands of combat fliers, Flying against Fate expands our understanding of a major aspect of the psychology of war in the air and of World War II.

Author: Bill Yenne
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0425272249
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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In just six days, the United States Strategic Air Forces changed the course of military offense in World War II. During those six days, they launched the largest bombing campaign of the war, dropping roughly ten thousand tons of bombs in a rain of destruction that would take the skies back from the Nazis . . . The Allies knew that if they were to invade Hitler’s Fortress Europe, they would have to wrest air superiority from the mighty Luftwaffe. The plan of the Unites States Strategic Air Forces was extremely risky. During the week of February 20, 1944—and joined by the RAF Bomber Command—the USAAF Eighth and Fifteenth Air Force bombers took on this vital mission. They ran the gauntlet of the most heavily defended air space in the world to deal a death blow to Germany’s aircraft industry and made them pay with the planes already in the air. In the coming months, this Big Week would prove a deciding factor in the war. Both sides were dealt losses, but whereas the Allies could recover, damage to the Luftwaffe was irreparable. Thus, Big Week became one of the most important episodes of World War II and, coincidentally, one of the most overlooked—until now.