The Liberator Men of "Old Buc"
Author: Andy Low
Publisher:
Published: 1979
Total Pages: 153
ISBN-13:
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The Liberator Men of "Old Buc"
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 1999
Total Pages:
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJimmy Stewart
Author: Starr Smith
Publisher: Zenith Press
Published: 2006-11-15
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13: 9780760328248
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOf all the celebrities who served their country during World War II--and they were legion--Jimmy Stewart was unique. "Bomber Pilot" chronicles his long journey to become a bomber pilot in combat.
I Will Tell No War Stories
Author: Howard Mansfield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2024-04-16
Total Pages: 161
ISBN-13: 1493081098
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen Howard Mansfield grew up, World War II was omnipresent and hidden. This was also true of his father’s time in the Air Force. Like most of his generation, it was a rule not to talk about what he’d experienced in war. “You’re not getting any war stories from me,” he’d say. Cleaning up the old family house the year before his father's death, Mansfield was surprised to find a short diary of the bombing missions he had flown. Some of the missions were harrowing. Mansfield began to fill in the details, and to be surprised again, this time by a history he thought he knew. I Will Tell No War Stories is about undoing the forgetting in a family and in a society that has hidden the horrors and cataclysm of a world at war. Some part of that forgetting was necessary for the veterans, otherwise how could they come home, how could they find peace? I Will Tell No War Stories is also about learning to live with history, a theme Mansfield explored in earlier books like In the Memory House, which The New York Times called “a wise and beautiful book” and The Same Ax,Twice, said by the Times to be “filled with insight and eloquence … a brilliant book.”
James Stewart at War
Author: Pavel Türk
Publisher: Air World
Published: 2023-08-30
Total Pages: 165
ISBN-13: 1399066978
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReveals how Stewart was the presiding officer of the court martial of a pilot and navigator who accidentally bombed Zürich in Switzerland. James Stewart was already a Hollywood star when the United States went to war in December 1941. Having received an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1940 for his role in The Philadelphia Story, he had become a familiar face to movie goers by the time that the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor. By that time ‘Jimmy’ had already received his private pilot’s license and when his name was drawn by the Drafting Commission on 29 October 1940, he applied to join the US Army Air Corps. He continued his pilot training and just twelve days before he received his draft, he had obtained his commercial pilot’s license. It was on 18 January 1942, that the Hollywood star was called into active duty. Jimmy was transferred to the 929th Bombardier Training School, based at Kirtland Field in New Mexico, on 19 August 1942. There he served as a pilot almost until the end of the year. Though his film company had managed to secure a ‘static personnel’ role, Jimmy was determined to fly in combat. So it was that Captain James Maitland Stewart was appointed as the Commander of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron. Finally, on 17 November 1943, he landed in the UK and his operational war began. Flying in a Consolidated B-24 Liberator, Jimmy undertook his first bombing mission on 13 December 1943, the target on this occasion being the German U-boat facilities at Kiel. Just seven days later he was once again sent to attack a target in Germany, this time the port of Bremen. A further eighteen missions followed over the following fifteen months. Stewart took part in raids against targets across Germany, including Berlin, all of which are analyzed in detail along with a fabulous collection of photographs of the aircraft Jimmy flew and the men he flew with. His contribution to victory over Germany was not confined to flying B-24 bombers, He also functioned as an Operations Officer for a period and led the Liberators of the 2nd Combat Bomb Wing to an attack on the railway marshaling yards at Halle from the navigator’s seat of a de Haviland Mosquito. James Stewart rose to the rank of major from private in just four years, an achievement few can claim. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions as deputy commander of the 2nd Bombardment Wing, and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. The French bestowed him with the Croix de Guerre with palm. Having risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, James Stewart returned to the silver screen after the war. He continued to play a role in the Army Air Forces reserve, during which period he was promoted to brigadier general. In so doing, Stewart became the highest-ranking actor in American military history.
Beyond the Beach
Author: Stephen Bourque
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2018-04-15
Total Pages: 343
ISBN-13: 1612518745
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn important rethinking of the Normandy war narrative Beyond the Beach examines the Allied air war against France in 1944. During this period, General Dwight David Eisenhower, as Supreme Allied Commander, took control of all American, British, and Canadian air units and employed them for tactical and operational purposes over France rather than as a strategic force to attack targets deep in Germany. Using bombers as his long-range artillery, he directed the destruction of bridges, rail centers, ports, military installations, and even French towns with the intent of preventing German reinforcements from interfering with Operation Neptune, the Allied landings on the Normandy beaches. Ultimately, this air offensive resulted in the death of over 60,000 French civilians and an immense amount of damage to towns, churches, buildings, and works of art. This intense bombing operation, conducted against a friendly occupied state, resulted in a swath of physical and human destruction across northwest France that is rarely discussed as part of the D-Day landings. This book explores the relationship between ground and air operations and its effects on the French population. It examines the three broad groups that the air operations involved, the doctrine and equipment used by Allied air force leaders to implement Eisenhower’s plans, and each of the eight major operations, called lines of effort, that coordinated the employment of the thousands of fighters, medium bombers, and heavy bombers that prowled the French skies that spring and summer of 1944. Each of these sections discusses the operation's purpose, conduct, and effects upon both the military and the civilian targets. Finally, the book explores the short and long-term effects of these operations and argues that this ignored narrative should be part of any history of the D-Day landings.
An Emotional Gauntlet
Author: Stuart J. Wright
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2011-04-21
Total Pages: 548
ISBN-13: 147381183X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA moving account of the lives of one diverse WWII American aircrew, “filled with humor, chaos, horror, and tragedy” (The Freeport Journal-Standard). In this book, Stuart J Wright tells the gripping story of a World War II American aircrew flying missions from Old Buckenham, England in a B-24 Liberator bomber they nicknamed Corky, based on years of research and correspondence with crew members and their families. Wright adds a dimension rarely explored in other World War II memoirs and narratives, beginning the chronicle during peacetime when the men of the aircrew are introduced as civilians—kids during the 1920s. As they mature through the years of the Great Depression to face a world at war, questions are raised about “just” and “unjust” wars, imperialism and patriotism. Jingoistic sentimentality is resisted in favor of objectivity, as the feelings and motivations of the crew members are explored: the Chinese American air gunner had hoped to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force to fight against the Japanese invaders of his homeland; the Jewish navigator felt compelled to join the battle against Nazi Germany. In recounting the harrowing conditions and horrors of bombing missions over Europe, An Emotional Gauntlet emphasizes the interpersonal relationships within the crew and the spirit these men shared. As pilot Jack Nortridge regularly assured his crew, “If you fly with me, I'm going to bring you home.” This book is a testament to their strength and determination. Includes photographs “Compelling…stands out for its integration of pre-war civilian life with wartime experiences. To me, this is the essence of America's story in the war, and I am glad to find a book that comprehends this and tells the story from this perspective.”—Jerome Klinkowitz, author of Yanks Over Europe: American Flyers in World War II
United States Air Force and Its Antecedents
Author: James T. Controvich
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 200
ISBN-13: 9780810850101
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis 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.
The Men Who Flew the Heavy Bombers
Author: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Pen and Sword Aviation
Published: 2022-08-09
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13: 1526746328
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMartin Bowman’s considerable experience as a military historian has spanned over forty years, during which time he has amassed a wealth of material on the participation by RAF and Commonwealth and US 8th and 15th Air Force crews in the series of raids on the cities and oil transportation and industrial targets in the Third Reich, culminating in ‘Round-the-Clock’ bombing by the RAF, operating at night on the largely forgotten Stirling, the gamely Halifax and ultimately the more successful Lancaster, and the US 8th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator crews by day on a target list so long and wide ranging that it defies the imagination. Hundreds of hours of painstaking and fact-finding research and interviews and correspondence with numerous airmen and women and their relatives, in Britain, America and beyond has been woven into a highly readable and emotional outpouring of life and death in combat over the Third Reich as the men of the RAF and Commonwealth and American air forces describe in their own words the compelling, gripping and thought-provoking narrative of the Combined Bomber Offensive in World War Two, which resulted from the RAF nocturnal onslaught and the American unescorted precision attacks on targets throughout the Reich until the P-51 Mustang escort fighters enabled the 8th to assume the mantle of the leading bombing partner in theatre. February and March 1945 saw the most intense bombing destruction when Nazi defences were minimal or absent and the war was all but over. Final victory in May 1945 came at a high price indeed. Half of the U.S. Army Air Forces' casualties in World War II were suffered by Eighth Air Force, with in excess of 47,000 casualties, with more than 26,000 dead. RAF Bomber Command lost 55,573 men killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew and 8,403 wounded in action while 9,838 became prisoners of war. RAF and American bomber crews could, therefore be forgiven for thinking they had won a pyrrhic victory; one that had taken such a heavy toll that negated any true sense of achievement, though, if nothing else, the human effort spent by RAF Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force did pave the way for the Soviet victory in the east.
Dryden’s Second Hundred Years: a Central New York Town in the 20Th Century
Author: Elizabeth Denver Gutchess
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2020-11-18
Total Pages: 346
ISBN-13: 1663203768
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDryden’s Second Hundred Years (Part II) does two exceptional things. First, its tight focus on local participation in World War II paradoxically chronicles the entire war, a conflict which drew its combatants from small rural townships like Dryden NY, assigned and scattered them throughout the world, and then delivered the survivors back home again, creating in every small American community a microcosm of the entire conflict, an eye-witnessing of the whole story. Second, that story is told here largely in local participants’ own words, in letters from camps, troopships, carriers, cruisers, foxholes, and hospitals, their voices a quiet backdrop to the horrific war they had been asked to fight. The resulting narrative suggests that those who don’t know history – while not always doomed to repeat it – are very likely doomed to live their lives without perspective, to mistake inconvenience for hardship, and hardship for catastrophe, and to be blind to the miracle of everyday normal life.
