In October 1939, barely a month after World War II erupted in Europe, Ron Pottinger was conscripted into the British Army as a rifleman in the Royal Fusiliers. A year later, amidst pilot shortages due to losses during the Battle of Britain, he transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he began flying the 7.5 ton Hawker Typhoon fighter. He flew dozens of dangerous ground-attack missions over occupied Europe through bad weather, heavy flak, and enemy fighters before being shot down in early 1945 and ending the war in a German prisoner of war camp. Ron Pottinger served for six years during World War II, most of it flying combat missions in the Royal Air Force. He lives in England.

I could see a carpet of twinkling lights from the ack ack all along the rail sidings which bordered the canal. I dove onto these with my cannons going. Then suddenly, when the attention of all the guns turned on me, I realized how foolhardy I was being. I ran the guns along the row of rail trucks--opened the throttle wide and pulled straight up for the clouds--with tracers crossing in front and on all sides of the plane. Ron Pottinger started the war as a rifleman in the Royal Fusiliers, then transferred to the Royal Air Force, where he began flying the 7.5-ton Hawker Typhoon. He flew dozens of dangerous ground attack missions over occupied Europe through bad weather, heavy flak, and enemy fighters before being shot down and taken prisoner.

This pictorial book looks inside the cockpit of aircraft from 1947 to 1965 from the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, France and the Soviet Union. Featured aircraft includes a pilot's perspective on what it was like to fly.

This book is all about the author’s life from his early days as a child in Hawaii, in the mid 1930’s, through his days at West Point, his war tour in Vietnam and military career with two additional retirement careers: First, with he and his wife creating an import and retail operation and later as an aircraft accident investigator and consultant. The book also reaches back into his family history and the lives of his mother and father to provide a genealogy of his heritage. As noted early in this memoir, “There is always time to ask your parents questions about their youth or how they met one another. After all, they are there and can answer those questions any day. So life rolls on and one day they are gone ... and the answers to all those questions are gone with them; FOREVER!” In this book, all those questions are answered, sometimes with great humor and occasionally with sadness, but always with accuracy and truth.

The compelling, previously unknown story of the wartime adventures of Bob Allen: pilot, aerial photographer and prisoner of war. After a lifetime in the RAF, Group Captain Bob Allen, finally allowed his children and grandchildren to see his official flying log. It contained the line: 'KILLED WHILST ON OPERATIONS'. He refused to answer any further questions, leaving instead a memoir of his life during World War II. Joining up aged 19, within six months he was in No.1 Squadron flying a Hurricane in a dog fight over the Channel. For almost two years he lived in West Africa, fighting Germany's Vichy French allies, as well as protecting the Southern Atlantic supply routes. Returning home at Christmas 1942, he retrained as a fighter-bomber pilot flying Typhoons and was one of the first over the Normandy beaches on D-Day. On 25 July 1944 Bob was shot down, spending the rest of the war in a POW camp where he was held in solitary confinement, interrogated by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the infamous Stalag Luft 3 and suffered the winter march of 1945 before being liberated by the Russians. Fleshing out Bob's careful third-person memoir with detailed research, his daughter Suzanne Campbell Jones tells the gripping story of a more or less ordinary man, who came home with extraordinary memories which he kept to himself for more than 50 years.

In the Army, men and women are trained to be physically fit, disciplined, and calm under pressure to handle the rigors of a soldier's regimented lifestyle. Training that should lend itself To The unforeseen demands of a combat zone. However, For one soldier in Iraq in 2004, nothing could have mentally prepared him for one dark flight over Iraq. It all started as a simple four-day vacation pass; a brief escape from the mental and physical demands of modern warfare and a chance to fly out of Iraq for some well deserved R&R. It was supposed to be the perfect chance to catch up on his personal time. This lone Army Captain would soon be tested like never before when the plane that he was being transported to his R&R destination in suddenly changed course. Although he found that his flight was rerouted to pick up human remains, he didn't yet see that his outlook on life was also about to alter course. The time he would spend in the back of a cargo plane with three flag-covered caskets would take him from being inconvenienced and angry, To honored and inspired. With his deep and insightful writing style, readers will experience the heartfelt gratitude, pride, and undying patriotism experienced by American soldiers that are bonded by war. This is not the typical 'shoot-em-up' warrior novel. On the contrary, it is far deeper than that!

A USA Today Bestseller Inspired by fascinating, true, yet little-known events during World War II, The Long Flight Home is a testament to the power of courage in our darkest hours—a moving, masterfully written story of love and sacrifice. It is September 1940—a year into the war—and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan—loyal, intelligent, beautiful—but none more so than Duchess. Hatched from an egg that Susan incubated in a bowl under her grandfather’s desk lamp, Duchess shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, young crop-duster pilot Ollie Evans decides to join Britain’s Royal Air Force. His quest brings him to Epping and the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert mission to air-drop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France. Many will not survive. Those that do will bring home crucial information. Soon a friendship between Ollie and Susan deepens, but when his plane is downed behind enemy lines, both know how remote the chances of reunion must be. Yet Duchess will become an unexpected lifeline, relaying messages between Susan and Ollie as war rages on—and proving, at last, that hope is never truly lost. “Hlad adeptly drives home the devastating civilian cost of the war.” —Booklist

In South Auckland, New Zealand, Mannie and his wife, Jo, have finally achieved stability. Mannie's successful job as a carpenter gives the couple hopes for a future home and children. But it's all about to come tumbling down. When Wall Street crashes in 2005, the New Zealand economy plunges into a recession. Mannie loses his job and is forced to apply for the unemployment benefit to survive. Worse, he and Jo must take in boarders in order to make the rent. But Mannie soon sees his misfortune as an opportunity to reclaim land in the Tongariro National Park that belonged to his Maori tribe more than one hundred and thirty years ago. Mannie persuades a small, disillusioned group of young Maori into claiming sovereignty over a small block of land on the side of a mountain, offering freedom and peace in protest against the government. They build huts and live off the land. Mannie and Jo try to find their former happiness, but then tragedy strikes, and Mannie suddenly finds himself in a deadly game of survival.

The leaders of the Phoenix Conspiracy are poised to usher in The Hour of Ascension. And it is up to Calvin to expose the conspiracy before the Empire collapses in a firestorm of civil war. The Organization, the Akiras, CERKO, the Advent, the Phoenix Ring... it all comes down to this moment. And the question on everyone's mind is, can the Empire survive? Or will it be lost to the tempest.