The Peenemünde Raid
The Peenemünde Raid

Author: Martin Middlebrook

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2006-02-16

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1473819539

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The author of The First Day on the Somme recounts Operation Hydra, the British bombing on a Nazi army research center during World War II. On the night of August 17-18, 1943, RAF Bomber Command attacked a remote research establishment on the German Baltic coast. The site was Peenemunde, where Hitler’s scientists were developing both the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket whose destructive powers could have swung the course of the war. The raid was meticulously planned, and hopes were high. But the night sky was so cloudless that the British bombers presented an easy target for German night fighters, and over 40 were lost. Martin Middlebrook draws on the memories of over 400 people involved in the dramatic events on that night: RAF and Luftwaffe aircrew, German personnel at the research site, and foreign laborers who had been forced to work there. The result is a truly compelling account of this hazardous attempt to disrupt Hitler’s V-weapons program.

The Peenemunde Deceptions
The Peenemunde Deceptions

Author: James McDermott

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1781591733

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Peenemunde: windswept corner of the Third Reich and birthplace of the space age. Otto Fischer, a severely wounded Luftwaffe officer and former criminal investigator, is summoned to solve a seemingly incomprehensible case: the murder of a leading rocket engineer during a devastating air raid. With only days until the SS assume control of the production of a remarkable new weapon, Fischer must find a motive and perpetrator from among several thousand scientists, technicians, soldiers and forced laborers. As he struggles to get the measure of a secretive, brilliant world in which imagination moves far beyond the limits of technology, what at first appears to be a solitary crime draws him into a labyrinth of conspiracy, betrayal and treason.McDermott brings skills previously honed whilst producing well-researched history books to the discipline of writing fiction, creating work that is historically accurate and evocative as well as stylish in a literary sense."

Peenemunde: The German Experimental Rocket Center-Introduction
Peenemunde: The German Experimental Rocket Center-Introduction

Author: David Myhra PhD

Publisher: RCW Technology & Ebook Publishing

Published: 2013-09-28

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13:

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This is the story and details of Peenemünde, the German military rocket developement and test siteduring World War II. It was one of the most modern technological facilities in the world in the years between 1936 and 1945. The first launch of a missile into space took place here in October 1942. In the nearby air force testing area, rocket engineers tested numerous flight objects equipped with revolutionary technology. From the start this research was directed toward one goal only: achieving military superiority through advanced technology. Slave laborers, concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war provided the work that enabled the construction of the test sites and the later serial production of the rockets, which the Nazi propaganda referred to as "Vergeltungswaffe 2" (or "Vengeance Weapon 2"), in so short a period of time. Both the inhumane labor conditions and the attacks on Belgian, British and French cities using the supposed "wonder weapon" claimed thousands of lives.

The Lost Graves of Peenemünde
The Lost Graves of Peenemünde

Author: Sean Feast

Publisher:

Published: 2020-10

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781999812898

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The raid on the secret rocket research establishment at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast in August 1943 has gone down in history as one of the most successful and remarkable of the war. The site was virtually obliterated, and the Germans forced to move rocket production and development elsewhere. But it came at a terrible cost. More than 40 bombers and 215 RAF aircrew failed to return. After the war, the bodies of many of those who were killed were recovered by the Missing Research and Enquiry Service (MRES) and buried in Commonwealth war graves. But not all. A series of mishaps and miscommunication led the MRES to search in the wrong place. Funds to continue the search dried up. And with the site falling into Russian hands, and access to British and US search parties severely restricted, the search ultimately had to be called off, and the remaining men commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial as having no known grave. But some of the missing men are still there, waiting to be found.With a foreword from Peenemünde raid veteran pilot George Dunn DFC L d'H, and illustrated with a wealth of previously unpublished photographs, Sean Feast and Mike McLeod tell the story of the forgotten graves of Peenemünde, the search to discover the truth about their final resting place, and the chance that their bodies may yet be discovered and returned.

The Women with Silver Wings
The Women with Silver Wings

Author: Katherine Sharp Landdeck

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1524762814

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The thrilling true story of the daring female aviators who helped the United States win World War II--only to be forgotten by the country they served. When Japanese planes executed a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. At twenty-two, Cornelia had escaped Nashville's debutante scene for a fresh start as a flight instructor in Hawaii. She and her student were in the middle of their lesson when the bombs began to fall, and they barely made it back to ground that morning. Still, when the U.S. Army Air Forces put out a call for women pilots to aid the war effort, Cornelia was one of the first to respond. She became one of just over 1,100 women from across the nation to make it through the Army's rigorous selection process and earn her silver wings. In The Women with Silver Wings, historian Katherine Sharp Landdeck introduces us to these young women as they meet even-tempered, methodical Nancy Love and demanding visionary Jacqueline Cochran, the trailblazing pilots who first envisioned sending American women into the air, and whose rivalry would define the Women Airforce Service Pilots. For women like Cornelia, it was a chance to serve their country--and to prove that women aviators were just as skilled and able as men. While not authorized to serve in combat, the WASP helped train male pilots for service abroad and ferried bombers and pursuits across the country. Thirty-eight of them would not survive the war. But even taking into account these tragic losses, Love and Cochran's social experiment seemed to be a resounding success--until, with the tides of war turning and fewer male pilots needed in Europe, Congress clipped the women's wings. The program was disbanded, the women sent home. But the bonds they'd forged never failed, and over the next few decades, they came together to fight for recognition as the military veterans they were--and for their place in history.

Von Braun
Von Braun

Author: Michael Neufeld

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2017-04-12

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 0525435913

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Curator and space historian at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum delivers a brilliantly nuanced biography of controversial space pioneer Wernher von Braun. Chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and one of the fathers of the U.S. space program, Wernher von Braun is a source of consistent fascination. Glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, he was a man of profound moral complexities, whose intelligence and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition. Based on new sources, Neufeld's biography delivers a meticulously researched and authoritative portrait of the creator of the V-2 rocket and his times, detailing how he was a man caught between morality and progress, between his dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.

Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War
Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War

Author: W. R. Chorley

Publisher: Midland

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13:

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This is the fourth volume in the series which deals with the losses sustained by the RAF Bomber Command during the 2nd World War. It has already found favour with historians, and those friends and relatives affected by the loss.

Facing the Heat Barrier
Facing the Heat Barrier

Author: T.A. Heppenheimer

Publisher: Courier Dover Publications

Published: 2018-09-12

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 0486834514

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This volume from The NASA History Series presents an overview of the science of hypersonics, the study of flight at speeds at which the physics of flows is dominated by aerodynamic heating. The survey begins during the years immediately following World War II, with the first steps in hypersonic research: the development of missile nose cones and the X-15; the earliest concepts of hypersonic propulsion; and the origin of the scramjet engine. Next, it addresses the re-entry problem, which came to the forefront during the mid-1950s, showing how work in this area supported the manned space program and contributed to the development of the orbital shuttle. Subsequent chapters explore the fading of scramjet studies and the rise of the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program of 1985–95, which sought to lay groundwork for single-stage vehicles. The program's ultimate shortcomings — in terms of aerodynamics, propulsion, and materials — are discussed, and the book concludes with a look at hypersonics in the post-NASP era, including the development of the X-33 and X-34 launch vehicles, further uses for scramjets, and advances in fluid mechanics. Clearly, ongoing research in hypersonics has yet to reach its full potential, and readers with an interest in aeronautics and astronautics will find this book a fascinating exploration of the field's history and future.

The Birth of NASA
The Birth of NASA

Author: Manfred "Dutch" von Ehrenfried

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-03-23

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 3319284282

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This is the story of the work of the original NASA space pioneers; men and women who were suddenly organized in 1958 from the then National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) into the Space Task Group. A relatively small group, they developed the initial mission concept plans and procedures for the U. S. space program. Then they boldly built hardware and facilities to accomplish those missions. The group existed only three years before they were transferred to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, in 1962, but their organization left a large mark on what would follow.Von Ehrenfried's personal experience with the STG at Langley uniquely positions him to describe the way the group was structured and how it reacted to the new demands of a post-Sputnik era. He artfully analyzes how the growing space program was managed and what techniques enabled it to develop so quickly from an operations perspective. The result is a fascinating window into history, amply backed up by first person documentation and interviews.