Famous Fighters of the Second World War (Second Series)

Ref: 5298

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{detailed description}It has been said that Great Britain owes her continued existence as a free nation to the fighter aircraft more than to any other single weapon, for twenty-one years ago British fighters emerged victorious from the "Battle of Britain" ; sounding the death knell for Germany's hopes of invading the British Isles. Today the fighter pilot is likely to see little more of his opponent than a blip on a radarscope; the fighter of the 'forties has passed into history along with the halberd and the crossbow.
In this Second Series of Famous Fighters of the Second World War, the author describes, with the same wealth of detail that characterized the preceding volume, the development and careers of the last of the fighting biplanes, the little Gloster Gladiator, which carried something of the First World War into that second epic struggle ; that indomitable trio of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps fighters, the Wildcat, Hellcat and Corsair, which destroyed the myth of Japanese aerial invincibility founded by the Zero-Sen; the fighter versions of the Junkers Ju 88 whose nocturnal depredations in the R.A.F.'s bomber stream over the Third Reich were so impressive at one period of the War that the abandoning of large-scale night attacks on German targets was seriously considered; the highly manoeuvrable Macchi C.202 Folgore with its beautifully co-ordinated controls — a pilot's aeroplane in every respect ; the Japanese Army's equivalent of the Zero-Sen, the Nakajima Ki.43 Hayabusa, and its successor, the Ki.84 Hayate which could out-climb and out-manoeuvre the most advanced versions of the Mustang and Thunderbolt ; Heinkel's superlative He 219 night fighter which, but for ministerial muddle and confusion, would have provided the Allies with some serious headaches.
These and many other fighters, both successful and unsuccessful, but all famous, are surveyed with hundreds of rare photographs, highly detailed full-page tone drawings by Peter Endsleigh Castle, and comparative side views of the many variants of each aircraft by Dennis I. Punnett.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by William Green
published by Macdonald 1962 1st edn 3rd impression Sept 1967 132pp profusely illustrated with b&w photos, line drawings, and tone drawings 19x25
{condition}very good in price clipped and slightly torn d/j.
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