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During World War II the Ninth Air Force comprised air-to-ground aviators, charged with destroying the enemy close to the front and below the clouds, often bringing them face to face with their German opponents. The 362nd Fighter Group, led by two very different leaders - the tough disciplinarian Col. Morton Magoffin and later the beloved motivator Col. Joe Laughlin - had one of the best track records in the Ninth Air Force. It destroyed over 5000 trucks, 350 tanks, 275 artillery pieces, 45 bar...

Born in the Philippines to an American father and a Filipina mother, George Cooper is one of the few surviving veteran pilots who saw action over such fearsome targets as Rabaul and Wewak. Not just another flag-waving story of air combat, Jayhawk describes the war as it really was - a conflict with far-reaching tentacles that gripped and tore at not only the combatants, but also their families, friends and the way they lived their lives. Stout examines the story of Cooper’s growing up in gentle...

This is the vivid memoir of a man who was twenty-one at the outbreak of World War II. Having joined the RAFVR before the war, he was mobilised in August 1939 and after training became operational on 233 Squadron Coastal Command flying Hudsons from Leuchars, Aldergrove and St Eval. After fourteen months he was rested and was tasked with training navigators for the impending enlargement of Bomber Command.In 1944 he joined 625 Squadron flying Lancasters over German targets and eventually took comma...

Ben Bennion enlisted in the pre-war RAF, serving first as an 'erk' before being selected for pilot training. His first posting led to service in the Middle -East and Bennion's passport and other travel documents had to be rushed through. A clerical error led to his name being recorded as 'Bennions'. Ben served in 41 Squadron and, following their overseas tour he returned to the UK and Catterick. Patrols and scrambles were common throughout the early months of the war, but it was in May 1940, th...

This is the biography of one of the Royal Navy's legendary pilots. BF or Daddy as he was known, started his career at Dartmouth and then spent his early seagoing years in Hong Kong, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. His wartime experiences as a Fleet Air pilot aboard HMS Glorious included the historic air strike at Taranto and the search for the Graf Spee. In May 1940 he was loaned to Coastal Command and attacked German Panzer tanks in a biplane, defended Allied troops over Dunkirk and was one of only a f...

When a proud Adolf Hitler revealed his new Luftwaffe to the world in March 1935, it was the largest, most modern military air arm the world had seen. Equipped with the latest monoplane fighter and bomber aircraft manned by well-trained and motivated crews, it soon became evident that the Luftwaffe also possessed a high degree of technical superiority over Germany's future enemies. Yet within just nine years the once-mightiest air force in the world had reached total collapse, destroyed in part...

Martín Espada is a poet who "stirs in us an undeniable social consciousness," says Richard Blanco. Floaters offers exuberant odes and defiant elegies, songs of protest and songs of love from one of the essential voices in American poetry. Floaters takes its title from a term used by certain Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross over. The title poem responds to the viral photograph of Óscar and Valeria, a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned in the Río Grande,...

Written some forty years ago for his own enjoyment, and twenty years before his death in 1986, this biography was given to Simon Muggleton, a collector of aviation memorabilia, and he and aviation historian and author Norman Franks recognised immediately that it was an important contribution to Britain's and the RAF's early history. Without altering any of D'Arcy Greig's original writing, Norman has merely made it more concise and manageable, adding annotations of useful information, particularl...

Amy Johnsons solo flight to Australia smashed many previous aviation records of the 1920s. This work, written by Constance Babington Smith, tells the story of the typist who took to the skies.

When she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous, a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the United States. Married to a man with a genius for publicity, her life was crowded, demanding and adventurous. Mary S. Lovell's superb biography examines a legend to reveal the pressures and influences that drove Amelia, and shows how her life, career and manner of death foreshadowed the tragedies and excess...

John Greenwood was born in East London on 3 April 1921. At the age of eighteen, in February 1939, he forged his father's signature and joined the RAF on a short service commission. Seven months later, Britain declared war on Germany and 253 Squadron was formed. In May 1940, John and his fellow pilots were sent to France with 24 hours' notice where he shot down a Dornier 17 and a Messerschmitt 109 the next day, before returning to England with only four pilots and three aircraft left. 253 Squad...

These war memoirs of Jim Hunter are in two parts. First there is the account of his flying career in RAF Coastal Command, culminating in an extraordinarily brave attack by him and his Beaufighter on the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst. Shot down, he became a POW and the second half tells of his experiences in Stalag Luft 3\. A skilled artist he became a camp forger, providing documents for escapees such as Oliver Philpott, one of the Wooden Horse escapers. Jim's own escape tunnel was detected...

Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader remains one of the most famous RAF fighter pilots to date, perhaps even the most famous of all, thanks to Paul Brickhill's best-selling 1950s yarn _Reach for the Sky_ and Dany Angel's box office hit of the same name, starring Kenneth Moore. Bader, a graduate of the RAF College Cranwell and a professional, career officer, was a gifted sportsman and aerobatic pilot -but headstrong. After a crash that led to the amputation of both of his legs, the Second World War w...

‘One of the finest memoirs published in recent years.’ Dan Jones ‘An utterly fascinating and wonderfully detailed insight into the hidden world of the modern submarine.’ James Holland A candid, visceral, and incredibly entertaining account of what it’s like to live in one of the most extreme environments in the world. Imagine a world without natural light, where you can barely stand up straight for fear of knocking your head, where you have n...

Kidnapped and held for ransom for 18 days by Nigerian pirates, Captain Wren Thomas suffered horrors, bringing to life the reality of modern-day pirating. Faith carried him during and after captivity, a beloved PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) service dog named Beaux, eventually saving his life once again. In this first-person survivor account, Captain Thomas brings readers into the ocean, onto his ship as he and his team fight off the pirates, and ultimately within the captivity camp. Devas...

On 27 August 1939, Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz became the first man to fly a jet aircraft, the Heinkel He 178 and in June of the same year he flew the first liquid-fuel rocket aircraft, the Heinkel He 176. His legendary flying skills enabled him to assist the pioneering German aircraft and engine design teams that included Wernher von Braun and Ernst Heinkel. He repeatedly risked his life extending the frontiers of aviation in speed, altitude and technology and survived many life-threatening incid...

Douglas Bader was a legend in his lifetime and remains one today 100 years after his birth. A charismatic leader and fearless pilot he refused to let his severe disability (loss of both legs in a flying accident) ground him. He fought the authorities as ruthless as he did the enemy and not only managed to return to the front line but became a top scoring ace. His innovative tactics (The Big Wing) ensured his promotion and he led a key group of squadrons during the dark days of the Battle of B...