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Find out how a pilot was instructed in flying a Battle of Britain
fighter, using the original Pilot's Notes for the Supermarine
Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, as well as Air Ministry flying notes
on captured Messerschmitt Bf 109s. See how each compares, view
their cockpits and learn how they fly. All three aircraft handled
superbly, and the Pilot's Notes help give an idea of what it was
like to fl y in a real Second World War fighter aircraft. The
aircraft were designed and first flew within months of each other,
and all served throughout the war. More than 300 pilots on the
Eastern Front shot down over 100 Soviet aircraft, each using
Messerschmitt Bf 109s, while British aces in the Spitfire and
Hurricane included Douglas Bader, Roland Beaumont, Neville Duke and
Richard Hillary.
The islands surrounding Scapa Flow made one of Britain's best
natural harbours, while the location at the north of Scotland
protected the approaches to the North Sea and Atlantic. The naval
base was important during both wars but what makes Scapa Flow
famous is its wrecks, the remains of a German fleet, which once
numbered some 74 vessels, most of which were scuttled in 1919, as
well as the war graves of HMS Royal Oak and HMS Vanguard. The
wrecks of the navy ships still survive, along with eight German
warships for which a second war came and prevented salvage. Now a
divers' paradise, the wrecks of Scapa Flow bring divers from all
over the world and employ many in Orkney itself. This is the story
of the ships of Scapa Flow, their sinking and their salvage, using
many previously unseen images of the recovery and subsequent
removal of many of the German battleships and cruisers to Rosyth
dockyard in Fife for breaking up.
1941 At the beginning of the year, Britain stood alone against
Germany and Italy. The war in Africa dominated the headlines, with
huge swathes of the North African desert changing hands
continually. At sea, Germany's Bismarck sank HMS Hood, but was soon
sunk herself, while Fortress Britain endured night after night of
heavy Blitz and the horrors of the Luftwaffe's incendiary bombs.
The first turning point of the war came in June, with Operation
Barbarossa - Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union - opening up a
second front in the east. The next would not come till December,
when the war moved from beyond its European and African front lines
to become a truly global conflict. Japan awoke the sleeping giant
that was the USA with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Simultaneous attacks on Hong Kong, Malaya, the Philippines and
Indonesia saw huge parts of Asia firmly under Japanese control by
the end of the year. John Christopher and Campbell McCutcheon tell
the story of 1941 at war using many rare and often unpublished
images, showing the rapidly changing nature of the conflict, as
well as its impact on the everyday person.
During the late 1930s it was finally realised that war with
Hitler's Germany was a major possibility. As the armed forces began
their re-arming, the Home Front was not neglected. In the
intervening twenty years since the end of the First World War, war
had changed for the worse. Aircraft had progressed and had become
much more potent, machines capable of flying huge distances with
large payloads of bombs. The realities of 'Total War' and of the
'Blitz' were almost upon Britain and Air Raid Precautions was sent
out to almost every home in the land. Filled with useful advice,
much of which was to become second nature to those in our
industrial heartland and large cities, it became a classic of
wartime reading, so much so that Britain's Air Raid Precautions was
printed in its entirety, with no changes, for the American, New
Zealand and Australian householder, too
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