The 'Air Branch' of the Royal Navy that was to carve its name into maritime history as the Fleet Air Arm faced an 'orphan' existence up to 1937 when the Admiralty, having handed over control in 1918 to the RAF, resumed charge of its aviators. The Force was poorly equipped and dangerously short of qualified personnel with which to effectively challenge its Axis adversaries, and suffered accordingly in the initial stages of World War II. The provision of superior carrier aircraft designs (primarily from the U.S. Grumman and Chance-Vought companies), and a similar whole-sale expansion in Fleet...

In June 1943 the quiet English countryside around the village of Ridgewell in northwest Essex was transformed by the arrival of the 381st Bomb Group with its B-17 Flying Fortresses. The subsequent battle in the skies over Europe witnessed the 381st, in concert with their fellow-airmen with the "Mighty Eighth," striking 297 times at Hitler's 'Fortress Europe' and dropping over 22,000 tons of ordnance in the process. The cost to the group was 131 aircraft and over 1200 combat crew missing in action, sustained during the course of a fiercely contested struggle stretching over 1000 days.

This is a relevant title to describe the pioneer force destined to operate a hitherto un-tested concept in modern aerial warfare: the 1st Bomb Division. The initial period of shallow-penetration missions with a severely under-strength force of B-17s, crews and support equipment was followed by growing and finally unsupportable losses. Nevertheless from early 1944 onward it was becoming clear that what was by then the 1st Bomb Division, had held its ground, often against painful tactical and strategic odds, and in doing so had laid the foundations for the final victory of America's bombing...

The 44th Bomb Group, which flew the B-24 Liberator, was the "pioneer" unit for what evolved from the "Mighty Eighth's" 2nd Bomb Wing into a full-scale Bomb (and later Air) Division. The Group amassed an impressive 343 missions and won two Distinguished Unit Citations between November 1942 and April 1945, dropping nearly 19,000 tons of ordnance in the process including the legendary August 1943 Ploesti mission. These statistics were achieved at a material cost of around 200 aircraft, and a human cost of some 2,000 airmen MIA, as the 8th USAAF focused its strategic bombing campaign in the face...

What was successively titled the 4th Bomb Wing, 3rd Bomb Division and finally 3rd Air Division entered combat with the VIII Bomber Command in May 1943. Under the charismatic leadership of Gen. Curtis LeMay, the Force's crews in their B-17s forged the concept of 'shuttle' missions with a run to North Africa on 17 August 1943, followed during the summer of 1944 with several similar missions to and from Russia. Although comprising the third and final element of the 'Mighty Eighth's' heavy bomber force to be established in England, the Division's combat record was to prove in all respects the...

The "Interim" LSM(R) or Landing Ship, Medium (Rocket) was a revolutionary development in rocket warfare in World War II and the U.S. Navy's first true rocket ship. An entirely new class of commissioned warship and the forerunners of today's missile-firing naval combatants, these ships began as improvised conversions of conventional amphibious landing craft in South Carolina's Charleston Navy Yard during late 1944. They were rushed to the Pacific Theatre to support the U.S. Army and Marines with heavy rocket bombardments that devastated Japanese forces on Okinawa in 1945. Their primary mission...

This is a study of one of the 8th USAAF's sub-units. The 1st Combat Bomb Wing (1CBW), created on 13 September 1943, was preceded first by the 1st Bomb Wing, and then the 101st Provisional Bomb Wing, which included the 91BG as an element. By then, the 91BG was joined by the 351BG and 381BG, with the 351BG later displaced by the 398BG. The operational experience of these units virtually spanned the entire 33 months of the "Mighty Eighth's" existence and the often costly but finally successful campaign to deny Hitler's Germany the means with which to pursue its warped dreams of conquest.

The B-24 Liberator-equipped organization that evolved from its original 2nd Bomb Wing status to a Divisional level commenced operations out of East Anglia in late 1942. Over the ensuing two-and-a-half years it prosecuted the Daylight Bombing Offensive in company with its 1st and 3rd AD contemporaries. Its crews moreover not only operated over central Europe, but in addition flew detachment operations out of North Africa that included the specific and costly assault on the Ploesti oil complex. The title of this book succinctly sums up the importance of the Division's presence within the 8th...