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Author: Ian Sumner Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1526701812 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
The French air force of the First World War developed as fast as the British and German air forces, yet its history, and the enormous contribution it made to the eventual French victory, is often forgotten. So Ian Sumner's photographic history, which features almost 200 images, most of which have not been published before, is a fascinating and timely introduction to the subject. The fighter pilots, who usually dominate perceptions of the war in the air, play a leading role in the story, in particular the French aces, the small group of outstanding airmen whose exploits captured the publics imagination. Their fame, though, tends to distract attention from the ordinary unremembered airmen who formed the body of the air force throughout the war years. Ian Sumner tells their story too, as well as describing in a sequence of memorable photographs the less well-known branches of the service the bomber and reconnaissance pilots and the variety of primitive warplanes they flew.
Author: Ian Sumner Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1526701812 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
The French air force of the First World War developed as fast as the British and German air forces, yet its history, and the enormous contribution it made to the eventual French victory, is often forgotten. So Ian Sumner's photographic history, which features almost 200 images, most of which have not been published before, is a fascinating and timely introduction to the subject. The fighter pilots, who usually dominate perceptions of the war in the air, play a leading role in the story, in particular the French aces, the small group of outstanding airmen whose exploits captured the publics imagination. Their fame, though, tends to distract attention from the ordinary unremembered airmen who formed the body of the air force throughout the war years. Ian Sumner tells their story too, as well as describing in a sequence of memorable photographs the less well-known branches of the service the bomber and reconnaissance pilots and the variety of primitive warplanes they flew.
Author: Greg Baughen Publisher: Fonthill Media ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 428
Book Description
On 10 May 1940, the French possessed one of the largest air forces in the world. On paper, it was nearly as strong as the RAF. Six weeks later, France had been defeated. For a struggling French Army desperately looking for air support, the skies seemed empty of friendly planes. In the decades that followed, the debate raged. Were there unused stockpiles of planes? Were French aircraft really so inferior? Baughen examines the myths that surround the French defeat. He explains how at the end of the First World War, the French had possessed the most effective air force in the world, only for the lessons learned to be forgotten. Instead, air policy was guided by radical theories that predicted air power alone would decide future wars. Baughen traces some of the problems back to the very earliest days of French aviation. He describes the mistakes and bad luck that dogged the French efforts to modernise their air force in the twenties and thirties. He examines how decisions made just months before the German attack further weakened the air force. Yet defeat was not inevitable. If better use had been made of the planes that were available, the result might have been different.
Author: Vital Ferry Publisher: ISBN: 9782352503705 Category : Airplanes, Military Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
During the cradle of aviation, at the beginning of the Great War, France had access to only a few dozen military aircraft, with a staff who didn't quite know what to do with them. However, during the course of the conflict, the embryonic Air Force, dedicated to the creation of reconnaissance and bombing missions, evolved like wildfire to the point that by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, French military aviation had become one of the world's most powerful as a result of the construction of 10,000 aircraft spread throughout nearly 300 squadrons. Having became the first nation equipped with an air force, the French aviation industry in its infancy before the war, had been able to produce in four years 50,000 aircraft, may of which would go on to support a number of her allies, including Britain, Russia and especially the United States. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the French Air Force from 1914 to 1918 through a historical narrative peppered with anecdotes and illustrated with many unpublished pictures from the period and profiles of the most iconic devices. The work is complete with full specifications of aircraft built and used by France during the four years of the Great War.
Author: Jonathan Sutherland Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1848843364 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 222
Book Description
"At the beginning of World War II the French faced the German invasion with 4,360 modern combat aircraft and 790 new machines currently arriving from French and American factories each month. When the phony war finally ended, some 119 of 210 squadrons were ready for action on the north-eastern front. The others were reequipping or stationed in the French colonies. Of the 119 squadrons France could bring into action only one-fourth of the aircraft were battle-ready.With France overrun by June 1940, what remained of the French air force was either concentrated in the unoccupied zone or had been hastily redeployed to the colonies. Nonetheless, in retaliation for the British attack on the French fleet in Oran, French bombers, based in French Morocco, carried out retaliatory air raids over Gibraltar. The Armee de l'Air de Vichy was born and would fight to the best of its ability against the Free French's allies in theatres as distant as north-west Africa, Syria, Lebanon, Madagascar and the Far East. Not only would they take to the skies against the British and later the Americans, they would also willingly take part in aerial duels against Free French pilots.Only a handful of books have been written on French aircraft, but never has there been a complete history of the operations of the Vichy Air Force and its fratricidal war. This title literally spans the globe, examining forgotten air combats. It is also important to note that many of the Vichy pilots that survived the air combats later volunteered to join the Free French and would fight with great courage and distinction alongside the very pilots that they had been trying to kill.rnrnThis book describes all major theatres of combat, examines the aircraft flown and lengthy appendices cover operational units, victory credits and the Aeronautique Navale"--Dust jacket.
Author: Stephen Lee McFarland Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 96
Book Description
Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that "last full measure of devotion"; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries.
Author: Leonard E. Opdycke Publisher: Schiffer Military History ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
French Aeroplanes Before the Great War is a catalog of the aeroplanes of the nearly 700 French builders who worked before the onset of World War I. Most of these aeroplanes flew some did not some were never even finished but all of them reflect the extraordinary vitality and sense of optimism that powered the aeronautical world before the future of the aeroplane began to become clearer in wartime. If the Wrights had not flown in 1903, one of the early French builders would very quickly have won the laurels for the first flight. Some of the machines appear in these pages probably for the first time in print; others are rarely seen. This collection serves as a kind of super Exposition Internationale de Locomotion Arienne; readers are invited to enter the Grand Palais, as they might have in 1908 or 1909, to enjoy these marvelous aircraft.
Author: Roger G. Miller Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing ISBN: 1786252473 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 142
Book Description
Includes 29 Illustrations The advent of an American squadron, or “escadrille,” within the French air force, the Service Aeronautique, had been far from a simple process. French leaders initially held the belief, common at the time, that the war begun in 1914 would be a short one. The potential value of American volunteers fighting for France both for propaganda purposes and for helping bring the power of the New World into the war on the side of the Allies was thus irrelevant at first. By early 1915, however, the French began to accept American volunteers and assign them to escadrilles. In early 1916, the Service Aeronautique united several of these men in an elite chasse unit, which quickly earned an enviable reputation for audacity, bravery, and élan. Success of this unit, the Lafayette Escadrille, had three consequences. First, its existence encouraged a large number of Americans, far more than needed in one escadrille, to volunteer for French aviation. These individuals, identified unofficially as members of a “Lafayette Flying Corps,” served in numerous French air units. Second, the publicity surrounding the Lafayette Escadrille contributed favorable press for the Allied cause, strengthened ties between France and the U.S., and ultimately helped prepare the U.S. to participate on the Allied side of the conflict. Third, the existence of a large body of experienced American pilots provided combat veterans for the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France when the U.S. ultimately entered the war. These veterans helped instill in the U.S. Air Service the attitudes and practices of the Service Aeronautique, an infusion especially reflected in two U.S. pursuit squadrons, the 103rd Aero Squadron, made up of Lafayette Escadrille pilots, and the 94th Aero Squadron, the most famous American combat squadron of the war.
Author: Norman Franks Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1911621750 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 553
Book Description
The authors of Bloody April 1917 present a new volume of facts, photos, and analysis covering aerial combat in the last days of the Great War. Fifteen months after the events of April 1917, more battles had been fought, won and lost on both sides, but now the American strength was feeding in to France with both men and material. With the mighty push on the French/American Front at St. Mihiel on September 12 and then along the Meuse-Argonne Front from the 26th, once more masses of men and aircraft were put into the air. They were opposed by no less a formidable German fighter force than had the squadrons in April 1917, although the numbers were not in their favor. Nevertheless, the German fighter pilots were able to inflict an even larger toll of British, French, and American aircraft shot down, making this the worst month for the Allied flyers during the whole of World War I—and this just a mere six weeks from the war’s bloody finale. This book analyzes the daily events throughout September with the use of lists of casualties and claims from both sides. It also contains seven detailed appendices examining the victory claims of all the air forces that fought during September 1918. Although it is difficult to pinpoint exactly who was fighting who high above the trenches, by poring over maps and carefully studying almost all the surviving records, the picture slowly begins to emerge with deadly accuracy. Black September 1918 is a profusely illustrated and essential reference piece to understanding one of the crucial months of war in the skies.
Author: Ian Sumner
Author: Ian Sumner
Author: Greg Baughen
Author: Vital Ferry
Author: Maurer Maurer
Author: Jonathan Sutherland
Author: Maurer Maurer
Author: Stephen Lee McFarland
Author: Leonard E. Opdycke![Like A Thunderbolt: The Lafayette Escadrille And The Advent Of American Pursuit In World War I [Illustrated Edition] PDF](https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/lTFvCwAAQBAJ?fife=w80-h100)
Author: Roger G. Miller
Author: Norman Franks