Author: Stuart Burbridge Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1848840160 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
This is the story of Thomas Lancashire who joined the RAF in 1936 and became one of the famous 'Trenchard Brats' at RAF Halton to be educated and learn the trade of fitter. He was first posted to 7 Squadron in 1939, at that time flying Whitley bombers but decided to advance himself to become a flight engineer on the new Stirling heavy bomber. He was posted to 15 Squadron at Wyton and completed a full tour that included the famous Lbeck raid, the Thousand Bomber assault on Cologne and the follow up on Essen during which he was almost shot down over Antwerp. In July 1942 he was rested and became an instructor until being posted to 97 Squadron flying Lancasters. On his ninth raid of this tour, 11 August 1943, the aircraft was attacked by a night fighter over Belgium but he successfully baled out and was eventually picked up by the Resistance and handed to an escape line. Eventually the group of evaders was betrayed by a German agent and placed in captivity, ending up in Stalag Luft IV at Mhlberg. During this time he escaped but was eventually recaptured and he was forced to share the growing despair and hardships in late 1944, enduring overcrowding, hunger and cold, until the Russian Army liberated the camp and he was airlifted back to the UK. His post-war career took him to Canada where he was employed on the Avro Arrow project until it was abandoned and he was forced to seek work in the USA. He worked with Boeing until his retirement .
Author: S. P. MacKenzie Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700624694 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 264
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 Mining a wealth of documents as well as a trove of published and unpublished memoirs and diaries, MacKenzie examines the myriad forms combat fliers' superstitions assumed, from jinxes to premonitions.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: Thomas Lancashire Publisher: ISBN: 9780753195697 Category : Flight engineers Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
"The announcement of my intention to apply for entry into the Royal Air Force was met by abject horror from my mother and she was quite adamant that no son of hers was going to join the armed forces."Thomas Lancashire joined the RAF in 1936 and became a "Trenchard Brat" at RAF Halton. He was posted to 7 Squadron in 1939, flying Whitley bombers but decided to become a flight engineer on the Stirling heavy bomber. Posted to 15 Squadron he was involved in the Lnbeck raid. In 1942 he became an instructor until posted to 97 Squadron flying Lancasters. Attacked over Belgium he successfully baled out only to be betrayed by a German agent and placed in captivity.
Author: Richard Knott Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1781594422 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 435
Book Description
"I am not pressing you to fight the weather as well as the Germans, never forget that." So wrote Winston Churchill to Arthur Harris, the Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command, after the terrible events of 16 December 1943. In the murky dusk almost five hundred heavy bombers, almost entirely Lancasters, set out for Berlin from their bases in eastern England, from north Yorkshire to southern Cambridgeshire. They lifted off at around 4 pm to bomb the target four hours later and were expected to return at midnight. 328 aircrew lost their lives that night they were the victims of the weather, not the Germans. This book relates the tragic circumstances of individual crews as they struggled to find their home bases in low cloud and fog. It also includes stories from the local people who remember hearing a low-flying aircraft and all too often the frightful explosion as it struck unexpected high ground or even trees. Some rescue attempts were successful, but for most aircrew it was death in a blazing wreck. Many of the crash sites have been explored by the author as he tried to imagine exactly how each aircraft came to grief. It contains many photos of aircraft as they were and the remaining impact areas that remain to this day.
Author: Chris Ward Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1844157962 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 346
Book Description
During the immediate period before World War Two, the RAF modified its command structure to rationalize for rapid expansion. Bomber Command was divided into six operational groups, each flying the same type of aircraft. 3 Group had almost completely re-equipped with the Wellington by 4 September 1939 to carry out the second bombing operation of the war which was against German warships off Brunsbüttel. In 1940 the first of the new four-engined bombers, the Short Stirling, came into service with the Group, being followed in 1942 by the Avro Lancaster. On 3rd/4th November 1943, No. 3 Group played a leading part in the first bombing attack in which heavy bombers made use of the radar bombing aid known as G-H. The target was Düsseldorf; bombs were dropped "blind" and good results were obtained. In July and August 1944, aircraft of this Group equipped with G-H maintained an all-weather attack against flying-bomb sites. Through the D-Day build-up, the liberation of France and conquest of Germany, formations of No. 3 Group attacked railway junctions, marshalling yards, troop concentrations, etc. During the week ending 25th March 1945, Bomber Command made numerous attacks to prepare for the crossing of the Rhine.
Author: Martin W. Bowman Publisher: Air World ISBN: 1526786397 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 749
Book Description
“A fascinating look into the aircrews used and the effect on those who had to live through this constant bombing” by the RAF during World War II (UK Historian). Berlin was bombed by four Allied air forces between 1940 and 1945. British bombers alone dropped 45,517 tons of bombs, while the Americans a further 23,000 tons. By 1944, some 1.2 million people, 790,000 of them women and children, about a quarter of Berlin’s population, had been evacuated to rural areas. An effort was made to evacuate all children from Berlin, but this was defeated by parents and many evacuees who soon made their way back to the city. However, by May 1945, 1.7 million people—40% of the population—had fled the city. This fitting tribute to those who died in the relentless struggle to knock Berlin, and hopefully Germany, out of the war resonates with eyewitness accounts and background information which the author has painstakingly investigated and researched. The result is a hugely fascinating and highly readable narrative containing very real and unique observations by British and Commonwealth aircrew and, equally importantly, the long-suffering citizens of Berlin, and well as the capital’s defenders. Though not a defeat in absolute terms, in the operational sense The Battle of Berlin was an offensive that Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and his aircrews could not win. “Berlin won” concluded Sir Ralph Cochrane, the Air Officer Commanding 5 Group RAF Bomber Command. “It was just too tough a nut.” “An impressively informative, deftly written, exceptionally well documented, and expertly organized history . . . a seminal work of original scholarship.” —Midwest Book Review
Author: Peter Cornwell Publisher: The History Press ISBN: 0752466925 Category : Transportation Languages : en Pages : 172
Book Description
With humble beginnings as an RAF apprentice, Johnny Wells progressed to pilot and rose to the higher echelons of command at the Air Ministry. From idyllic pre-war training, he would fly bombers against rebels over Iraq, combat Fw190s over England in the newly introduced and equally dangerous Typhoon; he would undertake hazardous low-level anti-shipping strikes in the English Channel, as well as train-busting sorties over occupied territory at night and close-support ground-attack operations across northern Europe following D-Day. Indeed, Wells ended the Second World War as one of the most successful and highly decorated Typhoon Wing Leaders in the Tactical Air Force. This well-researched account of one man's rise through the ranks of the Air Ministry is finely illustrated with contemporary images and is an excellent testimony of what was required of air pilots during the Second World War. Wells' story is both an inspiration and a gripping account of one man's journey through a service career spanning more than three turbulent decades.
Author: Dilip Sarkar Publisher: Air World ISBN: 1399065408 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
There remains an enduring fascination with the Battle of Britain, and the RAF aircrew who fought and won this unprecedented aerial conflict, immortalized by Churchill in August 1940 as The Few. Unlike today, when photography is a huge part of peoples daily lives, not least because of mobile phone cameras and the sharing of images via social media, back then photography involved comparatively primitive and expensive items of equipment and was not, therefore, as accessible as it is today. Furthermore, unofficial photography on service installations in Britain was strictly prohibited for security reasons, and consequently such photographs, often taken surreptitiously, are comparatively rare (although, interestingly, amateur photography was much more popular in Germany, and German servicemen took countless photographs, especially during the Blitzkrieg years). The authors personal relationships and friendships with many of The Few, however, enabled him to unlock their personal archives, photograph albums and personal snapshots. The result of this research represents a substantial and unique archive. These photographs are not, in the main, posed official pictures, but those snapped by air and groundcrews who were keen amateur photographers, their images often shared around their squadron mates. The photographs presented here, some for the first time, provide the reader with a fascinating window on the past, through which we get an authentic glimpse of the summer of 1940 and The Few themselves. Indeed, in some cases, these are the only known images of certain individuals, while the likeness of others has been lost to history. That fact, therefore, emphasizes the importance of this photographic record.
Author: S. P. MacKenzie Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191513989 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 480
Book Description
Though only one among hundreds of prison camps in which British servicemen were held between 1939 and 1945, Colditz enjoys unparalleled name recognition both in Britain and in other parts of the English-speaking world. Made famous in print, on film, and through television, Colditz remains a potent symbol of key virtues - including ingenuity and perseverance against apparantly overwhelming odds - that form part of the popular mythology surrounding the British war effort in World War II. Colditz has played a major role in shaping perceptions of the POW experience in Nazi Germany, an experience in which escaping is assumed to be paramount and 'Outwitting the Hun' a universal sport. The story of Colditz has been told often and in a variety of forms but in this book MacKenzie chronicles the development of the Colditz myth and puts what happened inside the castle in the context of British and Commonwealth POW life in Germany as a whole. Being a captive of the Third Reich - from the moment of surrender down to the day of liberation and repatriation - was more complicated and a good deal tougher than the popular myth would suggest. The physical and mental demands of survival far outweighed escaping activity in order of importance in most camps almost all of the time, and even in Colditz the reality was in some respects very different from the almost Boy's Own caricature that developed during the post-war decades. In The Real Colditz MacKenzie seeks, for the first time, to place Colditz - both the camp and the legend - in a wider historical context.
Author: Publisher: ISBN: 9780191532238 Category : Prisoners of war Languages : en Pages : 492
Book Description
Through first-hand accounts of hundreds of ordinary prisoners of war, Paul MacKenzie strips away the mythology and presents the real picture of what it was like to be captured and interrogated and to endure the physical and mental hardships of captivity. Colditz is placed in a wider historical context.
Author: Stuart Burbridge
Author: S. P. MacKenzie
Author: Thomas Lancashire
Author: Richard Knott
Author: Chris Ward
Author: Martin W. Bowman
Author: Peter Cornwell
Author: Dilip Sarkar
Author: S. P. MacKenzie
Author: