I Was A P-51 Fighter Pilot in WWII PDF Download

Author: James Neel White
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595282350
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
SOME OF THE 150 STORIES IN THIS BOOK: · What WWII was all about · How the German Luftwaffe began and ended · Adolph Hitler's Nazi party and the Waffen SS · 8th Air Force raids over Europe · P-51 Mustang battles with Me-109 · 1093's Cleveland Air Races · Wright Brother's flight in 1903 · WWI Bi-planes in France · P-40s in the Flying Tigers · D-Day and P-47 Thunderbolts · Winter War in Finland · Barbarossa and airplane battles · Zeros in Southeast Asia · P-39 Airacobras fight for Russia · War-Booty in WWII · Hitler robs art treasures · How P-51 Mustangs stopped the Luftwaffe · How the Nazi Gestapo operated · The author's personal observations of WWII This book is dedicated to Orville and Wilbur Wright who discovered flight in 1903 You may purchase this book ISBN 0-595-28235-0 from www.iuniverse.com

Author: Richard Curtis
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0307415104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Second lieutenant Dick Curtis arrived in Italy in May 1944–twenty years old and part of a shipment of P-51 Mustang fighter pilots so desperately needed that they were rushed into combat with less than thirty hours of flight time in their new high-performance aircraft. Six of the twelve pilots assigned to the 52nd Fighter Group were shot down in the first two weeks. By his ninth mission, Curtis was the only one still flying. A maverick, he barely escaped court-martial with his high-flying antics. Escorting bombers sent to pound heavily defended oil fields was risky enough, but strafing the enemy supply lines, ports, and airfields was even more dangerous. Curtis may chalk up his success to dumb luck, but these missions took exceptional skill and courage. This hair-raising account captures the air war in all its split-second terror and adrenaline-pumping action.

Author: Don Brown
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621575551
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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*A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!* The New York Post calls The Last Fighter Pilot a "must-read" book. From April to August of 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. Bestselling author Don Brown (Treason) sits down with Yelllin, now ninety-three years old, to tell the incredible true story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. The Last Fighter Pilot is a harrowing first-person account of war from one of America's last living World War II veterans.

Author: Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1524563420
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his fathers farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Later after he received his wings and flew P-39s, he was chosen as one of the original flight leaders of the new 357th Fighter Group. Equipped with the new and deadly P-51 Mustang, the group shot down five enemy aircraft for each one it lost while escorting bombers to targets deep inside Germany. But the price was high. Half of its pilots were killed or imprisoned, including some of Buds closest friends. In February 1944, Bud Anderson, entered the uncertain, exhilarating, and deadly world of aerial combat. He flew two tours of combat against the Luftwaffe in less than a year. In battles sometimes involving hundreds of airplanes, he ranked among the groups leading aces with 16 aerial victories. He flew 116 missions in his old crow without ever being hit by enemy aircraft or turning back for any reason, despite one life or death confrontation after another. His friend Chuck Yeager, who flew with Anderson in the 357th, says, In an airplane, the guy was a mongoosethe best fighter pilot I ever saw. Buds years as a test pilot were at least as risky. In one bizarre experiment, he repeatedly linked up in midair with a B-29 bomber, wingtip to wingtip. In other tests, he flew a jet fighter that was launched and retrieved from a giant B-36 bomber. As in combat, he lost many friends flying tests such as these. Bud commanded a squadron of F-86 jet fighters in postwar Korea, and a wing of F-105s on Okinawa during the mid-1960s. In 1970 at age 48, he flew combat strikes as a wing commander against communist supply lines. To Fly and Fight is about flying, plain and simple: the joys and dangers and the very special skills it demands. Touching, thoughtful, and dead honest, it is the story of a boy who grew up living his dream.

Author: George Loving
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307417786
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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A COMBAT ACE’S ACCOUNT OF PILOTING THE GREATEST SINGLE-SEAT FIGHTER IN WORLD WAR II World War II marked the end of an era; fighter pilots still flew by the seat of their pants, and George Loving recaptures the exhilarating world of aerial combat in all its stark terror and fiery glory. His first fighter was the famed Spitfire, hero of the Battle of Britain. By 1943, however, it was obsolescent and did not match up well against the first-line German Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. Yet Loving survived 101 combat missions flying the Spitfire. In the spring of 1944, Loving’s 31st Fighter Group started flying P-51 Mustangs and was transferred to the new Fifteenth Air Force to escort heavy-bomber formations on long-range strategic strikes across southern Europe, including southeastern Germany. In the flak-filled skies over Ploesti, Vienna, Bucharest, Munich, and Stuttgart, where a number of the war’s fiercest air battles took place, Lieutenant Loving flew head-to-head against some of the Luftwaffe’s top fighter aces. By the time George Loving completed his 151st, and final, combat mission on August 21, 1944, he had risen from a lowly second lieutenant and untested wingman to captain, group leader, and Mustang ace. Loving’s gripping account captures the savage action he experienced in all its intensity.

Author: Robert J. Goebel
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 9780760320693
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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When Bob Goebel left home to join the Army Air Corps in 1942, he was nineteen years old and a high school graduate. By the spring of 1944 he was on his way to Italy and the 31st Fighter Group, one of the top fighter outfits of the war. He was also headed for a new aircraft, the legendary P-51 Mustang. After 61 combat missions now-Captain Goebel was offcially credited with 11 victories in his Mustang. Returning home in September 1944 he was not yet 21 years old. Goebel's memoir is a classic of combat aviation, giving the reader a true sense of what it was like to fly and fight as a World War II fighter pilot.

Author: Robert J. Goebel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780935553734
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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MUSTANG ACE Memoirs of a P-51 Fighter Pilot by Robert J. Goebel When Robert Goebel left home to join the Army Air Corps in 1942, he was a 19 years old and a high-school graduate. The only previous time he had traveled far from his native Racine, Wisconsin, was an epic trip in the summer of 1940, when he and a pal had ridden the rails to Texas and back to visit two of Bob's brothers who were in the service. Even during his weeks in Pre-flight training, young Goebel found that he felt at home in the service, and he looked forward to the great adventure on which he had embarked out of a sense of patriotism and yearning to see the wide world. Easygoing and quick to learn, Cadet Goebel worked his way steadily through the Basic, Primary, and Advanced phases of military flight training, and found in himself an aptitude for flight. However, like nearly all of his comrades, Goebel could not learn how to hit a flying target with the guns mounted on the trainers he flew. Nevertheless, he-and they-graduated to fighter school and, after earning their wings and commissions, were sent on to join an operational fighter unit - in Panama. The months of rigorous operational flying in Panama seasoned Lieutenant Goebel and his young companions, and made better aviators of them, but it did little to advance their gunnery skills. When a new crop of novices arrived, Goebel and his companions found themselves on their way to Europe to join the fight. They wound up in North Africa in the Spring of 1944 with orders to join the 31st Fighter Group in Italy. Just as Goebel and his young companions were about to join the leading fighter group in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, the 31st turned in its British-made Spitfire fighters for new P-51 Mustang fighters. Within weeks, Bob Goebel had flown his first combat missions and had lost his element leader, who was shot down in a swirling dogfight. But master the job he did. A steady succession of bomber-escort missions over southeastern Europe slowly and then more rapidly forced Lieutenant Goebel to settle in and master aerial gunnery and the mentally taxing high-speed dogfights in which he became engaged. At last, he shot down his first German fighter. And he advanced to positions of leadership, in due course leading the entire 31st Fighter Group deep into enemy territory. At length, he shot down a fifth German and thus became an ace-a Mustang Ace. And then he shot down three Germans in one day on a mission to Ploesti, Rumania. He flew to Russia and back, and supported the invasion of southern France. In the end, by September 1944, he had eleven confirmed victories to his credit and was one of the 308th Fighter Squadron's most respected combat leaders. When he was sent home at the end of his combat tour, Captain Bob Goebel was not yet 22 years old.

Author: James P. Busha
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 076034518X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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DIVIn The Fight in the Clouds, aviation writer James P. Busha narrates a spellbinding collection of tales of P-51 Mustang combat throughout World War II. /div

Author: John Christgau
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1462837638
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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During World War II, 15,000 P-51 Mustang fighter planes were produced by North American Aviation. Arguably the best fighter plane ever made, today there are less than a hundred left flying in the world. Of those, only a handful saw combat. Sierra Sue: The Story of a P-51 Mustang is the story of one of those survivors. The backdrop for the story is Sierra Sue IIs appearance at the huge Offutt Air Force Base Open House in 1989. There, we go behind-the-scenes for glimpses of warbird pilots and jet jockeys alike, preparing for their air show acts. We also go six stories underground for a rare, chilling visit to our nuclear command post. But the real story is the history of Sierra Sue II, and the remarkable pilots who flew and loved her: from 1st Lt. Bob Bohna who flew her in combat during World War II and nearly became a reverse ace, to Sten Soderquist who flew her in Sweden in the early 50s when more than thirty Swedish pilots died in Mustang crashes, to Nicaragua where she was involved in several of dictator Luis Somozas military adventures in the late 50s, to California where Dave Allender modified her with the intent of setting a new world speed record for piston aircraft. Almost forty years after her combat missions in the war, Sierra Sue II is bought by a hard-flying Minnesota physician known on the air show circuit simply as Doc. His romance with Sierra Sue II continues where Bohna and Soderquist and Allender leave off. But Doc is more than just another ardent admirer in her long history. While an Air Force jet pilot in the 50s, Doc crashed and suffered major injuries that ended his Air Force career. During his long recuperation, he took up a study of medicine that led to a general practice in Minneapolis. Now, he is determined to restore Sierra Sue II to her World War II condition and take her on the Midwest air show circuit. We follow that restoration in California by a mechanical genius named Jack Cochrane, and then Docs cross-country flight to Minnesota, ending in a harrowing landing at nightfall on a remote airstrip on the Minnesota prairie. Millions of air show fans have enjoyed the sight of Sierra Sue IIs ageless beauty. Now, here is her story.

Author: William R. Dunn
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813146100
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
This WWII fighter pilot memoir recounts the author’s many exploits as a flying ace during WWII in the Normandy invasions, the Battle for France and beyond. Born in Minneapolis in 1916, William R. Dunn decided to become a fighter pilot at the age of twelve. In 1939 he joined the Canadian Army and was soon transferred to the Royal Air Force. As part of the RAF’s famous Eagle Squadron, Dunn was sent to Europe to fight in the Second World War. Flying Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires, he was the first Eagle Squadron pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft. When he later transferred to the US Army Air Forces, he became the first American ace of the war. Lieutenant Colonel Dunn saw action in the Normandy invasion and in Patton's sweep across France. Twenty years later he fought again in Vietnam. In this lively memoir, Dunn keenly conveys the fighter pilot's experience of war—the tension of combat, the love of aircraft, the elation of victory, the boisterous comradeship and competition of the pilot brotherhood.