In June 1941 - during the first week of the Nazi invasion in the Soviet Union - the quiet cornfields and towns of Western Ukraine were awakened by the clanking of steel and thunder of explosions; this was the greatest tank battle of the Second World War.
In March 1945 the German Wehrmacht undertook its final attempt to change the course of the war by launching a counteroffensive in the area of Lake Balaton, Hungary.
Made up of members of the Coldstream and Scots Guards, British Yeomanry cavalry regiments, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indian Army men, the Long Range Desert Group was perhaps the most effective of all the "special forces" established by the Allies during the Second World War.
"e;Comprehensive scholarship and convincing reasoning, enhanced by an excellent translation, place this work on a level with the best of David Glantz"e; (Dennis Showalter, award-winning author of Patton and Rommel).
The V Force consisted of three four-jet bombers, the Valiant, the Vulcan and the Victor, all required as part of the nuclear deterrent in the Cold War following the end of the Second World War.
This book covers the complete and long overdue history of the Hunting/BAC Jet Provost and Strikemaster, which for thirty-eight years trained generations of pilots and pioneered the RAF’s all-through flying training program.
Helicopter Boys is the latest addition to Grub Street’s Boys series from acclaimed author Richard Pike exploring the role of helicopters in military and civilian situations.
This is a story written by a young man who trained as a pilot, and then flew with the Royal Flying Corps in France during the First World War, eventually to become an ace.
Essentially a development of the Avro Lancaster via the later Lincoln, the Avro Shackleton was the RAF’s first line of defence in the maritime role from 1951 for twenty years, thereafter continuing to serve as an airborne early warning aircraft for another twenty, until 1991.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns was commissioned at the RAF College Cranwell in 1959 after completing flying training on Piston Provost and Meteor aircraft.
In this compelling memoir, Erich Sommer recalls his life in pre-war Germany and the adventures he had flying for the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.
Since he was a child in the 1950s watching Vampires and Meteors operating from RAF Turnhouse, Jim Walls wanted to fly aircraft, he just never envisaged that his flying career would be spent in the back seat as opposed to the front.
Chris Burwell charts one man's career in aviation from joining the RAF in 1969 aged 18, to having responsibility for training pilots for the world's major airlines nearly 50 years later.
Following the critically acclaimed publication eight years ago of Buccaneer Boys, long-serving Buccaneer navigator Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork has now followed up the great success of the book with more true tales from those who flew the last all-British bomber.
Since the end of World War 2 the primary role of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm has been airborne power projection; the ability rapidly to respond to any trouble spot across the globe and to protect the interests of the United Kingdom and its partner nations.
In December 1949, I, as a young man of 18, arrived in a different world - RAF Shaibah, 7 miles or so from Basra in Iraq, to do my (extended) two-year National Service.
Following the 1952 reorganization of the Portuguese Air Force from the army and naval air arms, Portugal now had an entity dedicated solely to aviation that would bring it into line with its new NATO commitment.
With Ethiopia in disarray following a period of severe internal unrest and the spread of insurgencies in Eritrea and Tigray, Ethiopia and its armed forces should have offered little opposition to well-equipped Somali armed forces which were unleashed to capture Ogaden, in July 1977.
In Harrier Boys, Volume One: Cold War Through the Falklands, 1969-1990, Robert Marston, who flew Harriers for many years, draws together accounts from others who worked with this unique jet through its history.
Originally intended as a trainer, the Anglo-French Sepecat jet, equipped with the very latest in weapon-aiming and navigational equipment, eventually became the backbone of the RAF’s tactical strike-attack and recce forces for a decade from the mid-1970s.
208 Squadron based at RAF Valley in Anglesey will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in October 2016, making it one of the few RAF squadrons to achieve this unique distinction whilst still part of the RAF’s current order of battle.
In the second volume of Harrier Boys, as with the first, the history of this remarkable aircraft in service with UK armed forces is illustrated through personal reminiscences of the people who worked with it.
Designed by Sydney Camm as a swept wing, daytime interceptor with excellent maneuverability, the Hunter became the first jet aircraft manufactured by Hawker for the Royal Air Force.
208 Squadron based at RAF Valley in Anglesey will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in October 2016, making it one of the few RAF squadrons to achieve this unique distinction whilst still part of the RAF’s current order of battle.
The events in Jet Age Man took place during the early Cold War, an era that will go down as a period when civilization teetered on the edge of the abyss.
Jimmy Sheddan was one of the many New Zealanders who joined the RNZAF, then left his native land to come to England to fight the enemies of Great Britain and her Empire during World War Two.
When Canadian troops and British Commandos made their now famous ‘reconnaissance in force’ against the harbor town of Dieppe on 19th August 1942, they were supported and protected by the largest array of Royal Air Force aircraft ever seen in WWII until that time.
Born in London of an English father and Australian mother and educated in Switzerland, Billy Drake was to become one of the most illustrious RAF fighter pilots of World War II, indeed of all time.
This book is largely an eye-witness account of the heavy bomber contribution to the success of the D-Day landings and therefore to the winning of the war in Europe.
Under Himmler's Command addresses two areas of World War II hitherto neglected - Heinrich Himmler as a military commander, and the German staff officer corps during the last months of the war on the Eastern Front.
This book captures the experience of the South African Air Force helicopter pilot as never before; from 'rookie' to seasoned combat aviator in one of history's most intense counterinsurgency conflicts - the South African Border War.
