Bombardiers (2e GM) : beaux livres - Royal Air Force (RAF)

From the lessons of the First World War, the RAF developed a fleet of modern monoplane aircraft in time for hostilities in 1939; a force that consisted of Hampdens, Whitleys, Wellingtons, Blenheims, and Battles.
These aircraft and their crews were pitted against the German war machine from day one-flying into storms of flak shells and swarms of Messerschmitt fighters in their flimsy, and often poorly armed, bombers.

From theatres as far apart as Norway and Syria, Java and France, the crews and their aircraft were at the front of every military operation without adequate fighter escorts and with poor equipment against stiff opposition.
They were the few who bravely went on 'one way ticket' missions, that saw operational life expectancy as only a matter of hours, without hesitation or complaint.

• Covers RAF's bomber offensives around the world in the first two years of war
• Crew experiences of campaigns and raids combined with strategic overviews
• Comparisons of the Luftwaffe's interwar growth and arsenal with the RAF
• Lavishly illustrated with many unpublished images: of interest to the military historian and modeller alike.

Night after night for six years of war, RAF Bomber Commands squadrons pounded away at the cities of Nazi Germany in a determined effort to bring the Third Reich to its knees.
Pitted against Bomber Harriss aircrews and aircraft were some of the most effective and deadly defenses the world had seen up until then. For Bomber Command to launch a maximum effort raid on the Ruhr by night, or a low-level strike on a target in enemy occupied Europe by day, it involved a huge amount of planning.

Author Jonathan Falconer describes the Command's complex organisation and the science, technology and engineering behind every raid: how were bomber airfields built? How were bomber crews trained? What aircraft did they fly and what weapons did they use? How was the Command organised? Who decided what to bomb? How was a raid planned, executed, and its effectiveness analysed? How were the 47,000 'missing' aircrew traced? How were damaged bombers repaired?

Useful appendices include a Bomber Command War Diary listing key events 1939-1945, squadrons and their commanders, an a-to-z of bomber airfields, and sample orders of battle from 1939, 1943 and 1945.
Fully illustrated with some 300 photographs, the Bomber Command Operations Manual gives a compelling insight into the workings of one of the most powerful instruments of 20th century warfare

Large collection of rare photographs, many never previously published, covering the work of RAF and civilian salvage squads during the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and beyond.
The images depict losses across Britain, both RAF and German, during this period. Each picture tells its own story, and is fully captioned with historical detail. The author is covering a topic that has rarely been examined in this detail.

Each section has a short introduction and the images include those of shot down aircraft, including relatively intact machines, badly damaged/destroyed wreckages, photographs of pilots and other related illustrations.
All images are from the author's unique collection of wartime photographs of Luftwaffe losses, collected from a variety of sources across some thirty-five years of research.