At last Karl Latek had a real plane to fly against the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitts. He had piloted his dated Polish PZL-11 against the Germans and been outclassed. Now his Hurricane was a joy to handle, and he was on level terms with the murderers of his family and friends. All he wanted was vengeance – […]
The mission was simple – bomb a Polish refinery making vital cold-weather fuel additives for the German army. The target was easy – almost no anti-aircraft defences, as it was too far away for Allied bombers to get there and back. This was launched one of the most daring adventures of the war – a […]
They were Fleet Air Arm pilots on a carrier, Mike Scott, “Frenchy” Lafarge and the giant Red Knight. In the air they made a great team, but then their carrier was damaged, and they were forced to land with empty tanks on a desert island! Mike wanted to organise the warlike natives into a private […]
If you’re an army glider pilot. You’ve got a dodgy job – landing yourself and your troops in the teeth of anything the enemy throws at you. Hazardous at the best of times, it’s grimly suicidal when thick flak is coming up, the exploding shells chucking your frail Horsa all over the sky. If an […]
They twisted and turned all over the sky, the two pilots trying to pull every trick in the book to be the one who drilled in the final killing burst. This was no ordinary dog-fight…for both aircraft carried the colours of the Royal Air Force. Something very odd was going on to have a Spitfire […]
The other pilots sneered and joked about it…the day of shame when they called Jim Black yellow. But Jim wasn’t laughing, and neither would any other pilot accused of cowardice and kicked out of the squadron. He’d just have to prove them wrong, even without an aircraft…
A veteran of the battle to defend Malta in 1942, Flight Lieutenant Jim Newman remembered barely surviving against Italian Macchi 200 aircraft. A couple of years later, when promoted to Squadron Leader in the Balkan Air Force – a multinational unit based in Yugoslavia and fighting the Luftwaffe – the Englishman was less than pleased […]
The huge stone statue of Buddha smiled… Beside it on this remote Burmese hillside lay the smoking wreckage of a Japanese transport plane, with an injured general inside, and a complete set of plans for their invasion of India. From every point of the compass Japanese search parties came to hunt for the wreck. And […]
Purple with rage, the Luftwaffe squadron leader shook his fist at the lone Typhoon disappearing over the horizon. All around him, shattered planes and burning hangars covered his blitzed airfield, victims of one pilot. And on the airfield in Belgium a British squadron leader scanned the horizon for the same plane. He was furious too. […]
What makes a good fighter pilot? It’s mostly skill, and Charles Crombie had plenty of that. But it isn’t only skill – you also need to be able to fly through a hail of bullets and flak threatening to hack you out of the sky at any minute. And that was what Charles was afraid […]
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