A Raid Over Berlin

Author: John Martin
Publisher: Charnwood
ISBN: 9781444842227
Category : Air pilots, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Book Description
Trapped inside a burning Lancaster bomber 20,000 feet above Berlin, wireless operator John Martin consigned himself to his fate and turned his thoughts to his fiancee back home. In a miraculous turn of events, however, the twenty-one-year-old was thrown clear of his disintegrating aeroplane and found himself parachuting into the heart of Nazi Germany, where he was soon captured. Drawn from his own memories, and from conversations with other POWs, this is the true-life account of a Second World War airman who cheated death in the sky, only to face interrogation and the prospect of being shot by the Gestapo, before enduring months of sorrow and hunger as a prisoner of war. Above all, however, it is the story of one man's courage and determination in the face of adversity.

The Last Battle

Author: Cornelius Ryan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439127018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 749

Book Description
The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

Target Berlin

Author: Jeffrey Ethell
Publisher: Greenhill Books
ISBN: 9781853674914
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
On March 6th, 1944 the Americans launched their first large-scale daylight raid on Berlin, the capital of Hitler's reich. The price they paid for their audacity was high: sixty-nine heavy bombers and eleven escort fighters failed to return, the highest number in any raid mounted by the 8th Air Force. This account of the mission is a compellingly readable, skillfully researched, minute-by-minute description. It is also the first book on the subject to look at events from the perspective of both sides, drawing on material from over 160 USAAF personnel, Luftwaffe pilots, civilians and German flak gunners. Target Berlin captures the excitement and drama of the operation, bringing to the fore the mounting horror of a mission plagued by misfortune, strong defenses and bad luck. The gripping narrative also sheds light on what it was like to be in Berlin as the bombs began to fall.

Mission to Berlin

Author: Robert F. Dorr
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 1610602625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
From Hell Hawks! author Bob Dorr, Mission to Berlin takes the reader on a World War II strategic bombing mission from an airfield in East Anglia, England, to Berlin and back. Told largely in the veterans’ own words, Mission to Berlin covers all aspects of a long-range bombing mission including pilots and other aircrew, groundcrew, and escort fighters that accompanied the heavy bombers on their perilous mission.

High Noon Over Haseluenne

Author: Luc Dewez
Publisher: Schiffer Military History
ISBN: 9780764332371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
On March 6, 1944, and the Eighth Air Force would launch a full scale assault on the German capital of Berlin. The book deals with the 100th Bomb Group that flew the mission and the catastrophic results that ensued. The Bloody Hundredth and the mission that solidified that moniker. The concentrated attacks by the Luftwaffe would destroy sixty-nine American bombers that day, the single highest loss for any mission by the 8th Air Force, and fifteen of those losses would come from the 100th Bomb Group. It takes you inside the men and machines that had to brave one of the deadliest air battles of World War II. It lets them tell the story through firsthand accounts, personal diaries, letters home, news clippings and illustrated with over 200 photos.

The Nuremberg Raid

Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 178159886X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
A thorough history of the RAF Bomber Command attack on the German city during World War II, by the author of The First Day on the Somme. This book describes one twenty-four-hour period in the Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive in the greatest possible detail. Author Martin Middlebrook sets the scene by outlining the course of the bombing war from 1939 to the night of the Nuremberg raid, the characters and aims of the British bombing leaders, and the composition of the opposing Bomber Command and German night fighter forces. The aim of the Nuremberg raid was not unlike many hundreds of other Royal Air Force missions but, due to the difficulties and dangers of the enemy defenses and weather plus bad luck, it went horribly wrong. The result was so notorious that it became a turning point in the campaign. The target, the symbolic Nazi rally city of Nuremberg, was only lightly damaged, and 96 out of 779 bombers went missing. Middlebrook recreates the events of the fateful night in astonishing detail. The result is a meticulous, dramatic, and often controversial account. It is also a moving tribute to the bravery of the RAF bomber crews and their adversaries. Praise for The Nuremberg Raid “Employing hundreds of eyewitness accounts, he shows the raid from the point of view of the German defenses and the civilians on the ground. Factual and analytical, this is a portrait of mechanized warfare at the level of personal experience.” —Simon Mawer, Wall Street Journal

Fire and Fury

Author: Randall Hansen
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0307372383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
National Bestseller An enlightening and utterly convincing re-examination of the allied aerial bombing campaign and of civilian German suffering during World War II–an essential addition to our understanding of world history. During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. Much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership. Hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, and using a compelling narrative approach, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved: military and civilian command in America, Britain, and Germany, aircrew in the sky, and civilians on the ground. Acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was wedded to an outdated strategy whose success had never been proven; how area bombing not only failed to win the war, it probably prolonged it; and that the US campaign, which was driven by a particularly American fusion of optimism and morality, played an important and largely unrecognized role in delivering Allied victory.

Berlin at War

Author: Roger Moorhouse
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446499219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Book Description
Berlin was the nerve-centre of Hitler's Germany - the backdrop for the most lavish ceremonies, it was also the venue for Albert Speer's plans to forge a new 'world metropolis' and the scene of the final climactic bid to defeat Nazism. Yet while our understanding of the Holocaust is well developed, we know little about everyday life in Nazi Germany. In this vivid and important study Roger Moorhouse portrays the German experience of the Second World War, not through an examination of grand politics, but from the viewpoint of the capital's streets and homes.He gives a flavour of life in the capital, raises issues of consent and dissent, morality and authority and, above all, charts the violent humbling of a once-proud metropolis. Shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman History Prize.

B-17s Over Berlin

Author: Ian L. Hawkins
Publisher: Memories of War
ISBN: 9781574888423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"The best collection of firsthand battle stories I have read." -Air Power History

Zero Over Berlin

Author: Joh Sasaki
Publisher: Vertical
ISBN: 9781932234091
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
1940. Hitler wants to rain death on London but he doesn't have the aircraft. Classified info about a new long-range plane -- the Japanese "Type Zero" -- intrigues Nazi generals who ask their Far Eastern ally for a few prototypes to study. But how to get the planes from Japan to Germany? Unable to fly safely over the Soviet Union or the vast British Empire, maverick Japanese pilots just might make it if they can refuel at the few secret pockets of resistance en route. Zero Over Berlin is an amazing adventure of dogfights and narrow escapes, geopolitical intrigue (from the other side), and military covert-ops that never were. From Japan's celebrated answer to Tom clancy and Jack Higgins- Joh Sasaki.