In depth descriptions and photographs of the aircraft of 21 nations presented with a unique human dimension that goes behind the machines to the people involved. Invaluable for specialists, accessible to enthusiasts, International Warbirds: An Illustrated Guide to World Military Aircraft, 1914–2000 puts the most legendary fighter aircraft of the 20th century developed outside the United States on vivid display. It offers 336 illustrated "biographies" of the most significant warplanes used in squadron service from World War I to the Balkan conflict, including numerous models from Great Britain, France, Russia, and Japan, as well as notable machines from Israel, Canada, China, India, Brazil, and other nations. Entries span the history and scope of military aircraft from bombers and fighters to transports, trainers, reconnaissance craft, sea planes, and helicopters, with each capsule history combining nuts-and-bolts technical data with the story of that model's evolution and use. Together, these portraits offer an exciting, well-researched tribute to visionary designers and builders as well as courageous pilots and crews across the globe, and tell a vivid tale of how air power became such a decisive factor in modern warfare.

Phantom in Combat puts you in the cockpit with the missile-age aces as they fight for their lives in the skies of Vietnam and the Middle East.\nStarting with a brief account of the forging of this deadly weapon, Phantom in Combat moves to the wars, campaigns and single engagements in which it was used to such telling effect. Leading USAF ace Steve Ritchie speaks more in sorrow than anger of the politically inspired rules that so frustrated him and his comrades in Vietnam. The story of the gruelling dogfight that made Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll the U.S. Navys only aces is redolent of the sweat, toil and terror of high-speed air fighting. And combat reports from some of Israels anonymous aces speak laconically of victories, losses, hairs-breadth escapes, and, above all, the Phantoms ability to give and take enormous punishment.\nProviding a rich background to this testimony is a wealth of rare material, including:\n- Battle-damage and gun-camera photographs\n- Recently declassified U.S. Navy tactical diagrams\n- Photo-sequence showing the destruction of an F-4 by a North Vietnamese missile.\n- Official analysis of the USAFs most successful MiG-trapping operation, led by the famous General Robin Olds.\n- Complete listing of USAF and USN air-to-air victories in Vietnam.\nHere is the human face of modern air warfare, described by the commanders and crews who earned for the Phantom its reputation as the worlds finest fighting aircraft.

Messerschmitt Me 262: Arrow to the Future tells the dramatic story of the Me 262\s combat career as a fascinating chain of events in which planning, luck, and even blind stupidity played important roles. Even by today\s engineering standards, magnificent is the only word to describe the effort to bring the plane\s jet engines, which eclipsed the performance of all contemporary aircraft, from the laboratory to production in an amazingly short time.\nArrow to the Futrue also tells the story of the people who flew the Me262 in combat. Their complete accounts bring their missions to life and set the plane in the historical context of the war. The German narratives are complemented by the accounts of Americans who flew against the Me 262 - for instance, the team of crack USAAF pilots known as "Watsons\s Whizzers," who literally stole a fleet of jet aircraft from German airfields at the end of the war.\nAlso described are the postwar efforts to test and preserve the Me 262. Included is a description of the efforts to obtain one of these aircraft for display at the National Air and Space Museum, and the painstaking efforts by the team at the Smithsonian\s Paul E. Garber Facility for Preservation, Restoration, and Storage to restore the Me 262 to its pristine condition.\nThis new reprint edition is lavishly illustrated with more than 100 photographs, including operational photos from World War II, color views of the cockpit, and interior and exterior shots of the restored Me 262. In addition to the striking photographs, there are expert technical drawings, cutaway illustrations, and equipment and conversion tables. \nWalter J. Boyne is the author of many books including The Smithsonian Book of Flight, The Leading Edge, Boeing B-52: A Documentary History and Phantom in Combat, as well as the novels The Wild Blue, Trophy for Eagles and Air Force Eagles.

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.

It's usually called the Yom Kippur War. Or sometimes the October War. The players that surround it are familiar: Sadat and Mubarak, Meir and Sharon, Nixon and Kissinger, Brezhnev and Dobyrnin. It was a war that brought Arab and Jew into vicious conflict. A war in which Israel almost unleashed her nuclear arsenal and set two superpowers on a treacherous course of nuclear escalation.

And a war that eventually brought peace. But a peace fraught with delicate tensions, disputed borders, and a legacy of further bloodshed.

The Two O'Clock War is a spellbinding chronicle of the international chess game that was played out in October 1973. It is a story of diplomacy and military might that accounts for many of the dilemmas faced in the present-day Middle East.

This is a war that Israel never thought was possible. Surprised by the fury and excellent execution of the Arab onslaught, and perhaps more than a little complacent, Israel suddenly found itself on the point of losing a war because of a lack of ammunition, planes and tanks. The United States, after much vacillation, finally elected to help Israel, beginning a tremendous airlift (code name: Operation Nickel Grass) which incurred the wrath of the Arab states, and their sponsor, the Soviet Union.

Fortunately the airlift came just in time for Israeli ground forces to stabilize their positions and eventually turn the tide in the Sinai and Golan Heights. And it was all made possible by an operation that dwarfed the Berlin Airlift and the Soviets' simultaneous efforts in Egypt and Syria.

The Two O'Clock War is bound to become the definitive history of a war that quite literally approached Armageddon.

From various wars spanning two centuries to examinations of how our country's modern armed forces are coping with new threats that are more dangerous than anything they've faced before, these articles represent the best of the best; incisive, thoughtful, and probing opinions and information, written by the people who have lived and breathed the various topics and civilians who have made it a lifelong endeavor to study our nation's military. Contributors include New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming, former Army War College professor and author Martin Blumenson, Gulf War veteran and chief of military history at the Center of Military History Brigadier General John S. Brown, and Commander Stephen Flynn of the US Coast Guard, the nation's leading expert on port and container security. Article subjects in this volume include:
*Smart weapons and hi-tech wars to come
*The role of United States Army Chaplains tending to German War Criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.
*A chillingly logical hypothesis that could be the next step in terrorism--mating cruise missiles with biological warfare.
*And much more

In an overview of naval campaigns from 1939 to 1945, a military historian and author of Clash of Wings explains how sea power changed the course of World War II. From the Atlantic to the Pacific to the North Sea and the Mediterranean, Walter Boyne weaves together dramatic battle scenes with skillful analyses of strategies and tactics to present a wide-ranging look at all of the naval forces operating in every theater of the Second World War.

Shattering long-held myths and misunderstandings, author Brayton Harris traces the development of the submarine through an era in which writers of fiction saw the merits better than most professionals-until the Germans almost won World War I. He covers the professional and political arrogance that delayed antisubmarine development for so long that German submarines almost won World War II as well, and examines post-war progress toward the truly awesome submarine of today.

Along the way, Harris explores the shifting moral issues of "unrestricted" naval warfare, outlines the hundred-year search for an effective underwater power plant that culminated in the nuclear reactor, and raises important questions about the future. A fascinating exploration of the steps and stumbles during development, a rousing tribute to those who fought and died, and a powerful study of the submarine's impact on America, The Navy Times Book of Submarines is an unparalleled source for understanding the great "hunters of the deep.

The untold story of a secret planthat would have prevented Pearl Harbor--and maybe even World War II.
Could a plan to bomb Japan and destroy Japanese supply lines, communications, and staging areas in China have averted the horrendous and devastating attack on Pearl Harbor? On July 23, 1941--some five months before Pearl Harbor--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt endorsed a plan calling for the United States to provide China with 150 manned bombers and 350 fighter planes to wreak havoc on Japan's growing presence in China. "Joint Board Plan 335" had been proposed to Roosevelt and his cabinet by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek; Dr. T. V. Soong, China's special envoy to the United States; and Captain Claire Lee Chennault, a retired Air Corps pilot now in the employ of Chiang. Such a preemptive strike on Japanese interests had been under discussion for several months. Although initially blocked by General George C. Marshall, the plan was resurrected in the spring of 1941. So why, then, was it never employed?
First, there were the practical reasons: Not yet fully recovered from the Great Depression, millions of Americans were more concerned about domestic issues than foreign policy. Roosevelt and his cabinet feared political fallout from Chiang's proposed international intrigue, to say nothing of facing Winston Churchill's wrath by diverting airplanes from Britain. Then there were also ethical concerns over the definite civilian casualties the air strike would inflict. Could Roosevelt justify bombing raids when the U.S. and Japan were officially at peace? Chiang and Chennault argued that their plan would serve as a moral quid pro quo to an adversary that had been bombing and slaughtering millions of Chinese civilians for three years. The raids, Chennault insisted, would forestall Japanese expansion into Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.
Painstakingly researched and colorfully written, Preemptive Strike offers a seldom-seen glimpse of the political and moral pressures brought to bear on Roosevelt's prewar cabinet. It is sure to prompt debate, as much as the decision to use this wartime strategy does today.