Flying To Victory

Canadian-born flying ace Raymond Collishaw (1893–1976) served in Britain’s air forces for twenty-eight years. As a pilot in World War I he was credited with sixty-one confirmed kills on the Western Front. When World War II began in 1939, Air Commodore Collishaw commanded a Royal Air Force group in Egypt. It was in Egypt and Libya in 1940–41, during the Britain’s Western Desert campaign, that he demonstrated the tenets of an effective air-ground cooperation system. Flying to Victory examines Raymond Collishaw’s contribution to the British system of tactical air support—a pattern of operations that eventually became standard in the Allied air forces and proved to be a key factor in the Allied victory. The British Army and Royal Air Force entered the war with conflicting views on the issue of air support that hindered the success of early operations. It was only after the chastening failure of Operation Battleaxe in June 1941, fought according to army doctrine, that Winston Churchill shifted strategy on the direction of future air campaigns—ultimately endorsing the RAF's view of mission and target selection. This view adopted principles of air-ground cooperation that Collishaw had demonstrated in combat. Author Mike Bechthold traces the emergence of this strategy in the RAF air campaign in Operation Compass, the first British offensive in the Western Desert, in which Air Commodore Collishaw’s small force overwhelmed its Italian counterpart and disrupted enemy logistics. Flying to Victory details the experiences that prepared Collishaw so well for this campaign and that taught him much about the application of air power, especially how to work effectively with the army and Royal Navy. As Bechthold shows, these lessons learned altered the Allied approach to tactical air support and, ultimately, changed the course of the Second World War.

“I shall return!” It was the most memorable phrase of the war for the Pacific in the 1940s. For many people, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur’s vow to recapture the Philippines and the footage of him wading ashore with the troops were all that was needed to characterize him as egotistical and severe. Flying MacArthur to Victory is the World War II diary of the general’s personal pilot, Weldon E. (“Dusty”) Rhoades. Rhoades’s days as a transport pilot ended when he got the assignment to deliver documents marked “For MacArthur’s Eyes Only.” After the documents changed hands the general invited Rhoades to be the personal pilot of the Pacific theater’s commander in chief. From that day in October, 1943, until his discharge in January, 1946, Rhoades not only had a front-row seat for confrontations and strategic discussions between MacArthur and his chief of staff, Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, but also witnessed their behavior in the private shadow of their awesome responsibilities. The World War II diary of Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur's personal pilot, Weldon E. Rhoades, chronicles the daily hardships of the world's most all-encompassing war. Rhoades's front-row observations show military personnel performing their duties under the stress generated from a cycle of intense activity, unbearable boredom, frustration, and always, the pain of separation from loved ones. Here also are the dramatic confrontations, strategic discussions, and off-camera personality of one of history's most powerful generals, a man often branded by the public as egotistical and severe.

The daughter of a Chilean father and a Filipina mother, Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon grew up as a shy, timid child in a small midwestern town during the 1960s. Targeted by school bullies and dismissed by many of her teachers, she worried that people would find out the truth: that she was INTF. Incompetent. Nerd. Terrified. Failure. This feeling stayed with her well into her twenties when she was told that “girls can’t do science” or “women just don’t know how to handle machines.” Yet in the span of just six years, Cecilia became the first Latina pilot to secure a place on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team and earn the right to represent her country at the Olympics of aviation, the World Aerobatic Championships. How did she do it? Using mathematical techniques to overcome her fear, Cecilia performed at air shows in front of millions of people. She jumped out of airplanes and taught others how to fly. She learned how to fund-raise and earn money to compete at the world level. She worked as a test pilot and contributed to the design of experimental airplanes, crafting curves of metal and fabric that shaped air to lift inanimate objects high above the earth. And best of all, she surprised everyone by overcoming the prejudices people held about her because of her race and her gender. Flying Free is the story of how Cecilia Aragon broke free from expectations and rose above her own limits by combining her passion for flying with math and logic in unexpected ways. You don’t have to be a math whiz or a science geek to learn from her story. You just have to want to soar.

**Don't miss Jenny Holmes's latest wartime series, The Air Raid Girls. Part 3 - The Air Raid Girls: Wartime Brides - is available now!** ---------------------------- Planes to deliver. A war to be won. Bobbie Fraser, Mary Holland and Jean Thornton are Atta Girls - part of the Air Transport Auxiliary team flying planes between bases. Taking to the air in anything they're given, their work is dangerous but their courage always comes through. Now there's a new girl joining the ranks - Canadian Viv Robertson, who is bright, brash and brave. But can Viv settle into her new home with the other girls? And when life on the ground leaves them as vulnerable as in the air, can they stick together through the tough times ahead and ultimately fly to victory? A heart-warming, romantic story of friendship, camaraderie and triumph over adversity that fans of Donna Douglas, Nancy Revell and Elaine Everest will adore. ---------------------------- Readers love Jenny Holmes 'A delight to read' 'I highly recommend this book, great job Jenny!' 'Really enjoyed this book cant wait to read the next one' 'Lovely historical drama' 'I love reading these books on life in WW2' 'A book you can't put down'

"I shall return!" It was the most memorable phrase of the war for the Pacific in the 1940s. For many people, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur's vow to recapture the Philippines and the footage of him wading ashore with the troops were all that was needed to characterize him as egotistical and severe.

Presents a history of one of the most dangerous aviation operations during the Vietnam War, call-sign Dust Off, in which air ambulances spearheaded the humanitarian efforts that were being executed during the war.

A dramatic narrative-and reinterpretation-of Germany's six-week campaign that swept the Wehrmacht to Paris in spring 1940. Before the Nazis killed him for his work in the French Resistance, the great historian Marc Bloch wrote a famous short book, Strange Defeat, about the treatment of his nation at the hands of an enemy the French had believed they could easily dispose of. In Strange Victory, the distinguished American historian Ernest R. May asks the opposite question: How was it that Hitler and his generals managed this swift conquest, considering that France and its allies were superior in every measurable dimension and considering the Germans' own skepticism about their chances? Strange Victory is a riveting narrative of those six crucial weeks in the spring of 1940, weaving together the decisions made by the high commands with the welter of confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field. Why did Hitler want to turn against France at just this moment, and why were his poor judgment and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan? It is May's contention that in the future, nations might suffer strange defeats of their own if they do not learn from their predecessors' mistakes in judgment.