Air Force Military History

In the dark days after the devastating Pearl Harbor attacks during the spring of 1942, the United States was determined to show the world that the Axis was not invincible. Their bold plan? Bomb Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25s, known as the Doolittle Raiders, hit targets across Japan before escaping to China. The eighth plane, however, did not follow the other raiders. Instead, Plane 8's pilots, Captain Edward "Ski" York and Lieutenant Bob Emmens, never attacked Tokyo, but headed across Japan to the Soviet Union, supposedly due to low fuel.

The Vietnam War is one of the most misunderstood military conflicts in 20th-century America. Showcasing 72 true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s.

Hap Arnold: The General Who Invented the US Air Force is an adventure biography for history buffs, aviation enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the events that shaped America and the world in the first half of the 20th century.

Sherman Lead is the gripping story of a year flying the F-4 in combat during the Vietnam War, told through the eyes of a fighter pilot. Operating out of Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand in 1968-69, Gail Peck and his squadronmates in the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing were tasked with flying combat missions into North Vietnam and Laos. The F-4 was heavily involved in the air-to-ground mission at this time, with targets being well defended by enemy anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles.

The US 8th Air Force came of age in 1944. With a fresh commander, it was ready to demonstrate its true power: from Operation Argument in February - targeting German aircraft production plants - to bringing the Luftwaffe to battle over Berlin, the combined US Air Force-Royal Air Force forces’ round-the clock campaign bottled up the German army in Normandy.

The US Air Force is experiencing a profound shift! In order to aggregate the military’s major space assets under one authority, they are being moved into a new branch under the purview of the Air Force. This new branch is to be called “Space Force”. The true purpose of Space Force will be to publicly unveil the most well-guarded secrets in the Air Force’s stunning arsenal of exotic spacecraft, unconventional weapons and mind-blowing technologies assembled over the more than 70 years since its official emergence in 1947.

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the Pearl Harbor attack. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. This first-person account of his harrowing missions—chronicling deadly flights through skies of red-hot flak bursts and airmen bailing out with parachutes aflame—will leave listeners staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators.

Airpower over the Rhine is a critical new perspective on the air battle between the French Air Force (FAF) and the Luftwaffe in the skies over France during May and June 1940. Author James F. Slaughter III examines how each country's leadership created the circumstances that enabled the Luftwaffe's victory over the FAF and Germany's ultimate defeat of France.

The gripping saga of the plane that carried Britain through the Second World War. In June 1940, the German army had brought the rest of Europe to its knees. 'Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world will move forward into broad, sunlit uplands,' said Churchill. The future of Europe depended on Britain.

Less than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Army formed its first air force designated to operate overseas, the Eighth. Within four months they had set up base in England. Three months later they were bombing German targets in occupied Europe. The Eighth was the first bomber command on either side to commit to strategic daylight bombing. It was a major change in tactics - and the men of the Eighth paid the price in both lives and blood.

In The Air Force Way of War, Brian D. Laslie examines the revolution in pilot instruction that Red Flag brought about after Vietnam. The program's new instruction methods were dubbed "realistic" because they prepared pilots for real-life situations better than the simple cockpit simulations of the past. In addition to discussing the program's methods, Laslie analyzes the way its graduates actually functioned in combat during the 1980s and '90s in places such as Grenada, Panama, Libya, and Iraq.

John Comer kept a journal of the 25 missions he flew in 1943, when the casualty rate on his base was close to 80 percent. His book is handwritten history, recorded within hours after the battles occurred. Comer vividly creates his experiences as top-turret gunner/flight engineer in a B-17 squadron that was thrown against the best pilots the Luftwaffe could offer.

The Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 is the most advanced multi-role combat aircraft in the world. Capable of flying at nearly twice the speed of sound and powering to a height of more than 10 miles in less time than it takes to boil a kettle, a single Typhoon can also deliver a heavy bombload with such lethal precision that a whole squadron of Lancasters could not have guaranteed the same result.

On Thursday, October 14, 1943, 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses set out for a strategic bombing raid on the factories in Schweinfurt. Sixty of those planes never returned and 650 men were lost during the course of that mission. It was the greatest failure that the United States Air Force had ever suffered and became known as "Black Thursday". Martin Caidin's Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid is a brilliant account of that day that should never be forgotten. This audiobook uncovers in thrilling detail the build-up to that fateful raid.

Britain’s SBS - or Special Boat Service - was the world’s first maritime special operations unit. Founded in the dark days of 1940, it started as a small and inexperienced outfit that leaned heavily on volunteers’ raw courage and boyish enthusiasm. It would become one of the most effective fighting forces of the Second World War - and has served as a model for Special Forces ever since.

When the U.S. Air Force decided to create an elite "special tactics" team in the late 1970s to work with special-operations forces, John T. Carney was the man they turned to. Now, for the first time, Colonel Carney lifts the veil of secrecy and reveals what really goes on inside the special-operations forces that are at the forefront of contemporary warfare.

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

“The Air Force’s Black Pilot Training Experience” highlights the unique experiences of black pilots in Air Force pilot training. The purpose of the book is to give the reader insight into these experiences, propose changes to the Air Force’s conduct of Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT) and to show how the Air Force’s inability to produce more black pilots directly contributes to the lack of diversity in its senior-most leadership levels. This book is a sequel to “The Air Force’s Black Ceiling” and builds on its insights. As a sequel, the book exhorts the Air ...

The US Air Force is a powerful military force. But there is more to this high-flying military branch than you might imagine. These surprising facts about the US Air Force will amaze you.

An award-winning, beautifully written story, heartbreaking at times, about a young American who flew over the treacherous skies of Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, as depicted in the Masters of the Air TV series from the book by Donald L. Miller. Finding Bomb Boogie is a book many cannot put down. Informative, riveting, and suspense-driven as the author searches for her father’s World War II story long after he has passed away—finally bringing understanding, acceptance, and closure to a complicated but loving relationship many decades later. This is the story of a quiet, young ...