Eagles Over The Sea

The arduous development of a dedicated naval air arm for Germany’s resurgent military was fraught with the kind of fierce inter-service rivalry that was rife throughout the turbulent history of the Third Reich. However, almost despite the odds, a small dedicated maritime strike force was assembled, germinating during the Spanish Civil War before being committed to action from the first days of the invasion of Poland. Concurrently, the operational Luftwaffe developed its own maritime units that would eventually subsume all of the Kriegsmarine-controlled formations as the war years progressed. This new book by the well-known author of German naval operations in WWII offers, for the first time, an in-depth study of all the Luftwaffe maritime operations. This is the first of two volumes and takes the story up to 1942. The story of Luftwaffe maritime operations has frequently been written about in fragmentary terms, delineating between the planned naval air arm operating under Kriegsmarine direction and the ‘operational Luftwaffe’. Each branch of service — and even aircraft type — has usually been studied in isolation. This book, however, broadens the lens to study the development of German naval aircraft as a whole, not as separate independent services but rather as a concerted attempt to engage the enemy at sea in every theatre of operations, from Norway and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and the Eastern fronts, and, of course, over the Atlantic. Through ship-board aircraft, torpedo bomber attacks, minelaying and reconnaissance missions, Luftwaffe maritime aircraft played a vital role in Germany’s naval war and the author analyses all the operations and the successes in the early years of the War. This first volume ends in 1942 when, despite great success, petty rivalry and naked arrogance combined to foreshadow the eventual defeat of the Luftwaffe’s war at sea. Heavily illustrated throughout, this detailed and exciting operational history will be of huge appeal to both naval and aviation historians and enthusiasts.

The arduous development of a dedicated naval air arm for Germany’s resurgent military was fraught with the kind of fierce inter-service rivalry that was rife throughout the turbulent history of the Third Reich. However, almost despite the odds, a small dedicated maritime strike force was assembled, germinating during the Spanish Civil War before being committed to action from the first days of the invasion of Poland. Concurrently, the operational Luftwaffe developed its own maritime units that would eventually subsume all of the Kriegsmarine-controlled formations as the war years progressed. This new book by the well-known author of German naval operations in WWII offers, for the first time, an in-depth study of all the Luftwaffe maritime operations. This is the first of two volumes and takes the story up to 1942. The story of Luftwaffe maritime operations has frequently been written about in fragmentary terms, delineating between the planned naval air arm operating under Kriegsmarine direction and the ‘operational Luftwaffe’. Each branch of service — and even aircraft type — has usually been studied in isolation. This book, however, broadens the lens to study the development of German naval aircraft as a whole, not as separate independent services but rather as a concerted attempt to engage the enemy at sea in every theatre of operations, from Norway and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and the Eastern fronts, and, of course, over the Atlantic. Through ship-board aircraft, torpedo bomber attacks, minelaying and reconnaissance missions, Luftwaffe maritime aircraft played a vital role in Germany’s naval war and the author analyses all the operations and the successes in the early years of the War. This first volume ends in 1942 when, despite great success, petty rivalry and naked arrogance combined to foreshadow the eventual defeat of the Luftwaffe’s war at sea. Heavily illustrated throughout, this detailed and exciting operational history will be of huge appeal to both naval and aviation historians and enthusiasts.

This is the second volume of Lawrence Paterson’s detailed account of all the Luftwaffe’s naval operations during World War II. The first volume took the story up to 1942, and by the end of that year Hermann Göring’s Reich Air Ministry had subsumed nearly every aspect of Wehrmacht maritime aviation. Kriegsmarine attempts to develop an independent Fleet Air Arm had been perpetually frustrated, reflecting the chaotic nature of the Third Reich’s internal military and political mechanics. Driven more by vanity than operational prudence, the Luftwaffe had continually thwarted the advancement of maritime aviation, and by 1942 began to reap the whirlwind it had created. The U-boat war hung precariously in the balance, the lack of well trained and properly equipped aerial reconnaissance suddenly assuming greater importance than ever before. During 1943 the nature of Germany’s war mutated and by its close the Allies were on the offensive in nearly all theatres. This volume resumes the story with Operation Torch in November 1942, when Germany faced an Allied seaborne invasion of North Africa that it was ill-equipped to counter by land, sea or air; and the spectre of even greater invasion armadas loomed on both the southern and western fronts during the months that followed. Facing the Russians, maritime air units were stripped to the bone, those precious few formations available shunted rapidly between military crisis points until barely able to function. The rise of Luftwaffe maritime operations described in the author’s first volume now became, from 1942 onwards, a fall of catastrophic proportions as frequently undertrained crews flew increasingly obsolete aircraft against odds that had become overwhelming. The Luftwaffe was paying the price for its pre-war lack of cohesive strategic planning, none more so than its beleaguered maritime specialists. The author covers this story across all the theatres of the war and in doing so gives the reader a complete and coherent picture of all the Luftwaffe’s naval operations. Heavily illustrated throughout, this detailed and exciting narrative will be of huge appeal to both naval and aviation historians and enthusiasts.

This is the second volume of Lawrence Paterson’s detailed account of all the Luftwaffe’s naval operations during World War II. The first volume took the story up to 1942, and by the end of that year Hermann Göring’s Reich Air Ministry had subsumed nearly every aspect of Wehrmacht maritime aviation. Kriegsmarine attempts to develop an independent Fleet Air Arm had been perpetually frustrated, reflecting the chaotic nature of the Third Reich’s internal military and political mechanics. Driven more by vanity than operational prudence, the Luftwaffe had continually thwarted the advancement of maritime aviation, and by 1942 began to reap the whirlwind it had created. The U-boat war hung precariously in the balance, the lack of well trained and properly equipped aerial reconnaissance suddenly assuming greater importance than ever before. During 1943 the nature of Germany’s war mutated and by its close the Allies were on the offensive in nearly all theatres. This volume resumes the story with Operation Torch in November 1942, when Germany faced an Allied seaborne invasion of North Africa that it was ill-equipped to counter by land, sea or air; and the spectre of even greater invasion armadas loomed on both the southern and western fronts during the months that followed. Facing the Russians, maritime air units were stripped to the bone, those precious few formations available shunted rapidly between military crisis points until barely able to function. The rise of Luftwaffe maritime operations described in the author’s first volume now became, from 1942 onwards, a fall of catastrophic proportions as frequently undertrained crews flew increasingly obsolete aircraft against odds that had become overwhelming. The Luftwaffe was paying the price for its pre-war lack of cohesive strategic planning, none more so than its beleaguered maritime specialists. The author covers this story across all the theatres of the war and in doing so gives the reader a complete and coherent picture of all the Luftwaffe’s naval operations. Heavily illustrated throughout, this detailed and exciting narrative will be of huge appeal to both naval and aviation historians and enthusiasts.

This is the second volume of Lawrence Paterson�s detailed account of all the Luftwaffe�s naval operations during World War II. The first volume took the story up to 1942, and by the end of that year Hermann G�ring�s Reich Air Ministry had subsumed nearly every aspect of Wehrmacht maritime aviation. Kriegsmarine attempts to develop an independent Fleet Air Arm had been perpetually frustrated, reflecting the chaotic nature of the Third Reich�s internal military and political mechanics. Driven more by vanity than operational prudence, the Luftwaffe had continually thwarted the advancement of maritime aviation, and by 1942 began to reap the whirlwind it had created. Heavily illustrated throughout, this detailed and exciting narrative will be of huge appeal to both naval and aviation historians and enthusiasts.

"This ... account tells all that has happened since the introduction of the white-tailed sea eagle first began and exactly how its successes over the subsequent three and a half decades have received such worldwide recognition and acclaim. It describes the pioneering Rum releases (Phase 1) with which the author has been intimately involved, summaries of the Wester Ross (Phase 2) and East Scotland (Phase 3) releases with up-to-date information on the current Irish project in Kerry. ..."--Back cover.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of World War II, lasting the entirety of the war in Europe from September 1939 to May 1945. It was also one of the war’s most complex campaigns, involving strategy, operations, tactics, logistics, politics, diplomacy, and alliances. During the war’s first two years, the United States was drawn deeper into partnership with Great Britain, and closer toward conflict with Germany, in the waters of the North Atlantic. Franklin Roosevelt realized this theater’s importance: “I believe the outcome of this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic.” And so American, British, and Canadian forces battled Germans at sea and in the air to protect the flow of first materiel and then men from the United States to the United Kingdom. The sea part has been well covered: how German U-boats and other warships hunted Allied convoys and how the Allies ultimately turned the tide. Not so much the air war. In Six Air Forces over the Atlantic, Joseph Molyson tells the story of the Battle of the Atlantic from the perspective of the air forces—and airmen—who waged it from the skies above the icy waters of the North Atlantic. He blends big-picture attention to strategy and tactics with dramatic episodes of air-to-air and air-to-sea combat, including the engagement in which a British light bomber captured a German U-boat near Iceland. He details the close eye Franklin Roosevelt kept on the campaign, the effect B-24 Liberator bombers had, and the rise of the Royal Air Force Coastal Command as a true U-boat-busting force. The result was victory in the Atlantic, as well as a significant contribution to victory in World War II.

"There is no death. Only a change of worlds.” —Chief Seattle [Seatlh], Suquamish Chief What do people do when their civilization is invaded? Indigenous people have been faced with disease, war, broken promises, and forced assimilation. Despite crushing losses and insurmountable challenges, they formed new nations from the remnants of old ones, they adopted new ideas and built on them, they fought back, and they kept their cultures alive. When the only possible “victory” was survival, they survived. In this brilliant follow up to Turtle Island, esteemed academic Eldon Yellowhorn and award-winning author Kathy Lowinger team up again, this time to tell the stories of what Indigenous people did when invaders arrived on their homelands. What the Eagle Sees shares accounts of the people, places, and events that have mattered in Indigenous history from a vastly under-represented perspective—an Indigenous viewpoint.