Book picks similar to
Dancing In The Skies by T.E. Jonsson
wwii-air-campaign
biographies
military-aviation
military-biography
Eagle's Claw
Morgan Jameson - 2017
But the Gestapo needs a man-hunter to apprehend an Allied agent who has killed three men, and worse, absconded with Top Secret Luftwaffe documents which detail a secret plan that could alter the course of the war. The Reich cannot let the information, and the man who stole it, make it back to Allied territory. The deal? Catch the killer and the Gestapo will free his family from the death camp where they are jailed. Fail...
Still a PFC: A Combat Marine in World War II: The Pacific Theater (1942-1945): Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Guam, & Iwo Jima
Eugene H. Peterson - 2020
Tomes have been devoted to this subject. I choose instead to tell of my life as a Private, a grunt if you will, and how this life impacted on me.As a telephone lineman for the United States Marine Corps, I had the greatest opportunity to see more of the combat area than most participants. We traveled to the right flank, left flank, up front and to the rear areas to keep our telephone lines functioning and all our artillery and infantry in constant communications.A Japanese general stated "the American troops' ability to concentrate artillery fire on a given point was a tremendous advantage." As an artilleryman, I am proud we provided this edge. Our front line troops on numerous occasions told me our artillery barrage had "stopped the Japs cold." Our constant goal.I have often been asked, "How did you cope with death as an everyday fact?" I tell of losing eight buddies on one day on Guam. We acknowledged the loss then moved on. "What is past is past." We did not dwell on one or multiple losses. We simply moved on. Yesterday was an age away, this is today, we hope to see tomorrow. Perhaps cruel, but it retained our sanity. Those who stand and wait have not shared this burden.Lest you think I am portraying myself as some kind of hero -- let me remind you, they never asked me if I wanted to go on these combat landings to Bougainville, Guam, and Iwo Jima.I was not a hero, but I walked among heroes.
The Serpent's Egg
J.J. Toner - 2016
But this is Germany, 1938. Their union is against Nazi laws, as Anna is part-Jewish. A Gestapo officer agrees to authorize the marriage, but only if Max infiltrates and betrays a Marxist resistance cell, the Red Orchestra. This is not an assignment that Max can refuse. If he succeeds, Anna will get the wedding she longs for, but many brave resistance fighters will die… What early reviewers are saying about the book: JJ Toner does a fabulous job of lacing fact and fiction together. I do not often give a five-star rating, but this story surprised me, educated me, and entertained me. There was never a dull moment. Well done. JJ Toner captures perfectly the sense of paranoia and fear that prevailed in Berlin during the Third Reich, especially in the years 1938 to 1945. The convoluted intermingling of different agencies, organizations and ministries, and over all the terror of the SS and its departments, is well set out. It was really a matter of who you knew, not what you knew, if you wanted to progress. The fact that the novel is based on the actual story of the Rote Kapelle only adds to the tension
The Photographer at Sixteen: The Death and Life of a Fighter
George Szirtes - 2019
It is fiercely compelling" EDMUND DE WAAL, author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes
A poet's memoir of his mother that flows backwards through time, and through a tumultuous period of European history - a tender and yet unsparing autobiographical journey.
In July 1975, George Szirtes' mother, Magda, died in an ambulance, on her way to hospital after attempting to take her own life. She was fifty-one years old. This memoir is an attempt to make sense of what came before, to re-construct who Magda Szirtes really was. The Photographer at Sixteen moves from her death, spooling backwards through her years as a mother, through sickness and exile in England, the family's flight from Hungary in 1956, her time in two concentration camps, her girlhood as an ambitious photographer and her vanished family in Transylvania.The woman who emerges, fleetingly, fragmentarily - with her absolutism, her contradictions, her beauty - is utterly captivating. What were the terrors and obsessions that drove her? The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life that is at Magda Szirtes from the depths of the end to the comparable safety of the photographer's studio where she first appears as a small child. It is a book born of curiosity, guilt and love.
My Baby & Me
Sam Faiers - 2016
Since becoming a mum to Paul Jnr her life has taken a magical turn although at times it can be just as tiring and worrying too...Now Sam invites her fans, fellow mums or mums-to-be on an unforgettable journey through motherhood.Charting the highs and lows, she opens up about what being a mum is really like - from those treasured first cuddles and baby's first smile to dealing with leaking nappies and getting your body back in shape. Told in her no-nonsense, down-to-earth way Sam reveals that while having a baby is the best thing that has ever happened to her, caring for something so small is tough and the pressures put upon modern day mums can be even tougher.As funny as they are emotional, Sam's experiences in this intimate read will offer comfort and advice to others, including her own healthy diet and fitness tips, while also opening up fans to a whole new side of Sam Faiers that even she didn't know before.
Not Much of an Engineer
Stanley Hooker - 1984
So successful was he that in 1966 Rolls-Royce decided the best thing to do was to spend 63.6 million pounds and buy its rival. By this time there was scarcely a single modern British aero-engine for which Hooker had not been responsible.
An Angel from Hell: Real Life on the Front Lines
Ryan A. Conklin - 2010
As a turret gunner with the famed 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles," and a member of the famed "Rakkasans" regiment-the most decorated regiment in the U.S. Army-he endured hellish conditions in the war-torn city of Tikrit, Iraq. When he returned to the States, he became a cast member on "The Real World: Brooklyn" in 2008. That came to an end when he received his notice recalling him to duty. "An Angel from Hell" is a gritty, blunt, and laughout-loud funny war memoir from the grunt's perspective. Conklin reveals what the Iraq war is really like, day to day-the misery, the boredom, the absurdity, the horror, and even the moments of grace. With stunning candor and wisdom beyond his years, Ryan Conklin has documented a complex and unavoidably life-changing experience for his generation."
Kennedy
Brett Harper - 2015
Kennedy glimmers through history as the young, idealistic president whose Camelot administration promised a new dawn for America. He did a great deal in his thousand-day presidency, from embracing civil rights and starting the Peace Corps to negotiating a nuclear test ban and facing down the Soviets on the brink of nuclear war. But fifty years after he was murdered, it's hard to separate the real JFK, with all his faults, from the many myths about him. This is his story - and why he mattered.
An Eagle's Odyssey: My Decade as a Pilot in Hitler's Luftwaffe
Johannes Kaufmann - 2019
He may have been an ordinary Luftwaffe pilot, but he served during an extraordinary time, with distinction. Serving for a decade through both peacetime and wartime, his memoir sheds light on the immense pressures of the job.In this never-before-seen translation of a rare account of life in the Luftwaffe, Kaufmann takes the reader through his time in service, from his involvement in the annexation of the Rhineland, the attack on Poland, fighting against American heavy bombers in the Defence of the Reich campaign. He also covers his role in the battles of Arnhem and the Ardennes, and the D-Day landings, detailing the intricacies of military tactics, flying fighter planes and the challenges of war.His graphic descriptions of being hopelessly lost in thick cloud above the Alps, and of following a line of telegraph poles half-buried in deep snow while searching for a place to land on the Stalingrad front are proof that the enemy was not the only danger he had to face during his long flying career.Kaufmann saw out the war from the early beginnings of German expansion right through to surrender to the British in 1945. An Eagle’s Odyssey is a compelling and enlightening read, Kaufmann’s account offers a rarely heard perspective on one of the core experiences of the Second World War.
Nuremburg Raid, The: 30-31 March 1944
Martin Middlebrook - 1973
The target received only light damage, while 96 of the 779 attacking aircraft disappeared. What happened that fateful night in 1944? A military writer internationally recognized for his superb research recreates the events in astonishing detail from archives, correspondence with the raid's planners, and interviews with RAF and Luftwaffe aircrews, plus civilians from the bombed area. A meticulous, dramatic, and often controversial testimony.
Without Parachutes: How I Survived 1,000 Attack Helicopter Combat Missions in Vietnam
Jerry W. Childers - 2005
He arrived in Vietnam in 1964 and volunteered to join the worlds first attack helicopter company. The Utility Tactical Transport Helicopter Company (UTT) had deployed to Vietnam in 1962. It came equipped with the U.S. Armys brand new UH-1 Huey, a helicopter originally designed as an aerial ambulance. The crews, not happy with a passive combat role, began experimenting with ways to strap guns on their aircraft and attack the enemy. Through a deadly process of trial and error the pilots pushed their machines to the edge. Mistakes were made, crews were lost and lessons were learned. These lessons evolved into combat tactics and became fondly known as the 12 Cardinal Rules of Attack Helicopter Combat. Upon joining the unit the author learned about the rules. He studied them and on his first day in combat, developed his own 13th rule. Over his ensuing three years in Vietnam, the rules, especially the 13th, helped him survive over one thousand combat missions. This book provides the reader with a cockpit level view of dozens of those missions and describes several additional near disaster situations encountered by the author during over 25 years flying Army Aircraft. The author is successful in striking a balance between the grim realities of combat and the often humorous aspects of life among a group of high spirited aviators who fly into the jaws of death daily without a parachute on their back. He suggests that the 13 rules, although developed during a different war and at a different time, are applicable to armed helicopter combat operations in the 21st Century. The book contains about 200 pages and is nicely illustrated with 50 photographs.
The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival
Sara Tuval Bernstein - 1999
She was born into a large family in rural Romania?and grew up feisty and willing to fight back physically against anti-Semitism from other schoolchildren. She defied her father' s orders to turn down a scholarship that took her to Bucharest, and got herself expelled from that school when she responded to a priest/teacher' s vicious diatribe against the Jews by hurling a bottle of ink at him?After a series of incidents that ranged from dramatic escapes to a year in a forced labor detachment, Sara ended up in Ravensbruck, a women' s concentration camp, Aand? managed to survive?she tells this story with style and power." --Kirkus Reviews
From My Heart: The Autobiography
Linda Nolan - 2018
And I’ve chosen not to spend it constantly stressing about cancer. I’ve chosen to enjoy the little things. I’ve chosen to laugh. And I’ve chosen to look back on my life and thank God for it.'
In March 2017, Linda Nolan was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer and was given the terrible news that, while it was treatable, it was not curable. Her first thought was to worry about her family, who were still grieving the loss of their sister Bernie. Her second was, ‘But I’m alive and I’m going to fight it.’In From My Heart, Linda writes honestly about growing up in her big Irish family and finding fame with her sisters in The Nolans and reveals the shocking family secrets and feuds that threatened to tear them apart. She also describes her original battle with breast cancer and how the death of her husband left her deeply depressed, to the point of feeling suicidal. Just as she’d learned to embrace life again, and even to start dating, the cancer came back . . . In this warm, brave and funny memoir, Linda shows that it’s never too late to learn what really matters.
When Lions Roared: The Lions, the All Blacks and the Legendary Tour of 1971
Tom English - 2017
No Lions team had ever defeated the All Blacks in a Test series. Since 1904, six Lions sides had travelled to New Zealand and all had returned home with their tails between their legs. But in 1971 a tour party led by John Dawes set out to carve their names into the annals of the sport with their assault on the great bastion of world rugby. Lying in wait were team after team of hardened rugby warriors and an All Blacks side filled with legends of the game. But as the Lions began to sweep their way across the length and breadth of the country, displaying ferocity and magic in equal measure, it became clear that a Test series of epic proportions was set to unfold. When Lions Roared delves into the very heart of that famous summer as Lions, All Blacks and provincial players recount their memories to bring to life one of the most celebrated tours in rugby history - one that changed the game forever and continues to resonate powerfully to this day.