This intimate account of what it was like to fly open-cockpit, single engined aircraft over the length and breadth of primitive Africa in the early 1930s has been written by one of the pioneers of the African air-routes, Victor Smith. Smith is in fact the last of that intrepid breed of pilots who risked their lives, and their machines, in a determined bid to open up the Darkest Continent and to reduce traveling times between Africa and Europe.
Flight Lieutenant Thomas ‘Tommy’ Rose, a First World War fighter ace, was a pioneer of private flying. He installed and managed the UK’s first fuel pump for private aviation at Brooklands before becoming Sales Manager for Phillips and Powis Aircraft Ltd. The chief flying instructor at several early flying schools, Tommy became the Chief Test Pilot for Miles Aircraft and was the winner of air races and pageants. He was undoubtedly a pilot who could always be relied on to amaze the onlookers with his fast, accurate stunts and low-level flying. Mentioned in Despatches in 1916 and awarded the DFC in 1918, Tommy was attacked in his aircraft several times, yet his astonishing ability at the controls of his aircraft enabled him to land without serious injury. By the time of the Armistice, Tommy had been credited with eleven ‘kills’. He continued to demonstrate these skills after the war and though this true trailblazer was widely known in his glory days during the early part of the twentieth century, little is remembered about him today. Yet Tommy Rose achieved the most incredible feats of aviation and was considered one of the finest pilots of his era, completing over 11,200 flying hours up to 1949. In the 1930s, Tommy took the Imperial Airways route through East Africa, to set up a new world record on the UK to Cape Town passage, beating Amy Mollison (Johnson) who took the shorter course down the west coast. He also won the King's Cup Air Race in 1935. Tommy flew many of the early RAF fighters from Maurice Farman to the Spitfire Mk.IX, and, from late 1939, when he was appointed Chief Test Pilot for Phillip & Powis Aircraft Ltd at Woodley (forerunners of Miles Aircraft Ltd), he test flew all Miles monoplane training and target towing aircraft, leaving in January 1946. His last position was as General Manager of Universal Flying Services Ltd at Fairoaks Aerodrome in Surrey. The result of decades of research by the author, through this book the life and adventures of one of history’s most accomplished and daring aviators can finally be told.
The new activity of trans-continental civil flying in the 1930s is a useful vantage point for viewing the extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation examines the experiences of those (mostly men) who flew solo or with a companion (racing or for leisure), who were airline passengers (doing colonial administration, business or research), or who flew as civilian air and ground crews. For airborne elites, flying was a modern and often enviable way of managing, using and experiencing empire. On the ground, aviation was a device for asserting old empire: adventure and modernity were accompanied by supremacism. At the time, however, British civil imperial flying was presented romantically in books, magazines and exhibitions. Eighty years on, imperial flying is still remembered, reproduced and re-enacted in caricature.
This volume chronicles the story of military aviation in Rhodesia from the early romantic days of "bush" flying in the 20s and 30s when aircraft were refuelled from jerry cans and landing grounds were often the local golf course. In 1939, before the outbreak of World War II, the tiny Rhodesian Air Force became the first to take up battle stations. The three Rhodesian squadrons served in East Africa, the Western Desert, Italy and Western Europe. At home, Rhodesia became a vast training ground for airmen from Britain, the Commonwealth, and Greece. After the war, Rhodesia rebuilt its air force on a tiny budget -- equipping it with Ansons, Spitfires, Vampires, Canberras, Hunters and Alouettes. In later years, after the imposition of sanctions and during the bitter bush war years, many remarkable innovations were made to keep the RhAF flying in the vanguard of counter-msurgency operations. This colorful look at the Rhodesian Air Force is sure to be of interest to military historians everywhere!
The decisive role of U.S. Army Air Forces in North Africa is vividly chronicled in this WWII pictorial history featuring rare wartime photographs. In 1942, General Erwin Rommel launched a surprise offensive in North Africa that brought a renewed threat to the Allied forces in the Middle East. United States Army Air Forces were quickly transferred to Egypt to assist the beleaguered British. Unaccustomed to the sprawling deserts of North Africa, the American airmen were confronted by sandstorms, flooding rains, extremes of temperature and primitive living conditions. Beyond these daunting conditions, they were pitted against an experienced and determined enemy. U.S. air power nevertheless played a decisive role in the Allied invasion of Northwest Africa and the subsequent surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia in May 1943. Later bombing missions flown from North Africa struck Axis targets across Europe and supported the Allied invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy. Featuring rare photograph from wartime archives, this volume in the Images of War series presents an illustrated account of U.S. fighter aircraft and bombers—including the iconic B-17 Flying Fortress, P-38 Lightning and B-24 Liberator—and the aircrews that fought to establish ascendancy over North African skies and beyond.
Although the Luftwaffe achieved a great deal of success in North Africa between 1940 and 1943, it was hampered by the constant demand for men and machines elsewhere, logistical problems, such as a crippling lack of fuel, and the harsh desert conditions. An impressive selection of photographs from archives and private collections reveal the German and Italian aircraft used and developed in this theatre as well as the people involved. With insightful captions and supporting text, this offers a fascinating perspective on the Luftwaffe at war.
A British soldier's remarkable diary of the dramatic siege of Ladysmith during the savage Anglo-Boer war in South Africa. George Maidment, a young soldier fresh from the English Midlands, was thrown into the brutal fight at Ladysmith. His diary is a faithful historical record of the long battle and it details the daily tedium, the constant sniping, the lack of food and the disgust felt by the British Army when it was forced to eat its own horses to stay alive.
