Pen & Sword Books are proud to be re-issuing this the only book that the legendary legless ace Douglas Bader (immortalised by the film Reach For The Sky) wrote. He tells the inspiring story of the Battle of Britain from the viewpoint of The Few. Using superb illustrations he traces the development of the Spitfire & Hurricane & describes the nail-biting actions of those who flew them against far superior numbers of enemy aircraft. As an added bonus other well-known fighter aces including Johnnie Johnson Laddie Lucas & Max Aikten contribute to Douglass book no doubt out of affection & respect. This is a really important contribution to RAF history by one of the greatest -and certainly the most famous
- pilot of the Second World War.
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This Self Defence book for women & children is a must for those who wish to walk the streets safely be able to identify dangerous situations & avoid them. You can learn how to stop these thugs from wrecking your family's stability happiness & more importantly lives. Fight For Your Life" has been specifically written for women & children who have no previous martial arts training & who would just like to remain safe on today's streets. This detailed step-by-step guide accompanied by 170 photographs covers all the situations we may find ourselves in & then shows you how to deal with them. Violent people walk past us every day many looking for their next victim; don t let it be you. There are chapters that deal specifically with child attacks school bullies sex attacks violent attacks safe travel abduction & importantly what should you do if you or your child are the intended victim. In short if you want to gain the knowledge & skills to help prevent you or one of your family from being another rape or violence statistic this guide has the lot. Don't take the chance
- Be Safe!"
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Gutsy & funny
- Daily Telegraph". Catherine Fox is not your typical martial artist. Her initiation into the sacred rites of
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In this official account of Manchester Uniteds 2011-12 season the players bring you inside the dressing room to hear about every moment of their Premier League campaign. With in-depth contributions from the key members of the squad & the backroom staff this book is the definitive account of Uniteds season. ...

The mysterious world of elite combat units blown wide open... Find out how elite teams prepare for Close Quarter Battle. Discover how they launch assaults against pirate boats. Learn the secrets to directing air attack against a key intelligence target. Read how units manage to enter hostile territory undetected & carry out long-ranges reconnaissance mission deep behind enemy lines. In his new book former SAS hero Chris Ryan delves into the secretive world of elite warfare revealing the nuts & bolts of some of the toughest sharpest & most legendary fighting units in existence around the world today. Drawing on his experience as a soldier in the Regiment for a decade as well as his recent unique access to some of the worlds hardest & most sophisticated special police units for his TV show Elite World Cops Chris Ryan explores the secrets of the trade. From the HALO insertion technique to mounting ambushes & escape-&-evasion tips Chris Ryans Fight to Win is the ultimate guide to elite forces training & operations. ...

In the summer of 1940 the future of Britain & the free world depended on the morale & skill of the young men of Fighter Comm&. This is their story. The Battle of Britain is one of the most crucial battles ever fought & the victory of Fighter Command over the Luftwaffe has always been celebrated as a classic feat of arms. But as Patrick Bishop shows in this superb history it was also a triumph of the spirit in which the attitudes of the pilots themselves played a crucial part. Reaching beyond the myths to convey the fear & exhilaration of life on this most perilous of frontlines Patrick Bishop offers an intimate & compelling account that is a soaring tribute to the exceptional young men of Fighter Comm&. ...

Tough Jobs! is a new narrative non-fiction series covering popular historical topics through a variety of colourful jobs in a down-to-earth readable style with plenty of toilet humour! Each chapter features a double page fact spread & there is a glossary at the end. In Fighter Pilot Britain is at war with Germany & your dream is to become a heroic fighter pilot. Experience what life in the skies is like as you make new friends on the nearby airbase & learn from them what it takes to train to be a pilot. You get to go up in a plane & even meet a real-life prisoner! You'll find it's a tough job being a fighter pilot. ...

His profound respect for the RAF aircrews of the Second World Warhas led aviation historian Pat Cunningham DFM to record the experiences of ten of those who volunteered to hazard their lives when bombing operations were Britain's only effective method of striking back. The young men who engaged in flying duties came from disparate backgrounds but having qualified in their specialist categories were skilfully merged as interdependent crew members. The fact that 8 305 of the 55 573 men killed in RAF Bomber Command died in accidents alone highlights the perils they faced. Others included technical malfunctions notwithstanding that each had implicit faith in their supporting ground personnel. Then again the pressure to get them operational meant that many completed the required 30 bombing sorties with less than 500 hours' experience. Even so they were required to navigate over hostile blacked-out terrain in uncertain weather & with few radio aids in machines packed with highly volatile substances. ' We were buoyed up ' as one reflects wryly 'with the supreme confidence of ignorance.' Any ignorance however did not blind them to the odds against them so there was always fear to contend with. 'I cannot conceive ' says another 'that anyone who flew on ops did not feel afraid at some time.' Bomber Command experiences over Central Europe feature largely but operations over Italy the Indian Ocean & Burma have their place This tribute by the author offered as the Aircrew Association fades away is backed by the perspective given by 20 000 hours of operational & non-operational flying gained in 40 years of Service & Civil aviation. ...

Following the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 at which the Americans refused to back Britains plan to invade the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean to be followed by an invasion of the Greek mainland a weakened British attempt was made with disastrous results. The Americans wished to concentrate all their forces in capturing Sicily & then invading southern Italy. In this first comprehensive account of aerial operations over the Eastern Mediterranean/ Aegean the first chapter covers the disastrous Hurricane attack on Crete (Operation Thesis) an attempt to divert Axis attention from Sicily; subsequent chapters deal with British landings on the islands of Kos & Leros when Spitfires vainly attempted to hold the Luftwaffe at bay. Meanwhile Beaufighters flying from North Africa & Cyprus roamed over the Aegean attacking shipping & aerial transports with success but at a heavy cost until the Germans withdrew from the Aegean & the Greek mainl&. In addition specially modified Spitfires are detailed to combat pressurised high-altitude Ju 87 spy planes used by the Luftwaffe based on Crete & the Fleet Air Arm with its Seafires Wildcats & Hellcats over the Aegean. Also the book

Includes:: many first-hand accounts from both British & German aircrew extracted from official reports & memoirs.

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There has been bookshelf after bookshelf of books compiled written & published about British aircraft the Royal Air Force & the activities of its pilots during World War Two. Tales of derring do bravery & gallantry quite rightly litter the bookshelves & libraries but little has appeared in print about the what could be called the unsung heroes those that designed built & maintained the fighting equipment used to eventually defeat the enemy. This is all the more incredible when one realises that there exists a huge archive of images that have survived which clearly show the skills & scale of what went on. These images of war
- many of which are seen here for almost the first time in seventy years
- form a remarkable tribute to the designers engineers & workers who did so much. Following the end of the Great War the Royal Air Force was drastically reduced in both manpower & equipment. The application of a Ten Year Rule in which the British Government foresaw no war being fought during the next ten years resulted in minimal defence expenditure throughout the 1920s. Financial resitrictions went on until the early 1930s when it at last became apparent that Germany was developing expansionist & aggressive tendencies that could no longer be ignored. The British Government & Air Ministry at last began to develop plans of their own to expand & develop the Royal Air Force. A number of plans were approved by the Cabinet but each one was often replaced by a revised one before the original could be completed. Between 1933 & 1939 the Royal Air Force was given higher priority in terms of rearmament plans than the other services. The policy was driven by the pursuit of parity with Germany more than by defence & strike needs for there was no fixed ratio of bombers to fighter aircraft to guide procurement. There could be no expansion without manufacturing capacity & luckily these manufacturers were not only capable of producing but they also recorded much of their activities & remarkably a huge archive of images have survived which clearly show the skills & scale of what went on. These images of war
- many of which are seen here for almost the first time in seventy years
- form a remarkable tribute to the designers engineers & workers who did so much.



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