Aviation War History

A gripping chronicle of the band of maverick aviators who signed on for the suicidal, dangerous top-secret "Wild Weasel" missions during the Vietnam War - which used controversial and revolutionary tactics to combat Soviet missile technology - from New York Times best-selling author Dan Hampton.

CIA Wizards of Aerial Reconnaissance: The CIA's Trailblazing Tech Evolution (CIA Area 51 Chronicles – Book 7) By TD Barnes The CIA’s secret aviation pioneers. The evolution of intelligence technology. The hidden history of aerial reconnaissance. For decades, the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology pushed the boundaries of what was possible in intelligence gathering, transforming aerial reconnaissance and surveillance technology. From the covert flights of Air America to the groundbreaking U-2 and A-12 Archangel programs at Area 51, the CIA pioneered a new era of intelligence ...

Wings of War is the incredible true story of the P-51 Mustang fighter and the unlikely crew of designers, engineers, test pilots, and army officers who brought it from the drafting table to the skies over World War II. This is hardly a straightforward tale of building an airplane—for years, the team was stymied by corruption within the defense industry and stonewalled by the Army Air Forces, who failed to understand the Mustang’s potential.

As the American military continues its withdrawal from Vietnam, the CIA steps up its covert operations and training of Cambodian troops. New weapons are developed to stop the communists. With its powerful cannons, the Spectre gunship proves to be a deadly force capable of destroying any weapon or vehicle the communists can field and ensures that reinforced bunkers are no longer a safe haven. Realizing the survival of their country will soon be in their hands, ARVN troops attack the NVA and Viet Cong all over South Vietnam with surprisingly good results. It seems there is hope. When ...

Uncover the quiet legacy of the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam—where courage soared above the jungle and history was written in the skies. From Operation Rolling Thunder to covert rescue missions behind enemy lines, Skyward Sentinels delivers a riveting, in-depth account of the United States Air Force (USAF) in the Vietnam War. This meticulously researched book sheds light on the overlooked aerial campaigns, pilots, and aircrews whose sacrifices were critical to the war’s outcome but often overshadowed in historical memory. Explore how American air power shaped the course of the war across ...

Holding the Line chronicles the carrier war in Korea from the first day of the war to the last, focusing on frontline combat while also describing the technical development of aircraft and shipboard operations and how these all affected the broader strategic situation on the Korean Peninsula.

In Ted W. Lawson’s classic Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Lawson gives a vivid eyewitness account of the unorthodox assignment that 85 intrepid volunteer airmen - the “Tokyo Raiders” - under the command of celebrated flier James H. Doolittle executed in April 1942. The plan called for 16 B-25 twin-engine medium bombers of the Army Air Corps to take off from the aircraft carrier Hornet, bomb industrial targets in Japan, and land at airfields in China.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was a world away from John Luckadoo’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. But when the Japanese attacked the American naval base on December 7, 1941, he didn’t hesitate to join the military. Trained as a pilot with the United States Air Force, Second Lieutenant Luckadoo was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group stationed in Thorpe Abbotts, England. Between June and October 1943, he flew B-17 Flying Fortresses over France and Germany on bombing runs devised to destroy the Nazi war machine.

Europe has fallen. Pearl Harbor is in flames. Enter: the Eighth. In 1941 the RAF fought a desperate battle of survival against the Luftwaffe over Britain. Then, from across the Atlantic, came a new generation of American pilots, gunners, and bombardiers, a new generation of flying machines called the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator, the P-47 Thunderbolt, and the P-51 Mustang fighter.

World War II is usually seen as a titanic land battle, decided by mass armies, most importantly those on the Eastern Front. Phillips Payson O'Brien shows us the war in a completely different light. In this compelling new history of the Allied path to victory, he argues that in terms of production, technology, and economic power, the war was far more a contest of air and sea than of land supremacy.

Great Britain, summer 1940. The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Adolf Hitler’s powerful armies control Europe. England stands alone against this juggernaut, the whole world knowing it is only a matter of time before Nazi Germany unleashes its military might on the island nation. And in London, a new prime minister named Winston Churchill is determined to defeat the Nazi menace, no matter the costs. Luckily for Churchill, one quirky Englishman has seen the future.

Project OXCART: The Untold Story of Area 51 (CIA Area 51 Chronicles – Book 6) By TD Barnes The fastest spy plane ever built. The birth of stealth. The CIA’s most secretive aviation project. In the depths of the Cold War, the CIA faced a critical challenge—the revolutionary U-2 spy plane had become vulnerable to Soviet air defenses. In response, the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology launched Project OXCART, an ambitious effort to develop a reconnaissance aircraft that could fly higher, faster, and with stealth capabilities never seen before. The result was the A-12 ...

How far will an American sniper go to save the lives of his fellow soldiers? Is there a line he will not cross? CIA officer Rene Granier heads up a covert team of specialists out to hunt down and annihilate the very heart of the Viet Cong. Will their merciless tactics shorten the war? Will it be worth the price? In 1966, the Vietnam War rages with no end in sight. The Americans try everything in their power to stop the flow of arms to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in the south, but nothing works. The generals at the Pentagon underestimated their enemy and the army of dedicated ...

The remaining US aviation forces, along with the US Air Force and US Navy and Marine aviation assets, would not be easily removed from the battle. For the US forces still in-country, this is an untold story of heroism, dedication, and refusal to yield the battlefield despite being largely considered by US political leaders as "expendable."

In 1942, Norman Hanson learned to fly the Royal Navy's newest fighter: the US-built Chance Vought Corsair. Fast, rugged, and demanding to fly, it was an intimidating machine. But in the hands of its young Fleet Air Arm pilots, it also proved to be a lethal weapon. Posted to the South Pacific aboard HMS Illustrious, Hanson and his squadron took the fight to the Japanese. Facing a desperate and determined enemy, Kamikaze attacks, and the ever-present dangers of flying off a pitching carrier deck, death was never far away.

Between April and July 1944, Truman Smith flew 35 bombing missions over France and Germany. He was only 20 years old. Although barely adults, Smith and his peers worried about cramming a lifetime's worth of experience into every free night, each knowing he probably would not survive the next bombing mission. Written with blunt honesty, wry humor, and insight, The Wrong Stuff is Smith's gripping memoir of that time.

In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army steamrolled through Burma, capturing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies to this critical zone would now have to come from India by air—meaning across the Himalayas, on the most hazardous air route in the world. SKIES OF THUNDER is a story of an epic human endeavor, in which Allied troops faced the monumental challenge of operating from airfields hacked from the jungle, and took on “the Hump,” the fearsome mountain barrier that defined the air route.

The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and risking their U.S. citizenship to fight side-by-side with England's finest pilots in the summer of 1940—over a year before America entered the war. Flying the lethal and elegant Spitfire, they became "knights of the air" and with minimal training but plenty of guts, they dueled the skilled and fearsome pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe. By October 1940, they had helped England win the greatest air battle in the history of aviation.

In 1945, US air attacks in Japan killed 300,000 civilians in three hours of night bombing and two nuclear strikes. The firebombing of Tokyo in March burned almost the entire city, killed some 85,000 residents, and left more than 1 million homeless. The atomic blast in Hiroshima in August killed some 119,000 civilians and 20,000 soldiers. After a second nuclear attack days later in Nagasaki and a declaration of war by the Soviet Union, Japan accepted defeat.

Devotion tells the inspirational story of the U.S. Navy’s most famous aviation duo, Lieutenant Tom Hudner and Ensign Jesse Brown, and the Marines they fought to defend. A white New Englander from the country-club scene, Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighters for his country. An African American sharecropper’s son from Mississippi, Jesse became the navy’s first Black carrier pilot, defending a nation that wouldn’t even serve him in a bar.