Air Battle Europe 1939-1945 Australians at War

Ref: 4173

SOLD In stock

Price: £20.00

sadly, flyingbooks is now closed.

{detailed description}When war against Germany was declared in 1939, Australia's Prime Minister R. G. Menzies urged his countrymen to join the RAAF, announcing to all the world that "our country, our climate, our free and open lives, have all conspired to make us a flying people' On behalf of the Australian nation he told Great Britain,"We are with you.Your danger is our danger. Your effort is our effort.Your success will be our success'
With such feelings in their hearts, thousands of young Australian men joined air force training schools and eventually found themselves, as raw recruits,face to face with German fighter pilots in the skies
over France and Britain in 1940, and over an occupied and heavily defended Europe during operations in 1941.0nly then did those brave, young flyers fully realise that their war was every bit as vicious as the fierce conflict raging below them.
They were among the heroes of the legendary Dambusters,the Pathfinders and the Desert Harassers. Australian airmen found their way to every theatre of the air war.They flew in a long and bitter
campaign against Germany's deadly U-boats, and joined the desperate mid-air combat of the Battle of Britain. They took part in Bomber Command's tragic rain of destruction on the great German cities of Berlin and Dresden and found themselves among the champions of the Mediterranean air war over Sicily, Italy and the Balkans. Many then endured the chilling boredom of imprisonment after being shot out of the northern skies.
Air Battle, Europe 1939-1945 recalls the drama of those extraordinary days as our airmen battled with an unrelenting enemy as well as the cold and foreign latitudes. It describes the bravery and horror of split-second, mid-air combat. Vivid photographs put you in the cockpit of Australia's famous strike wing Beaufighters as they sought out and destroyed enemy shipping. Picture essays re-live the frightening days of the Battle of Britain, and the terrifying onslaught of Germany's deadly V-1 rocket attacks on London.The book also includes a pictorial record, in colour, of the most impressive fighters and bombers of the air war.
This is the story of the RAAF's coming of age; a grand synthesis of technology, bravery and human endeavour that holds a vital place in Australian aviation history.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Peter Stanley
Published by Time Life Australia 1987 1st edition. 168pp profusely illustrated, index. 23x28
{condition}very good, including d/j.
{delivery info}