Airfield Histories

The landing of Allied forces on the shores of Normandy on 6 June 1944 was the greatest amphibious invasion in history.

The heroics of the airmen who served in the United States Eighth Air Force and fought in the embattled skies of Europe during World War II are legendary.

The scattered remains of a German bomber on Spitsbergen Island; Sherman Tanks waterlogged off Omaha Beach; Japanese merchant ships sunk off the coast of New Guinea. More than 75 years after the end of World War II, the conflict's legacy can still be seen from the Arctic wastes to the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific.

The Air Power Diary 2022 is a special-interest pocket diary themed to reflect RAF and military aviation history. It is a Ministry of Defence 'Officially Licensed Product'.

Learn about the different kinds of specialist flying kit available. How did a squadron's choice of aircraft - Stirling, Halifax, Lancaster or Mosquito - affect one's chances of survival? What were the odds when a lone bomber crew battled it out with a marauding German night fighter aircraft, or with deadly flak and searchlights? And what would happen to an airman if his nerve cracked under the pressure? Whatever your viewpoint on the morality of the bomber offensive, the bravery of the men who flew by day and night with Bomber Command is an undisputed fact.

Paperback

As British and American forces closed in from the west, the Russians pushed in hard from the east, and the RAF and USAAF bombed Germany every night and day, the beleaguered Luftwaffe went all-out in a last effort to defend the Fatherland during the last months of the Second World War.

Though there were airfields in Shropshire during the First World War, at Shawbury, Tern Hill and Monkmoor, it was in the late 1930s that a massive building programme began to dot the county with new RAF airfields, mostly for training purposes, until there were over sixteen - in some cases they were so close together that their circuits overlapped.

Valiant Boys is a fascinating collection of personal accounts of operating Britain's first V bomber by aircrew and ground crew.

From Richard Pike, author of Grub Street's bestselling Lightning Boys series, comes Hunter Boys, a fascinating insight into the experiences of those who flew the iconic Hawker Hunter, an aircraft known affectionately to many as 'Queen of the Skies'.