Raf Bomber Command At War 1939 1945

Author : Craig Armstrong
Publisher : Pen and Sword Aviation
ISBN 13 : 1526700530
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book RAF Bomber Command at War, 1939–1945 written by Craig Armstrong and published by Pen and Sword Aviation. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Royal Air Force had placed a great deal of faith in its force of bombers, Bomber Command, in the event of a future war. The belief in the ability of formations of bombers flying in daylight and unescorted, protecting themselves from enemy fighter attack, informed early tactics but led to bloody losses. Hampered by government restrictions on targets, by late 1941 Bomber Command was in crisis. As a result, and coupled the growing dire war situation, a new and forceful commander, Sir Arthur Harris, was appointed and new strategies allowed Bomber Command to broaden its attacks despite some opposition. The result was the area bombing strategy which focussed attacks upon enemy held towns and cities. This Main Offensive period lasted throughout 1943-1944 and saw both victories and defeats. It was also the period that saw a limited number of precision attacks; on Augsburg, Peenemunde and, most famously, the Ruhr dams. Bomber Command also aided in tactical and strategic support for the invasion of Europe and the subsequent fight to push inland. New technological developments allowed Bomber Command to hit V-Weapons sites and to focus more on precision bombing, but Harris remained determined to hit German towns and cities whenever possible, while the Command's growing power allowed it to rain devastation upon its targets, culminating at Dresden. Much has been written about Bomber Command, but this book focusses largely on those who took part in the raids and on public attitudes towards the campaign in Britain. Using accounts from national and local archives, newspapers and existing historiography, the book seeks to shed light on untold stories from Bomber Command’s war.

Author : Martin Middlebrook
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1473834880
Total Pages : 941 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Bomber Command War Diaries written by Martin Middlebrook and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-04-02 with total page 941 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential WWII historical reference detailing RAF Bomber Command’s extensive campaign of strategic bombings across occupied Europe. The Royal Air Force Bomber Command's strategic bombing campaign started on the first day of the Second World War and ended five and a half years later with the final victory in Europe. It was a campaign of such enormous scale that historians have only recently begun to piece together the finer details of the individual raids. Aviation historian Martin Middlebrook and his research colleague, Chris Everitt, were the first to compile a complete review of all the raids and their background stories. The Bomber Command War Diaries not only documents every Bomber Command operation but also details their effects on the ground, drawing on local archives from Germany, Italy, and the occupied countries. It is a groundbreaking work on historical research, bringing together the two sides of Bomber Command’s war. This edition includes retrospective observations and a new appendix.

Author : Jonathan Falconer
Publisher : Sutton Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780750931717
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.1X/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Bomber Command Handbook, 1939-1945 written by Jonathan Falconer and published by Sutton Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Night after night through six long years of war, RAF Bomber Commands squadrons pounded away at the cities of Nazi Germany in a determined effort to bring the Third Reich to its knees. Pitted against Bomber Harris's aircrews and aircraft were some of the most effective and deadly defences the world has ever seen. For Bomber Command to launch a maximum effort raid on the Ruhr by night, or a low-level strike on an enemy target in occupied Europe by day, it involved a huge amount of planning. Who decided the policy? Why, when and where were the airfields built? How was the overall command structure organized, from the Air Council down to individual squadron level? How did the RAF train its bomber crews? What aircraft did they fly and what weapons did they use? Who were their commanders and who were the men that made up the rank-and-rifle of the Command? How was a raid planned and once it was launched what happened? This is a comprehensive overview of Bomber Command's wartime organization and operations, fully illustrated with a selection of archive photographs.

Author : CRAIG. ARMSTRONG
Publisher : Pen & Sword Aviation
ISBN 13 : 9781526700513
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book RAF Bomber Command at War 1939-45 written by CRAIG. ARMSTRONG and published by Pen & Sword Aviation. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Royal Air Force had placed a great deal of faith in its force of bombers, Bomber Command, in the event of a future war. The belief in the ability of formations of bombers flying in daylight and unescorted, protecting themselves from enemy fighter attack, informed early tactics but led to bloody losses. Hampered by government restrictions on targets, by late 1941 Bomber Command was in crisis.As a result, and coupled the growing dire war situation, a new and forceful commander, Sir Arthur Harris, was appointed and new strategies allowed Bomber Command to broaden its attacks despite some opposition. The result was the area bombing strategy which focussed attacks upon enemy held towns and cities. This Main Offensive period lasted throughout 1943-1944 and saw both victories and defeats. It was also the period that saw a limited number of precision attacks; on Augsburg, Peenemunde and, most famously, the Ruhr dams.Bomber Command also aided in tactical and strategic support for the invasion of Europe and the subsequent fight to push inland. New technological developments allowed Bomber Command to hit V-Weapons sites and to focus more on precision bombing, but Harris remained determined to hit German towns and cities whenever possible, while the Command's growing power allowed it to rain devastation upon its targets, culminating at Dresden.Much has been written about Bomber Command, but this book focusses largely on those who took part in the raids and on public attitudes towards the campaign in Britain. Using accounts from national and local archives, newspapers and existing historiography, the book seeks to shed light on untold stories from Bomber Command's war.

Author : Max Hastings
Publisher : Quarto Publishing Group USA
ISBN 13 : 1610588630
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Bomber Command written by Max Hastings and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2013-09-15 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This award-winning classic of WWII military history chronicles the Royal Air Force’s bombing campaign against Germany. RAF Bomber Command’s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. The struggle began meekly in 1939 with only a few aircraft—Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons—flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, blazing whole German cities in a single night. In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the UK, famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize

Author : Sir Charles Kingsley Webster
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 570 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany written by Sir Charles Kingsley Webster and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Ron Mackay
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781781558362
Total Pages : 556 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book RAF Bomber Command written by Ron Mackay and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers Bomber Command from creation in 1936 to 1945. In parallel with Fighter Command's initial defensive fallibility, the means to hammer the Axis industrial base into oblivion was totally lacking and had to be painfully built up to the point where the Force decisively added its weight to bring about an ultimate Allied Victory.

Author : Martin Middlebrook
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Bomber Command War Diaries written by Martin Middlebrook and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Richard J. Overy
Publisher : Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Air War, 1939-1945 written by Richard J. Overy and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Air War, 1939-1945 was first written in the late 1970s when there was very little academic interest in the history of air power. What there was focused largely on combat. The book was intended to provide a global history of the air war by looking at combat, but also the broader context of technology, production, intelligence and leadership. The book sought to address the question of why the Allies in the end won decisively the war in the air, and concluded that Axis air forces were too tied to a narrow conception of air power attached to surface forces, rather than air power exercised in a broader framework of air defense, logistics, strategic bombing and technological development. The book has been assigned reading in military and air force academies for the past forty years. “The Air War, 1939-1945... immediately and permanently altered the way that historians have examined the nature of aerial warfare during World War II. Overy’s ingenious examination of the global nature of planning, building, deploying, and utilizing air forces remains the finest overall study of the topic more than a quarter-century after its first publication... conclusions drawn in this work... are even today an integral part of U.S. Air Force doctrine.” — Dik A. Daso, US Air Force Chief of Staff’s Reading List “This is an outstanding book on a subject in which past controversy has often generated more heat than light... The strength of the book is... Overy’s masterly discussion of the economic problems of sustaining air forces in war and of hitting the right balance between quantity production of current models and diversion of resources to research and technical innovation... Truly this is a book that deserves attention from all those who wish to study, and learn from, the history of warfare.” — G. C. Peden, Naval War College Review “[T]ightly written... The Air War, 1939-1945 is essential reading for all military historians.” — James J. Hudson, Military Affairs “[O]ne of the best books on aviation in World War II.” — Kenneth P. Werrell, Air Power History “An important and successful book.” — The Economist “Highly effective. The result, as so often with sound scholarship, is the ruthless dispelling of myths.” — A. J. P. Taylor, author of The Origins of the Second World War “The Air War is... an excellent and stimulating book which both needs and deserves slow and careful reading. It is an ambitious book, too, and Dr. Overy should be congratulated for breaking down national histories in writing his history of air power during the Second World War.” — Malcolm Smith, The International History Review “[A] recognized classic.” — Richard B. Frank, The Journal of American History “Originally published in 1980 and still the best one-volume aerial history of World War II, Richard Overy’s classic work remains profound and highly original... [it] deepens our understanding not only of World War II but of military history in general.” — The SHAFR Guide Online “[A]n outstanding book... The Air War is a serious and profound treatise that analyses those various military and civilian themes which, in combination, determined the nature of the struggle in the air during the Second World War... The Air War is something of a novelty in aeronautical literature. It is to be hoped that it will serve as a model for other books to come in this important field.” — Alfred Gollin, The English Historical Review “Overy provides operational accounts of the air-forces’ role in Europe... and in the Pacific. Then, and most exceptionally, he deals separately with all facets of the air war: planning, organization, manpower, equipment, and doctrine... honest... broadly informed, and... well-stocked with useful data.“ — Kirkus “R. J. Overy examines the whole war period from the point of view of each of the warring powers and gives us not only a study of military campaigns but also a highly successful examination of aerial doctrine, economic and scientific mobilization, and the political, diplomatic, and military aspects of the management of hostilities. This fine study analyzes the achievements and the failures of the aerial component of the war... This good analysis of many studies done on this subject... makes possible a new, balanced synthesis from an objective point of view.” — Sam H. Frank, The American Historical Review

Author : Andrew D. Bird
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1526710714
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Heroes of Coastal Command written by Andrew D. Bird and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Real-life, action-packed, personal stories of valor from the history of the RAF’s maritime arm during World War II. It took thirty minutes for one Coastal Command crew to sink two U-boats. The crew of Flying Officer Kenneth “Kayo” Moore in their 224 Squadron Liberator carried out this remarkable achievement on the evening of 7/8 June 1944. While patrolling the western end of the English Channel, Moore’s crew first dispatched U-629, followed just under thirty minutes later by U-373. The story of this remarkable engagement is just one of many recounted by the author in Heroes of Coastal Command. Established in 1936, Coastal Command was the RAF’s only maritime arm. Throughout the war, its crews worked tirelessly alongside the Royal Navy to keep Britain’s vital sea lanes open. Together, they fought and won the Battle of the Atlantic, with RAF aircraft destroying 212 German U-Boats and sinking a significant tonnage of enemy warships and merchant vessels. Often working alone and unsupported, undertaking long patrols out over opens seas, Coastal Command bred a special kind of airman. Alongside individuals such as Kenneth Moore, there were Allan Trigg, Kenneth Campbell and John Cruickshank, all of whom were awarded the Victoria Cross; Norman Jackson-Smith, a Blenheim pilot who flew in the Battle of Britain; Jack Davenport, who flew his Hampden to Russia; John Watson, the sole survivor of a Short Sunderland which was lost during a rescue mission; and Ken Gatward, who flew a unique daylight mission over Paris to drop a Tricolore on the Arc de Triomphe. Theirs are just some of the many exciting stories revealed by the author.