Gun Button To Fire

Download or read book Gun Button to Fire written by Tom Neil and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The amazing story of one of the 'Few', fighter ace Tom Neil who shot down 13 enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

Download or read book Secret Letters written by John Willis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique book. Using for the first time the full unpublished letters of Pilot Officer Geoffrey Myers it offers a fresh and distinctive insight into World War 2. While Geoffrey Myers was a caught up in the major turning points of the early years of that war - the Battle for France, Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain - his French wife and two half-Jewish children were trapped in Nazi-occupied France, desperate to escape the enemy and be reunited with her husband in England. These secret letters were never posted and never read by Geoffrey's family until later in the war. They were designed to be read if he was killed. They begin, 'Three months now, and I have kept silent. I have been hoping to write letters that would reach you. I have been wanting to do something that would help you to escape from Occupied France and to get us all out of this living grave.' Contemporary personal accounts of the Battle of Britain of such frankness are extremely rare. Individual narratives on this scale, encompassing two of the great turning points of the war, the Battle of Britain and Dunkirk, and much else besides, just do not exist. So the letters from Geoffrey Myers to his family are unique, offering an original insight from a witness to so much history. More than that, the letters tell a powerful love story between two people caught up in war, and at real risk of never seeing each other again. As a Daily Telegraph journalist before the war, Geoffrey Myers writes with eloquence and insight and, because his notebooks were not designed to be published, the letters are an unvarnished, sometimes brutal, portrayal of war as his Battle of Britain Squadron suffers terrible losses. As an Intelligence Officer, Geoffrey was well placed to understand the chaos all around him but his letters are shot through with humanity, and sometimes humour. While Geoffrey wrote his account of the war for his children to read if he survived, his family were in mortal danger. As a Jew he understood only too well what would happen if the Nazis discovered his children hiding in Occupied France. For months he had no idea if his family were dead or alive, free or imprisoned. His letters reflect his deep love for his wife, Margot, and children and his acute anxiety for their safety, as they try to escape the tightening net of the Nazis and head south through France and Spain. Unique interviews with his wife offer insight into her remarkable story during those precarious months. This moving story of a couple whose love is caught in the crossfire of war is a powerful and rare portrait of, not only the turbulent events of those times, but also how a family survives with so much death and danger swirling around them both.

Download or read book Hurricane written by Leo McKinstry and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2010-06-24 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1940 the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Victory in the forthcoming air battle would mean national survival; defeat would establish German tyranny. The Luftwaffe greatly outnumbered the RAF, but during the Battle of Britain it was the RAF that emerged triumphant, thanks to two key fighter planes, the Spitfire and the Hurricane. The Hurricane made up over half of Fighter Command's front-line strength, and its revolutionary design transformed the RAF's capabilities. Leo McKinstry tells the story of the remarkable plane from its designers to the first-hand testimonies of those brave pilots who flew it; he takes in the full military and political background but always keeps the human stories to the fore - to restore the Hawker Hurricane to its rightful place in history.

Download or read book The Veterans' Tale written by Frances Houghton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique account of the ways in which British veterans of the Second World War remembered, understood, and recounted their experiences of battle throughout the post-war period. Focusing on themes of landscape, weaponry, the enemy, and comradeship, Frances Houghton examines the imagery and language used by war memoirists to reconstruct and review both their experiences of battle and their sense of wartime self. Houghton also identifies how veterans' memoirs became significant sites of contest as former servicemen sought to challenge what they saw as unsatisfactory official, scholarly, and cultural representations of the Second World War in Britain. Her findings show that these memoirs are equally important both for the new light they shed on the memory and meanings of wartime military experience among British veterans, and for what they tell us about the cultural identity of military life-writing in post-war British society.

Download or read book Heroes of Coastal Command written by Andrew D. Bird and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Real-life, action-packed, personal stories of valor from the history of the RAF’s maritime arm during World War II. It took thirty minutes for one Coastal Command crew to sink two U-boats. The crew of Flying Officer Kenneth “Kayo” Moore in their 224 Squadron Liberator carried out this remarkable achievement on the evening of 7/8 June 1944. While patrolling the western end of the English Channel, Moore’s crew first dispatched U-629, followed just under thirty minutes later by U-373. The story of this remarkable engagement is just one of many recounted by the author in Heroes of Coastal Command. Established in 1936, Coastal Command was the RAF’s only maritime arm. Throughout the war, its crews worked tirelessly alongside the Royal Navy to keep Britain’s vital sea lanes open. Together, they fought and won the Battle of the Atlantic, with RAF aircraft destroying 212 German U-Boats and sinking a significant tonnage of enemy warships and merchant vessels. Often working alone and unsupported, undertaking long patrols out over opens seas, Coastal Command bred a special kind of airman. Alongside individuals such as Kenneth Moore, there were Allan Trigg, Kenneth Campbell and John Cruickshank, all of whom were awarded the Victoria Cross; Norman Jackson-Smith, a Blenheim pilot who flew in the Battle of Britain; Jack Davenport, who flew his Hampden to Russia; John Watson, the sole survivor of a Short Sunderland which was lost during a rescue mission; and Ken Gatward, who flew a unique daylight mission over Paris to drop a Tricolore on the Arc de Triomphe. Theirs are just some of the many exciting stories revealed by the author.

Download or read book On a Wing and a Prayer written by C. S. Peters and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tense, Exciting, Absorbing, Thoughtful. It is 1940 and the Battle of Britain is raging fiercely in the skies above Great Britain. On a Wing and a Prayer is the story of James Graham, a young Fighter Pilot, flying Hurricanes in the daily combat of the Battle. The novel vividly describes James's apprehension and fears of being the "new boy" on the Squadron. Through passages of descriptive, exciting, action-packed narrative, the story takes the reader - as if in the cockpit with James during dogfight action - to when he becomes an experienced and seasoned Fighter Pilot fighting for survival. During this time he also has to come to terms with the loss of Squadron comrades and friends and other personal tragedy. Through its characters, the novel also tells what it was like, not only for James's family but, also, for civilians, evacuees, rescue workers, those working for the War Effort and for all those in Britain as they awaited - expected to be invaded and over-run. On a Wing and a Prayer is the first part of the compelling story of the Graham family as they and others live and survive through the Second World War.

Download or read book The Swallow and the Hummingbird written by Santa Montefiore and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FROM THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR A sweeping story of love that stretches across the years The war has ended and Rita Fairweather is waiting for George Bolton, her childhood sweetheart, to return home to Devon. She wants their future to be a continuing reassurance of their past. But George comes back as a man changed by the horrors he has experienced. Unable to settle back into a small-town life, George decides to travel to Argentina. And Rita promises to wait. But George faces irresistible temptation and an agonising choice. As the years pass, Rita keeps her word... but how long should she wait for the love of her life? ***PRAISE FOR SANTA MONTEFIORE*** ‘Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore’ JOJO MOYES ‘An enchanting read overflowing with deliciously poignant moments’ DINAH JEFFERIES on Songs of Love and War ‘Santa Montefiore hits the spot for my like few other writers’ SARRA MANNING ‘One of our personal favourites’ THE TIMES on The Last Secret of the Deverills ‘Accomplished and poetic’ Daily Mail ‘Santa Montefiore is a marvel’ Sunday Express