For the next six weeks, Hunt executed dozens of bombing missions into Kuwait and Iraq, including all-weather low-level attacks, A-6 Intruder missions so hazardous that they would never be flown in combat again. Whether Hunt was dropping laser-guided bombs on precision targets, supporting the Marines on the ground, or conducting attacks along the infamous “highway of death,” America’s mission was clear – to force the invading Iraqi army out of Kuwait.Operation Desert Storm - America’s first full-scale conflict since Vietnam - proved to the world that the U.S. military was still battle-ready after decades of Cold War and set the stage for military interventions for years to come. Hunt’s gripping depiction of A-6 Intruders in combat is a thought provoking account of what America asks of her military every day.This…Gulf War memoir is excellent; it really does put the reader in the cockpit...Peter Hunt’s enthusiastic account is one of the best of the type this reviewer has read in recent years. Peter Mersky, The Hook – Journal of Carrier Aviation Book Review, February 2003.

    Twenty-five thousand feet above Malta--that is where the Spitfires intercepted the Messerschmitts, Macchis, and Reggianes as they swept eastward in their droves, screening the big Junkers with their bomb loads as they pummeled the island beneath: the most bombed patch of ground in the world. One of those Spitfire pilots was George Beurling, nicknamed "Screwball," who in fourteen flying days destroyed twenty-seven German and Italian aircraft and damaged many more. Hailing from Canada, Beurling finally made it to Malta in the summer of 1942 after hard training and combat across the Channel. Malta Spitfire tells his story and that of the gallant Spitfire squadron, 249, which day after day ascended to the "top of the hill" to meet the enemy against overwhelming odds. With this memoir, readers experience the sensation of being in the cockpit with him, climbing to meet the planes driving in from Sicily, diving down through the fighter screen at the bombers, dodging the bullets coming out of the sun, or whipping up under the belly of an Me for a deflection shot at the engine. This is war without sentiment or romance, told in terms of human courage, skill, and heroism--a classic of WWII military aviation.

    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.

    Smith and his principal staff officers of the 2d Marine Division, Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, commanding the Central Pacific Force, flew to New Zealand from Pearl Harbor. Spruance told the Marines to prepare for an amphibious assault against Japanese positions in the Gilbert Islands in November. The Marines knew about the Gilberts. The 2d Raider Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson had attacked Makin Atoll a year earlier. Subsequent intelligence reports warned that the Japanese had fortified Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll, where elite forces guarded a new bomber strip. Spruance said Betio would be the prime target for the 2d Marine Division. General Smith's operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel David M. Shoup, studied the primitive chart of Betio and saw that the tiny island was surrounded by a barrier reef. Shoup asked Spruance if any of the Navy's experimental, shallow-draft, plastic boats could be provided. "Not available," replied the admiral, "expect only the usual wooden landing craft." Shoup frowned. General Smith could sense that Shoup's gifted mind was already formulating a plan. The results of that plan were momentous. The Tarawa operation became a tactical watershed: the first, large-scale test of American amphibious doctrine against a strongly fortified beachhead. The Marine assault on Betio was particularly bloody. Ten days after the assault, Time magazine published the first of many post-battle analyses: Last week some 2,000 or 3,000 United States Marines, most of them now dead or wounded, gave the nation a name to stand beside those of Concord Bridge, the Bon Homme Richard, the Alamo, Little Big Horn and Belleau Wood. The name was "Tarawa."

    Cullen is a retired business executive and veteran of The Battle of The Bulge. During the second world war, as an army staff sergeant, he trained infantrymen for battle, then volunteered to go to Europe and enter the trenches himself. He was awarded four battle stars—Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, and Germany, Bronze Star, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, Combat Infantry Badge, and the Belgian fourragère of 1940. Once the war ended, he returned to life as a civilian. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University on the GI Bill. Mr. Cullen has been married to the love of his life for over fifty years. He has two children, and five grandchildren. He is active in veterans' groups, including the Battle of the Bulge Group, and has participated in a reenactment of the Battle of The Bulge with a group of WWII re-enactors in Washington state. James K. Cullen is 95 years old. Band Of Strangers is his first book.

    Impetuosity aside, Stout's account has stood up to challenges from within and outside the Marine Corps. Controversy aside, Stout provides plenty of action and accurate descriptions of tactics and combat that have stood the test of time. At the same time he provides a self-effacing picture of his own performance, a factor that makes this work that much more credible and readable. A "must read" for anyone interested in air combat.

    Navy history. In only 76 days of combat, Blackburn's Jolly Rogers downed a record 154 enemy warplanes, and Blackburn himself emerged as one of VF-17’s leading aces with eleven aerial combat victories to his credit. A complete history of the squadron from its commissioning in January 1943 to its disbanding in April 1944—including a harrowing account of the squadron’s intense, winning campaign against the Japanese over the northern Solomon Islands and Fortress Rabaul—this book offers a fascinating look at Blackburn’s approach to organizing, training, and leading his pilots—thirteen of whom, the author included, became air aces.

    The effects varied widely and influenced billions of individuals. It most directly affected people who appear to be at the precise inflection point to jump them into a world that was almost the same as the place where they left. Heinrich Schloss had arrived at Berlin's Tempelhof airport in 1982 to pick up his wife. After a brief migraine-like spasm, he opened his eyes to Tempelhof in 1941 to witness Hitler's death in an airplane accident. A history professor who had grown up in a divided Berlin was now a party chieftain in Nazi Germany. All of those speculative conversations around the table with colleagues about what could have been changed to avoid the fall of Germany now had immediacy. The Schloss of this parallel world had replaced Martin Bormann to assume his role of party leader. The transplant now had to make himself into the alternate Schloss and interact with the murderous Nazis who surrounded Hitler. Schloss discovers the perils of simply trying to do the right thing.

    A part fails and your helicopter comes apart in flight, or, another aircraft runs into you and the pieces of both fall to the ground below, or the enemy gunner pulls the trigger at just the right moment and his rounds find your aircraft in exactly the right spot to take it out of the sky. Whichever way it happens, it wasn t your day. Which is why, after 24 years and over 5,000 flight hours with four armed services, Major Robert Curtis was so surprised at being alive when he passed his retirement physical. Starting with enlisting in the Army to fly helicopters during Vietnam, and continuing on through service with the National Guard, Marine Corps and Royal Navy, he flew eight different helicopters from the wooden-bladed OH-13E, through the Chinook, SeaKnight and SeaKing, in war and peace around the world. During that time over 50 of his friends died in crashes, both in combat and in accidents, but somehow his skill, and not an inconsiderable amount of luck and superstition, saw him through. His flying career began with a misbegotten strategy for beating the draft by enlisting. With the Vietnam War raging full blast in 1968 the draft was inevitable, so he wanted to at least get some small measure of control of his future. Although he had no thought of flying when he walked into the recruiting office, he walked out signed up to be a helicopter pilot. What he did not know was that 43% of all the aircraft sent to Vietnam were destroyed in combat or accidents. Soon he was in the thick of the war, flying Chinooks with the 101st Airborne. After Vietnam he left the Army, but kept flying in the National Guard while going to college. He was accepted at two law schools, but flying is addictive, so he instead enlisted in the USMC to fly some more. Over the next 17 years he would fly around the world off US and British ships from Egypt to Norway and all points in between. His engaging story will be a delight to all aviation enthusiasts.REVIEWS one of those books that you read that gives you the feeling of Deja Vu, and makes the hairs on the back of your neck riseNeall Ellis Robert Curtis gives us a compelling account of his exemplary service in wartime and beyond. The combat missions he flew out of Phu Bai/Camp Eagle in Vietnam did so much for so many, and remain alive and meaningful for all of us today. Gary Matthews, American Ambassador (ret)Former Deputy and Province Senior Adviser, Thua Thien/Hue"

    It will be the Division’s first combat test, as well as its bloodiest.The fighting has come to a standstill with neither side giving ground. The 164th is desperate to break the stalemate and the mounting casualties.Their possible solution comes in the form of a British Coast Watcher. Thomas Welch offers to take a small unit into the jungle to meet up with a force of natives to instigate a guerrilla war against the Japanese rear.A unit from Able Company is selected for the job. Each man’s been battle-tested, defending Henderson field from hordes of attacking Japanese. The mission goes badly from the outset and the unit is cut off and desperate to continue their mission.As the battle for Guadalcanal rages on, their mission changes. As more men fall, the likelihood of completing it is slipping away. Alone, hurt and betrayed, they find themselves as the only soldiers able to deliver victory from the jaws of defeat.

    The story begins with the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, proceeds through enlistment and flight training, and finally into action against the enemy in the Pacific. Along the way he meets an endless stream of outrageous characters and is exposed to a much larger world than he ever could have imagined as a young boy in Des Moines. He also meets his wife to be, ditches two aircraft into the Pacific Ocean, completes 54 combat missions, and is awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

    

    Told in the veterans' words, Mission to Tokyo is a narrative of every aspect of long range bombing, including pilots and other aircrew, groundcrew, and escort fighters that accompanied the heavy bombers on their perilous mission. Several thousand men on the small Mariana Islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian were trying to take the war to the Empire—Imperial Japan—in B-29 Superfortresses flying at 28,000 feet, but the high-altitude bombing wasn't very accurate. The decision was made to take the planes down to around 8,000 feet, even as low as 5,000 feet. Eliminating the long climb up would save fuel, and allow the aircraft to take heavier bomb loads. The lower altitude would also increase accuracy substantially. The trade-off was the increased danger of anti-aircraft fire. This was deemed worth the risk, and the devastation brought to the industry and population of the capital city was catastrophic. Unfortunately for all involved, the bombing did not bring on the quick surrender some had hoped for. That would take six more months of bombing, culminating in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As with Mission to Berlin (Spring 2011), Mission to Tokyo focuses on a specific mission from spring 1945 and provides a history of the strategic air war against Japan in alternating chapters.

    Flying over Vietnam in two-seater Cessnas, they often made the difference between a soldier returning alive to his family or having the lonely sound of “Taps” played over his grave. Based on extensive interviews, and often in the men’s own words, A Hundred Feet Over Hell puts the reader in the plane as this intrepid band of U.S. Army aviators calls in fire support for the soldiers and marines of I Corps.

    Brown tries to fake to his flight instructor that he has flown before. On his twenty-first birthday, Brown is on his way home after logging eighty-five missions in a P-47 fighter over Italy, France, and Germany. Brown’s stories surrounding his training and combat experiences in World War II reveal brushes with death, continuous peril and, ultimately, a coming of age for a young man whose freshman year in college becomes instead a heroic engagement with one of the fiercest enemies his country has ever encountered. Ever dutiful to the mother who tells him to “write it down, Jamie,” Brown notes his experiences in the journal she provides and adds detail later to deliver a firsthand account of life as a pilot in the final months of combat within the European Theater. Serving as Tail-End Charley – the last man out – in most of the missions he flew, Brown’s job was to record results for the interrogation officers afterward. But Brown offers much more insight in this memoir. Follow his triumphs and travails with colleagues who become lifelong compatriots during an indelible period in American history.