Raf And Usaaf Airfields In The Uk During The Second World War

Author : Geoff Mills
Publisher : Fonthill Media
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1069 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book RAF and USAAF Airfields in the UK During the Second World War written by Geoff Mills and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 1069 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the United Kingdom was described as one vast aircraft carrier anchored off the coast of Europe. During a seven year period 500 airfields were constructed to serve the needs first of the RAF and later the USAAF as they carried the war to German-occupied Europe. The airfields that were constructed took many different forms from training airfields and Advanced Landing Grounds to grass fighter airstrips and vast complexes used to accommodate heavy bombers. This book charts the history of each Second World War airfield in and around the UK providing a unique insight in to the construction, operational life and post-war history of each airfield. Alongside detailing the history of each airfield, this work comprehensively records the details of each unit that operated from airfields around the UK. The information provided in this meticulously researched book is supported by a wealth of 690 photographs providing an illustration into the life of each wartime station.

Author : Geoff Mills
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781781558379
Total Pages : 656 pages
Book Rating : 4.7X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book RAF and USAAF Airfields in the UK written by Geoff Mills and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and meticulously researched landmark work charting the construction, operational history and post-war use of the airfields of the RAF and USAAF in the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Supported by a wealth of 690 photographs and airfield plans providing a unique illustration into the life of each wartime airfield.

Author : Peter Jacobs
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1473811775
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Airfields of the D-Day Invasion Air Force written by Peter Jacobs and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of the Aviation Heritage Trail series, the airfields and interest in this book are concentrated in a particular area—in this case Kent, Surrey, East Sussex, Essex and Greater London. The South east of England emerged from six years of war with a rich diversity of RAF bomber and fighter airfields used by the 2nd Tactical Air Force, both before and after the D-Day landings. Much of this proud legacy is now threatening to disappear. However, the tourist can combine visits to an abundance of disused and active airfields, country houses and museums with countless attractions, imaginative locations and broadland and coastal hideaways that have no equal.The airfields and other places of interest include Northolt, Manston, Sculthorp, Dunsfold, Swanton Morley, Hunsdon, Gravesend, Detling, Biggin Hill, Kenley, Redhill, Gatwick, Heston, Hornchurch, Chailey, Coolham, Horne, West Malling and Newchurch.This book looks at the history and personalities associated with each base, what remains today and explores the favourite local wartime haunts where aircrew and ground crew would have sought well-deserved entertainment and relaxation. Other museums and places that are relevant will also be described and general directions on how to get them included.

Author : Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781986568616
Total Pages : 108 pages
Book Rating : 4.1X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Royal Air Force During the World Wars written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of fighting *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading One of the most important breakthroughs in military technology associated with World War I, and certainly the one that continues to capture the public imagination, was the use of airplanes, which were a virtual novelty a decade before. While the war quickly ground to a halt in its first few months, the skies above the Western Front became increasingly busy. The great powers had already been acquiring aircraft for potential uses, but given that aerial warfare had never been a major component of any conflict, it's understandable that few on either side had any idea what the planes were capable of doing. Furthermore, at the start of the war, all sides' aircraft were ill-equipped for combat mostly because the idea that planes might somehow fight was still a novel one, and the adaptations had not yet been developed that would allow the aerial battles later in the war. The Royal Air Force (RAF), Britain's legendary air arm, was born in the skies above the First World War. The British had previously used balloons for spotting and reconnaissance for decades, and in the years leading up to the war, planes started seeing military use. They mostly provided reconnaissance, though experiments were made in using them offensively. During the Boer War of 1899-1902, the British Army used the crews of helium-filled balloons to plot and help target artillery fire. But these were small, tentative steps. The first patent to fit a machine gun to a plane, taken out in 1910, had not yet led to active fighting vehicles, and there was no doctrine, no tactics, and no combat between massed air fleets. That changed during World War I, as the skies above the Western Front became the crucible in which the preceding fragments of aerial warfare were smelted in the white hot heat of war. For the British, this meant the creation of a large and unified flying force which by 1918 would become the RAF. A generation later, the RAF would get the lion's share of the credit for preventing Nazi Germany from conquering Britain in World War II. With the comfort of hindsight, historians now suggest that the picture was actually more complex than that, but the Battle of Britain, fought throughout the summer and early autumn of 1940, was unquestionably epic in scope. The largest air campaign in history at the time, the vaunted Nazi Luftwaffe sought to smash the RAF as a prelude to German invasion, leaving the British public and its pilots engaged in what they believed was a desperate fight for national survival. That's what it looked like to the rest of the world too, as free men everywhere held their breaths. Could these pilots, many not yet old enough to shave, avoid the fate of Poland and France? The fate of the free world, at least as Europe knew it, hung in the balance over the skies of Britain during those tense months. Of course, the RAF was also instrumental in other ways during the war. The RAF supported Allied forces all over the world, from Norway to Burma to Tunisia, and the RAF conducted devastating bombing campaigns against German industry and cities. In the end, the Allies emerged victorious, even as Britain fell behind other leading nations in air technology. World War II witnessed the birth of the jet age, a future glimpsed briefly in the spectacular but doomed appearance of the Messerschmitt Me 262 near the war's end, and Britain would be the only nation other than Germany with a jet fighter in combat by the time World War II was through. The Royal Air Force during the World Wars: The History and Legacy of British Air Power in World War I and World War II examines the creation and evolution of the RAF over the course of World War I and World War II. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the RAF like never before.

Author : John Buckley
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019251895X
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Royal Air Force written by John Buckley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-22 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1918, the Royal Air Force became the first major independent air force in the world. Formed to serve a strategic need in the most intensive war that Britain had then fought, the RAF continued in the inter-war era to play a key role in the political and diplomatic world, and in defending the Empire. During the Second World War, the RAF was pivotal in defending Britain from invasion in the Battle of Britain, and then in leading the assault on the Axis powers, most notably through the contentious bomber offensive against Germany. In the post-war world, the RAF adapted and developed into a force to meet the needs of the United Kingdom during the Cold War, the retreat from Empire, and most recently in the move to coalition warfare against low intensity threats, all against a backdrop of diminishing resources and shifting priorities. This is the story of the RAF over the first century of its existence: how it has confronted the many challenges and threats it has faced — from the Luftwaffe in 1940, through the spectre of nuclear holocaust in the Cold War, to the fight against terrorism in the 21st century — and how it has contributed to the defence of the United Kingdom throughout that period.

Author : Bernard C. Nalty
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1786257033
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book With Courage: The U.S. Army Air Forces In WWII written by Bernard C. Nalty and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The four years between 1941 and 1945 were years in which the nation raised and trained an air armada and committed it to operations on a scale unknown to that time. With Courage: The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II retells the story of sacrifice, valor, and achievements in air campaigns against tough determined adversaries. It describes the development of a uniquely American doctrine for the application of air power against an opponent’s key industries and centers of national life, a doctrine whose legacy today is the Global Reach-Global Power strategic planning framework of the modern U.S. Air Force. The narrative integrates aspects of strategic intelligence, logistics, technology, and leadership to offer a full yet concise account of the contributions of American air power to victory in that war.—Print Ed.

Author : Ken Delve
Publisher : Greenhill Books
ISBN 13 : 178438383X
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How the RAF & USAAF Beat the Luftwaffe written by Ken Delve and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2021-04-21 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Luftwaffe had to be used in a decisive way in the Battle of Britain as a means of conducting total air war. Its size, technical equipment and the means at its disposal precluded the Luftwaffe from fulfilling this mission." - Adolf Galland How did the RAF beat the Luftwaffe during the Second World War? Was it actually the fact that they did not lose which later enabled them to claim victory – a victory that would have been impossible without the participation of the Americans from early 1943? This groundbreaking study looks at the main campaigns in which the RAF – and later the Allies – faced the Luftwaffe. Critically acclaimed writer Ken Delve argues that by the latter part of 1942 the Luftwaffe was no longer a decisive strategic or even tactical weapon. The Luftwaffe was remarkably resilient, but it was on a continual slide to ultimate destruction. Its demise is deconstructed according to defective strategic planning from the inception of the Luftwaffe; its failure to provide decisive results over Britain in 1940 and over the Mediterranean and Desert in 1941–1942; and its failure to defend the Reich and the occupied countries against the RAF and, later, combined Allied bomber offensive. Delve studies numerous aspects to these failures, from equipment (aircraft and weapons) to tactics, leadership (political and military), logistics, morale and others.

Author : Stuart Hadaway
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1784423963
Total Pages : 65 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book British Airfields of the Second World War written by Stuart Hadaway and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War airfields peppered around Britain are among the most visible and widespread reminders of this devastating conflict. Some are now almost forgotten or built over; others have become museums, industrial estates or parkland; and some have been adapted and remain in operation today. In this beautifully illustrated history, aviation historian Stuart Hadaway explains the crucial part airfields played between 1939 and 1945, detailing their construction and expansion; their facilities and equipment; the many functions they housed from command and control to maintenance and bomb-loading; how the airfields were used both for defence and offence; and how they changed during the war. He also explores what life was like on the airfields, as well as listing some of the remaining sites and what can be seen today.

Author : Robin J. Brooks
Publisher : British Airfields of World War
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Kent Airfields in the Second World War written by Robin J. Brooks and published by British Airfields of World War. This book was released on 1998 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A full account of the part played by Kent's airfields during the Second World War. The history of each airfield is described with the aircraft based at them and the main operations flown. The effects of the war on the daily lives of civilians, and the constant dangers from raids and night bombing are also detailed. Fully illustrated.

Author : John Terraine
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1473817668
Total Pages : 861 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Right of the Line written by John Terraine and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 861 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, the right of the line is the vanguard, the place of honour and greatest danger in battle. In this history of the Royal Air Force during the European War of 1939-45, John Terraine shows how the RAF, which in 1939 was small and inadequate for the task it was called upon to perform had, by the end of the war, taken up its proper position. He describes the build-up to war, the early tests in France and at Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, the RAF in North Africa and the Mediterranean, the strategic air offensive over Germany and eventual victory in Europe.His best book yet The TimesJohn Terraine is a fine historian but he also believes that history should be exciting and readable The Listener