Contested Skies

Contested Skies PDF

Author: John Gunn

Publisher: john gunn

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9780702230738

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TAA had almost a fifty-year record of ground-breaking aviation throughout Australia. Along with Qantas, the airline helped Australia overcome the "tyranny of distance", and made a sustained contribution to aviation in its early years. This book tells the inside story of the airline's internal struggle, and relations with governments.

Dark Waters, Starry Skies

Dark Waters, Starry Skies PDF

Author: Jeffrey Cox

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-03-02

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1472849884

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Esteemed Pacific War historian Jeffrey Cox has produced a fast-paced and absorbing read of the crucial New Georgia phase of the Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign during the Pacific War. Thousands of miles from friendly ports, the US Navy had finally managed to complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in early 1943. Now the Allies sought to keep the offensive momentum won at such a high cost. This is the central plotline running through this page-turning history beginning with the Japanese Operation I-Go and the American ambush of Admiral Yamamoto and continuing on to the Allied invasion of New Georgia, northwest of Guadalcanal in the middle of the Solomon Islands and the location of a major Japanese base. Determined not to repeat their mistakes at Guadalcanal, the Allies nonetheless faltered in their continuing efforts to roll back the Japanese land, air and naval forces. Using first-hand accounts from both sides, this book vividly recreates all the terror and drama of the nighttime naval battles during this phase of the Solomons campaign and the ferocious firestorm many Marines faced as they disembarked from their landing craft. The reader is transported to the bridge to stand alongside Admiral Walden Ainsworth as he sails to stop another Japanese reinforcement convoy for New Georgia, and vividly feels the fear of an 18-year-old Marine as he fights for survival against a weakened but still determined enemy. Dark Waters, Starry Skies is an engrossing history which weaves together strategy and tactics with a blow-by-blow account of every battle at a vital point in the Pacific War that has not been analyzed in this level of detail before.

Rising Sun, Falling Skies

Rising Sun, Falling Skies PDF

Author: Jeffrey Cox

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-03-20

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 1472808347

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Author Jeffrey Cox conducts a thorough and compelling investigation of the Java Sea Campaign, the first major sea battle of the Pacific War, which inflicted huge costs on the Allies and set the stage for Japan's rout across the Pacific and Indian oceans. Few events have ever shaken a country in the way that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. The Japanese forces then continued to overwhelm the Allies, attacking Malaya with its fortress of Singapore, and taking resource-rich islands in the Pacific in their own blitzkrieg offensive. Allied losses in these early months after America's entry into the war were great, and among the most devastating were those suffered during the Java Sea Campaign, where a small group of Americans, British, Dutch, and Australians were isolated in the Far East – directly in the path of the Japanese onslaught. It would be the first major sea battle of World War II in the Pacific.

MiG Alley

MiG Alley PDF

Author: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-28

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1472836065

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Following the end of the Korean War, the prevailing myth in the West was that of the absolute supremacy of US Air Force pilots and aircraft over their Soviet-supplied opponents. The claims of the 10:1 victory-loss ratio achieved by the US Air Force fighter pilots flying the North American F-86 Sabre against their communist adversaries, among other such fabrications, went unchallenged until the end of the Cold War, when Soviet records of the conflict were finally opened. Packed with first-hand accounts and covering the full range of US Air Force activities over Korea, MiG Alley brings the war vividly to life and the record is finally set straight on a number of popular fabrications. Thomas McKelvey Cleaver expertly threads together US and Russian sources to reveal the complete story of this bitter struggle in the Eastern skies.

Fighter Aces

Fighter Aces PDF

Author: John Sadler

Publisher: Casemate

Published: 2017-08-19

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1612004830

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A readable and entertaining introduction to aerial combat in the series that “would be excellent for someone with an early interest in military history” (Army Rumour Service). Just over a decade after the first successful powered flight, fearless pioneers were flying over the battlefields of France in flimsy biplanes. Though the infantry in their muddy trenches might see aerial combat as glorious and chivalric, the reality was very different and undeniably deadly: new Royal Flying Corps subalterns in 1917 had a life expectancy of eleven days. In 1915 the term “ace” was coined to denote a pilot adept at downing enemy aircraft, and top aces like the Red Baron, René Fonck, and Billy Bishop became household names. The idea of the ace continued after the 1918 Armistice, but as the size of air forces increased, the prominence of the ace diminished. But still, the pilots who swirled and danced in Hurricanes and Spitfires over southern England in 1940 were, and remain, feted as “the Few” who stood between Britain and invasion. Flying aircraft advanced beyond the wildest dreams of Great War pilots, the “top” fighter aces of World War II would accrue hundreds of kills, though their life expectancy was still measured in weeks, not years. World War II cemented the vital role of air power, and postwar innovation gave fighter pilots jet-powered fighters, enabling them to pursue duels over huge areas above modern battlefields. This entertaining introduction explores the history and cult of the fighter ace from the first pilots through late twentieth-century conflicts, which leads to discussion of whether the era of the fighter ace is at an end.

Air Force Roles and Missions

Air Force Roles and Missions PDF

Author: Warren A. Trest

Publisher: Department of the Air Force

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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Traces the usage of- and meaning given to- the terms "roles and missions" relating to the armed forces and particularly to the United States Air Force, from 1907 to the present.

Connecting the Nation

Connecting the Nation PDF

Author: Paul Ashton

Publisher: UTS ePRESS

Published: 2017-01-01

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 0994503954

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Aviation has played an important part in shaping Australia’s culture and history through the course of the twentieth century. Australia embraced aviation from its earliest days, eagerly responding to its potential to cover a challenging country, to bring far-flung communities closer and to provide services that could not be delivered any other way. Add the romance of pioneer heroes, the vital role of aviation in wartime and the capacity to deliver aid to people in need in Australia and beyond, and it is clear why aviation is at the heart of Australia’s recent history. This book aims to set out the major themes that characterise Australia’s aviation history for a broad audience and to provide a foundation for a broader discussion, and for further research, about how aviation transformed Australia. Connecting the Nation is a vital and timely introduction to the history of civil aviation in Australia as we prepare for the centenary of civil aviation services in 2020.

Russia at War [2 volumes]

Russia at War [2 volumes] PDF

Author: Timothy C. Dowling

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-12-02

Total Pages: 1166

ISBN-13: 1598849484

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This easy-to-use reference explores the people and events that shaped Russian military history—and impacted Europe, Asia, and the world—over the past eight centuries. Russian military history is an often-overlooked field. Yet Russia is and has long been an important player in global politics, and its military exploits have been central to its role on the world stage. This study of Russia's military past provides insights into European and U.S. history, including the conduct of the two World Wars and the Cold War, and will help readers better appreciate the current geopolitical situation. This work covers major events and figures in Russian military history from the end of Mongol domination in the 14th century to the present day. More than 650 entries by scores of expert contributors detail events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that have influenced Russian warfare over 800 years. Two alphabetically arranged volumes explore such conflicts as the Russo-Polish Wars, the Great Northern War, the Russo-Turkish Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Cross references and further readings in each entry serve as jumping-off points for further exploration.

Soviet Space Culture

Soviet Space Culture PDF

Author: E. Maurer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2011-08-16

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0230307043

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Starting with the first man-made satellite 'Sputnik' in 1957 and culminating four years later with the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, space became a new utopian horizon. This book explores the profound repercussions of the Soviet space exploration program on culture and everyday life in Eastern Europe, especially in the Soviet Union itself.