With the 50th Anniversary of Victory in World War II comes PROTECT & AVENGE: The 49th Fighter Group in World War II.\nAfter six years of research, author and illustrator S.W. Ferguson, Along with 49ERS Association historian William K. Pascalis, have recreated the war-years odyssey of the famous 49ERS, the most successful fighter group in the war against Japan. Flyers Paul Wrutsmith, Bob Morrissey, Ernie Harris, Gerry Johnson, Bob DeHaven and leading American ace Dick Bong, are but a few of the men who contribute to the 49ERS legend. \nFrom their desert air strips of Northwest Territory, Australia, through their jungle camps of New Guinea and the Philippines, to the final moment of victory on the Japanese homeland, all are detailed in this new volume. Derived from the diaries and logs of 49ERS veterans, the groups official USAF history and the U.S. National Archives, the story chronicles more than thirty aces and their crews who achieved over 600 aerial kills in three years of continuous combat.\nThe text is highlighted by more than 600 black and white photos, six compaign maps, and twenty-four color profiles of select P-40s, P-57s, and P-38s.\nS.W. Ferguson lives in Colorado Springs where he has pursued his teaching, writing and art career for the last ten years. His interests are American writers and history of the 20th century, and swift waters that yield trout. \nBill Pascalis is a veteran aircraft mechanic of the 49ERS Selfridge AFB cadre and served through the New Guinea campaign of mid-1943. After the war, he established a long career with Tranworld Airlines. He now lives with his wife in retirement in Florida, enjoying golf, his grandchildren and research in the 5th Air Force archives.

This detailed, illustrated look at the Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft features complete discussions of its design, construction, and operational use, as well as all technical systems and weapons. Developed in the 1970s as a match for the American F-15 Eagle, the aircraft remains one of the most important fighters in the current Russian arsenal, and has formed the basis for many variants including the Su-30, Su-34, and Su-35. Though larger than Russias famed MiG-29, it is extremely maneuverable and considerably more powerful. The Su-27 can also fly at extremely high angles of attackan ability it is fond of demonstrating at airshows, along with its legendary Cobra maneuver. The Su-27 remains in production, and nearly a dozen countriesincluding China, India, and Vietnamcurrently operate this high-performance aircraft. The book is superbly illustrated with more than 210 color images, and includes more than thirty color aircraft profiles displaying color schemes.

Although the United States Air Force was founded upon strategic bombardment theory and advocacy, the service has traditionally had tremendous difficulty in obtaining the adequate funding for bombers that it requires to fulfill its mandate. For more than 45 years, senior Air Force leaders, both military and civilian, have struggled to convince decision-makers in the White House and in Congress that modern manned bomber forces were needed, acceptable, and affordable. In this study, Donnini produces one of the most exhaustive analyses ever undertaken of Congressional subcommittee decision-making in the funding of defense procurement initiatives. He concludes that no program achieved measurable success of deployment with the original force structure requested; and only two, the B-1B and B-2A, received approval to acquire lesser numbers of aircraft for operational use. Donnini found that an important part of each new bomber program appeared to be funding support through federal appropriations. If the right amounts were appropriated, the programs survived; if lesser amounts were given, chances for program failure were good; however, was funding support the deciding factor? This book used multiple case studies and the unorthodox methodology of applied content analysis of Congressional budget hearings to examine Air Force efforts to fund the most recent main bombers it sought (the B-70, B-1A, B-1B, and B-2A) and to determine measurements of success. The author's findings have implications concerning the way the United States handles procurement initiatives for major new weapon systems considered fundamental necessities for national defense.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Dutch Naval Air Force--or Marine Luchtvaart Dienst (MLD)--played a significant but largely overlooked role in the opening months of the Pacific War. With 175 aircraft, the MLD greatly outnumbered the combined forces of its American and British allies. In three months of intense combat, the MLD lost 50 percent of its personnel and 80 percent of its aircraft, as the Netherlands' colonial empire was stripped away. This book details MLD operations during the Japanese invasion of Dutch East Indies, giving a comprehensive overview of organization, personnel, aircraft, equipment and tactics. For the first time in English, the failed evacuation of Java is examined.

"A hell of an adventure story." -- Ring Lardner Jr.

"A story of what is best in human beings triumphing over what is worst." -- John Sayles

November 1943: American flyer George Watt parachutes out of his burning warplane and lands in rural Nazi-occupied Belgium. Escape from Hitler's Europe is the incredible story of his getaway -- how brave villagers spirited him to Brussels to connect with the Comet Line, a rescue arm of the Belgian resistance. This was a gravely dangerous mission, especially for a Jewish soldier who had fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Watt recounts dodging the Gestapo, entering Paris via the underground, and finally, crossing the treacherous Pyrenees into Spain. In 1985, he returned to Belgium and discovered an astonishing postscript to his wartime experiences.

An exciting account of a little-known, yet vital part of World War II, the Allied effort to blockade Axis forces in North Africa with a relatively small number of planes and submarines included some of the war's most spectacular air battles, and opened the way to the attack on Fortress Europe from the south. This is the first book-length treatment of the crucial struggle to cut Axis supply lines in the Tunisian campaign of 1942-1943, a battle often ignored or played down even by official historians. The campaign marked the first big U.S. victory against the Axis powers and served as a proving ground for several top Allied commanders. This study fills an important gap in the history of the war, reevaluating the development of Allied airpower and the role of Italy in the campaign.

Allied success in interdiction was a critical factor in the greatest Allied victory in the Mediterranean campaign, a victory which left the enemy so weakened that it could not stop the subsequent invasion of Europe from the south. Despite initial disorganization and early disappointments, the British waged one of only two successful submarine campaigns ever fought. This study describes some of the war's most amazing air battles, notably Operation Flax against the enemy's air transport fleet, and attacks on convoys, all interwoven with the events of the ground war in the desert and comparisons with the Pacific effort. It details the struggle to reorganize and improve the Allied effort, the belated success of sea sweeps against enemy ships, and the final victory in the spring of 1943, in which an air blockade was clamped on the sea and sky approaches to Tunisia.

I would have climbed up a mountain to get on the list to serve overseas]. We were going to do our duty. Despite all the bad things that happened, America was our home. This is where I was born. It was where my mother and father were. There was a feeling of wanting to do your part.
--Gladys Carter, member of the 6888th

To Serve My Country, to Serve my Race is the story of the historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit composed of African-American women to serve overseas.
While African-American men and white women were invited, if belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African-American women were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. Under political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the NAACP, the black press, and even President Roosevelt, the U.S. War Department was forced to deploy African-American women to the European theater in 1945.
African-American women, having succeeded, through their own activism and political ties, in their quest to shape their own lives, answered the call from all over the country, from every socioeconomic stratum. Stationed in France and England at the end of World War II, the 6888th brought together women like Mary Daniel Williams, a cook in the 6888th who signed up for the Army to escape the slums of Cleveland and to improve her ninth-grade education, and Margaret Barnes Jones, a public relations officer of the 6888th, who grew up in a comfortable household with a politically active mother who encouraged her to challenge the system.
Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed upon these African-American women in their own country, they were eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to uplift their race and dispell bigoted preconceptions about their abilities. Elaine Bennett, a First Sergeant in the 6888th, joined because "I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full- fledged citizens."

Filled with compelling personal testimony based on extensive interviews, To Serve My Country is the first book to document the lives of these courageous pioneers. It reveals how their Army experience affected them for the rest of their lives and how they, in turn, transformed the U.S. military forever.

This is the second volume of the classified history of air defence in Great Britain. Written while World War II was still being fought, the account has an analysis of the defensive tactics of Fighter Command, and attempts a day-by-day analysis of the action as it took place.

This comparative history of the military helicopter doctrines of the major powers since World War II focuses on the last twenty years. This unusual analysis of the decision-making process associated with the use of helicopters in conventional air-land warfare should provoke interest and controversy among students and experts concerned with military strategy. This substantial research study is intended for academics, professionals, policy makers, and all interested in the development of helicopters over the last fifty years. Matthew Allen examines military helicopter doctrines in the United States, former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. He describes changes and innovations in the use of helicopters in air-land battle. He also assesses how decisions are made and innovations develop. An appendix summarizes the technical characteristics of helicopters and photographs bring them to life. A bibliography points out the most significant sources for further research; figures clarify the complex decision-making process, and tables provide additional data. A full index makes this rare history accessible.

This book analyzes the unique psychological appeal of the airship worldwide and shows how this appeal was exploited for ulterior political purposes. They were used by Count Zeppelin to advance German militarism, American Admiral Moffett to fight US Army aviation ambitions, British Lord Thomson to foster Socialism and strengthen Empire ties, Mussolini to promote Italian Fascism, Stalin to foster world Communism, and Hitler to promote Nazi ideology. As airships roamed worldwide, they carried these political influences with them.

This is a long-overdue study of Sir Frederick H. Sykes, Chief of the Air Staff of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) during the First World War. Historians, for the most part, have either overlooked Sykes or misinterpreted him, leaving a gap in the story of British flying. Contrary to previous images of Sykes, we now see that he was not a secretive intriguer or a tangential subject in RAF history. Rather, he played a fundamental part in organizing and leading British aviation from 1912 to the end of 1918. He provided organization, visionary guidance and efficient administrative control for the fledgling service that tried to survive infancy in the heat of battle.

Sykes assumed command of the Air Staff immediately after the RAF's birth - on April 1 1918 - at a critical time, when the German spring offensives were about to split the French and British defensive lines and cause an Allied defeat. Sykes stepped in to quell organizational and bureaucratic fires by working harmoniously with the Air Minister, Lord Weir. Together they maintained control of the air service and established a strategic Independent Air Force prepared to bomb Berlin by the time the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. Sykes battled against fellow airmen, military traditionalists and French commanders to promote an incipient air revolution in warfare by instituting 'air-minded' use of new technologies to economize on manpower and apply air power tactically, strategically and independently from the inefficient army and navy competitive control that had plagued the air services. From the reconnaissance of 1914 to the devastating precision attacks of Desert Storm in the 1991 Gulf War, aircraft have transformedthe modern battlefield. As this book shows, Sykes was important to that revolutionary process.

This is a long-overdue study of Sir Frederick H. Sykes, Chief of the Air Staff of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) during the First World War. Historians, for the most part, have either overlooked Sykes or misinterpreted him, leaving a gap in the story of British flying. Contrary to previous images of Sykes, we now see that he was not a secretive intriguer or a tangential subject in RAF history. Rather, he played a fundamental part in organizing and leading British aviation from 1912 to the end of 1918. He provided organization, visionary guidance and efficient administrative control for the fledgling service that tried to survive infancy in the heat of battle.

Sykes assumed command of the Air Staff immediately after the RAF's birth - on April 1 1918 - at a critical time, when the German spring offensives were about to split the French and British defensive lines and cause an Allied defeat. Sykes stepped in to quell organizational and bureaucratic fires by working harmoniously with the Air Minister, Lord Weir. Together they maintained control of the air service and established a strategic Independent Air Force prepared to bomb Berlin by the time the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. Sykes battled against fellow airmen, military traditionalists and French commanders to promote an incipient air revolution in warfare by instituting 'air-minded' use of new technologies to economize on manpower and apply air power tactically, strategically and independently from the inefficient army and navy competitive control that had plagued the air services. From the reconnaissance of 1914 to the devastating precision attacks of Desert Storm in the 1991 Gulf War, aircraft have transformedthe modern battlefield. As this book shows, Sykes was important to that revolutionary process.

In June 1941 the Ark Royal won one of Britain's most famous naval victories. The German destroyer, Bismarck, had been ravaging the British fleet in the Atlantic. Sailing through a ferocious storm the Ark Royal tracked the Bismarck. A dozen swordfish bombers took off from her deck and pounded shell after shell into the German battleship, sending her to the ocean floor. It was a signal victory that resonated around the world. Hitler, furious at the loss of the German fleet's flagship, demanded that the Ark Royal be destroyed at whatever cost. HMS Ark Royal is one of the Royal Navy's most iconic ships. When she was launched in 1938 she was one of the most sophisticated weapons at the disposal of British military command. The aircraft carrier was the latest, and soon to be one of the most feared, developments in naval warfare. In her first two years of operation the Ark Royal survived countless attacks, and was considered one of the luckiest ships in the Navy. But her air of invincibility was to prove wishful thinking. Within one month of sinking the Bismarck, the Ark Royal too was destroyed while sailing off the coast of Gibraltar. And there she has rested, one kilometre below the surface of the Mediterranean, until her wreck was discovered by Mike Rossiter in 2004. In gripping detail, and using the testimony of survivors of the sinking and men who lived, flew and fought on the Ark Royal, Mike Rossiter tells the remarkable story of the life and legend of this most iconic of ships. Also, and for the first time, he reveals the story of the quest to discover the wreck of this naval legend.

In the immediate post-World War II period, Army aviation began to evolve from an observatory role to a mobility role. Helicopter air mobility began to develop in the Army from 1949 onwards. The outbreak of the Korean war assisted and accelerated the acceptance of greater helicopter air mobility within the Army. The Eisenhower period was a golden age for Army aviation, with rapid and extensive developments in air mobility doctrine and tactics. There was also a strong research and development effort to overcome the initial technological lag. These developments allowed the formation of the first air mobile division in 1965 to meet the growing demands of the Vietnam war. This work gives a new understanding of the process of military innovation. Moreover, this case study has important general implications for future military policy-making.

In late 1941, President Roosevelt agonized over the rapid advances of the Japanese forces in Asia; they seemed unstoppable. He foresaw their intentions of taking India and linking up with the two other Axis Powers, Germany and Italy, in an attempt to conquer the Eastern Hemisphere. US naval forces had been surprised and diminished in Pearl Harbor and the army was not only outnumbered but also ill-prepared to take on the invading hoards. One of Roosevelt's few options was to form a defensive line on the eastern side of the Patkai and Himalayan Ranges; there, he could look for support from the Chinese and Burmese. It was the only defence to a Japanese invasion of India. To support and supply the troops who were fighting in hostile jungle terrain, where overland routes had been cut off, he desperately needed to set up an air supply from Eastern India. His problem was lack of aircraft and experienced pilots to fly the dangerous 'Hump, over the world's highest mountains. Hence the inception of Operation Seven Alpha, a plan to enlist the aircraft - DC-3s - and the pilots - veterans of World War One - of American Airlines.This newly formed elite Squadron would fly the medium-range aircraft in a series of long-distance hops across the Pacific and Southern Asia to the Assam Valley in India. They would then create and operate the vital supply route, carrying arms, ammunition and food Eastward to the Allied bases, before returning with wounded personnel. This is the story of that little-known operation, carried out in the early days of the Burma Campaign. The book is based on first-hand experiences of those who were involved, and it serves as a fitting tribute to the bravery and inventiveness of a band of men who answered their country's desperate call at the outset of the war against Japan in Asia.