Air Forces

Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. Malcolm Gladwell reexamines moments from the past and asks whether we got it right the first time....

A truly comprehensive account of 617 Squadron, RAF, ​who carried out one of the most dangerous and audacious aerial bombing raids of World War II....

The definitive account of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, by best-selling author of Kokoda....

Concorde is an enthralling personal account of what it takes to fly planes faster than the speed of sound, and of the events that lay behind 114 needless deaths—the 113 victims of the crash and, ultimately, Concorde herself....

September 1942 marked the high point of Axis conquest in World War II....

The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid....

For the soldiers and officers of Australia's Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment⿿ this is not just their professional motto⿿ but a creed that shapes their lives....

On the morning of March 24, 1945, more than 2,000 Allied aircraft droned through a cloudless sky toward Germany. Escorted by swarms of darting fighters, the armada of transport planes carried 17,000 troops....

The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior—a deep reconnaissance scout and attack aircraft—was legendary to those it supported. Regularly flying mere feet off of the ground while intentionally drawing enemy fire, almost everyone called Kiowa pilots crazy....

They began operations out of England in the spring of '43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom....

In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal....

The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”....

In 1939 Eric Brown was on a University of Edinburgh exchange course in Germany, and the first he knew of the war was when the Gestapo came to arrest him....

While their husbands, brothers and sweethearts fought in Europe and their mothers, sisters and friends kept the home fires burning, for the first time, a group of remarkable women took to the skies....

It is not often that a long-hidden gem of a manuscript is published, bringing a moment in WWII history to vivid life for today’s audiences. Geoffrey Wellum’s First Light was one example. The memoir of Timothy Vigors is another....

Paul Tremelling was just seven years old when he watched the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers leave their home base in Somerset to do battle against the Argentine Air Force in the Falklands War. Two decades later, he would join this exclusive club....

Rattler One-Seven puts you in the helicopter seat, to see the war in Vietnam through the eyes of an inexperienced pilot as he transforms himself into a seasoned combat veteran....

The inside story of the most expensive and controversial military program in history, as told by those who lived it....

Merton Naydler joined the RAF at the age of 19 and served for the next six years until May 1946. This extremely entertaining memoir portrays wartime life in the desert environment where sand and flies and life under canvas made living and flying a daunting experience....

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway....

The 'Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club' was the tongue-in-cheek nickname of the US Seventh Fleet that was stationed off the coast of Vietnam and this book tells the full story of the US Naval air campaign in the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1975....

A masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshaled the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly twice as many casualties as D-day....

Through the firsthand experiences of pilots and ground crew, the author of Javelin Boys chronicles the history of the RAF’s first jet-engine aircraft. As Britain’s first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor has had a remarkably varied and lengthy life....

During the Second World War, Flt Lt Richard Stevens led an extraordinary campaign as an RAF nightfighter. Known to contemporaries as "Cat's Eyes" and by the height of his success in July 1941 as the "Lone Wolf", Flt Lt Stevens was the RAF's highest scoring nightfighter pilot with 14 victories....

Sure to rank as one of the greatest aviation memoirs ever written, Viper Pilot is an Air Force legend's thrilling eyewitness account of modern air warfare....