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Those with any interest in the First World War will have have heard of the planes most associated with that conflict - the legendary Sopwith Camel and Royal Aircraft Factory's S.E.5a, which are often called the 'Spitfire' and 'Hurricane' of the Great War. Aviation enthusiasts might even know of the Camel's predecessors, the Sopwith Pup or the Triplane. But what of the many other planes that saw active service in the war? This is the story of those armed aeroplanes whose names few people can recall, the 'forgotten fighters' of the First World War, including the pusher 'gunbuses' of the early war years, the strange 'pulpit' design of the B.E.9, the desperate conversions of reconnaissance machines that were never intended to be armed, and those which were thought too tricky for the average pilot to handle. It is also the story of the brave men who flew these machines, fighting, and too often dying, for a cause they believed in. Some of these aeroplanes only served in small numbers and others in areas away from the main battle on the Western Front, but all made a vital contribution to the winning of the war. And these lost but iconic fighter aircraft, and the brave young men who flew them, deserve to be remembered just as much as the more famous aces in their legendary machines. This is their story.
A wonderful combination of wartime anecdotes, personal letters and contemporary images
Adolph Gysbert Malan was born in Wellington, South Africa. A natural leader and driven individual with a totally positive outlook, aged fourteen Malan became an officer cadet in the South African Merchant Navy, before being commissioned into the Royal Navy Reserve. Well-travelled and worldly-wise, aged twenty-five the intrepid adventurer applied for a Short Service Commission in the RAF. Universally known as ‘Sailor’ in the RAF, Malan became a fighter pilot. Shortly after war was declared, Malan was involved in the infamous ‘Battle of Barking Creek’, in which 74 Squadron mistakenly destroyed friendly Hurricanes. Then, over Dunkirk in May 1940, Malan’s exceptional ability was immediately demonstrated in combat and a string of confirmed aerial victories rapidly accumulated. The following month, Malan scored the Spitfire’s first nocturnal kill. By August 1940 he was commanding 74 Squadron, which he led with great distinction during the Battle of Britain. In March 1941, Malan was promoted and became the first Wing Commander (Flying) at Biggin Hill, leading the three-squadron-strong Spitfire wing during operations over northern France. After a break from operations, Malan went on to command a succession of fighter training units, passing on his tactical genius and experience, and producing his famous ‘Ten Rules of Air Fighting’ which are still cited today. By the war’s end, Group Captain Malan was the RAF’s tenth top-scoring fighter pilot. Leaving the RAF in 1945 and returning to South Africa, he was disgusted by Apartheid and founded the ‘Torch Commando’ of ex-servicemen against this appalling racist policy. This part of Malan’s life is equally as inspirational, in fact, as his wartime service, and actually tells us more about the man than just his RAF record. Tragically, in 1963, he died, prematurely, aged just fifty-three, of Parkinson’s. Written with the support of the Malan family, this biography is the full story of a remarkable airman and politician.
We Also Served is a social history of women's involvement in the First World War. Dr Vivien Newman disturbs myths and preconceptions surrounding women's war work and seeks to inform contemporary readers of countless acts of derring-do, determination, and quiet heroism by British women, that went on behind the scenes from 1914-1918.??In August 1914 a mere 640 women had a clearly defined wartime role. Ignoring early War Office advice to 'go home and sit still', by 1918 hundreds of thousands of women from all corners of the world had lent their individual wills and collective strength to the Allied cause. ??As well as becoming nurses, munitions workers, and members of the Land Army, women were also ambulance drivers and surgeons; they served with the Armed Forces; funded and managed their own hospitals within sight and sound of the guns. At least one British woman bore arms, and over a thousand women lost their lives as a direct result of their involvement with the war. ??This book lets these all but forgotten women speak directly to us of their war, their lives, and their stories.
"From the earliest records of human civilization until the dawn of the twentieth century, and in widely separated cultures throughout the world, the story of honor was inseparable from the story of mankind. Today, an acquaintance with the concept of honor is indispensable to understanding the culture of the Islamic world and its sense of grievance against the West, where honor has been disregarded or actively despised for three-quarters of a century." "James Bowman draws from an wealth of sources across many centuries to illuminate honor's curious history in our own culture, and he discovers that Western honor was always different from that found elsewhere. Its idiosyncratic qualities derived partly from the classical tradition but mainly from the Judeo-Christian heritage, whose emphases on individual morality and, more recently, on sincerity and authenticity in private and personal life have acted as continual challenges to the traditional notion of honor as it is still maintained in other parts of the world. These challenges to honor and the accommodations with it that they ultimately produced are a fundamental theme in our own culture's distinctive history; and the eventual collapse of the honor culture in the West is the background against which the War on Terror and the Clash of Civilizations ought to be seen."--Jacket.
This is a collection of Ian Heron's three books, "Massacre and Retribution", "The Savage Empire" and "Blood in the Sand". Much has been written about the great British military triumphs of the 19th century, but there are many more astonishing stories which have been largely forgotten. These forgotten wars cannot hope to compete in history with the Crimean War or the Boer War, but for acts of sheer courage and endurance, they deserve to be remembered. Using the actual words of the soldiers themselves, Ian Hernon presents an account which evokes Victorian colonial warfare in all its barbarity and the self-righteous belief of the British in the rectitude of their cause.
In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing WWI veterans and interviewing them at length in order to record the experiences of ordinary individuals in war. The IWM aural archive has become the most important archive of its kind in the world. Authors have occasionally been granted access to the vaults, but digesting the thousands of hours of footage is a monumental task. Now, forty years on, the Imperial War Museum has at last given author Max Arthur and his team of researchers unlimited access to the complete WWI tapes. These are the forgotten voices of an entire generation of survivors of the Great War. The resulting book is an important and compelling history of WWI in the words of those who experienced it.
The story of the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, forerunner of the World’s premier aeronautical research establishment wherein were designed a diversity of aircraft including many of those that equipped the RFC, RNAS and RAF during the First World War. Originally established to build observation balloons for the Victorian British Army, the Factory later expanded to employ over 3500 people by mid-1916, at which time it became the subject of a political controversy that ended in a judicial enquiry. In 1918 its title was changed to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, not only to avoid a clash of initials with the newly formed Royal Air Force but to better define its changing role. Each of the many designs for airships and aeroplanes that were produced by the Factory between 1908 and 1918 is described in detail, illustrated by photographs, and with three-view drawings provided for the more prominent designs.
In the early stages of the Second World War, the vast crescent of British-ruled territories stretching from India to Singapore appeared as a massive Allied asset. It provided scores of soldiers and great quantities of raw materials and helped present a seemingly impregnable global defense against the Axis. Yet, within a few weeks in 1941-42, a Japanese invasion had destroyed all this, sweeping suddenly and decisively through south and southeast Asia to the Indian frontier, and provoking the extraordinary revolutionary struggles which would mark the beginning of the end of British dominion in the East and the rise of today's Asian world. More than a military history, this gripping account of groundbreaking battles and guerrilla campaigns creates a panoramic view of British Asia as it was ravaged by warfare, nationalist insurgency, disease, and famine. It breathes life into the armies of soldiers, civilians, laborers, businessmen, comfort women, doctors, and nurses who confronted the daily brutalities of a combat zone which extended from metropolitan cities to remote jungles, from tropical plantations to the Himalayas. Drawing upon a vast range of Indian, Burmese, Chinese, and Malay as well as British, American, and Japanese voices, the authors make vivid one of the central dramas of the twentieth century: the birth of modern south and southeast Asia and the death of British rule.
The complete story of the months of November and December 1940 as a day-to-day narrative covering many aspects of the battle, particularly the part played by both the Coastal and Bomber Commands.