Aces High by Bill Yenne, Berkley Caliber, New York, 2009, $25.95. Bill Yenne’s name on the cover is reason enough to buy this book, since he has produced a seemingly unending series of high-quality books that could serve as foundation stones for any aviation library. Aces High is Yenne’s dual biography of two of America’s …
The post Aviation History Book Review: Aces High appeared first on HistoryNet.
Long before the United States officially entered World War II, it was the world’s biggest exporter of fighter aircraft. From early 1938 through the end of 1941, the United States, though still technically neutral in the conflict that was igniting around the world, sold more combat aircraft to foreign governments than any other nation. And …
The post Made in America appeared first on HistoryNet.
The naval version of the Spitfire had its share of teething troubles, but by the end of World War II it had found its sea legs in the Pacific. The ready room deep inside HMS Indefatigable offered little relief from the constant tropical heat in late March of 1945. The British carrier was a technical …
The post Kamikaze Killer appeared first on HistoryNet.
A young aviation machinist’s mate and a veteran Japanese Zero pilot squared off at Pearl Harbor. Only one would survive. The date December 7, 1941, had been etched in my father’s memory, as it had for so many of his generation. Decades later, in his 50s, his gray hair crew cut and with the sinewy …
The post Duel in the Rising Sun appeared first on HistoryNet.
Why the endless fascination with a woman who by most accounts was a mediocre pilot, best known for disappearing in the Pacific? With the exception of two or three famous astronauts, there are only four pilots in the entire history of aviation whose names every American will recognize: Wilbur and Orville Wright, Charles Lindbergh and …
The post Amelia appeared first on HistoryNet.
Adolphe Pégoud enjoyed international fame even before World War I. The fighter ace—that dead-eyed hotshot who has downed five or more adversaries in aerial combat—is an iconic figure of the air age. The term derives from the French word as because the first man to earn the title was French. But Adolphe Pégoud, the original …
The post World’s First Ace appeared first on HistoryNet.
Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith’s famous Fokker Southern Cross has pride of place in Brisbane. At Brisbane Airport, not far from where today’s jumbo jets touch down after their transpacific flights, the Fokker F.VIIb/3m trimotor Southern Cross used by Australian airman Charles Kingsford-Smith to cross the Pacific in 1928 rests comfortably in a specially built hangar. Sur …
The post The ‘Old Bus’ Endures appeared first on HistoryNet.