Wreckchasing 101

Download or read book Bloody Skies written by Nicholas A. Veronico and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visual history of the US Eighth Air Force in World War II

Download or read book Hidden Warbirds II written by Nicholas A. Veronico and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2014-06 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The second installment in a series exploring the stories of famous wrecks and recoveries of World War II-era aircraft. Features over 150 photographs depicting more than 20 warbird stories around the world"--

Download or read book Historic Aircraft Wrecks of Los Angeles County written by G. Pat Macha and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century of aviation research and military flights over Los Angeles County has left the San Gabriel Mountains, Mojave Desert and the near-shore Pacific Ocean strewn with more than 1,500 aircraft crash sites. Barnstormers and test pilots too often made unexpected final landings. Accidents occurred on a nearly daily basis during World War II training maneuvers. Private planes, a sign of 1950s prosperity, also met tragic ends. These epic incidents include the 1971 tragedy of Flight 706 in which an airliner collided with a marine fighter jet above Mount Bliss, killing fifty people. Renowned aircraft crash search specialist G. Pat Macha recounts dozens of sorrowful, triumphant and surprising true stories of those who lived through these ordeals while offering touching tributes to those who did not.

Download or read book Aircraft Wrecks of the Pacific Northwest written by David L. McCurry and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2020-02-19 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merriam Press Military History. Detailed history of each of 33 aircraft wreck sites visited and investigated by the authors, with photos of the aircraft before the accident, and numerous photos of the crash site and evidence found at the site. Includes Washington, Oregon and Idaho state crash locator lists. 354 color photos, 42 B&W photos.

Download or read book D-Day written by Nicholas A. Veronico and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-06-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those who witnessed it never forgot it: the great armada of Allied ships that filled the English Channel on D-Day, June 6, 1944. From battleships, cruisers, and destroyers down to the much smaller landing ships and landing craft, these nearly 7,000 vessels bombarded the Normandy coast, ferried men, tanks, and equipment across the channel, and landed 150,000 troops—under withering German fire—on Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches in a single day. In numbers and scope, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Meanwhile, some 12,000 aircraft flew above the sea, a dizzying assortment of fighters and bombers, transports, recon craft, and gliders. Taking off from air fields in England, they dropped thousands of paratroopers and even vehicles, bombed roads and German positions miles inland, provided vital intelligence, and attacked any German planes that were able to take to the skies. It was the largest single-day aerial operation in history. And yet these important—and impressive—aspects of D-Day haven’t received the coverage they deserve, having been overshadowed by the fighting on the beaches. Veronico assembles photos of both the air and sea components of the D-Day invasion, giving the sailors and airmen their due and giving modern readers a vivid sense of what this monumental day was like in the air and at sea.

Download or read book Historic Aircraft Wrecks of San Diego County written by G. Pat Macha and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clear weather and a natural harbor made San Diego an early aviation hub, but success in flight came with devastating tragedies. The remains of more than four hundred aircrafts lie scattered across the county's deserts and mountains. Experts estimate that dozens more are on the ocean floor off the coast. In 1922, army pilot Charles F. Webber's DeHavilland biplane went missing over Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 178 collided midair over San Diego and crashed in the residential North Park neighborhood, claiming the lives of 144 people in what was the worst airline disaster of the era. Author and aircraft accident research specialist G. Pat Macha recounts these and other stories of astonishing survival, heroism and heartbreaking fatality.

Download or read book Beneath Haunted Waters written by Peter Stekel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-09-30 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drama. Tragedy. Irony. Unsolved mysteries. And throw in a little greed. Beneath Haunted Waters is not a ghost story; it’s not that kind of “haunted” at all. These are waters haunted by generations of people who cannot forget the story of how two B-24 Liberator bombers disappeared in 1943 and what happened to the boys on board. During the World War II years, the convention was to call young men in their late teens to their late 20s, “boys.” The boys who piloted bombers and fighter aircraft during World War II were 19 or 20 years old - barely out of their childhood. Imagine boarding a 737 today and seeing a teenager at the controls instead of a person with greying temples. That was the situation during the war. Beneath Haunted Waters is a story about that era, when children flew large airplanes equipped with enough firepower to destroy cities. And yet, boys they were, and boys they will always be. But it’s primarily a story of how they died, not in combat, but by accident. During World War II the USA lost 7100 combat aircraft and 5300 trainers, along with 15,530 pilots, crew members, and ground personnel in over 52,000 domestic accidents. These statistics don’t compare to the huge numbers of RAF, 8th Air Force, and Luftwaffe losses during the European air war but the numbers are still frightening: Between 1942-1945, US aviation losses to accidents (12,400) exceeded combat losses (4500) to the Japanese. For every plane shot down in the South Pacific there were three lost to accidents within the United States. While memoirs of those who served, histories of military and political leaders, and books about combat abound, very little has been written about the terrible toll of aviation training accidents during the war. Beneath Haunted Waters is unique because it tells this hardly known and little appreciated story. Most information on this subject is covered in official reports. It appears in a casual way in many memoirs. There are a few histories of the air war during World War II that mention aviation accidents during training or once the boys were in theater. There has been no popular, academic, or comprehensive book on the subject. I propose to cover this subject within the more personal story of what happened to the two Liberators that wound up in Huntington Lake and Hester Lake. Usually, pilots and crews of World War II aircraft were neither old enough to vote nor to drink. Many had never driven a car or taken a train ride much less been in an airplane. Nine months after enlistment they were flying the most technologically advanced, high performance, machines ever built. The same could be said for their navigation equipment and radio gear. But aviation had been around for only 40 years! Aircraft design was still in its infancy. Engines failed, pilots flew into mountains, navigators got lost, radios broke, and weather forecasts were frequently and fatally wrong.