Black Thursday Blood And Oil

Download or read book Black Thursday Blood and Oil written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-01-19 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A highly readable account of the early stages of the USAAF air war over Western Europe” from the author of Confounding the Reich (The Bulletin). This book describes the period when the American daylight offensive faltered and nearly failed and recalls the terrible losses suffered by Liberators on the low-level attack on the Ploesti oilfields in Romania and by the B-17s on the notorious Schweinfurt and Regensburg raids which entered 8th Air Force folklore as “Black Thursday.” Fascinating anecdotes, eye-witness accounts and the hard-won experiences of the battle-scarred American “fly-boys” reveal the grim realities of air combat at four miles high above enemy occupied Europe, Berlin and the Ruhr. “Grown up in the war” they paint a revealing picture as only they can. The “Mighty Eighth” was an air force of hard-fighting, hard-playing fliers who suffered more casualties than the entire US Marine Corps in the Pacific Campaign. Here, in their own words are stories of survival and soul-numbing loss, of “fly-boys” who came together to fight an air war of the ferocity that had never been fought on such a vast scale before. While RAF Bomber Command was waging war at night, 8th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators bombed by day in a 24-hour “round the clock” campaign. This is also a partly strategic history with a behind-the-scenes look at deployment of the bomber groups and the fighter escorts that would eventually become their salvation on the interminable deep penetration raids into the Greater Reich. “A riveting account of young men fighting for their lives on a daily basis . . . A moving and fascinating work.” —Airfix Model World

Download or read book The Daring World War II Raid on Ploesti written by William R. Bradle and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the doomed U.S. Army Air Force attack on Romanian oil fields vital to Hitler’s success. In 1943, the Allied powers were grasping for anything to undercut Hitler’s power and relieve his relentless pressure on the Red Army, which had already suffered a staggering 11 million casualties. The U.S. Army Air Force planned Operation Tidal Wave, which would take off from Benghazi, Libya, fly low and maintain complete radio silence to escape Axis observation, and bomb Hitler’s vital oil fields in Ploesti, Romania. On August 1, 177 B-24 bombers prepared to take off. Fourteen hours later, only 88 B-24s returned. Operation Tidal Wave was a massive strategic defeat. However, it proved the mettle of the USAAF and provided a rallying point for the public. Author William R. Bradle offers the definitive account of this doomed operation—the strengths, weaknesses, heroism, and failings—and takes readers into the thick of the action with thrilling accounts from many of the crews. Praise for The Daring World War II Raid on Ploesti “This account of the Ploesti mission...does an admirable job of laying out the planning, personalities, and attendant conflicts among many participants, the mistakes made and losses inflicted by the Germans and Romanians.... An eminently readable story that further emphasizes and demonstrates the mettle of the Greatest Generation.”—New York Journal of Books

Download or read book Beyond The Call written by Lee Trimble and published by Dutton Caliber. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Near the end of World War II, thousands of Allied ex-POWs were abandoned to wander the war-torn Eastern Front, modern day Ukraine. With no food, shelter, or supplies, they were an army of dying men. The Red Army had pushed the Nazis out of Russia. As they advanced across Poland, the prison camps of the Third Reich were discovered and liberated. In defiance of humanity, the freed Allied prisoners were discarded without aid. The Soviets viewed POWs as cowards, and regarded all refugees as potential spies or partisans. The United States repeatedly offered to help recover their POWs, but were refused. With relations between the allies strained, a plan was conceived for an undercover rescue mission. In total secrecy, the OSS chose an obscure American air force detachment stationed at a Ukrainian airfield; it would provide the base and the cover for the operation. The man they picked to undertake it was veteran 8th Air Force bomber pilot Captain Robert Trimble. With little covert training, already scarred by the trials of combat, Trimble took the mission. He would survive by wit, courage, and a determination to do some good in a terrible war. Alone he faced up to the terrifying Soviet secret police, saving hundreds of lives. At the same time he battled to come to terms with the trauma of war and find his own way home to his wife and child. One ordinary man. One extraordinary mission. A thousand lives at stake. This is the compelling, inspiring true story of an American hero who laid his life on the line to bring his fellow men home to safety and freedom. Include photos"--

Download or read book Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid written by Martin Caidin and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-03-25 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Thursday, October 14, 1943, two hundred and ninety one B-17 Flying Fortresses set out for a strategic bombing raid on the factories in Schweinfurt.Sixty of those planes never returned and six hundred and fifty men were lost during the course of that mission.It was the greatest failure that the United States Air Force had ever suffered and became known as "Black Thursday".Martin Caidin's Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid is a brilliant account of that day that should never be forgotten.This book uncovers in thrilling detail the build-up to that fateful raid as the ground crew prepare the aircraft and the aviators are briefed on their mission ahead.By consulting with first-hand accounts and interviewing survivors Caidin's book takes the reader to the heart of the action as the planes burst into battle in the skies above Western Europe."It is documented in the same careful kind of research which makes the whole book so successful. Excellent!" Kirkus ReviewsMartin Caidin was an American author and an authority on aeronautics and aviation. Caidin was an airplane pilot as well, and bought and restored a 1936 Junkers Ju 52 airplane. His book Black Thursday was first published in 1960. He passed away in 1997.

Download or read book The Mighty Eighth at War written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Relates how the American Eighth Air Force bombers helped Britain's Royal Air Force in fighting Germany during World War II.”—ProtoView From the beginning of World War II, the RAF’s Bomber Command had been the only means of striking Hitler’s Reich and its war machine. But the entry into the war of the United States—and the subsequent arrival in the UK of the Eighth Air Force—would more than double the Allied capability. The Flying Fortress and Liberator heavy bombers were mostly flown across the Atlantic by their young, green aircrew, and many succumbed en route and never arrived. Flying in northern Europe was a different ball game from American skies and it took a considerable time before the crews familiarized themselves with the vagaries of fog, low cloud, rain and snow. The American bombers bristled with defensive armament and elected to fly in close defensive formation during the day, leaving the RAF to carry out nighttime raids. With the arrival of long-range protective escort fighters, the task became a little easier. This book is the story, including many firsthand accounts, of how the American bomber force helped fight to eventual victory, by decimating German industry and transport systems—and breaking the Nazi war spirit.

Download or read book Blood, Oil, and Power written by M H Woodhouse and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story starts in a small African country, Nzimba. With the discovery of oil, the country becomes a pawn in the schemes of the major global forces USA, China, and Islamic fundamentalists all trying to gain control of Nzimba to add to their efforts to dominate the world energy supply. This struggle spreads to Nzimba's neighbours and military action comes from the different sides. Inevitably in this montage of human relationships and power struggles we encounter many torrid sexual liasions between the individuals. We now move to the wider global picture showing the USA and China struggling to gain in the race for the future energy supplies and the pan-Islamic forces using the oil struggle as a vehicle for the spread of their religious doctrine. Having been outmanuevered by the Islamic strategists and China, the USA retires back to its 19th century isolationism and the alliance enjoys a period of control over the major portion of the world's oil supply. Still the Arabian peninsular oil fields are controlled by the western oil companies. Israel takes advantage of the Muslim's self confidence to launch major attacks improving the chances of their future survival.

Download or read book Nazi UFOs written by S.D. Tucker and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2022-10-24 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nazi UFOs tells the strange tale of how, following the first alleged flying saucer sightings made in the USA in 1947, a series of fantasists and neo-fascists came forward to create a media myth that the Nazis may have invented these incredible craft as a means for winning the Second World War, a plan which was tantalisingly close to completion before the Allies conquered Berlin in 1945. Today, the fantasy of Nazi UFOs has grown into an entire mythology in books, on TV and online. Did Germany back-engineer anti-gravity craft, and even a full-blown time-machine, by stripping technology from a crashed alien saucer? Did the SS secretly invent ‘Green’ technology for use in their star ship engines, and was this planet-saving discovery later suppressed at the behest of a sinister Big Oil conspiracy? Did Himmler try to develop ‘lightning weapons’ for use in aerial combat? By contrasting the fake military-industrial pseudo-histories of Nazi UFO theorists with details of real-life Nazi aerospace achievements, the author demonstrates both how this modern-day mythology came about and how it cannot possibly be more than fractionally true. For the first time, this fake ‘alternative military history’ is laid out in full. This book features an appealing cast of con-men and spies, complete madmen, real-life Nazis and completely made-up ones, operating right across the globe from South America to wartime Europe and Japan. A good example may be the ‘mad professor’, Viktor Schauberger, who actually genuinely did manage to gain a personal audience with Adolf Hitler in order to try and convince him that he had discovered and then exploited some amazing new source of natural ‘free energy’ which could make objects (such as saucers, in the opinion of some) float. Hitler dismissed his plan, but it does nonetheless show how close some bizarre schemes came to being implemented in Nazi Germany.